Merry Christmas!
We’ve had a brilliant week filled with lots of festive fun! Here are a few photos from our Christmas party, our secret visit from Father Christmas and some of the other festive activities that we enjoyed.
As you will no doubt have already heard, we received a letter in Nursery this week. It was from… Father Christmas! He’d been to visit school and to play in Nursery with us, but as we’d all gone home, he sent us a video message instead. He told us that he’d put his sack down somewhere but couldn’t remember where. He also said, that if we managed to locate his missing sack, then we could have a little early Christmas treat. Luckily for Father Christmas, we are good detectives and found his missing sack under our Christmas tree! We hope that you all enjoyed reading your new story from Santa.
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We’ll see you in January.
Christmas dinner day
Yum, yum! We loved our Christmas dinner and had a great time celebrating with our friends. Thank you to the lunch staff for cooking such a delicious dinner for us to enjoy with all of the trimmings.
Also, thank you to Mrs Pennock for creating our very own Christmas light show. We loved looking at all of the giant characters in the hall.
As well as recording ‘Our First Christmas Play’, we’ve been learning about the Nativity story this week and writing letters to Father Christmas. If you’d like to continue this learning at home, there are some short videos that you can watch on the CBeebies website. They’re all about how Christians prepare for Christmas and the Christmas story.
Our Christmas performance will be ready to watch next week… watch this space and check your inbox early next week for more details.
Party day – Don’t forget it’s our Nursery Christmas party on Monday 13 December. Please read our previous post for more details. Also, if you haven’t already, please don’t forget to add your £1 donation to the party pot. This will go towards the cost of some treats at our party. Thank you.
Christmas fun in the hall
A massive thank you to Mrs Pennock and all the lunchtime staff who created a fabulous atmosphere for Christmas dinner day today. The children and staff had a lovely time!
Christmas has arrived in Nursery!
There was a lot of excitement this week when children arrived to a very festive looking Nursery as we turned the calendar to December.
We’ve enhanced many of our areas of provision to provide lots of opportunities to learn about Christmas and talk about the traditions that some families join in with at this time of year.
Here are a few photos from this week. You can see that we have been very busy…
- practising cutting skills as we looked for our favourite toys and having lots of conversations about our Christmas wish lists
- helping Father Christmas to load his sleigh and look after the reindeer in our small world area
- listening to ‘Stickman’ and using the story props to re-tell the main events from the story
- exploring the texture and properties of water beads
- wrapping presents in the Elf workshop and building sleighs in the construction area to help Father Christmas deliver the presents on Christmas Eve
- talking about Christmas traditions and helping to decorate the Home corner
- decorating the trees in our Nursery garden. It’s quite tricky to hang baubles on the trees – and also great for developing fine motor skills.
Christmas information
Here is all of the important Christmas information that was provided on the letter that we sent home on Monday.
Christmas events
We will still be celebrating Christmas this year, although once again, it may look a little bit different to our usual Nursery celebrations. Here are some important dates and information about the next few weeks in Nursery.
Christmas Recording
As outlined in our previous letter, it’s not going to be possible to host a Christmas performance that you can watch in school this year. However, that’s not going to stop us from performing! You’ll be able to watch ‘Our First Christmas Play” from the comfort of your own home. For this, we’d like children to have a Christmas themed/coloured top trousers, leggings or a skirt to wear when taking part in the play. Please bring it to school by Wednesday 1st December. You do not need to buy anything new – a cheerful or festive top that they can be comfortable in all day (playing out and eating lunch in too) will be fine. Please put your child’s NAME in their clothes and put it in a small bag. It will remain in Nursery until we have filmed our play.
Christmas Dinner
Christmas lunch in school will be on Thursday 09 December. If you’d like your child to join in, please let us know and we’ll add your child onto the list. Payment (£2.20) can be made online. Please call the office if you are unsure of how to do this.
Christmas Party
Our Nursery Christmas party will be on Monday 13 December in the afternoon. If your child already attends Nursery on that day, you can send them to Nursery in cheerful or festive clothing. Children will still be playing in Nursery provision and outside in the morning, so please make sure clothing is warm and comfortable.
For children that attend Nursery on Monday, collection will be at the same time as usual, 2.15pm.
If your child doesn’t attend Nursery on Monday, they are welcome to join us for the party. Children will need to have had lunch before they arrive and be wearing their ‘party’ clothes. We will greet you at the main Nursery door. Please arrive promptly at 12.30pm and collect at 2.15pm. Please let a member of staff know if your child will be joining the party.
Children attending mornings only – If your child usually only attends Nursery for the morning session, please feel free to swap their morning session that day and just arrive for the party in the afternoon, or you can collect them slightly earlier on the party day at 11.30am. This should allow you time to have some lunch before returning to Nursery. Please speak to a member of staff if you have any questions.
Party treats
Children will have lunch as usual on Monday but during the party, we will provide them with a treat and drink. We’d like to ask for £1 contribution towards party treats and will place a donation jar outside Nursery soon. Thank you in advance for your contributions.
Christmas crafts
It wouldn’t be Christmas in Nursery if we couldn’t take part in all of our favourite Christmas crafts! Sadly, we can’t invite you to our usual ‘Christmas Stay and Decorate’ mornings, but don’t worry, children will still get to take part in some fun activities. We will put their Christmas crafts in a bag and send them home in the final week.
Applying for a primary school place?
If your child is due to start primary school in September 2022, you can apply for a place from 01 November 2021. The deadline for applying is 15 January 2022.
You can apply for a place online at: www.leeds.gov.uk/apply
Use this link to download and read further details and FAQs.
Shapes
This week, we’ve been learning all about 2D shapes. In group time, we started by sorting some shapes by their colour and size. Next, we tried to find the same shapes and sorted them into circles, triangles, squares and rectangles. We’ve used lots of new mathematical vocabulary as we described the properties of shapes, including some formal and informal language such as sides, corners, curved, straight, round and flat.
On Wednesday, we went on a shape hunt around school. Children were really good at spotting some common shapes in the environment. Have a look for some shapes around your house or on your walk to nursery. At the moment, we’ve been learning about common 2D shapes, but you may spot some other shapes or 3D shapes too.
We also enjoyed listening to these shape songs – see if you can spot some shapes as you sing along. Shape song 1 and The Shape Song Swingalong
Outside, we’ve been working on our physical development by practising balancing and jumping as we made our way around an obstacle course. Lots of children were a little bit wobbly to begin with, but after a few attempts, they were really pleased to be able to balance along the beams without any assistance.
Parent Consultation Meetings
Thank you to everyone who was able to attend a meeting this week. It was great to speak to you all (despite a few Zoom hiccups) and share how pleased we are with how well children have settled into Nursery life. It’s amazing how much children have already progressed, growing in both confidence and independence since joining Nursery in September.
If you couldn’t make your appointment, please get in touch with us to rearrange.
Reminders
- It’s definitely got colder this week. We play outside in all weathers, so please make sure that your child has a warm coat every day. You may also want to send a hat and some gloves, too. Please try to name them somewhere, there’s often a label inside gloves, or you can use a Sharpie pen in the wrist band.
- Please send your child with a named water bottle every day, and fill it with water. Thank you for your cooperation with this.
- Look out for the Christmas information letter that we will be sending home soon. It contains all the important dates and information about our Christmas party.
Fundraising
A massive thank you to everyone who donated to our recent fundraising events – you were all unbelievably generous. We managed to raise £126.25 for our school charity – Leeds Autism Services. This was following our Odd Sock Day at the start of anti-bullying week. Last Friday we raised money for Children in Need and managed to raise £410.30.
Thank you all so much.
Christmas Performance
Nursery and Reception Christmas Performance
Unfortunately, this year, we are unable to invite you in to watch our Christmas performance but this won’t stop us from getting dressed up and singing for you all. We will still be performing and you will be able to see us from the comfort of your favourite chair.
We will be filming the performance and emailing it for all of our parents and carers to enjoy on Monday 13 December.
This year, we will be performing a play aptly named “Our First Christmas Play”
To get into the Christmas spirit, the Nursery children will all need a Christmas top or jumper, trousers, leggings or a skirt to wear when taking part in the play.
Please bring these to Nursery in a named bag by Wednesday 1st December please. The clothes will need to remain at Nursery until we have filmed our play.
Thanks for your support with this, the children are really enjoying learning the new songs and we are sure that you will enjoy watching them perform.
Children in Need
Thank you for donating to our Children in Need fundraising non-uniform day. In Nursery, we talked about what ‘Children in Need’ is and why people get involved in lots of spotty themed, fun activities.
Here are a few photos from today. You might be able to spot (haha) that we even managed to incorporate Pudsey Bear into our maths learning at group time this morning! We’ve been learning how to complete a simple repeating pattern so we practised this, adding a repeating colour spotty pattern to Pudsey’s bandana.
We been busy in the creative area, decorating and making our own spotty Pudsey Bear ears.
We’ve practised our pencil control by joining Pudsey’s spots in the mark making area.
We also got a little bit messy with foam and spots in the sensory area! Here are the before photographs…
