World Nursery Rhyme Week
It’s World Nursery Rhyme Week, so we’ll be singing lots of rhymes in Nursery – even more than usual! We know how important Nursery rhymes are for developing early literacy skills; we’re hoping that by the end of the next few weeks, children will be able to confidently sing along to some nursery rhymes or will have learnt some new ones, in addition to those that they already know.
Each year, World Nursery Rhyme Week focuses on 5 rhymes, if you’re not familiar with this year’s rhymes, follow the links below to sing a long at home.
- The Wheels on the Bus
- 5 Little Speckled Frogs
- Hickory Dickory Dock
- Old MacDonald had a Farm
- Miss Polly had a Dolly
*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 Nursery this week, lots of our areas of provision are linked to these rhymes, as well as some other favourites. We have Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars to sort in our maths area, Baaa Baa Black Sheep printing at the creative table, Humpty Dumpty to try and put back together in the sensory area and 5 Current Buns to make at the playdough table.
What’s your child’s favourite rhyme? Send us an email to let us know and we’ll sing it at Nursery this week.
Monday – Odd Socks Day
Don’t forget to wear odd socks on Monday 16 November.
Space bears and spotty bears!
We loved reading ‘Whatever Next‘ this week and have been using our story props to re-tell the story. In the creative area, we worked together to create a giant rocket with control buttons and engines to help it blast off to the moon – just like Baby Bear! We also drew lots of aliens with multiple eyes, legs and antennae.
Children loved the jumping aliens in our fiddly fingers area. It was very tricky to push them down until they popped! We also made space hats using colanders and pipe cleaners.
In our space small world area, the children wanted to make it darker so that they could see the stars from our light projector. They helped to make a dark den and enjoyed looking at books and the stars underneath the dark sky.
Children have been getting much better at sorting objects and suggesting different ways that they can be sorted, such as by colour or size. We’ll continue this next week using some twinkly stars as part of World Nursery Rhyme Week. Look out for a post on Sunday with more details about the rhymes that we’ll learn.
Children in Need
Thank you for your generous donations for Children in Need. We enjoyed lots of ‘Pudsey Bear’ themed spotty fun, including eating bear shaped toast at snack time!
Parent Teacher Consultations
Thank you to everyone who has joined a meeting so far. We just have a few left that have been rearranged for next week. Please get in touch if you have any further questions.
Reminders
- ‘Odd Socks Day‘ – Nursery children can join in with school’s ‘Odd Socks Day’ if they wish. It is part of Anti Bullying Week and helps to provide a talking point to celebrate our similarities and differences. Children need to wear their usual nursery clothing, just with odd socks!
- Children must have a NAMED water bottle at Nursery every day. Please ensure that your child’s name is clearly visible as we have some duplicate bottles.
- The new menus with more hot lunch options have been popular this week. Have a look at the new menus and see if your child would like to try them instead of a packed lunch one day.
Primary school applications
Primary school applications are now open. If your child is due to start school in September 2021, you can find out how to apply On the Leeds City Council website. The deadline for applications is 15 January 2021.
Children in Need
We are going to be celebrating BBC Children in Need on Friday 13 November.
The Junior Leadership Team voted for a ‘dress as you like day.’ Children can come to Nursery in their own clothes; you might choose to wear something ‘spotty’ like Pudsey’s bandana! Remember, children enjoy messy play in Nursery and we also play outside in all weather! Please make sure that children wear suitable clothing and footwear.
We would like to raise as much money as possible for Children in Need and are therefore asking for a voluntary donation. On the morning of the 13th, there will be a bucket near the Nursery playground for you to drop off your donations.
Thank you in advance for your support and co-operation.
The Junior Leadership Team
Children in Need
We are going to be celebrating BBC Children in Need on Friday 13 November.
The Junior Leadership Team voted for a ‘dress as you like day.’ Children can come to school in non-uniform.
We would like to raise as much money as possible for Children in Need and are therefore asking for a voluntary donation. On the morning of the 13th, there will be some buckets placed in the playground for you to drop off your donations.
Thank you in advance for your support and co-operation.
The Junior Leadership Team
Self isolating at home?
Here are some home learning activities for if you can’t be with us at Nursery. This week, we will read all about a bear that travels into space in a rocket and a bear that likes to wear a spotty bandana!
We’re reading one of our favourite stories, ‘Whatever next’. If you don’t have a copy of the story, enjoy listening to this CBeebies Bedtime story.
Understanding the World
Go outside before bedtime and look at the moon and stars. What can you see? What shape is the moon? Are some stars brighter than others?
We love Maddie Moat in Nursery. In this episode of ‘Do you know?’, she tells us all about space suits.
Phonics
Use your listening skills to listen to the environmental sounds in this game. Can you identify these mystery sounds?
Mathematics
Here’s a space counting song for you to join in with. In our maths group time, we’ll find different ways of sorting objects. We might sort objects by type, colour or size. Ask your child to help with the washing –Can they help you to pair the socks? Look at some coins – which coins are the same colour? size?
Fine motor
In Nursery, we’re going to make space hats by threading pipe cleaners through the little holes in a colander. If you don’t have pipe cleaners, you could try to poke pieces of dried spaghetti through the holes – it could be tricky but it’s great for developing fine motor skills!
Creative
You might want to have a go at making your own rocket, just like Baby bear. If you don’t have a big box, be creative. You can have great fun with some cushions, a blanket and some chairs. Alternatively, you could make a rocket for one of your soft toys using junk modelling things from your recycling pile.
We love watching and singing along to the Barefoot ‘Space song Rocket Ride’ before lunchtime in Nursery.
Mark Making and Physical Development
It’s Children in Need on Friday and we’ll be joining in with some spotty fun at Nursery. Here are a few activities for you to try, if you want to join in.
- If you have a printer, download and print a ‘spot to spot‘ Pudsey bear.
- Draw a Pudsey Bear outline and ask your child to add some spots to his bandana. You could create a spotty painting or find some things that you could use to print spots with. What shape would you need?
- You might have joined in with Joe Wicks’ PE during lockdown. Here’s a 5 minute move video to get you moving!
Crackle, pop and bang!
There was a lot of excitement about the fireworks that children had seen at bedtime this week. This was reflected in the activities that children have enjoyed; we’ve drawn and danced like fireworks and talked about all of the noises that they make.
During group time on Friday, we drew fireworks using different patterns and marks. We tried spirals and dotty patterns for some fireworks and said ‘whooooosh’ as we drew lines to show rockets shooting into the sky.
We also used chalks to create firework pictures and made patterns on the light panel in our maths area.
Outside, we listened to music and used ribbons to move like fireworks.
We’ll post some videos soon, so keep checking this post for an update.
Parent Consultation Meetings
Thank you to everyone who has joined us on Zoom so far. It was great to talk to you about your child and let you know in more detail about how they’re settling in. We really miss our usual, more sociable drop off/collection times that aren’t possible at the moment.
We’re sorry that we had to cancel some appointments with short notice on Wednesday. We will be in touch when we are able to rearrange them. Please don’t hesitate to email if you have any queries that need answering sooner.
Self-isolating at home?
Self-isolating at Home?
Here are some home learning activities for when you can’t be with us at Nursery.
This week at Nursery we will be thinking about fireworks, space and fire engines.
Communication
We realise that Bonfire night will be a little bit different this year but here is a programme to watch where Woolly and Tig celebrate Bonfire night. Talk to your child about what they see on Bonfire night and how we keep safe around fireworks and sparklers.
Creative
You could create a firework picture at home. Think about the patterns they make in the sky. Try some spiral and zig- zag patterns.
Fiddly fingers – Fine motor development
You could draw your own patterns and your child could follow them with small objects. You could use stones, pasta, beads, anything that you have around the house.
Understanding the World
We are going to be finding out about firefighters this week in Nursery. Watch this programme with your child to find out how they put out fires.
Mathematics
Here is a counting rhyme to sing about 5 brave fire fighters.
Phonics
This week we will be learning to be good listeners. If your child can hear and distinguish sounds in the environment it helps them to hear the sounds in words. This skill will support them once they begin to read and write.
Put some objects that make sounds in a box or under a blanket. For example keys, bells, a noisy toy. Show your child the objects then cover them. Make the objects sound and ask your child to identify the object.
You can play this outside too, by going on a listening walk around your garden. What can you hear? A car? The wind? A bird?
As always lets us know how you get on with these activities by either ringing school or contacting us via our email address. Scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Potion mixing
We hope that you all had a great half term and are looking forward to returning to Nursery. Thank you to everyone who has emailed us a few photographs to show us some of your adventures. We’ve seen pictures of pumpkin carving, bat biscuits and some very spooky looking costumes. Lots of you have enjoyed going on autumnal walks and visits to parks. By now, everyone should have received an email with a Pic Collage attachment. Please remember to check your junk folder and let us know if you haven’t got it.
Did you enjoy watching the ‘Through the keyhole’ video of a morning in Nursery? Hopefully it gave you an insight into our daily life! Here are some extra photographs of our learning before the holidays. Children loved mixing potions in our cauldron outside and saying magic words to make spells. We’ll continue with this theme at the start of the week and we’ll begin to look for new interests, too. Before the holidays, lots of children began talking about space. We’ve added a new small world space area to the Sunshine room which we’re sure children will love.
Although celebrations will be very different this year, we know that children will hear and notice fireworks this week. We’ll incorporate this into our learning too; we love to paint firework pictures and talk about the different noises that they make.