Welcome Back!
We loved hearing about all of your half term adventures this week. Some people enjoyed jetting off to sunnier climates and others enjoyed a spooky walk along woodland trails. There was also lots of talk of collecting sweet treats on Sunday evening in the rain!
This week, in group times we’ve been focussing on our listening skills further. We reminded ourselves of what makes a good listener and then set off on a listening walk through school. Some of the sounds we heard were loud, but some were very quiet and we had to listen very carefully and stay silent and still. Can your child remember going on a listening walk? See if they remember some of the things that we heard.
Here are some of the sounds that we heard:
- a baby crying in playgroup
- a spoon ‘clinking’ in a bowl as someone stirred round and round and the ‘chop, chop, chopping’ noise of a knife in the kitchen
- a creaky door and a door slamming
- teachers talking and children laughing
- a machine whirring – it wasn’t the washing machine though, it was the photocopier!
- vehicles on the road and birds quietly singing
- the leaves rustling and the wind blowing past our ears
Why not go on a listening walk abound your house and garden? What can you hear? Listening and identifying environmental sounds around us is a really important part of developing children’s early phonics skills. Let us know how you get on.
In maths, we’re learning to compare collections of objects and say which group has more things. To keep it simple initially, we’ve been comparing sets that have the same type of items and an obvious difference in quantity (with one group having a widely different number of things). We looked at which plate had more sweets and which web had the most spiders on it (and also which had the fewest). We’ll be continuing this learning next week. Try and include it in some day to day activities at home to help your child consolidate their learning. Which garage has the most cars? Which pile has fewest socks? Which pile has more coins?
Highlights of the week also included…
- Storytime on Monday with Heather the Witch , aka Miss Backhouse!
- Using tongs to pick insects out of some very sticky and slimy jelly.
- Creating a track game outside where the dragon had to catch the wizard and witches before they reached the cauldron. We rolled the dice and the witch and wizard had to move forward that many spaces.
- Room on the Broom continued to be a popular story so we made our own wands at the creative table and thought of our own magic words to say as we cast some spells.
- We’ve also mixed more potions, drawn lots of patterns and even saw some superheroes using a map to help find and rescue people in danger!
After the excitement of Bonfire Night, our learning and activities at the start of next week will be themed around this celebration. Please e-mail us a photograph if you enjoy joining in with any Bonfire Night celebrations. It’s a great way to remind children and encourage conversation about their family and home life. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Have a safe and fun Bonfire Night!
Pumpkins and potions
It doesn’t seem like two minutes ago that we were visiting our new children on their door steps and now we’re writing our final post of the half term! We’ve had a fantastic start to the autumn term and have already seen children making lots of progress with their learning and becoming much more independent.
Here are a few things that we enjoyed in the final week, some of the most popular activities involved exploring pumpkins! We investigated what was inside them, enjoying putting our hands in the slimy, squelchy flesh and picking out some seeds. Children also loved decorating and painting them in the creative area and joining in with the ‘Five Little Pumpkins’ counting story in our maths area.
Children enjoyed re-telling the story of ‘Room on the Broom’ and working together to complete jigsaw puzzles of the witch and dragon. The water area was a hive of activity with children working together to share eye balls, spiders and bugs to mix into their potions!
We hope that you all have a lovely, relaxing holiday and we look forward to hearing all about your adventures when we return to Nursery on Monday 01 November. If you have any photographs that you would like to share with us, or if your child achieves something that they’ve been working towards, don’t forget to send us a quick email – scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Reminders
- Please ensure that your child’s water bottle only contains water.
- As detailed in our letter, please let us know if you are interested in increasing your child’s sessions in Nursery. We will be welcoming new children in January and may not be able to guarantee extra hours after this point.
- As the weather has most definitely become more autumnal, please ensure your child has a warm, waterproof coat at Nursery (with a hood) every day.
Autumnal art and magnetism
It definitely felt more autumnal this week with the arrival of some windy and cooler weather. Outside, we enjoyed using some of our Autumn treasure to create our own autumnal artwork inspired by the artist, Andy Goldsworthy. Whilst doing this, we also used some of our sorting skills to sort the leaves into different colour piles. Some of them were quite tricky to sort as they were a mixture of colours.
At the end of the week, this little toy duck was the topic of much conversation! Children realised that they could move the duck on the pond by turning a dial but they couldn’t see what made it move. This generated lots of questions about how it worked.
As a result of this curiosity, we talked about magnets and began to explore magnetism around the garden. Children worked together to see what they could find that the magnets would be attracted to, or ‘stick’ to. They also noticed that some things didn’t ‘stick’.
Do you have anything that’s magnetic at home or any toys that use magnets? Have a look and let us know if you find any.
In the water area, we used large tongs and ladles to collect the apples that were floating. We talked about their size and counted how many we’d collected in our bowls.
Following on from printing a few weeks ago, this week, we printed with leaves. We also discovered that when you paint over a leaf and remove it, it leaves the outline on the paper!
We also enjoyed threading beads onto twigs in our fiddly fingers area which is a great way to develop our pincer grip and fine motor skills.
In group time this week, we enjoyed drawing different patterns on some wellies. We drew horizontal lines, spots and some children created their own patterns including ‘x’ and zig-zags.
Next week…
At this time of year, it’s inevitable that children begin to talk about pumpkins and all things magical! Next week, we’ll read one of our favourite stories, Room on the Broom and lots of our learning will be pumpkin related!
Notices
- If your child doesn’t attend Nursery full time and you would like to increase their sessions, please look out for a letter this week and speak to Mrs Beesley or Mrs Long.
- School (including Nursery) is closed on Friday 22 October for a training day and the following week is half term. Nursery reopens on Monday 01 November.
Parent-teacher Zoom appointments
Nursery will hold our parent-teacher Zoom meetings after half term, in the week commencing 22 November.
Please look out for further information when we return to Nursery after the half term break.
Autumn time and hunting for bears!
This week, we’ve talked about autumn and some of the changes that we’re beginning to see all around us. Please help to consolidate this learning at home by looking for changes as you go out for a walk or on your journey to Nursery. What’s happening to the leaves on the trees? What are the farmers doing in the fields?
In maths, we’re learning to sort objects in different ways (such as by type, colour or size). During group time, we sorted our autumn treasure into different groups including conkers, pine cones, sticks and leaves. We also noticed that the pine cones were different sizes. We sorted them into a pile of big pine cones and little pine cones. Some children noticed a “medium” sized pine cone that didn’t fit into either group!
What can you find to sort at home? You might have some toy cars that you could sort into colours or a tub of buttons that are different sizes.
Children have shown an interest in the popular book, “We’re going on a Bear Hunt”. Listen to the author, Michael Rosen, telling the story here – we love watching it!
We enjoyed retelling the story with our friends using props and we also took advantage of the sunny weather and went on our own bear hunt out side. We walked through the swishy swashy grass, tiptoed through the forest and we even stepped in some squelchy mud and cold snow!
If you haven’t already, please remember to return your ‘autumn treasure’ bags next week. We’re going to learn about Andy Goldsworthy and look at some of his art work; you’ll soon see why we needed lots of autumn treasure!
I’ll huff and I’ll puff…
Have you read the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ recently? Children have loved listening to the story this week and re-telling it with their friends using the story props.
If you have a copy at home, read it with your child and see if they can join in with some of the repeated refrains in the story. If you don’t have the book, see what you can remember and have a go at re-telling the story together. There are lots of versions on-line if you need a reminder. What are the main events in the story? Remember to include some important story language as you tell the story.
- Once upon a time…
- “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!”
- “Not by the hairs on my chinny, chin chin…”
- “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!”
In the Sunshine room, our new construction small world area has been extremely popular. We’d like to say a huge ‘Thank you’ to Miss Backhouse, who gifted the construction toys to Nursery in summer on her retirement.
Outside, children have enjoyed mark making on the floor in the rain using paints and they continue to show their interest in construction, fixing the climbing frame and building towers.
We’ve also enjoyed cycling, singing along to the Lion King and balancing on wobble boards.
Whilst digging in the planters, children were very surprised to find some unexpected treasure. They discovered some potatoes hiding, waiting to be dug up and eaten. We also harvested some weird and wonderful shaped carrots! Children helped to wash and prepare the vegetables for snack time. Everyone enjoyed tasting them with their toast on Thursday afternoon, fresh from the garden. They were delicious!
Family photos
Thank you to everyone who has e-mailed a family photo. They’re displayed in our home corner. If you haven’t had a chance yet, don’t worry, please send it in this week.
Autumn
Next week, we’ll learn about autumn. We’ve already seen some bulging pockets full of conkers that children have enjoyed collecting! Watch out for a little brown bag coming home with your child soon. We’d love you to collect some autumn treasure and return it to Nursery for children to talk about with their friends. You could also e-mail a photo of you collecting things on your walk and let us know any words your child uses to describe what they find. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Getting to know you
This week, we’ve continued with the very important job of helping children to settle into Nursery. They’re already becoming more familiar with our routines and are beginning to get to know each other. In fact, we’re so impressed with how well children have settled, we’ll begin short Key Person group times next week.
As we’ve been getting to know everyone, we’ve been talking about our families. To encourage children to tell us more about their family life, please e-mail or bring a photograph of your child with their family to Nursery next week. These will be displayed in our home corner for children to look at and talk about with staff and their friends. scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Here are a few snaps from this week. As you can see, we’ve enjoyed building, drawing, painting, printing, creating patterns and lots more!
Reminders
- If you haven’t shown us proof of your child’s D.O.B yet, please bring it to Nursery or email us a copy.
- Is your child’s water bottle named? We still have lots of water bottles that don’t have names on and it’s very hard to give them out when there are up to 30 bottles and many duplicates. Please make sure it is labelled clearly with their name.
- More names… There are lots of cardigans, jumpers and coats that don’t have names on. Again, please make sure that you check and use a marker pen to quickly write a name on the care label. Thank you for supporting us with this – it results in much less lost property.
Help your child at home – recent workshops
Thank you to everyone who has attended our recent Zoom sessions to help you support your child at home. Watch the phonics session and the Early Years introduction.
Exploring Nursery
What a busy week! It was lovely to see our older children return to Nursery on Monday and hear all about their holiday adventures. They all settled back into Nursery brilliantly and were quick to notice the changes that we’ve made to the Rainbow and Sunshine Rooms.
We also welcomed our new children to Nursery for their first sessions this week. There were lots of happy faces and just a few wobbles! Try not to worry too much if your child has a little wobble or struggles to say goodbye in the morning. We often find that a quick hug, a big smile and waving good bye works best and children usually settle very quickly once you’ve gone. We will always give you a call if your child continues to be upset, so if you don’t hear from us, you can presume that your child is happy and busy playing!
Children have loved exploring their new environments, both inside and out. The climbing frame, sand and dinosaurs have been very popular in the garden and inside, children have enjoyed scooping water beads, rolling out the dough, cooking in the home corner and painting at the easel.
Over the next few weeks, we will continue helping children to settle in and become familiar with our routines.
Reminders
- Please make sure your child has a spare pair of wellies and a full change of clothes to leave at Nursery.
- Remember to bring a NAMED water bottle every day.
- Help your child to become more independent by… choosing shoes with Velcro fastenings (not buckles or laces) and ensuring that trousers are elasticated and can be pulled up/down easily when toileting.
Welcome to Nursery!
It’s been lovely to meet all of our new children and their families this week and we can’t wait to get to know you all during our transition sessions.
Who’s who?
We’re very lucky to have an experienced, enthusiastic and very friendly team in Nursery. Here’s a quick reminder of who is who!
Left to right – Mrs Beesley, Mrs Long, Miss Morris, Mrs Crompton, Miss Miller and Mrs Gosper.
Mrs Beesley (EYFS Leader, Nursery teacher) teaches in Nursery on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Mrs Long (Nursery teacher) teaches in Nursery on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Mrs Beesley and Mrs Long share the Key Person role for Red group children.
Mrs Gosper (Blue group) and Mrs Crompton (Green group) support teaching and learning in Nursery everyday.
Miss Morris enjoys playing in Nursery every morning and lunchtime. Miss Miller joins us at lunch time and stays for the afternoon. They are Yellow group’s Key People.
We are also supported at lunch times by Mrs Butler and Mrs Quinn.
Stay and play visits
Please come to the main Nursery door (all colour groups) and you will be signed in on your arrival. Remember to wear a face covering (unless exempt) and sanitise your hands as you enter.
Reminder – please email or bring passports/birth certificates if we didn’t see them when we visited you this week.
Nursery dropping off/collection
To ease congestion in the morning, we’ve decided to trial having two entrances to Nursery open for registration.
- Red and Yellow group – Please wait to be greeted and registered at the main Nursery blue door.
- Green and Blue group – Please walk down the side of Nursery and through the playground to the Sunshine Room door where Mrs Gosper or Mrs Crompton will greet you.
At the end of the day, ALL children will leave from the main Nursery door. Please be patient as we get to know parents and carers. We will dismiss children one by one and may ask for passwords until we become more familiar with everyone.
To ease congestion at the end of the day, children may be collected up to 10 minutes before the end of our session (see below for times).
Nursery session times
Monday 9.00am – 2.15pm (Collection from 2.05pm onwards)
Tuesday-Friday 9.00am – 3.15pm (Collection from 3.05pm onwards)
Morning session 9.00am – 12.00pm
*Please ensure that you collect your child promptly at the end of the session.
Nursery – Let’s play!
We’ve been very busy getting our Rainbow Room and garden ready for you all. We’ve tried to make sure that there’s something for everyone to enjoy – including some of your favourite things that you told us about when we visited you this week.
We’ve got Paw Patrol, fairies, dinosaurs, The Gruffalo and our bikes ready for you to come and play. See you soon!
