Barry the Fish with Fingers
Good morning, Nursery! We hope that you all had a good weekend and found something fun to do. Mrs Beesley enjoyed reading a bit more of her favourite book and Mrs Long helped to bake a rainbow cake. What was your favourite part of the weekend? Did you have video call to say hello to any of your family and friends? It’s great to keep in touch with each other.
This week’s story will be another one of our favourites (we have so many!). It’s called ‘Barry the Fish with Fingers‘ by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet.
Watch it using the link, or if you have it at home, read it together. Ferdie and Fern enjoyed sharing the story earlier.
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Health and self-care – Can you practice putting on your gloves? We do this in nursery when we are going outside. Remember to wiggle your fingers into each finger space. There are 5 on each hand. Can you count them?
Creative – Finger painting – If you have paint at home you can practice some finger painting. Cut out the shape of a fish and fill it with a colourful finger paint patterns. How many colours will you use?
Sing together – The fish in the ocean. We enjoy singing this at nursery, try it at home.
Mathematics – Draw around your own hand or your child’s and cut it out. How many fingers can you see ? Fold down the fingers one at a time and ask your child to count how many now. Use more than one hand to extend to 10.
‘Under the sea’ counting game – Visit Topmarks and you will get onto the website home page. Select ‘Early Years’ and there are lots of interactive counting activities to play, including this underwater counting game.
Get active – Join in with the finger song and get active.
Watch – Do you like fishcakes ? Have you ever wondered how fish cakes are made. What do you think the ingredients are ? Maddie finds out here.
We are enjoying seeing your photos, but just an email would be great. Our email address is [email protected]. We would love to hear about what you have been doing. Also, we are happy to answer any of your questions too. Remember to visit our Class News Page again on Wednesday and Friday for more updates and activities. (Posts are also now available to view the night before from 7 o’clock.)
Have fun!
Story Time
Can you believe it’s Friday again? We know from your emails that many of you are still finding lots of fun activities to keep you busy at home. If you haven’t been in touch with us recently, please send us a quick e-mail to say hello. As usual, we’ve added some of your friend’s photographs at the end of this post so that you can see some familiar faces and find out what everyone else has enjoyed doing.
First of all, here is today’s story for you to enjoy. This week’s story is read by Miss Morris and it’s another favourite of ours. It’s about someone who has terrible teeth, orange eyes, knobbly knees and purple prickles all over his back. Can you guess which story it is? We thought so!
There are two parts to this story, so don’t forget to click on both videos.
We know that this is a favourite story for many children; we love to use the creatures and our Gruffalo toy to retell the story at Nursery. Here are a few things to talk about after you’ve listened to the story.
- What’s your favourite part of the story? Why?
- Who is your favourite character?
- Describe the Gruffalo. What special features does he have?
- Can you remember what the mouse said his favourite food was? How did the Gruffalo feel? How do you know – what did he do at the end?
If you search online, there are lots of Gruffalo themed activities to enjoy. Here are a few that you might like to have a go at.
- We love listening to this Gruffalo song at Nursery. Sing a long at home. Be warned, you might be singing it all day!
- Have a go at moving like the different creatures. Slither like a snake, flap your wings like owl or stomp like the Gruffalo.
- Can you draw the Gruffalo? You could ask an adult to help you with the outline and then draw on his orange eyes, poisonous wart, purple prickles and terrible tusks etc..
- Go for a walk and collect some twigs, leaves, stones etc… When you get home, gather some old pots/pans/bowls that you don’t mind getting dirty. In your garden, using your collected items and a bit of soil or sand and some water, mix them all together to make some ‘Gruffalo crumble’ . We love to play in the mud kitchen at Nursery; it’s great, albeit messy, fun.
- If you have a printer at home, here’s a pairs game to play and a mask that you could print out and make.
- There’s also a Gruffalo games app (free) with some fun memory games to play.
Home Learning
Here’s a selection of your photographs from this week. Lots of you continue to enjoy being outside, learning to ride your bikes and playing football. We’re pleased that a few of you managed to spot some bluebells growing and that you also enjoyed the scavenger hunt. ‘Zog’ was very popular this week; we’ve had photos of castles and some super pictures of Zog breathing fire. It’s also been great to hear that you are helping out with jobs at home, including pegging out the washing and helping to vacuum. Keep it up, Nursery!
5 Cheeky Monkeys
Today, we thought that you might like to join in with one of the songs that we enjoy singing in Nursery. It’s about five cheeky little monkeys… Can you guess which song it is? Click on the photo to download our video and sing along with all of us at home. Let us know if there are any problems viewing it.
We hope you enjoyed seeing everybody again; we always love to see your photographs and videos so keep sending them in. As we mentioned in a previous post, Miss Backhouse is safe and well; she just isn’t able to take part in recording videos.
If you enjoyed the rhyme, there’s another version with the lyrics on this website. You might enjoy making some stick puppets and acting out the rhyme too. Remember to send us a photo or video to our email – [email protected].
Zog
We hope that you enjoyed the sunshine on Saturday and managed to get out for some exercise and fresh air. Mrs Long is lucky enough to live within walking distance to Temple Newsam. The bluebells in the woods there are beautiful at the moment and have a lovely fragrance. Have you seen any growing anywhere near your house?
This week, we will be thinking about the story ‘Zog’ by Julia Donaldson. You might have this story at home, but if not we have posted a link to it above. Julia Donaldson is one of our favourite authors and we really enjoy looking for the rhyme in her stories.
Read or listen to the story with your child – before you start the book ask your child a few questions. What do you think dragons look like? What do you think they sound like? The teacher in the story teaches the dragons “……all they needed to know”, what do you think dragons need to know? Read the story to your child and talk about the pictures.
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Can you draw a dragon? Perhaps draw the basic outline of a dragon. Can your child add the spikes to its back and the fire from its mouth? What colours would you use for the fire?
Small world play – Build a castle with any bricks or children’s building materials that you have at home. If you don’t have bricks use food boxes to make a castle. You can decorate this and add any toy figures that you may have.
Get creative– Make a crown or a wand, using bits and pieces from around your home. Send us a photo into the email address.
Watch – Here is an action video to watch and join in with your child. Let’s get active, even if we are inside! Fly like a dragon!
Get active – Take part in a scavenger Hunt outside or around your home. See image below or if you have a free Twinkl subscription, you can download it. This is linked to our senses. Talk to your child about their senses.
There are also few Zog themed activities and games on the Forestry England site. Most of the crafts and games are suitable for younger children with just a few activity sheets aimed at older children.
Let us know how you get on by replying to the email address [email protected]. We would love to hear about what you have been doing. Also, we are happy to answer any of your questions too.
Have fun!
Story Time
It’s Friday again and another week of being in ‘lockdown’ completed. Well done! We hope that you’re all remaining happy and healthy at home. Keep sending us your e-mails; we really do love to see your photos and read about all of the activities that you’ve been doing at home. We’ll share some of your photos at the end of this post so that you can see what your friends have been doing too.
As it’s the end of the week, we thought we’d continue with our popular Friday Story Time posts; we’ve had a lot of positive feedback to say how much children have enjoyed hearing some familiar voices . Today’s story, is another Nursery favourite. It’s called ‘ The Paper Dolls’ and is written by Julia Donaldson (published by Pan Macmillan).
Miss Logan is reading the story, and in case you’re wondering, she’s sitting in Nursery’s book corner because she has been working in ‘Big School’ this week. She’s been helping to look after Key Worker children that still attend school at some points during the week. As you can see, Nursery is exactly the same; we really hope to be all sat together, listening to stories again soon.
Here are a few questions and things to talk about after you’ve listened to the story.
- What were the girl’s slippers like?
- Can you remember what was on the girl’s ceiling?
- Who do the Paper Dolls meet along the way? (Dinosaur, pigs, tiger, crocodile, a boy)
- What do the Paper Dolls say to all of the animals/people they meet?
- Can you think of another story where the character says “You can’t catch me…”?
- What did the boy do to the Paper Dolls? How do you think the little girl felt?
- Can you pick out any of the rhyming words in the story?
If you enjoyed the story and would like to do a few activities, here are a couple of ideas to get you started.
- You could try to make your own paper dolls at home. Here is a link to a template or you could experiment with the traditional way of folding paper like Julia Donaldson talks about here. Send us a picture of all of your attempts!
- When you’ve cut out your dolls, draw faces on them and colour in their clothes. What would you name them?
- Can you make up a story together about an adventure for your dolls? Where would they go? Who would they meet? What might happen?
- Talk about memories. Parents/carers – What happy memories do you have from your childhood? Did you have a favourite toy? You could call a relative and ask them what they liked to play with as a child.
Home Learning
We hope that you enjoyed reading ‘Simon Sock’ this week. Did you help to sort the socks into pairs at home? We hope so!
Please remember, our ideas are just suggestions and there are many different ways to learn at home together. Children in Nursery learn through play. Baking, painting, jig-saws, role play, physical games outside, playdough, building Lego models, singing songs and reading stories are all activities that involve lots of opportunities for children to learn and develop skills included in the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum. ‘Learning’ for Nursery children does not have to include children being sat at a table practising letters and counting, although your child may also enjoy this. We know that it can be very hard juggling work commitments and learning from home with other children in the house as well. Mrs Long, as well as others, has two young children at home. It can be hard! Keep talking to each other, read, have fun and play together as much as you can.
Here are some of the photos that you have emailed of your learning. Some are ‘Simon Sock’ activities and others are things that children have been interested in at home.
Let’s go to the Dough disco!
At Nursery, the children love dough disco! Its great fun and helps to develop the muscles needed for an effective pencil grip. We enjoy joining in with this disco song at Nursery sometimes and there is also a YouTube channel devoted to daily dough disco routines.
To take part you will need a small ball of dough each. This can be commercially available dough or you could make a batch with your child, it’s easy…
Dough recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup of flour
- ¼ cup of salt
- 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil
- Food colouring (optional)
How to make
- Add the flour to a bowl.
- Mix together the food colouring and water in a separate bowl.
- Mix the two bowls together add more flour if it gets sticky.
- Add the vegetable oil at the end.
- Store in an airtight container.
Then you are ready to go. Happy dancing!
School places September 2020
Accepting your school place for September 2020
Our older Nursery children, who are due to start school in September 2020, will have received their offer of a school place last week. We hope that everyone is happy with their offer and that you were allocated your first choice. Please remember to read the offer information carefully. You MUST contact your child’s allocated school to accept the offer, should you wish to take the place.
If your child has been allocated Scholes (Elmet) Primary School, please contact school to accept your child’s place using the office’s email –[email protected]
School has already sent an email to welcome parents/carers, so please check your inbox and reply with the details requested as soon as possible. Thank you.
Simon Sock
We hope you enjoyed your Easter break. Ferdie had a great time playing in the sunshine and ate lots of Easter eggs!
This week, we will be thinking about the story Simon Sock by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet . We were lucky enough to all get a free book via the Book Trust this year. Some children received a book called Simon sock. If you got a copy share it with your child, if you didn’t, follow the link to the story.
Talk about the story. How many socks for different occasions do you have? Why is it alright to be friends with someone who doesn’t look like you?
Here are some activities that you can try that are linked to the story.
Sorting activity – get some socks and then sort them into pairs. What patterns can you see? Which socks are big and which are small? Can you sort your socks into pairs? Can you make a pattern with your socks black, white, black, white?
Mark making activity – draw a sock shape or cut one out for your child. Let them design their own pattern on it. Use lots of different colours to create a stripy pattern or a spotty pattern
Creative activity – use an old or odd sock to make a puppet. Draw eye shapes and stick them on with glue or sellotape. Add any other decorations that you have around your house.
Working on our muscles for writing – make a small washing line with wool, string or thread. Tie it between 2 chairs, at a height that your child can reach. Using some household pegs ask your child to peg their socks onto the line.
Maths activities with socks – make a pile of socks. Can you ask your child to give you 4 socks from the pile? Choose any number below 5 see how they get on then extend to 10. Split a pile of socks (maximum of 10) into 2 piles. Ask your child to count how many socks there are altogether eg 3 in one pile and 4 in another. Change the amount each time.
Self – care – teach your child how to put their socks and shoes on independently. This is a skill that they will need when they arrive in Foundation 2 in September. Taking the time now will really help your child when dressing on their own after PE in September.
Let us know how you get on by replying to the email address [email protected]. We would love to hear about what you have been doing. Also we are happy to answer any of your questions too.
We’ll post again on Wednesday and Friday this week, so remember to check in again soon. Have fun!
Five Star Sports LIVE sessions
Five Star Sports regularly come into school to deliver fabulous sporty sessions. They are running some LIVE sessions on Facebook for you to join in with. There is a Monday session for younger children and Saturday morning football sessions. Join in and keep active with them.
Easter activities
Happy Easter! We know that it’s the Easter break, but in these unprecedented times we thought that we’d continue to post some ideas of activities that you can do at home, if you choose to do so. Some of these are Easter related and others are ideas that you can continue after the Easter break.
This will be the only post for the two week Easter holidays. During this time, you can still email your child’s class teacher, although they may not respond as quickly as they have been doing
The most important message this Easter is to have fun as a family. Read together, play outside, bake, garden, watch a movie, sing and dance. Make the most of this time together.
Easter Holiday ideas
Here are some links to a CBeebies programme called “Let’s celebrate”. It shows children celebrating Easter along with a child friendly reference to the Easter Story.
Watch the CBeebies Easter programmes -Talk about what you watch with your child. Have you done any of the things that Toby has done to prepare for Easter? Have you seen any baby animals? See if your child can remember the names of the young animals from two weeks ago. Have you seen any spring flowers in the garden? Talk about their names and colours. Can the children remember painting the daffodils for their Mother’s Day cards?
Here are some activities that you may like to try over the Easter holidays.
Make an Easter egg picture – Cut out some egg shapes from paper and ask your child to decorate it. The patterns we use in Nursery for mark making are zigzag patterns, wave patterns, horizontal lines, vertical lines and circles.
Easter egg hunt – Can your child help you to think of some clues for the Easter egg hunt? Can you write their instructions for the rest of the family?
Decorate an egg – Make a hard-boiled egg and allow it to cool down. Ask your child to decorate it using coloured pens. Use a slide or create a ramp with a large box propped against a chair. Whose egg rolls the furthest?
Counting eggs – Sing ‘Hickety Pickety my red hen‘ song together. Count the eggs as they hatch. Count carefully counting to each egg as it pops.
Counting ducks – We enjoy singing the ‘5 Little Ducks‘ song at Nursery. Each time a duck is lost, count how many are left. Use each finger to represent a duck.
As always, stay safe and have fun. Let’s hope that the sun shines!