Sports Week
Week 5 – Sports week
We’ve had a very active week and have continued to talk about different ways to stay fit and healthy. Children loved joining in with Wake-up Shake-up on the KS2 playground and enjoyed visiting the field to watch some of the older children take part in Sport’s Day. In Nursery, we’ve taken part in mini races and learnt how to throw foam javelins. We measured how far we’d thrown them and compared who threw the javelin the furthest. On Tuesday, we were really lucky because a theatre company came to visit. Children were very animated after the show; hopefully they told you all about the giant football and shrinking pink football kit! We also had an unexpected visitor at the end of the week…The Donkey Sanctuary came to school and brought a donkey to meet us.
Week 6 – What are we learning this week?
With the current hot weather and lots of children returning from holidays or about to go on one, there has been a lot of talk in Nursery about trips to the seaside. Next week, we’ll enjoy singing ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’ and will take part in lots of seaside- themed fun. We will:
- Talk about our experiences of the seaside and the associated sights, smells and sounds.
- Create an ice-cream shop role play area and make our own ice lollies (see below)
- Look at the size, shape and texture of shells.
- Investigate real fish.
- Explore what happens when we mix sand and paint.
- Learn about the letter sound ‘v’ for van, ice-cream van!
Fundraising – Ice lollies for sale.
We think the time has come for Ellie and Elvis to retire from active duty in Nursery! Over the last few years, they have visited many homes and are well loved by children. Elvis would like to hand over the role to someone new and has asked for your help. Next week, we will be making ice-lollies and will sell some to Nursery children at the end of the session/day for £1. We will use the funds raised to help Elvis find a replacement so that he can enjoy his retirement, knowing that children in Nursery still have an animal friend to visit. Thank you in advance for your support.
End of Year party
We will have a ‘Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ on the afternoon of Monday 16thJuly. If your child is moving to Reception in September and they don’t attend Nursery on a Monday afternoon, they are welcome to join us from 12.30pm-2.30pm. Please bring them to the Nursery door and sign them in as usual. Please collect them at home time, which is 2.30pm. We will be making sandwiches in the morning and will have a few picnic treats including some fruit and a biscuit. We will provide the picnic food but if you’d like to contribute towards the cost, we will put a money box in the entrance.
Home Link – Being Healthy
This week, we will be talking about how we keep healthy. Talk to your child about all the things they do to keep fit and be healthy.
- Do they go to any sporting activities or clubs?
- You could play some games in the garden together. What happens to your body when you exercise?
- What are your favourite foods? Ask your child to help you prepare a healthy snack.
- Make a chart to see if you can eat your ‘5’ fruit and vegetables every day.
- How do you look after your body? Bath time, cleaning teeth, going to bed early etc.. You could draw a picture of all the things you do to stay happy and healthy.
This week’s letter sound is ‘Jj’ for jumping and jiggling jelly. Please sing along to the Jolly Phonics song at home and look for things beginning with ‘j’.
You could even make some jelly (sugar free, of course!),and talk about how you make it and the changes that occur.
Healthy Eating
Week 4 – Healthy Eating
Children have loved tasting different types of fruits at snack time this week. Some children had never tasted some of the fruits and with a bit of encouragement to try them, they were pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it! Thank you very much for your kind donations. In group times, we talked about healthy eating and how to look after our teeth. Children enjoyed using toothbrushes to clean the ‘teeth’, making sure that they brushed the top and the bottom ones and got into all the gaps.
We were really pleased to see the butterflies had emerged from their cocoons. We looked at the patterns on their wings and talked about symmetry. In our painting area, we made butterfly prints and we used the Smartboard to draw symmetrical patterns.
Children were really excited to be able to release them into the garden and watched them fly away.
It was a very hot week in Nursery, we found lots of ways to try and keep cool. Can you guess what our favourite way was?
Week 5 – What are we learning this week?
There are lots of sports activities happening in school this week. Nursery will join in with some of them and take part in our own sports themed fun. We will:
- Play ‘Sport’s day games’ outside involving running, jumping, throwing and catching.
- Take part in Wake-up Shake-up.
- Talk about how our bodies feel after we have been exercising.
- Think about ways that we try to keep healthy.
- Learn about the letter sound ‘j’ for jumping.
- Play skittles and count how many pins are left standing.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Week 3 – The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Children loved listening to ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ last week; they especially enjoyed re-telling the story using story props in the puppet theatre. We have been monitoring our chrysalis closely, watching for signs of movement. So far, the majority are still hanging safely. On Friday, we saw that one butterfly had already emerged, but sadly, it had a damaged wing. Once we’d looked at it carefully, we decided the best place to let it go would be into the sunshine near some red flowers. Children were really thoughtful and suggested ways that we could try to help it. We decided that we’d become ‘butterfly vets’ and we tried to make it a new wing. Children experimented with mixing blue and yellow powder paints to make different shades of green and used the caterpillar outlines to carefully paint strip caterpillars.
Week 4 – What are we learning this week?
We’re going to continue learning about ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ as this has been really popular. This week, we will talk about the food that the caterpillar ate and decide whether they are healthy or unhealthy. We will sort foods into categories, try some different types of fruit and find out about how to keep our teeth healthy when we do eat sugary foods. Look out for a brown paper bag in your child’s going home folder this week – there are some ‘teeth’ related goodies inside.These have been kindly donated by a member of Nursery – thank you.
Our letter for this week is… ‘f’ for food. Please sing along to the Jolly Phonics song at home and find things that begin with ‘f’ at home.
Home Link – Healthy eating
This week we are going to talk about the different foods that the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate.
– Which foods are healthy?
– Which have lots of sugar in?
We’d love children to be able to try some more unusual fruits, especially ones that we don’t get for snack time in Nursery. If you are able to, please bring in a different fruit for us to taste. For example: plums, kiwi, mango, berries etc..
If you don’t want your child to take part, please speak to Nursery staff.
This week’s letter is ‘f’ for food. What can you find at home that begins with ‘f’? Children love to add their items to our sound shelf, so please feel free to bring them in to Nursery.
Library competition – please vote!
Please vote for Scholes Elmet Primary in the National Book Tokens Competition!
Home Link – week beginning 18th June
We’re going to read ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ this week. The caterpillars in nursery were beginning to make cocoons at the end of last week, so we’re hoping to see some butterflies emerging soon.
Here are few ideas of things that you might like to do at home to support your child’s learning:
- Read ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and talk about the story. What are your favourite types of fruit? Discuss the days of the week. What day is next?
- Paint a picture of a butterfly or make a butterfly print. Talk about the symmetrical pattern on the wings.
- This week we are learning about the letter sound ‘Bb’. What can you find around your house or outside that begins with ‘b’? You could bring it into nursery for our sound shelf.
Ladybirds and bees
Our ladybird and bee activities were popular last week; children especially enjoyed sampling different types of honey and looking at real honeycomb. We talked about how bees make honey and how it is collected from hives. It was lovely to see lots of creative activities throughout the week. Children painted and drew some great pictures of ladybirds with spotty wings and stripy bees. Outside, we used some large rollers to explore painting with different colours and textures. This led to lots of talk about colour mixing as children used the rollers to paint over existing patterns with different colours. At the end of the week, children enjoyed creating a giant race track down the hill using pipes and guttering.
Week 3 – What are we learning this week?
Hopefully, children will have told you that we have some caterpillar visitors in Nursery. Well, we did last week! We’re hoping that they will have been busy making their cocoons over the weekend. This week, we will read one of our favourite stories – ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.
In the maths area, we will make caterpillars with repeating colour patterns and will use loose parts to create caterpillars of different lengths. We’ll learn about symmetry and experiment in the art area with ‘butterfly’ printing and colour mixing to make different shades of green. Our letter sound this week is ‘b’ for butterfly. Please listen to the Jolly Phonics song on-line and sing a long at home together.
Visit this website for a fun caterpillar counting and ordering game or this website for a simple game about symmetry.
Transition to Foundation Two
For those children that will join Foundation Two at Scholes, we have begun our transition activities to help to prepare them for September. Children are getting to know the staff, visiting the classrooms and playground and are beginning to go to assemblies in the hall with the older children. At lunch time, children are learning how to carry their tray carefully to the table without spilling their lunch or dropping their cutlery! They’re doing very well. We’re talking to children positively about the changes ahead and we hope that this will help them to feel happy and secure about the move to ‘Big School’.
Green fingers? Help needed!
Scholes in Bloom judging day is Monday 6 August this year. If you are available and would like to join the effort for gold, please come and collect a plant from Mrs Myers or Mrs Latham. All you need to do is look after it and meet us at the flower bed outside school on judging day at 10am. If you prefer, you could make a ‘scarecrow’ and bring it on the same day. The theme is ‘all creatures great and small’. Hope to see you there!
Home Link – L for ladybird
This week we are learning about the letter sound ‘Ll’.
What can you find around your house or outside that begins with ‘l’?
Please bring something into nursery that begins with L to put on our sound shelf. Remember to put your child’s name on it!