Dinosaurs
It’s been great to see our new children becoming more familiar with Nursery routines and lots of them have now stayed for lunch and 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 wildlife parks, giant train tracks and we’ve even flown on a plane to the beach. Some children worked together to build, what might just be, the world’s tallest tower of pegs!
In the maths area, children have enjoyed sorting, matching and counting different dinosaur counters. We talked about how they were the same or different…This dinosaur is the same as yours. My dinosaur is the same, but a different colour. I have put all the blue dinosaurs in the blue dish.
We also read a counting book about ‘5 Little Dinosaurs’ and enjoyed carefully counting the dinosaurs on each page.
In group time, children in red, blue and green group helped Mrs Long 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. Lots of children could identify and say when something was ‘heavy’ but some were less familiar with the word ‘light’.
Help at home: You could continue this learning at home by asking questions during everyday activities. Which bag from the supermarket is heaviest/ lightest? Which toy is lighter? Can you find something that is lighter than the bottle of milk? Can you find something that is heavier than a packet of crisps?
Next week’s learning:
We look forward to reading ‘Dinosaur Roar’ by Paul and Henrietta Stickland in our story times next week. If you don’t have a copy of the book at home, you might enjoy watching the first 3 minutes of this clip together.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
In maths, we’ll continue learning about weight so will be using words such as heavy, light, heavier and lighter to compare different objects.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Ring-a-ring-a-roses
Sound of the week – ‘O’ for octopus.
Reminders
- Please check that your child’s water bottle still has their name on – we’ve noticed that some have washed off. It makes it much quicker and easier to hand them out when they’re clearly named. Thank you.
Exploring Nursery
We had a busy week settling yellow group into Nursery and helping them to explore their new environment. They’re all doing really well and are gradually getting to know us and beginning to make some new friends. Please try not to worry if your child has a little wobble when they’re saying good bye to you in the morning. They usually find somewhere to play and settle very quickly (and we would always contact you if they didn’t).
It was very chilly outside this week; we talked about the cold weather and explored ice in the sensory area. We’re hoping we’ll be able to play in our Nursery garden soon – children are looking forward to seeing the changes.
Next week’s learning:
We noticed lots of children were interested in dinosaurs so over the next few weeks, we’ll learn all about dinosaurs and enjoy reading ‘Dinosaur Stomp’.
Sound of the week – g for goat
Nursery Rhyme of the week –Row, row, row your boat
Welcome to Nursery – Yellow Group
We enjoyed meeting all of our new children and families at their home visits and we’re looking forward to getting to know you more next week.
Here is a reminder of some of the important information that we discussed during the home visit.
- Your child will need a drawstring bag with a full change of clothes. Please make sure that you write their NAME in everything.
- We play outside in all weathers so a warm, waterproof coat is essential. Please also send gloves and a hat during winter. Children need a pair of wellies at Nursery. Remember to name their coat and wellies!
- Please put your child’s water bottle in the yellow basket in the entrance. You’ll need to collect it at the end of their session each day. Again, please remember to write their name clearly on the bottle.
Registration and end of day
- Nursery opens at 9am and we close registration at 9:10am. If you arrive after this time, please go to the main office.
- When you come into Nursery (main entrance via the path from Morwick Grove) you’ll be asked who is going to collect your child and for their lunch option.
- If you change who is collecting your child, please inform the office. If we haven’t met somebody before, we will ask for your password.
- Once you’ve put your child’s belongings on their peg, you’re welcome to settle them somewhere to play before you say goodbye.
- Nursery closes at 3pm but you can collect your child from 2:50pm onwards. Please make sure you arrive promptly and collect your child on time.
- At the end of the session, parents and carers are able to come into Nursery to collect your child’s belongings and check their folder for artwork.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask a member of Nursery staff. We look forward to seeing you next week!
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year and welcome back to Nursery! We hope that you all had a great Christmas and enjoyed a break over the festive period. It was lovely to see everyone on Monday morning and hear about your holiday adventures and presents from Santa.
This week, we’re reading ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and children are already beginning to retell the story in our small world area. If you have a copy of the story at home, please enjoy reading it together. If not, you might like to listen to Mr Tumble reading it.
Children love to join in with the repeated refrains in the story. Can they remember what the Gingerbread man shouts? “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.”
So far this week, we’ve made Gingerbread Men in the playdough area, counted buttons on his tummy and we’ve loved getting messy in the gingery cornflour gloop!
This week’s letter is ‘m’ for mouse. We pronounce it as ‘mmmmm’.
Help at home: In group time, our sound bag had lots of ‘m’ objects including a marble, a mouse, a map and a mirror. What can you find around the house that begins with the ‘m’ sound? What other ‘m’ objects could we have put in our sound bag?
Nursery rhyme of the week: Pat-a-cake
Pat a cake, pat a cake, Baker’s man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it and roll it and mark it with B. Put it in the oven for baby and me.
There are lots of different versions of this rhyme, here are two from CBeebies if you would like to sing along at home. CoComelon The Baby Club
It’s been a cold start to the week so children decided to make a ‘fire’ and loved toasting marshmallows on the sticks that they collected. Just as a reminder – we play out in ALL weathers at Nursery and at this time of the year, it can be very cold. Please make sure that your child has a warm coat, a hat and some gloves to wear to help keep them warm and happy whilst we play. Please write their name in them too as it’s really helpful when we’re trying to find who they belong to. Thank you in advance.
You may have noticed some new faces in Nursery this week or heard your child talking about some new Nursery members of staff. We’d like to welcome Mrs Gall, Miss Swift and Miss Bennett to our Nursery team.
Next week – 15 January 2024
We look forward to welcoming some new families and children to Nursery for their first sessions on Monday 15 January. Our new ‘yellow group’ children will join red group as they come into Nursery through the main door each morning so it may feel a little bit busier than usual. Please be patient as we help to settle the new children into Nursery. We’re looking forward to getting to know everybody and making some new friends.
Story – Little Red Riding Hood
Letter next week – ‘d’ for duck
Nursery rhyme next week – The Grand Old Duke of York
Christmas
We had such a busy week learning the songs and rehearsing for our ‘Santa’s Hat’ production. We can’t wait to share it with you on Monday and Tuesday and hope you enjoy watching.
During group time, we enjoyed drawing some decorations onto a giant tree and learning about the letter ‘n’. We could hear the ‘n’ sound at the beginning of the words nurse, nose, nut and net.
Outside, we decorated trees, used chalks to draw snowmen and we aimed red balls (noses!) at a giant rudolph on the wall to practise our throwing skills.
We also made Christmas cards for our families; children can’t wait to bring them home so please remember to check their folder on their final day in Nursery next week.
Next week:
We will consolidate the letter sounds that we have learnt so far – s, a, t, p, i and n.
Reminders:
- Our Early Years Christmas performance will take place on Monday 18 December at 1.30 – 2.15pm and on Tuesday 19 December at 9.45 – 10.30am.
- Thank you to everyone that has replied to say which ‘Stay and Decorate‘ session they would like to attend. If you haven’t returned the slip yet, please let us know if you’re able to join in with one of the sessions. They will be on Wednesday 20 December 9.00- 9.45am or 2.00 -2.45 pm and Thursday 21 December 9.00-9.45am.
- Our Nursery Party will take place on Friday 22 December from 10-11.15am. Children can attend Nursery wearing their party clothes. Please remember that we will still take part in Nursery activities (which can be messy) and we’ll also be outside so footwear needs to be sensible.
- A pot for your £1 party contribution will be available in Nursery all week. Thank you in advance for your donation towards the cost of treats for our party.
Stick Man
Nursery is beginning to look very festive! This week, we enjoyed listening to Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and children loved the new ‘elf wrapping station’ in the Sunshine Room. We made presents and added them to Santa’s sack and then we worked together to build a sleigh in the construction area.
In the home corner, children enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree and re-creating some experiences from home.
We’ve made Christmas cards and have practised our cutting skills in the creative area as we looked through toy catalogues for toys that we might like to ask Father Christmas to bring us. We also have started to make some props for our show. Can you guess what we’re painting red?
Outside, children loved decorating the trees with baubles and tinsel and making patterns in the sand.
Next week’s learning:
We’ll continue with our Christmas themed learning and will find out about the Nativity story.
In maths, we continue to learn about length so will be using the words long, short, longer and shorter to compare different objects.
Nursery rhyme of the week – We’ll be busy learning songs for our Christmas show, ‘Santa’s Hat’ so please keep singing your favourite rhymes together at home.
Sound of the week – n for net
Reminders:
- Please send your child’s costume to Nursery by Monday 11 December. If your child is a hedgehog, we also need their headbands as soon as possible so that we can add some ears and spikes! Remember to write your child’s name on all items of their costume and the bag. Thank you for your support.
- If you haven’t already returned your reply slip for the ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions, please do so this week.
Whatever Next!
This week, we listened to another of Jill Murphy’s stories about a family of bears, titled ‘Whatever Next’. It’s about a little bear who went on an adventure to the moon. He used a cardboard box as a rocket, some wellies as his space boots and a colander for a space helmet. He packed some food and shot up the chimney into space. When he got there, he enjoyed a picnic with his friend owl. What would you take into space with you?
In maths, we’ve been learning to compare quantities using language such as ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’. E.g. The blue plate has fewer cookies than the blue plate or I have more cookies than you.
It is easier to compare sets when there is a big difference in the number of objects. Children will do this by perceptually judging which has more. Just by looking, children will notice that Big Bear has more apples than Little Bear, and Little Bear has fewer apples than Big Bear.
Image source: NCETM.
Help at home: Try and use some of this language at home. Children are often familiar with the words ‘more’ and ‘most’ but don’t often hear ‘fewer/fewest’. Who has the fewest bricks? Do we have the same number of grapes? Who has more beads?
Next week’s learning:
We look forward to reading ‘Stickman’ by Julia Donaldson in our story times next week. If you don’t have a copy of the book at home, you might enjoy watching the BBC animation together.
In maths, we’re learning about length so will be using the words long, short, longer and shorter to compare different objects.
Nursery rhyme of the week – We’ll be busy learning songs for our Christmas show, ‘Santa’s Hat’ so please keep singing your favourite rhymes together at home.
Sound of the week – i for iguana
Reminders
- Please return the Christmas slip to let us know if you can attend one of our ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions in December. Please see the letter for more details of dates and times.
- Remember to send your child’s costume for the Christmas concert by Monday 11 December 2023 . Please NAME all items and put them in a NAMED bag. As you can imagine, changing lots of young children can be tricky; having items named and in a clearly named bag makes things much easier for us. Thank you.
Peace at Last
We loved reading ‘Peace at Last‘ this week. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip).
We especially enjoyed joining in with the repeated refrains in the story (e.g. “I can’t stand this!”) and adding our own sound effects. BRRRRRRRR, NEEEEEOOOOW, TICK TOCK, SNUFFLE SNUFFLE!
Help at home: What noises can you hear around your house or in the garden? Go on a listening walk and talk about the sounds you hear. Can you make the sound? If your child has a favourite bedtime story, try adding some sound effects to different parts of the story.
In the story, Mr Bear moves around the house to try and find somewhere that is quiet to sleep. As we were reading, we talked to children about night time. We talked about what they can see out of their windows at night and about some of the animals in the story that are awake when we’re sleeping.
In the fiddly fingers area, children had to carefully pick up buttons to place them on an owl outline. We talked about the different colours on their wings and about when they like to hunt for food. In the dough area, children used different star cutters to make big and little stars.
We learnt a new sound this week – p for penguin. During group time, we looked at a selection of objects beginning with ‘p’ and we tried to say the phoneme (sound) without adding an ‘uh’ to the end. (Please see our earlier web post and video about using pure sounds.)
Here are a few other photos from this week’s learning – you can see that the space rockets and learning about night time is popular.
Outside, we enjoyed practising our throwing and catching skills using balls and beanbags.
Next week’s learning:
Next week, we’re going to read another of our favourite stories written by Jill Murphy. It’s called ‘Whatever Next‘ and this time, it’s Baby Bear that goes on an adventure to the moon. We’ll continue to learn about night time so that children can talk about some of the differences between day and night.
Nursery rhyme of the week –Hickory Dickory Dock and we’ll also be singing a number rhyme 5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer
Sound of the week – a (a for astronaut)
Reminders
- We have our Parent Teacher Consultation evenings on Monday and Wednesday. Please check your emails for the Zoom link. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for no technical difficulties!
- The weather has certainly got colder towards the end of the week. Please make sure that your child has a warm coat, a hat and some gloves to wear every day. We play in our garden throughout winter, so children need to be wrapped up to keep warm and enjoy learning outside in all seasons.
- It’s the final school open session on Friday 01 December 2023 at 9.30am.The sessions are a chance to find out more about our school, visit some classrooms and talk with some of our pupils and staff.
- Wish List – thank you to everyone who has helped contribute items from our wish list so far. It’s really appreciated. We’ve added a few more items, so please take a look and if you’re able to help out, take the post-it note from the display. Thank you
Children in Need
A huge thank you to everyone that donated money last Friday for Children in Need. The Junior Leadership Team were out in the playground with collection buckets before and after school – they did a great job! We managed to raise a whopping £436.98 in total. Thank you so much!
World Nursery Rhyme Week
Has your child been singing lots of Nursery rhymes at home this week? As it’s World Nursery Rhyme Week, we’ve been singing even more rhymes than usual!
Singing Nursery rhymes is a very important part of daily life in Nursery. There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that young children who regularly sing nursery rhymes, will go on to develop a love of literacy and language and will become confident readers
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We loved playing with the sticky jelly in the sensory area and had great fun making it wobble as we sang ‘Jelly on a plate‘.
Here are some of the rhymes that we’re learning to sing:
- Wind the Bobbin Up
- Baa Baa Black Sheep
- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
- I’m a Little Teapot
- Incy Wincy Spider
- Hickory Dickory Dock
Help at home: Listen to these Nursery rhymes and sing them together at home. Does your child have a different favourite rhyme? Let us know or send us an e-mail to scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Outside, children continue to enjoy collecting leaves. They worked together to sweep them into a pile and took turns to use the sweeping brush. It was a great way to strengthen their upper arm muscles!
The rabbit shaped construction toys have been very popular. Children used their imaginations to make all sorts of creations and tall towers. We also enjoyed splashing in the water whilst singing one of our favourite number rhymes, 5 Little Ducks.
Next week’s learning:
Next week, we’re going to read ‘Peace at Last’ by Jill Murphy. In the story Mr Bear hears lots of sounds in his house and he can’t get to sleep. We’ll continue with our Phase 1 phonics learning, listening for environmental sounds around us and we’ll talk about ‘night time’.
Nursery rhyme of the week – 1,2,3,4,5, Once I caught a fish alive
Sound of the week – Pp