Slippery slime and tiny tadpoles
We’ve had a great start to the week. On Monday morning, children helped Miss Backhouse to follow some instructions for how to make slime. They helped to measure out a cup of glue, a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, a tablespoon of a special ingredient and a splash of colour and they mixed them all together in a bowl. The result was a bowl full of colourful slime! It provided lots of opportunities to talk about its texture and properties. Some children realised that they could stretch it and stretch it and stretch it… We talked about the length of their ‘slime worms’ and compared them to find out which was the longest and shortest worm.
If you’d like to make some at home, follow the recipe that we used.
On Tuesday morning, some children noticed that there was a new tank on display in the Quiet room. After closer investigation, they could see that it contained a jelly-like substance and some tiny ‘fish’. We talked about what was in the tank and used some non-fiction books to find out more information. Children were very excited to discover that they’re not tiny fish, but tadpoles! We’re looking forward to learning all about the life cycle of a frog and watching the tadpoles grow and change over the next few weeks.
Home Link – ‘r’ sound
This week we are going to be learning about the ‘r’ sound.
Here is a link to the Jolly Phonics song that we will be singing to in Nursery. We sometimes watch Geraldine Giraffe video clips, too. Geraldine likes to find things in the house that begin with the letter…
Can you find things in your home and environment that begin with ‘r’?
If you have something that begins with ‘r’, that you’re happy to send in, please put your child’s name on it and bring it to nursery for our sound shelf. Alternatively, you could draw a picture or take a photograph of it.
Mischievous Bunnies
Week 1 – welcome back!
It was great to see so many happy faces returning to nursery after the Easter holidays. We hope you had lots of fun; we heard all about Easter egg hunts, visits to the cinema and trips to the seaside and farms. Unfortunately, as Mrs Long wasn’t very well before the holidays, some Parent Consultation Meetings had to be cancelled. Please sign up for a new one this week, if you haven’t already. Appointments before and after nursery are available on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Please speak to Mrs Long if you’re unable to find a suitable time. It’s a good opportunity for us to discuss with you how your child is progressing in nursery and for you to look through their Learning Journey. For those children moving to Foundation Two in September, we’ll share with you some of the targets that well work towards for the rest of the year.
Here are a few photographs of our Easter fun in nursery before the holidays. Children enjoyed tasting hot cross buns, making Easter nests and cards, going on an Easter egg hunt in our garden. The highlight of the term was definitely seeing the chicks hatching and holding them!
This week, we’ve enjoyed talking to children about the holidays and finding out what their new fascinations are. Thank you for all of your emails with photographs and details of your holidays. Remember, our email is scholesf1@spherefederation.org if you haven’t had chance to send us any yet. We also like to hear about your child’s Wow! moments, too; these could be small or large achievements at home such as fastening a zip by themselves, learning to ride a bike or recognising a letter/number in the environment. Basically, anything that you may suddenly think…Wow! I didn’t know they could do that!
We loved seeing the sunshine this week! Outside was a hive of activity; children were busy making campfires to toast marshmallows (after a few children had a trip to This Green Moon’s Easter event) and using puppets to re-create the Mimika ‘Landscapes’ theatre show that some children were lucky enough to watch this week. There was also a lot of excitement around a certain film involving a rather mischievous bunny…
Week 2 – What are we learning this week?
As part of our continuing theme of ‘Spring’, we’ll learn about Peter Rabbit and his friends. Children are already busy learning how to look after animals in our new vet role play area and we’re finding out how plants grow so that we can have a vegetable patch just like Mr McGregor. We’ll read some of the traditional stories written by the famous author, Beatrix Potter and we may even have a visit from a furry, four-legged friend. Please let us know if you do not wish your child to take part in handling/stroking the rabbit.
Sun, sun, sun!
Welcome back to Nursery! It was lovely to see so many happy, smiling faces on Monday morning and to find out about your Easter holiday adventures.
It’s also great to finally see some sunshine. Hooray! Please can you make sure you send your child with a sun hat and water bottle and apply ‘Once’ sun cream in the morning if necessary. Please check your child’s folder this week for a letter regarding sun cream application in Nursery.
Meet our newest members of nursery…
We’re quite sure that you’ll have heard already, but just in case your child hasn’t mentioned it yet, the chicks have started to hatch! We currently have four chicks in nursery and the children were really excited today and couldn’t wait to see them.
Tap, tap, tap…. crack!
There has been a lot of excitement in nursery today: two of the eggs have started to crack!
Children were able to see a tiny hole this morning and when we looked again at the end of the day, it had got bigger. We listened carefully and could hear the chicks chirping and cheeping inside. One of the eggs wobbled as the chick moved around inside.
We can’t wait to see if they’ve managed to break free from their shells and have fully hatched on Wednesday morning! Watch this space…
Doctors, shapes and rainy day games!
As we expected, our Doctors surgery has been extremely busy and it has been very tricky to make an appointment! The children have impressed staff with their knowledge; they recognise lots of the equipment that doctors and nurses use and they have used it appropriately in their role play. It has been great to see children cooperating, taking turns and taking on the role of a doctor, nurse or patient to recreate familiar scenarios of their visits to the doctors.
We continued learning about shapes on a ‘Shape hunt’ around school. There were lots of familiar shapes in the environment and children are beginning to talk about some of their properties (such as the number of sides, round/curved sides). Towards the end of the week, the wet weather made it quite tricky to go outside so we turned to some more traditional ‘rainy day’ games to have fun! A group of children worked together to invent their own game, rolling a ball backwards and forwards to each other.
It’s the final countdown! We all have our fingers crossed and are really hoping that we might hear some tapping and cracking noises coming from the incubator during the middle of next week. As you can imagine, the children are very excited and are always asking questions about the eggs. This week, we tried to answer the question “Why are the chicks in water (in the shell)?” We used a little yellow chick, a bag of water and a plastic egg to try and work out the answer.
Week 5 – What are we learning this week?
This week, we’ll be learning all about eggs and chicks! We will…
- Learn about the life cycle of a hen and hopefully watch some chicks hatch
- Read the story of ‘Hattie Peck’ and find out about other animals that lay eggs
- Investigate eggs – What’s inside the shell? What do boiled and scrambled eggs look like?
- Practise our counting skills – How many eggs are there in the nest? Which nest has the fewest/most eggs? Can you put __ eggs in the nest?
- Develop our fine motor skills in the Fiddly Fingers area using tongs to pick the chicks out of the nest
Home Link – Easter Songs
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be singing some Easter songs and rhymes. It would be great if you could enjoy singing them at home together too.
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Five Little Chicks (Sung to the tune of Five Little Ducks)
Five little chicks went walking one day,
into the barn and around the hay.
Mother hen says, “Cluck, cluck, cluck, CLACK!”
And four little chicks came wandering back.
Four little chicks…
Three little chicks…
Two little chicks…
One little chick went walking one day,
into the barn and around the hay.
Mother Hen says, “Cluck, cluck, cluck, CLACK!”
And five little chicks came wandering back.
You could use some props whilst singing ‘5 Little Chicks’. Lots of shops sell mini chicks for £1 that you could use. Ask your child to count out 5 and then take one away each time.
Home Link – Shapes
As part of the Maths EYFS curriculum, children need to be able to talk about the shapes of everyday objects. They’re encouraged to play with shapes and to spot familiar shapes in their environment. As they become more confident, they may begin to name 2D and 3D shapes and be able to talk about their properties (e.g. number of sides/corners, straight/curved).
This week, we’d like you to talk all about shapes. Here are some ideas of activities that you might like to do together.
- Go on a Shape hunt inside or outside (e.g. clock – circle). Take photos of the different shapes that you find.
- Make a shape picture. What would be a good shape for a… door, wheel or a fish’s tail?
- Find a selection of objects in the house that you could dip in paint to print with. What shape print does it make?
- Push different shaped objects into playdough – what shape print does it leave? Are there straight lines or curved lines? Are there some lines that are long/short?
- Collect some objects you can find in your house that are 3D shapes, e.g. cereal packet, crisp tubes, boxes of tea, oranges and DVDs. Sort them out into groups of the same shapes. How many objects do you have with corners? How many round objects do you have? How many have curved edges or sides?
- Take part in a shape scavenger hunt. See if you can find: 5 round objects, 4 tall objects, 3 objects with straight sides and 2 objects with more than 4 sides. Take a picture of what you find.
You can watch Mr Maker’s shape video and a song all about shapes.
You may have lots of other ideas too! Please make notes of the vocabulary that your child uses to talk about and describe the shapes that you find and let us know. It’s really useful information that helps us to plan next steps for your child’s learning.
All about shapes
Week 3 – Round, straight, tall… All about shapes!
Thank you to everybody who was able to attend our World Book Day celebrations and for providing some very creative costumes! It was fantastic to see so many people enjoying reading together. The children really enjoy it when you are able to join us in nursery.
This week, children have enjoyed exploring and talking about shapes. We’ve made shape pictures in the maths area, made repeating shape patterns with shape links in the fiddly fingers area and we’ve investigated printing with different shaped objects at the painting table.
What shape is the wheel?
Will it roll?
There was lots of communication, cooperation and problem solving in the Sunshine room on Friday as children worked out how to get the wheels to roll down the ramp without falling off.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve noticed several children have a shared interest in the body and doctors. We’ve had conversations and lots of questions about what’s inside our bodies, we’ve talked about visits to the doctors/hospital and some children enjoyed reading ‘Zog and the Flying Doctors’ for World Book Day. As a result, we’ve decided to follow this interest further and have created a Doctors Surgery in nursery. Providing new role play opportunities is a great way to develop children’s social and communication skills. Doctors role play also helps to encourage empathy between children and it allows them to act out real life situations and be creative!
Week 4 – What are we learning this week?
As the role play area was only created on Friday, we’re sure that this area of nursery will be very busy! We’ll continue to learn about shapes and we’ll go on a shape hunt around school. We’ve also noticed that there are some signs of Spring in our nursery garden (when it’s not covered in snow!) so we’ll begin to talk about Spring time. We’ll continue to practise ‘robot talking’ words and will be learning about the letter letter ‘p’ (as well as the letters – s,a,t,d) in group times.