Home Link – Is there Room on the Broom?
After the Halloween Disco on Friday, we’re sure that children will be talking about witches, wizards and pumpkins next week! We have created a new small world area in the Rainbow Room based on one of our favourite stories, ‘Room on the Broom’. For this week’s Home Link activity, please enjoy reading the story at home together. If you don’t have a copy, you could visit the library or watch a video clip of the story online.
Talk about the story together. What’s your favourite part?
If you’re feeling creative, there are a few fun activities on the Julia Donaldson website; you could make your own mini broomstick, wand or bake some magic star biscuits.
Twit Twoo!
Children were keen to learn about our feathery friends this week. We listened to many stories about owls and enjoyed re-telling ‘Owl Babies’ in our small world area. Some children were beginning to join in with the repeated refrains in the story, especially the phrase “I want my mummy!” We used this story to talk about missing our own family whilst learning at Nursery. Being able to separate from a carer and talking about family is part of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. It is included in the prime area Personal, Social, Emotional Development and is part of Understanding the World.
We’ve been creative with loose parts this week too; children have enjoyed creating owl faces both inside and outside. In the creative area, children really concentrated for extended periods of time carefully whilst carefully selecting the dried peas, lentils and pasta to create owls with eyes and beaks. This was a very fiddly activity and was a great way to help children practise using a pincer grip.
Outside, we collected autumn leaves and twigs and used the contents of our autumn bags to create larger pictures on the floor. Some children helped to make an owl with large sticks for wings and leaves for feathers and another child created Santa. If you look carefully, you will be able to see his eyes and a beard of leaves and conkers!
Following other interests this week, we moved some wild animals to our sensory area where they are now happily stomping in ‘mud’ (cornflour gloop). Children were intrigued by the texture and feel of the mud. It was cold and wet but could also be runny. It took some children a while to explore, dipping in a finger at first and then their whole hands!
Reminders
- Friday (25.10.19) is a training day so school, including Nursery, will be closed.
- Please sign up for a Parent’s consultation appointment if you haven’t already.
Harvest assembly
We were amazed at how much food and toiletries we managed to collect for St George’s Crypt. Thank you for your contribution.
Welcome back, Miss Pennock!
Some of you will have spotted that we had a new face in nursery this week; we’re pleased to welcome Miss Pennock back to school following her maternity leave. She will be Key Person, along with Miss Logan, for children in green group.
Miss Pennock enjoyed getting to know everybody and was very quick to learn lots of children’s names. Children were very friendly and have already welcomed her to our team.
Hoot hoot and roaaaar!
As we have previously posted, we’re always looking to follow children’s interests in Nursery as children learn best when they are engaged. We seem to have lots of children that like ‘owls’ at the moment so we’re looking forward to developing this interest further. Next week, we will read some owl stories, including ‘Owl Babies’ and learn more about nocturnal animals. Watch this space to see what the children enjoy and where our learning takes us!
Children also continue to love playing with the jungle animals in our small world area and like to sing and move to ‘Walking through the jungle‘ in our movement area.
Reminders
- Now that transition sessions have finished, children must arrive at Nursery before 9am. If you arrive after 9am, please go to the main school office to be registered. Thank you for your cooperation.
- Please put NAMES in shoes, wellies and coats (and everything else that can me taken off!). We have a few children with the same shoes and it is very difficult trying to match them to the correct owner! Thank you
- Look out for the Parent/Carer consultation evening appointments. Please sign up for a convenient time to meet us.
- We often buy small things to enhance our Nursery provision (eg pumpkins, playdough/baking ingredients) that the school budget doesn’t provide. If you are able to help out, please contribute 50p-£1 to our Nursery funds money box when you can. All donations are very gratefully received.
Autumn bags
So far this week, we’ve been enjoying talking about the contents of children’s autumn bags. Thank you to everyone who has returned them already. Don’t worry if you haven’t had chance to fill them yet, there’s still time! Please bring them to Nursery when they’re full.
Children have enjoyed telling us all about the things they have collected and where they found them. It sounds like lots of you have had fun visiting local parks or looking for autumn things on the walk to Nursery. We’ve heard some good descriptive language (shiny, spiky, smooth) and the conkers are providing endless opportunities to talk about size. We love to line them up in size order!
Outside, some children helped to harvest our (mini!) carrots and we enjoyed eating them at snack time. We have also noticed that many children are interested in ‘rolling’ objects at the moment. To facilitate this, we created a conker drop game outside. It was great fun trying to roll the conkers into pots at the bottom. We carefully counted how many we managed to get in to each pot at the end.
Autumn Home Link
This week, you’ll have found a brown paper bag in your child’s folder.
Please fill it with ‘Autumn treasure’ (coloured leaves, conkers, acorns etc..) and return it to Nursery. Talk to your child about what they find (colours, textures, different sizes) and about the changes they can see happening to the trees.
We’ll talk about the contents of their bags and share their treasures with friends. They’ve been really interested in our autumn discovery area this week; we’re sure that they’ll enjoy adding their own items to it.
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
This story continues to be popular with children this week. They love listening to Michael Rosen telling the story and we have been going on lots of Bear Hunts outside too.
Today, we took advantage of the sunshine and created our own Bear Hunt through the grass, forest, mud, river and snow. To help us to feel the different textures, we took our shoes and socks off.
Some children weren’t sure at first but they soon got used to the squelching and loved it! We heard lots of descriptive vocabulary as they made their way along the path.
A very wet Tuesday
We had a great time outside in the rain today. We put our waterproof trousers and jackets on and ventured out into the very wet weather. Children enjoyed using powder paints to mix colours on the floor; it was interesting to see the colours running together on the playground and into the puddles. They painted lots of patterns on the floor using brushes. Giant mark making is great for developing muscles in the shoulders and arms; all of which are essential for writing as children get older. (It helps that it’s fun too!)
We also spotted that our wellington boots were leaving footprints in the paint and mud. Can you see the different shapes and patterns on the soles of the footprints we made?
Rain, rain, rain!
Please remember to send your child with a waterproof coat and some wellies this week.
Thank you