Merry Christmas Everyone!
We have had a wonderful and very busy last week of term. From sing a longs to a visit from Santa we have had it all! We were all so proud of the children this week, they sang and performed so well on Monday and Tuesday. We hope you enjoyed it.
Here are some photographs of all of our Christmas celebrations – what a week it has been!
Please don’t forget to send us some photographs of your Christmas celebrations with family or of an exciting day out that you enjoy. We will share these photos during group time in the first week back in January; they’ll be a great way of starting our conversations. Here is a reminder of the email address for your photos
scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
We return to Nursery on Monday 06 January.
We hope that you all have a Happy and Healthy Christmas, see you all in the New Year!
Christmas is coming!
We had such a busy week learning the songs and rehearsing for our Christmas sing a long. We can’t wait to share it with you on Monday and Tuesday and hope you enjoy watching.
We’ve enhanced many of our areas of provision to provide lots of opportunities to learn about Christmas and talk about the traditions that some families join in with at this time of year. Here are a few photos from this week. You can see that we have been very busy…
- Using our fine motor skills to decorate the Christmas trees using tweezers.
- Using our number skills to count the decorations on the trees.
- Making paper chains, it took lots of concentration to thread the paper carefully.
- Wrapping presents in the Elf workshop.
- Making Christmas cards for our families.
- Exploring our sensory Christmas scene.
Next week:
We will consolidate the letter sounds that we have learnt so far – s, a, t, p, i and n.
Help at home: In group time, our sound bag had lots of ‘n’ objects including a nest, a net and a nurse. What can you find around the house that begins with the ‘n’ sound? What other ‘n’ objects could we have put in our sound bag?
Reminders:
- Our Early Years Christmas Sing a Long will take place on Monday 16 December at 1.30 – 2.15pm and on Tuesday 19 December at 9.45 – 10.30am.
- Our ‘Stay and Decorate‘ sessions take place next week on Wednesday 18 December 9.00- 9.45am or 2.00 -2.45 pm and Thursday 19 December 9.00-9.45am. We can’t wait to welcome you all.
- Our Nursery Party is on Friday 20 December from 10-11.15am. Children can attend Nursery wearing their party clothes. Please remember that we will still take part in Nursery activities (which can be messy) and we’ll also be outside so footwear needs to be sensible.
Stick Man
We’ve started to get festive in Nursery this week. We all helped to put up the Christmas tree, we hope that you like it!
We made paper chains to decorate nursery, it was a bit tricky to thread them together but we did it.
In the home corner, children enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree and re-creating some experiences from home.
We’ve enjoyed listening to Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and helping to recreate it using our story props. The children loved exploring our Christmas sensory tray, finding objects that “made a noise”, some to “sprinkle”, some that were “soft” and some that were “stretchy”
Outside the children loved decorating our winter trees with baubles and tinsel.
We made Christmas trees in the dough, carefully decorating them.
We’ve also been busy learning our Christmas songs, maybe you’ve been hearing them at home? We can’t wait to sing them at our Christmas sing- a long.
Help at home
Can you find some long and short objects around the house? Which is the longest piece of tinsel on your Christmas tree? Which is the shortest?
Let us know what you find.
Next week’s learning:
We’ll continue with our Christmas themed learning and will find out about the Nativity story.
In maths, we continue to learn about length so will be using the words long, short, longer and shorter to compare different objects.
Nursery rhyme of the week – We’ll be busy learning songs for our sing – a long, so please keep singing your favourite rhymes together at home.
Here is a reminder of the Nursery rhymes we have covered this half term
Wind the Bobbin up.
Hickory Dickory Dock.
1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive.
Twinkle twinkle Little Star.
Sound of the week – N n for net
Open your lips a bit, put your tongue behind your teeth and make a nnnnnn sound.
Reminders:
- Please send your child’s costume to Nursery by Monday 09 December. Remember to write your child’s name on all items of their costume and the bag. Thank you for your support.
- If you haven’t already returned your reply slip for the ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions, please do so this week.
Whatever Next!
This week, we listened to another one of Jill Murphy’s stories about a family of bears, titled ‘Whatever Next’. It’s about a little bear who went on an adventure to the moon in a cardboard box rocket.
This book sparked lots of conversations and interest in space. We watched some real rockets launching and used our small world area to imagine what it would be like on the moon.
Children loved making their own rockets in the creative area using different shaped boxes and bottles. It was quite tricky working out how to attach the different parts together. Some children used PVA glue, some tried a stick of glue and for some things, only Sellotape would hold the parts in place.
We loved singing ‘5 Little men in a flying saucer‘ and counting the aliens in our maths corner.
Outside we developed our throwing skills by “launching” our on foam rockets into space. We counted down for the blast off
10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 BLAST OFF!
Could they reach the planets ?
Next week’s learning:
As space has been such an inspiring theme for the children we have decided to continue this into next week.
We will then look forward to reading ‘Stickman’ by Julia Donaldson in our story times later in the week. If you don’t have a copy of the book at home, you might enjoy watching the BBC animation together.
In maths, we’re learning about length so will be using the words long, short, longer and shorter to compare different objects.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Twinkle, twinkle little star
Sound of the week – i for iguana
Pull your lips back and make the i sound at the back of your mouth i.
Peace at Last
We loved reading ‘Peace at Last‘ this week. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog 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).
We especially enjoyed listening to the sounds that Mr Bear heard during the night and joining in with them BRRRRRRRR, NEEEEEOOOOW, TICK TOCK, SNUFFLE SNUFFLE!
We decided to go on our own listening walk around school. We heard lots of different sounds, diggers in the village playground, cars and buses on the road, teachers voices, doors creaking.
On Tuesday morning we woke up to snow! We had a super day in Nursery exploring our garden. We noticed that all of our wellies had different patterns on the bottom Some had stripes, some had zigzag patterns. Which ones are yours?
We made snowmen and even some snow dinosaurs! It was lots of fun.
We looked at all of the changes in the garden, how the snow had even fallen on the small stalks of the plants.
Help at home: What noises can you hear around your house or in the garden? Go on a listening walk and talk about the sounds you hear. Can you make the sound? If your child has a favourite bedtime story, try adding some sound effects to different parts of the story.
Next week’s learning:
Next week, we’re going to read another of our favourite stories written by Jill Murphy. It’s called ‘Whatever Next‘
Nursery rhyme of the week – 1,2 ,3 ,4 5, Once I caught a fish alive. We’ll also be singing a number rhyme 5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer
Sound of the week –P p (p for penguin)
Bring your lips together push them open and say p, p, p.
Reminders
- We have our Parent Teacher Consultation evenings on Monday and Wednesday. Please check your emails for the Zoom link. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for no technical difficulties!
- The weather has certainly got colder this week. Please make sure that your child has a warm coat, a hat and some gloves to wear every day. We play in our garden throughout winter, so children need to be wrapped up to keep warm and enjoy learning outside in all seasons.
What’s your favourite rhyme?
We always sing lots of rhymes in Nursery, but as it was World Nursery Rhyme Week, we sang even more than usual! Nursery rhymes are a great way to increase children’s awareness of rhyming, which is a key part of phonological awareness.
Research has shown that children who learn nursery rhymes go on to become better readers. This is only true when they learn these rhymes with an adult – please avoid only letting your child watch nursery rhymes on screens as it doesn’t have the same impact.
This week, lots of our areas of provision were linked to popular rhymes. We used our fine motor skills to Wind the Bobbin Up. Incy Wincy Spider was washed down the spout in the water tray and we created our own spiders remembering to count their legs carefully.
Currant buns with cherries on the top were on the menu in the playdough area.
Outside we made lots of cups of tea, pouring carefully so that we didn’t spill any tea. We enjoyed using lots of different sized teapots.
As always in Nursery we follow children’s interests. Fire engines and fire fighters has been an interest that started after Bonfire Night. We have found out about firefighters using our small world area. This week we helped to put out some “fires” of our own using water sprays. It was great fun and also helped to strengthen the muscles in our fingers. This finger exercise develops the muscles needed to hold a pencil.
Help at home
Here’s a link to lots of popular Nursery Rhymes – pick your favourite to sing along at home, or find a new one to learn together.
Top tip -Leave gaps at the end of the line for the children to complete the rhyme, for example ” Hickory, Hickory dock, the mouse ran up the ……..”
What’s your child’s favourite rhyme?
Send us an email to let us know and we’ll make sure we sing it in Nursery. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Reminders
Don’t forget to book an appointment for our Parent Teacher Consultations, you will have received a message about this. On this occasion it is via zoom, next time it will be in person.
Next week, we’re going to read ‘Peace at Last’ by Jill Murphy. In the story Mr Bear hears lots of sounds in his house and he can’t get to sleep. We’ll continue with our Phase 1 phonics learning, listening for environmental sounds around us and we’ll talk about ‘night time’.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Hickory Dickory Dock
Sound of the week – Tt – tiger
Open your lips; put the tip of your
tongue behind your teeth and press
t t t
Colours in the sky.
The children were very excited when they returned to Nursery, sharing their experiences of Halloween with their friends. There was a lot of talk about witches, bat costumes and skeletons.
We began the week finding out about Diwali, the festival of lights. We watched some short video clips to find out about how some people prepare for Diwali and enjoy celebrating with family. We learnt about rangoli patterns and diva lamps.
In the dough area, we decided to make own Diva lamps by rolling a ball and pushing our thumbs into it to make a ‘thumb pot’. We added patterns with the tools and put a candle inside. We created some rangoli patterns too by following patterns with jewels and gems.
Wednesday was Bonfire Night, the children played with the bonfire themed small world area adding the sounds of the fireworks to their play. “whoosh, bang, zoom, whizz”
Along with hearing lots of different sounds the children had seen lots of bright colours in the night sky. They used spinners to make firework pictures, the faster it spun the bigger the splash ! At group time we used chalks to create the Bonfire Night sky.
As part of our phonics learning, we’ve introduced the letter ‘s’ this week. We took turns to pull some objects out of a bag that all started with the letter ‘s’ We talked about the ‘s’ sound that we could hear at the start of each word. In Nursery, we focus on our listening skills. We’re not learning about letter formation just yet.
We show the children this picture card and use this pronunciation phrase. You could try this at home.
Show your teeth and let the s hiss out sssssss sssssss
Help at home: What can you find at home that begins with the letter ‘s’? Go on a sound hunt together and look for some. Let us know what you find.
Reminders
- It’s “Odd Socks Day” on Tuesday so wear odd socks to Nursery for the day
- It’s Children in Need on Friday and it’s a non-uniform day. Please remember it will be a usual Nursery day, so please dress your child in clothes that are appropriate for outdoor and messy play.
Next week
It’s World Nursery Rhyme Week so instead of our usual Nursery Rhyme of the week our provision will be Nursery Rhyme themed. We’ll be singing lots of our favourite rhymes. If you’d like to send us an email with your child’s favourite rhyme and we’ll try to sing it at Nursery next week. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Sound of the week – Aa for astronaut and apple
Open your mouth wide and make the a sound at the back of your mouth a a a
Is there room on the broom?
We’ve enjoyed re-telling the story in the book corner using props and puppets, joining in with the repeated refrains “…and whoosh they were gone!” In group time, we drew patterns on the witch’s hat and we had to use our listening ears to listen carefully to the description and animal noises to work out who was hiding from the story. Was it the cat, dog, frog or bird?
In the sensory area, we loved exploring the inside of some pumpkins. We added some sticky spaghetti worms too, they were ” gooey”
Outside, children loved searching around the garden to find all of the hidden characters and props from the story. Where was the broomstick hiding?
Have a look at some of the other activities from this week.
When we return to Nursery on Monday 04 November, we’ll re-cap on the story before we begin to think about Bonfire night.
Reminders
Please send any photos of your half term adventures to our email address scholesnursery@spherefederation.org. We can share them at group time.
Our Nursery coffee morning is on Tuesday 05 November at 9am.Come and join us to meet other nursery parents In the Hub.
Have a happy and healthy half term.
Nursery Coffee Morning
Please join us at 9am on Tuesday 5 November for our Nursery coffee morning. It’s a great chance to chat to other Nursery parents and carers. After you’ve dropped your child off at Nursery, make your way to the Hub. We hope to see you there!
Applications for Reception 2025
Applications for a Reception place for September 2025 can be made from 01 November 2024 until 15 January 2025. Guidance on applications can be found on Leeds City Council’s You Tube video
A quick guide to school admissions
If you’d like to come and look around our school, the next open sessions are on Thursday 14 November at 1.30pm and Friday 29 November at 9.30am. No need to book just turn up!
Please remember that you still need to apply for a Reception place even if your child attends Scholes (Elmet) Nursery.