Hot or cold?
Many of us will have fond memories of playing this game when we were younger. It’s so simple and children always love to play along.
We hope that you have fun playing today. You’re getting warmer… hot, very hot!
On The Way Home
Welcome back! We hope that you all had a lovely holiday and made the most of the beautiful sunny weather. As we continue to learn from home, please remember to check our website for up-dates and learning ideas on Monday, Wednesday and Friday every week. (All posts will be available from 19:00 the evening before.)
This week we are sharing one of Miss Backhouse’s favourite stories. It’s about a little girl who hurts her knee, but you’ll never guess how she does it! The story is called ‘On the Way Home’ and it’s written by Jill Murphy.
We hope you enjoy listening to it or reading the book at home, if you have copy.
This story has a repeated refrain throughout. Did you join in with “And that’s how I got my bad knee,”?
The little girl had a great imagination. Can you think of your own ‘tale’ to tell? Who else could Claire have bumped into and how could she have hurt her knee?
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Creative – Claire told her friends about many different people and creatures that she’d run into on the way home. Which was your favourite? (Wolf, aliens, crocodile, snake, dragon, gorilla, a giant, a ghost, a witch.) Have a go at drawing or painting a picture of them.
Paper plate snake – Draw a spiral onto a paper plate (or circle shape piece of paper/card) and cut around it. Some children may be able to have a go at this part too. Paint it with spots/stripes and add some eyes and a tongue. Tie a piece of string/wool to the middle of the spiral to hang up your snake. Enjoy watching it swirl around!
Phonics – As part of our phonics learning, we talk about the different sounds that we can hear, but also about the different sounds that we can make with our voices. Can you have a go at making some sound effects from the story? Here are a few ideas and you might also think of some of your own for the dragon, gorilla or giant. Would they be loud or quiet noises?
Wolf – Hooooowwwwwwl
Alien ship – Woooooooosh!
Ghost – Woooo Woooo
Snake – Sssssssssssss
Witch – Hehehehehehe
Going down the slide – Wheeeeeeeee
Getting hurt – Owwwww
Mathematics
- Look at a box of plasters- talk about the different shapes and sizes. Which is the largest? Smallest? Are there any square, circle or rectangular shaped plasters?
- Play a game of ‘snakes and ladders’ (or similar dice game) and encourage your child to work out the number that they rolled on the die by looking at the pattern of dots. They may need to count the dots initially, but the more you play, the quicker they will become at recognising the pattern. Being able to move forward a set number of spaces and remembering to stop, is also a great math’s skill to develop.
- If you have access to a printer, there’s a printable game here or you could have a go at making your own by drawing a grid and adding the numbers, snakes and ladders.
- We love this song in Nursery. It’s all about cheeky monkeys who bump their heads!
Role play – Pretend to be a doctor/nurse and take turns to be the patient, or use soft toys. You could get some old plasters or bandages if you have some, or improvise using some kitchen roll and sellotape! Some of you may have a children’s doctor’s kit that you could use too. Encourage your child to mark-make during play; they could write a prescription or answer a phone call and take some patient details.
Watch – Have you ever watched ‘Get Well Soon’ on CBeebies? There are several episodes available on the BBC iPlayer.
There’s also an episode, called ‘Pop on a plaster’ that is no longer available on iPlayer but can be viewed by following the link.
Health and self-care – There’s a lot of talk around good personal hygiene at the moment. Can your child wipe/blow their own nose? Have a go at this. Teach them to look in a mirror at first so that they can see their nose and to ‘pinch and pull’ using a tissue. Some children may find it tricky to blow down their nose into a tissue, but they can still wipe. Remember to talk about throwing your tissue in the bin afterwards and washing your hands well with soap and water for 20 seconds.
Whole school ‘Quiz of the Week’
If you’re struggling to keep yourself entertained this week…why not have a go at our whole school quiz?
Holiday activities
Whilst it is the school holidays, we know that many of you continue to work. Here are a few family activities to try together. Have fun!
Build an indoor or outdoor den
It could be a majestic hidden castle, mysterious bear cave or a magnificent space rocket. Let your imagination run wild. We thought these den building ideas in the form of IKEA instructions were funny!
Parents/carers- Den building offers a range of advantages to children of all ages, from physical development to problem solving skills.
Bake Off
Have a look at some child friendly recipes on the BBC’s Good Food website. You could choose a family favourite or find something new to try. It’s always good to try new foods and discover new flavours.
Parents/carers- Following a recipe helps children to learn to read for a purpose and follow instructions.
Go on a treasure hunt
Ask an adult to hide a range of similar objects (treasure) in the garden or home for you to find, count and order.
Parents/carers- You could tell children that you have hidden 3 of one type of item. When they find one, you can talk about how many are left to find. For example, “We need 2 more now!”
Painting With Ice
We enjoy making marks and drawing with all sorts of different things at Nursery. This is always a popular activity and waiting overnight for your ice paints to be ready adds to the fun.
What you need:
1 cup of water
Food colouring
Lollipop sticks
Ice cube tray
https://www.easypeasyandfun.com/painting-with-ice/
Blowing Bubbles!
Everyone loves bubbles! Why don’t you have a go at making your own bubble mixture. Here are some instructions for you to follow or you could have a go at making a bubble snake.
Make Homemade Lemonade
See the recipe and instructions sheet below.
Parents- This activity can support your child to gain a range of skills, especially in Maths.
You can also view the bubble mixture and lemonade recipes using this link. Lemonade and bubbles
Finally, in a few weeks time, we’re going to read ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and learn about the life cycle of a butterfly. Sadly, we’re not at Nursery to do this with real caterpillars, but if you wanted to, you could order your own from insectlore. If you haven’t done this before, it’s very easy and a great experience. You’ll need a starter kit which includes a butterfly net.
Story Time
We can’t quite believe that this is the last Friday before half term. Some days and weeks have flown by, others have been harder to get through. We hope that you’ve enjoyed some of our ideas and suggestions for your learning at home. We’ve loved reading all about your adventures and can see how much you’re all learning and growing.
Our final story for this half term is read by Miss Morris. It’s called ‘Alfie in the garden’ and is written by Debi Gliori.
Alfie had a good imagination in the story; he enjoyed pretending to be different animals.
- Can you remember which animals he pretended to be?
- What noise did the rainstorm make?
- The grass made a ‘swish swash’ noise in the breeze. Can you think of another story where the grass makes the same sound?
We’ll post some holiday activities soon; these will be there for you as ideas or in case you are stuck for something to do one day and need some inspiration. We hope that you enjoy your half term, even if it isn’t quite the half term that we may have had planned or hoped for. Stay safe and well.
Home Learning
Finally, we know you all love to see photos of your friends so here are some of their smiling faces to end the week.
Can you spot…?
- a chocolate caterpillar
- a back-to-front jigsaw
- some of No-Bot the Robot’s friends
- some sheep
Shape hunt
We loved listening to ‘No-Bot the Robot with No Bottom’ on Monday. Did you? Thank you for sending in some photographs of your robots; we’ve seen some super robots so far. It’s not too late to send us an e-mail if you’ve built one too. When we looked at your robots, we could see lots of different shapes.
Today, we’d like you to go on a shape hunt around your house or when you go out for a walk.
You might want to draw the shapes and tick them off when you see them, or you could take a picture of the different shapes that you find.
Talk about the properties of shapes. How do you know it’s a triangle? Can you count the number of sides and corners?
Let us know how many shapes you find. Remember to visit us again on Friday. Until then, we’ll leave you with this shape song to watch!
No-Bot the Robot with No Bottom
This week’s story is another one by Sue Hendra and Phil Linnet– No-Bot the Robot with No Bottom. It’s a funny story and we think that you will enjoy it.
Watch it on the link or if you have it at home read it together.
- Can you remember some of the things that Bernard thought was his bottom?
- Where did Bernard find his bottom at the end of the story?
- Do you like going to the beach and making sandcastles?
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Creative – Can you make your own robot? Use some empty boxes and sellotape or glue. Cereal boxes work well if you want to make a big robot. You might paint your robot or cover him in foil. What are you going to call your robot?
Physical – Can you move like a robot? Your arms and legs need to be quite stiff to do this. Join in with this robot action dance, its lots of fun.
Mathematics – No- Bot the robot’s head is a square shape. Can you find any squares in your house? Let’s see if you can sort shapes by playing this game.
Creative – Here is a song that we sing in Nursery to help us to think about 2D shapes and their properties. Can you remember it? Join in if you can.
Creative mark making – Can you make an “artbot”? Attach 3 pens to an upturned plastic cup with sellotape. You can add eyes and be as creative as you like. What does your “artbot” draw? Can you try some zigzag patterns or swirls and spirals? Let us know how you get on.
Fine motor skills – Can you colour and trace the shapes? Don’t forget to use your “froggy fingers” when you hold your pen. If you have a printer, you can use this one. If not, you could draw your own.
There will be another activity added on Wednesday, so keep a look out for that. We are enjoying seeing your photos, but just an email would be great. Let us know if your child is enjoying the activities or if there is something that they are missing and we will do our best to recreate these on line.
Our email address is scholesf1@spherefederation.org. We would love to hear about what you have been doing. Also we are happy to answer any of your questions too.
Have fun!
Home Learning
Thank you to everyone who sent us an e-mail this week. We love reading about the things that you have been doing at home and seeing your photographs.
This week, we’ve seen some super home made birthday and Eid cards. We’re sure that your friends and family loved receiving them.
Some of you have been dressing up, riding bikes and drawing pictures. We love to see all of your smiling faces! If you haven’t been in touch for a while, please send us a quick email if you can; we’d love to hear from you.
Story Time
It’s Friday again! Well done for making it through another week of being in lockdown. We know that many of you are enjoying our Friday Story Time so we hope that you enjoy this one. Today’s story is read by Mrs Beesley and it was a book that was popular when we came back to Nursery after Christmas. It’s about a very hungry creature, but it’s not a caterpillar! This animal has stripes and he arrives at a little girl’s house just in time for tea…
‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’ is written by Judith Kerr and published by HarperCollins. Here are some things to talk about when you’ve listened to the story.
- How do you think Sophie felt when she opened the door?
- Can you remember some of the things that the tiger ate?
- What did the tiger drink?
- What happened at the end of the story?
- Did you like the story? What was your favourite part?
- If you could have an animal to tea at your house, which animal would you choose? Why?
If you enjoyed the story and would like some activities to do at home, here are a few ideas.
- Invite one of your soft toy animals to tea. Can you make an invitation? Write a list of the food that you’d like and set the table for a tea party. We hope that your animal isn’t as hungry as the tiger!
- Can you paint a tiger? Ask your grown up to draw an outline and then have a go at painting the stripes on it. Orange, black, orange, black…
- Andy’s Wild Adventures has an episode all about tigers. Watch it here.
- If you have a printer, there are some printable activities and colouring sheets that you can download on this website.
- Sadly, the Channel 4 film adaptation of the story isn’t available to view at the moment but perhaps you recorded it or have access to it on Amazon.
If you haven’t been in touch with us for a while, please send us a quick email to let us know how you are. We hope that you have a lovely weekend and find somewhere new to explore now that we have a little more freedom to visit parks.
Can you spot the animals?
Did you have a go at counting all of the animals from Monday’s ‘I spy zoo animals’ activity? Today, we thought that you might like to play another game of I-spy, but this time, your Nursery teachers need your help! Can you help them to find all of the different creatures that are hiding? Look carefully!
Can you remember which animals you saw?
- Did you spot the wrinkly elephant that was perched on top of Mrs Beesley’s fence?
- A bouncing bunny rabbit had managed to jump all the way up into the tree at Miss Morris’ house.
- Miss Pennock’s shimmering seahorse wasn’t swimming in the sea, it was driving a little car!
- We’re sure you found the cheeky monkey playing peek-a-boo in Miss Logan’s playhouse.
- Did you see what gave Mrs Long a fright? That’s right, it was sneaky shark hiding behind the shower.
If you enjoyed this, maybe you could have a game of ‘I spy’ at home. You could hide animals or toys, just like we did, or you could play a game of colour I spy. I spy something that is … red/blue etc..
You could also practise your memory skills and concentration by playing a game of ‘Kim’s game’. Collect 5-6 items from around your house and put them together on the floor or on a tray. Ask your child to look at them for a short time and then cover them up with a cloth (e.g. tea towel). Remove an item without your child seeing and then uncover the objects. Can they spot which object is missing? This is great fun and children love to play it at Nursery. You can make it harder by adding more objects or reducing the amount of time that they can look for.
Don’t forget to visit our Class Page again on Friday for this week’s Story Time.