Oliver’s vegetables
We continued to read “Oliver’s Vegetables” and ” Oliver’s Fruit Salad” during story time this week. We talked about our favourite fruit and vegetables and those that we might like to try.
In the play dough area, we rolled tiny balls of dough to make peas and counted out the correct number to go into each pod.
You might have noticed that a pizza shop opened in Sunshine Room this week. The children have been busy taking orders, making a variety of pizzas, adding toppings and herbs. They looked delicious!
We enjoyed peeling different vegetables in the sensory area this week, the sprouts were really tricky. We also mashed our own potatoes, we had to use our muscles and press really hard. We talked about all of the different ways that we could eat potatoes.
The sun shone in the outside area this week, but it was still chilly. We warmed up by building our own obstacle course. The children used tyres, hoops, balance beams and see- saw steps. We talked about how we needed to be safe, so decided only one person could be on the see-saw step at a time. It was lots of fun balancing and jumping.
Help at home – talk about the fruit and vegetables that your child enjoys eating.
Next week
Nursery Rhyme of the week – 1,2 Buckle my shoe
Sound of the week Ff for flamingo
Reminders
Parent Teacher Consultations for our Nursery 2 children ( the children who started Nursery in September 2024) will take place next week. Please attend your appointment via the main school entrance.
We hope that you have a happy and healthy weekend and thankyou for your continued support.
Growing and changing
Our beanstalks are growing! The children have been fascinated over the last few weeks as they have watched and waited for their seeds to grow. We’ve talked about the shoot and roots as they have appeared.
This week we have explored vegetables and herbs. In the creative area, we did some observational drawing of different vegetables and looked at the shape and colours as we drew. The sensory area had lots of herbs to explore, we smelt, looked closely and touched thyme, basil, mint, rosemary and coriander.
We got busy in the Nursery garden too, tidying the planters ready for planting some of our own seeds in the coming weeks.
We have been completing our Spring checklists too, so far we have spotted daffodils, birds, blossom, green leaves, buds and snow drops.
What signs of Spring can you spot when you are out and about?
The children have been practising their counting skills and have been trying to make sure that they count carefully, saying one number for each item as they touch it or point.
Help at home: Practise counting different objects during play and in everyday life. Make sure children say one number for each item; it often helps to move each item as you count or line them up so that children only count each object once. Can they remember how many they had in total without counting again?
1,2,3 there are 3
Next week
Nursery rhyme of the week – Hickory Dickory Dock
Sound of the week Bb for bear.
We hope that you have a happy and healthy weekend and thankyou for your continued support.
Pancakes and Books
We’ve had another exciting week at Nursery with lots happening. On Tuesday, we talked about ‘pancake day ‘and the reasons why some people celebrate Shrove Tuesday. We read ‘Mr Wolf’s Pancakes’ and found out how to make our own pancakes. We enjoyed smelling them as they cooked and we enjoyed eating them even more!
Outside, children have started to notice some changes in our garden; they spotted snowdrops, crocuses and other plants and flowers starting to grow.
We LOVE reading in Nursery and we’re always excited to join in with celebrations for World Book Day. Thank you for bringing some of your favourite stories for us to share together in Nursery. The children from Y5/6 came to nursery to read our stories to us. We had a lovely time sharing the stories together.
Next week, we’ll continue with our ‘growing theme and will listen to ‘Oliver’s Vegetables‘ by Vivian French. We’ll be talking about the different foods that we eat and where they come from.
Nursery Rhyme of the week Hey Diddle Diddle
Sound of the week Hh
Thanks to everyone who sent in a photo of their child as a baby. We have really enjoyed looking at these and talking about how we have changed. If you get chance come in and have a look at our baby photo gallery in Sunshine room.
We hope that you have a happy and healthy weekend and thankyou for your continued support.
Jack and the Beanstalk
We loved reading Jack and the Beanstalk this week and re-telling the story using the props in the book corner.
Fee- Fi-Foo-Fum! Watch out everyone here I come!
We listened to an audio book of the story, too. We have been working very hard at listening carefully. Being a “ good listener” will help the children when they move to Reception and begin listening for the sounds in words.
We painted beanstalks and explored different types of beans in the sensory area. The baked beans were “ cold” “ yuck” “ squishy”
We even rolled long ‘sausages’ using dough to make beanstalks and added our own leaves. How many can you see? Which beanstalk is the tallest?
Your child might have also told you all about planting their own magic bean; we’ve planted some bean seeds and are hoping that our bean stalks will soon start to grow.
Next week
Nursery rhyme of the week –Round and Round the Garden
Sound of the week “Rr” for rainbow.
Reminder
World Book Day – Thursday 06 March
This year, we will celebrate in Nursery by bringing in our favourite books from home to to share with our friends. Please make sure that your child’s name is in their book.
Why not spend an extra few minutes at drop off time and share a favourite story with your child. We will have lots to choose from and some story props to help to bring the stories to life.
Don’t forget to send in your baby photographs
Next week, we’re learning about growing up and looking at how we change as we get older.
It would be great if we could look at some photographs of children when they were babies and toddlers. If you are able to, please send us an email with one photograph of your child as a baby and one photograph of them as a toddler. We’ll use these in group time and will also be adding them to our Home Corner family display.
Thanks to those of you have already sent in photographs.
A very busy week
This week, as part of our Expressive Arts and Design curriculum, we’ve re-visited learning to draw ourselves. We used mirrors to look at our faces and talked about what shape we needed to draw on the paper first. We then looked at our features and tried to add more details to our drawings such as hair, ears and eyes. Some children added eye lashes and eyebrows.
Have a go at home together. Can you draw each other? Start with a circle shape for your face and then add in some features
Tuesday was our Internet safety Day at Nursery. We talked about ways to stay safe whilst using technology at home such as always making sure that we are near a grown up. Only using apps and games that our parents and carers have said are ok for us to play. We also agreed that we’d tell someone if we saw anything that we didn’t like pop up on our screens.
We also followed an interest in magnetism this week. The children found the magnetic boards outside and wanted to find out more. We began exploring to find out which things were magnetic.
“It sticks to the cake tin, look”
“Metal, it sticks to the metal leg”
We found a construction kit that we could make models that used magnets to hold the parts together.
Learning after half term:
We’ll be reading Jack and the Beanstalk and beginning our ‘growing’ theme. If you have a copy of the book at home, please read it together.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Mary, Mary quite contrary.
Sound of the week – ‘Uu’ for Umbrella
We’re also learning about growing up and looking at how we change as we get older.
It would be great if we could look at some photographs of children when they were babies and toddlers. If you are able to, please send us an email with one photograph of your child as a baby and one photograph of them as a toddler. We’ll use these in group time sessions and will also be adding them to our Home Corner family display.
scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Reminder – World Book Day
It’s World Book Day on Thursday 06 March. This year, we will celebrate by bringing our favourite book to nursery to share with our friends. Please make sure that your child’s name is in their book. If you can stay a little bit longer at drop off on Thursday morning, we’d love for you to share a book with your child or to join in with some of the World Book Day activities that will be in provision. It’s always a day that we really enjoy at nursery, so please join in if you can.
We hope that you all have a happy and healthy half term and we’ll see you on Monday 24 February.
Nursery Coffee Morning
Following the half-term break we will be holding another Nursery coffee morning.
Feed the birds
It’s been a busy week in Nursery. The children love exploring the outside area, especially looking for worms and bugs under the logs. This week they began to notice that they couldn’t find many. Where they had gone?
We talked about the cold, frosty weather and how the ground had been very hard. The children then began to think about the birds in our garden and wondered what they were eating? We decided to make them some food. Cutting up lard very carefully, we mixed it together with bird seed, it was “sticky” and “gooey”
We pressed it into cups, added string, and then hung them in our Nursery garden. We took some home too, so that we could watch the birds at home. Let us know if your bird feeder attracts the birds into your outside space. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Some other activities from this week in Nursery.
Self-help skills are very important as the children develop. At lunchtime we are developing our skills of independence by learning how to use a knife and fork. We have been practising this skill in our dough area too.
In group time, children in red, blue and green group learnt about the number 2. We looked at a domino that had one spot on one end, and one spot on the other. When we looked at the spots together, there were two. Children knew that they had 2 eyes, 2 ears and 2 feet. We jumped twice and counted two claps.
Help at home: Have a look around your house and surroundings – What can you find two of? You might see two wheels on your bike or 2 eggs left in the box. Can you spot any number twos on doors or number plates? Send us an e-mail to let us know how you get on – you could send a photograph to show us what you find. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Next week’s learning:
Sound of the week- “e” for elephant.
We will be choosing some of our favourite Nursery rhymes to revisit this week. Which is your favourite?
Pat a cake, The Grand old Duke of York or Jack and Jill?
The Nursery Team
Lunar New Year
We have had a great week; children loved reading a book about the Lunar New Year and we watched some short video clips to find out how people prepare for the festival and celebrate with their families.
To join in with the celebrations, we painted ‘good luck’ banners in the creative area. We enjoyed decorating a lunar lantern with some patterns that we’re learning (circles, zig-zags, waves and lines) to help improve our pencil control. We used scissors to practice our “snipping skills” to help to let the light through. The children were very proud of their learning.
In the sensory area we explored noodles. They were “ sticky” “ stretchy” “ gooey” “ cold” and “ sticky” Lots of great vocabulary to describe how the noodles felt.
Help at home
Independence is an important skill for all of the children in Nursery. Being able to put on their coat, fasten it and go outside is a significant achievement. We support the children to do this independently at Nursery. Practicing these skills at home, maybe on a weekend when you have a little more time, will support the children’s development considerably.
Next week’s learning:
Nursery rhyme of the week –Jack and Jill went up the Hill
Sound of the week – ‘c’ for cat and ‘k’ for kite
Reminders
The weather is still very cold and we spend lots of our time learning outside. Please ensure that you child has a warm coat, hat and gloves/ mittens every day. As always, name everything.
Thank you as always for your continued support.
The Nursery Team
Dinosaur Roar
It’s been great to see our new children becoming more familiar with Nursery routines and lots of them have now stayed for their first full day. Well done, yellow group!
Children continue to explore nursery and are independently choosing resources to enhance their play; we’ve created amazing constructions, working together and sharing ideas.
We have also enjoyed finding out about dinosaurs. Digging up dinosaur skeletons in the sand tray, finding out about dinosaurs in our small world area and learning their names.
In the sensory area, we loved playing with the slime in our dinosaur swamp! Ergh.. it’s very sticky!
Mark making always plays an important part of our learning in Nursery and this week the children have been practising their skills in many of our provision areas. In the paint, sand, message centre and making patterns on giant pieces of paper.
In group time, children in red, blue and green group helped Mrs Beesley with her shopping bags. One bag was very heavy and the other bag was quite light. We looked at the different items in each bag and compared them. Children had to find an item that was heavier or lighter than the tin of baked beans. You could try this at home.
Our sounds next week is Oo
Make your mouth into a round shape and say o.
Our Nursery Rhyme of the week next week is Row Row Row your Boat.
Can you sing the rhyme fast, slow, loud or quiet?
Have a happy and healthy weekend and thankyou as always for your continued support.
The Nursery Team.