Leeds Needs Trees
Leeds City Council have launched a scheme to increase the number of trees around the city. Collect tree seeds (conkers, acorns, beech nuts and sweet chestnuts) and take them to a collection point around the city. The Arium is the closest one to school and you will be helping create new habitats for birds and animals.
Our first week at Nursery.
What a super first week! We’re really pleased with how well both our older children and our new children have settled into Nursery so far.
It was lovely to see yellow group again; they’ve all grown so much! It was also great to finally meet all of our new families face to face. Thank you for being patient whilst we try out our new systems and for trying to be prompt at drop off time. We know it can be really hard to say good bye if your child is having a wobble, but please be assured that we’d always call you if they didn’t cheer up quickly.
Children have enjoyed exploring our outdoor area; the climbing frame, dinosaurs and fairy garden were particular favourites. Children have also begun to familiarise themselves with the Rainbow Room, too. The home corner was very busy with children looking after babies and cooking in the kitchen. Lots of children painted and drew pictures; we have these saved in their folders until we can send them home.
(We’ll add more photos next week – we left the iPad with the rest of the photographs on at school. Oops!)
We’re looking forward to seeing children for longer visits next week where we’ll introduce snack time and lunches for some children.
We know that we’re having to do drop off and collection much quicker than we’d normally do and it makes it tricky for us to have our usual conversations. If you have any questions that require a longer conversation, please send us an email and we’ll get back to you.
Remember to check our website regularly for up-dates, reminders and photos. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week.
Welcome to Nursery
We’ve really enjoyed meeting all of our new families this week and seeing the older children during our Zoom meetings. It was lovely to find out about you all and we can’t wait for you to join us in Nursery for our settling in sessions next week.
Here are the key points for you to remember that we discussed during our Zoom conversations. If you couldn’t make the Zoom call, please read this carefully before your first visit to Nursery.
- You must have returned your paperwork to the school office before your child can stay at Nursery. Please do this on Monday 14 September if you haven’t already.
- Remember to take a passport/birth certificate to the office to show your child’s date of birth.
What should I bring to Nursery?
- A changing bag with 1-2 full sets of clothes (knickers/pants, socks, trousers, t-shirts). We can’t use our Nursery spare clothes at the moment so your child must have their own. Remember to name everything.
- A NAMED waterproof coat and pair of wellies.
- A NAMED water bottle. Please take this home each day to wash and refill.
- Remember to leave your own toys at home; we have lots of Nursery toys to play with.
Drop off and collection
- Only 1 adult should accompany your child when dropping off/collecting from Nursery. This is to help us adhere to social distancing guidelines, ensuring that there is plenty of room to wait with other parents/carers outside Nursery.
- Please wait outside Nursery at the start/end of the day. A member of staff will let you know when you can enter the playground.
- When you enter the playground, you’ll need to see a member of staff who will be standing under our gazebo. They will sign your child in and ask you who will be collecting them at the end of the session. We ask you to respect the current government guidelines for family bubbles and social distancing with adults that are not part of your bubble.
- You can let us know your child’s lunch option too. Remember, packed lunches must contain everything that your child will need (e.g. spoons) and must not contain nuts. The current lunch menu can be found here.
- As parents/carers are unable to enter Nursery under the current guidelines, children will play outside in our Nursery garden.
- Once you have settled your child, please leave Nursery promptly. We’re really hoping that there’ll be smiles all round… but if your child is having a wobble, please give them a big cuddle and say good bye and allow a member of staff to settle them. We will call you if they continue to be upset and struggle to settle afterwards. Thank you for being so understanding with this, we have adapted our usual settling in routines to make the transition a happy one, despite restrictions in place.
- Blue and green group children will be collected from the outside area.
- Red and yellow group children will be collected from the Nursery main door (this is the blue door in the photograph above).
- Please check your child’s individual transition plan for their start and finish times. We have staggered these to reduce congestion and allow for social distancing. Please arrive at your given time; children will be waiting inside with their coats on ready to leave.
As we mentioned during our Zoom conversations, all of these arrangements are new to staff as well. Please be patient as we try out our new systems and routines; we’ll make changes if necessary.
If you have any other questions, please email us. [email protected]
Finally, we promised that we’d take a few photos so that you could talk to your child and show them some of the lovely areas that are ready for them to play in. We know from our conversations that some of our children’s current interests are dinosaurs, Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, trains, fairies and role playing with babies and pretend cooking. We also have found copies of some of your favourite stories including the Gruffalo and Fox in Socks.
We’re confident that we have something for everyone to enjoy. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week.
Nursery Zoom meetings
Have you checked your inbox today? Everybody has been sent an email with further details about all of our Zoom meetings this week. You will need to use the link provided in this email.
If you haven’t received yours (remember to check your junk mail too), please contact school as soon as possible to let us know. Please email [email protected] or call the school office 0113 264 9149.
We’re looking forward to seeing you all on Zoom this week and in Nursery next week!
Watch this space…
This week, staff have been in school, busily getting Nursery ready to open soon. We can’t wait to welcome our older children back and to also welcome our new families.
Watch this space for more information next week. Remember to check your inbox on Monday 07 September in the afternoon/evening to find a link with an invitation for your Zoom meeting next week.
Have a great summer!
What a year it has been! It’s certainly not a school year that we will forget. We’re sorry that we’ve been unable to finish our year together, but we hope that you’ve all enjoyed some extra family time where possible. Thank you, again, for all of your emails with regular updates and photographs of your home learning. We have loved reading each and every one of them.
Instead of being sad on our last day of term, we thought that we’d enjoy looking back on all of the fun and learning that we managed to fit in before we had to close in such exceptional circumstances in March. We hope that you enjoy watching today’s video and spot a few of your friends.
Yellow group – We’re looking forward to seeing you return to Nursery in September! We can’t wait to welcome you back.
Red, Green and Blue group – For those of you that are returning to Foundation 2 at Scholes, we’ll pop into your new classrooms to say ‘hello’ and see how you’re all settling in. Whilst it’s going to be a little bit different to Nursery, we know that you’ll recognise lots of familiar places to play and you’ll soon love it! There’ll be lots of your old friends there to play with and some new ones, too. If you are leaving us to start Foundation 2 at a new school, we’d like to say ‘good bye and good luck’! We wish you all the best in your new school and we know that you’ll have a great time. If you’re not too busy, let us know how you’re getting on in September or send us a photo of you in your new uniform!
Wishing you all a happy, fun and hopefully, sunny summer holiday. For one last time this year – have fun!
*Music in first video with thanks to Scottholmesmusic.com
Teddy bear’s picnic
Those of you that had chance to have a Teddy bear’s picnic inside, or in between the rain showers, told us that you really enjoyed it. We were pleased to hear that you joined in with making sandwiches and counted out the correct number of items for everybody. Well done!
Finally, for anyone who needs any other ideas to keep you busy during the holidays, here are a couple of suggestions.
- Look at the previous post about independence – these are very important skills and will be especially beneficial to your child whether returning to Nursery or starting Reception.
- There are several ideas and links listed in this bank of Summer activities.
Bears
Have you been on a ‘Bear Hunt’ recently? We started our school year in September by reading ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ because so many of you talked about it being your favourite story during our home visits. So, we thought that we’d end our year by revisiting the story.
- We love this version of the story, performed by Michael Rosen. See if you can join in with the sound effects and actions.
- For those of you that have enjoyed the yoga activities, we’ve found a Cosmic Yoga for you to take part in that tells the story through yoga poses and balances. Have fun!
- We love to retell the story outside at Nursery. Have a go at re-telling it on your next walk. What will you have to walk through?
Finally, have you had your teddy bear’s picnic yet? It’s not too late to join in and send us a photo. All you need is a blanket, a teddy and a snack! Enjoy your picnic and take a snap. Email us – [email protected]
Remember, there’ll be a special ‘end of year’ Nursery video for you to enjoy on Friday!
Where’s my Teddy?
We can’t believe that this is our final week of home learning activities. Look out for something special arriving in the post this week and remember to check back on Friday for a special video.
We’re going to finish our home learning activities with ‘Where’s My Teddy?’ written by Jez Alborough.
We often celebrate our learning and the end of our time in Nursery with a Teddy Bear’s picnic party. Sadly, this isn’t going to be possible this year but we didn’t want to miss out on all of the fun. So, this week, we’d love it if you could have a Teddy Bear’s picnic at home (inside or outside depending on the weather!) and send us your photos by Thursday.
Remember to email your photos to [email protected]
We’ll share all of your photographs on Friday. We thought that this would be a lovely way to end the year – to fill our Class News Page with all of your happy, smiling faces.
Where’s My Teddy
- Did you enjoy the story?
- How do you think Eddy felt when he lost his teddy?
- Do you have a favourite teddy bear or soft toy? Talk to your family members about their favourite toys as children. They may still have an old favourite teddy hidden away somewhere that they can show you.
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Mark Making – Draw or cut out an outline of a bear. Ask your child to add eyes, a nose and a mouth to the bears face. You could encourage them to draw some clothes on the bear or a bow tie and decorate it with patterns. There are also some free printable pencil control activity sheets to download on Twinkl.
Music – Sing along at home to this well-known family favourite all about a teddy bear’s picnic.
Cooking – Find a recipe to bake something to eat at your Teddy Bear’s Picnic this week. There are lots of recipe ideas on the I Can Cook website. Some bears like to eat honey; you might like to make a honey sandwich! Ask your child to help butter the bread and add their choice of sandwich filling. With help, they can cut their sandwiches carefully into squares or triangles.
Understanding the World – Do you like honey? If you’ve never tried it before, have a try. What does it taste like? Where does honey come from? Maddie Moate knows all about where honey comes from because her parents are bee keepers. Watch these short clips to find out about how bees make honey and how Maddie harvests honey from her bee hives.
Mathematics
1) Top Marks has a teddy bear counting game that children really enjoy playing at Nursery. We help children to recognise the number so that they know how many cupcakes to feed the bear.
2) Ask your child to choose some soft toys/teddies to invite to the picnic. How many have they chosen? How many plates and cups will they need?
Watch – Teddy bears are obviously very popular as there are lots of programmes available to watch all about bears! Here’s an episode from Postman Pat about a Special ‘teddy’ Delivery or you can find out what happens in the town of Biggleton when too many bears arrive for the picnic.
Never Forget
We’re nearly at the end of this crazy year.
It’s been a long time but we’re not too sure where we’ve been.
We’ve had good times …
Do you know what? I’ll let Take That say the rest.
(If they refuse to sing or you can only see half of the screen, slide the image to the far right and click on the full screen icon.)
Story Time
Well done! You’ve just completed another week of home learning. What was your highlight of this week? We have one more week of activities planned before we break up for the summer holidays. Next week, our usual Friday story time will be slightly different; visit our Class News Page on Friday 17 July for a special ‘end of year’ Nursery video.
This week, Miss Morris is going to read our final story of the year. We know that many of you have loved listening to them each week so we hope that you’ll enjoy today’s story, too. Can you guess which story it is from these clues?
- The main character has long ginger hair that she wears in a plait.
- She meets a fearsome creature that wants to have ‘witch and chips’ for his tea.
- There’s a cat, a dog, a bird and a frog in the story and they all help to make a spell using the magic words…Igggity, zigggity, zagggety, zoooooom!
That’s right! Miss Morris is going to read ‘Room on the Broom’ by Julia Donaldson.
Independence
It is really important that you help your child to be as independent as possible. Here are some essential skills that we’d like you to encourage your child to practise so that they can try to do them independently on their return to Nursery or Reception. Over the summer holiday is often a great time to work on these skills; you may have a bit of extra time and aren’t as rushed by time deadlines.
Whilst some of these activities may be more suited to our older children that are moving to Foundation 2 (Reception) in September, most of them are things that our younger children could be working towards too. It’s never too early to encourage children to be as independent as they can be.
- Encourage your child to put on their own coat and shoes. When you’re buying shoes, try to choose shoes that have Velcro fastenings or that children can do themselves.
- Can your child use the toilet independently? Try to help your child recognise when they need the toilet. Encourage them not to leave it until the last minute so that they have time to remove their own clothing. Can your child wipe themselves afterwards? These are all skills that children will need in Reception and that would also be very beneficial in Nursery.
- Encourage your child to be independent at lunchtime. When you’re at home or on a picnic over the summer, teach your child how to open food containers and to remove packaging themselves. If they have a carton drink, encourage them to put the straw in independently. All these things will be really helpful on their return to school so that we can minimise our close contact with their lunch items.
- If your child is already well on their way with these skills, you could look at other ways to build their independence. Can they get dressed themselves? Can they put on their own socks? Do they know how to put a t-shirt / jumper on and take it off ?
- Watch – There are lots of programmes about starting school or nursery on this CBeebies page all about being ‘Ready for School’.
Home Learning
Here are your friend’s photos from this week.
