Our First Lunchtime and Exploring Outside
This week, many of the children have stayed for their first lunch time and full day; we’re really proud of how well they did. They all sat down together to eat in the nursery dining room and tried tasty school meals or their own packed lunch.
As children have become more settled in Nursery, we’ve gradually been introducing them to our nursery routines. We now know that when we hear “3,2,1, Stop!” we need to empty our hands, have a silent voice and to stop and look at the person who is speaking. The children have been learning how to use all of our labels, pictures and templates to help tidy toys away into the right places and we’re beginning to form a line when going to play outside.
We have been very busy this week enjoying the September sunshine . Some of our favourite outdoor activities have been –
- rolling balls and cars down ramps
- sweeping the leaves
- chalking patterns and pictures
- singing and playing instruments
- developing our climbing and balancing skills on our new playground equipment
- baking in the mud kitchen
Each week we will be suggesting ways that you can support your child at home. This week involves a favourite rhyme.
Help at home – Can you sing the ” Wheels on the bus” nursery rhyme? Can you remember all of the actions? The Wheels on the Bus
Next week we will be reading our first focus story ” The Three Little Pigs”. We will be using story props to retell the story. The Three Little Pigs
Settling in and making friends.
What a busy and exciting week we have had at nursery. Our returning children came back looking much taller than before the holidays, then we welcomed some new friends to our “stay and play “sessions. Their grown ups came too, to join in with all of the fun activities.
This week we have been busy helping the children to settle into their new environment. It can take quite some time to remember where everything is but the children are doing so well. They have been exploring all of the nursery provision, from building in the construction site to pouring the colourful rice in the sensory area. We have had lots of fun!
We are working hard to find out what everyone enjoys playing. You can help us with this by adding a note to your child’s photo on our “What makes us tick” board. Whether its diggers or dancing to Mama Mia, we want to know. Ask your child’s key person for more details.
A few reminders
Please name your child’s indoor shoes, We have a number of identical pairs this year.
Please clearly name your child’s water bottle.
Don’t forget to register for your child’s milk with the dairy ( details in your welcome pack)
Please return the ” All about me” sheet – another way we can get to know lots about your child.
Welcome to Nursery
We’ve been busy this week meeting some of our new children at their home visits. It has been lovely finding out about you all and what you like to do. We’re looking forward to getting to know you more when we welcome you to Nursery next week.
We’ve also been getting Nursery ready for the new school year, we can’t wait to show you around. We’ve tried to make sure that there’s something for everyone to enjoy- including some of your favourite things that you told us about on home visits. We’ve got Paw Patrol, fairies, dinosaurs, diggers, The Gruffalo and our bikes ready for you to come and play. Where will you play? See you soon!
A few reminders from Home Visits.
What your child will need every day.
- A waterproof coat ( named)
- A pair of wellies ( named)
- A change of clothes ( top, trousers/ leggings, underwear, socks)
- A filled water bottle ( named)
Happy holidays!
We say it every year, but we can’t quite believe it’s already the end of term! Thank you for all of your kind words, cards and gifts this week. We hope that you all have a great Summer holiday and we’ll look forward to seeing some of you in Nursery in September and some of you, next door in Reception! We’d also like to say good bye to those children that are moving to other schools – we hope that you love your new school and make lots of new friends.
Staying safe
Staying safe
As part of our learning about ‘Staying safe’, some children joined an online assembly hosted by Yorkshire Water all about water safety. Children listened really carefully to the safety messages and were great at spotting potential dangers near lakes and canals.
We also learnt all about how to stay safe when visiting a beach. We know to look for areas that are supervised by lifeguards and which colour flag means that it’s safe to swim.
Help at home: For older children in red, blue and green group – Talk to your child about what they remember from the assembly. Can they remember what the different flags mean on the beach? What does a red flag show? Which colour flag means it’s safe to swim?
During group time, we looked at other ways to stay safe around our homes and when we’re at school. We sorted some pictures into ‘safe’ and ‘not safe’ and talked about our reasons. Children quickly identified dangerous activities at a playground and knew lots of ways to stay safe when crossing a road. We also talked about being with an adult when helping to cook and remembering to stay away from hot cooker hobs and sharp knives.
Pirates
When playing in Nursery this week, children have loved drawing treasure maps! We used a map during group time to hide some treasure. Children had to carefully follow instructions using positional language. The favourite places were on top of the volcano and behind the mermaid.
The construction area has also been a hive of activity and creativity. Children have worked together to build tall towers and a big bus for their trip to a dinosaur museum!
Outside, we joined in with some dance routines where children had to put together a sequence of movements to their favourite song.
Children also loved using pipettes and playing with the frogs in the ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs’ water tray and working with their friends to create a very long ramp! After the stormy weather, there were a lot of little apples on the floor that children enjoyed collecting and rolling down the guttering.
Reminders
On Wednesday 17 July, it’s our Nursery party. Please see the letter that we sent last week for more details. Children can wear summery clothes, but remember that footwear needs to be safe for them to run and play outside in.
The end of term is rapidly approaching! Remember to take all of your child’s belongings (including bags and wellies) home with them at the end of their last session in Nursery.
Ahoy there!
Children enjoyed listening to ‘Pirates Love Underpants‘ and we’ve been busy digging for treasure in the sand tray and counting gold coins in the maths area.
During maths group times, we’re learning about positional language. Next week, we’re going to use treasure maps of the Nursery garden to find some treasure. Children will need to use lots of positional language to describe where the treasure is hidden. For example, the treasure might be next to the sandpit, underneath the bridge, behind the planter or on top of the bird table.
Help at home: Try to use positional language in your day to day conversations and during play. For example -Can you put your teddy underneath the box? The car is behind the garage. The monkey is on top of the tree. Put your shoes next to the cupboard. As you look at illustrations in a story, ask questions such as ‘Where is the cat hiding?’ or ‘What can you see in front of the fence?’
The older children have also been busy visiting Reception and have enjoyed exploring and playing in their new classrooms. We’ll continue to visit over the final few weeks as part of our transition process.
Reminders-
- Please send your child with a waterproof coat everyday. The weather is very mixed at the moment and we enjoy playing out in all weather, even when it’s warm but wet!
- A few water bottles have missing names. Please take a minute to re-label your child’s bottle if it has come off.
Obstacle courses
One of the Prime Areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage is Physical development. Throughout the year, children have been developing their movement and balancing skills in a variety of ways. This week, we enjoyed taking part in an obstacle course. They balanced along the beams and walked across the wobble boards, trying carefully not to fall off.
At the end of the course, children showed us that they could balance on one leg without wobbling!
Next week’s learning
Following on from our learning about the seaside, we’re going to listen to ‘Pirates love underpants!’ next 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’re sure you can imagine the role play that this will inspire… Look out for treasure maps in children’s folders soon!
Nursery rhyme of the week – Jack and Jill
Phonics – Children in Red, Blue and Green group will be playing games to practise some key phonics skills including:
- identifying initial sounds in words (playing I-Spy type games)
- segmenting and blending words orally (e.g. h-a-t and b-u-s)
- spotting rhyming words
Sun, sun, sun!
As the weather is set to be warm this week, here are a few reminders from our previous communications.
Sun safe reminders
- Bring a named sunhat every day.
- Ensure your child has a water bottle (named).
- Parents and carers must apply cream before nursery.
- Please put your child’s name on their sun cream.
- Put sun cream in your child’s group basket if you want it applying at lunchtime. Please don’t leave it in their bag.
- Collect your child’s sun cream at the end of the day.
- Help us out by using ‘All day’ cream and applying at home.
Sharing a Shell
During story time this week, we read ‘Sharing a Shell‘ by Julia Donadlson. We talked about trips to the seaside and some of the things that we’d found on the beach.
Seaside photographs
Thank you to everyone that has sent in a seaside photograph so far. It’s not too late if you’d like to email us one photograph of your child at the seaside – we’ll look at them during snack time and talk about our favourite things to do on the beach.
Children have enjoyed exploring shells and sorting them into different shapes and sizes. We painted some large scallop shells and also used wax crayons to rub over paper placed over the top of shells. Children noticed the patterns and stripes of the shell as they rubbed over the shell.
In maths, we’ve been learning about capacity. We’ve been talking about when something is ‘full’ or ’empty’.
Help at home: Use these words together at home when you’re playing, in the bath or cooking. Is it full or empty? How do you know?
Next week’s learning
We’ll continue with our sea side theme and will listen to ‘Commotion in the Ocean‘ at story time to find out about different sea creatures.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Ring a ring a roses
Phonics – Children in Red, Blue and Green group are re-visiting all of the sounds they have learnt this year and will be playing games to practise some key phonics skills including:
- identifying initial sounds in words (playing I-Spy type games)
- segmenting and blending words orally (e.g. h-a-t and b-u-s)
- spotting rhyming words
Hot and Cold countries
Following on from our discussions about journeys and holidays, this week, we looked at some photographs of hot and cold countries. We talked about the weather and thought about which animals live in hot places and which live in colder areas.
We used the animal stencils in the mark making area; it was quite tricky to hold them and trace around the edge but we persevered! We also enjoyed practising our cutting skills as we cut around different items of clothing to choose which we’d need to pack if we were going to visit a hot or cold place.
In the dough, we rolled long and short snakes and compared their lengths with our friends. In the Creative area, we mixed different shades of blues and thought about which colours remind us of hot and cold things. Finally, in the sensory area, children loved playing with the penguins and polar bears in the ice.
Next week’s learning
We’ll read ‘Sharing a Shell‘ and talk about our trips to the seaside. If you’ve been to the beach recently, please email us a photograph to share at snack time over the next few weeks. Thank you.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Row, row, row your boat
Phonics – We continue to learn about rhyming words. Can you think of any words that rhyme with cat?