Spider Sandwiches
This week, children have been searching for spiders in Nursery and looking for their webs. We sang Incy Wincy Spider and made spiders in the malleable area using playdough. First, we had to roll a ball to make the body and then we rolled sausage shapes to add on the legs. Some children managed to count 8 legs to put on their spiders!
In the maths area, we sorted spiders by size and counted spiders carefully to match the numeral written on each web. During group time, older children counted spiders and looked at which web had the most/fewest spiders. We also talked about what happened if we had ‘one more’ or ‘one less’ spider on the web. For example: ‘There are 4 spiders on the web, 1 spider runs away. How many will be left? How do you know?’
In our phonics group time, the older children learnt a new sound -V. We looked at some objects and had to listen carefully to the sound that they started with. Can you hear a ‘V’ sound at the beginning of the word? Which is the odd one out?
Help at home:
For children moving into Reception in September, play games like ‘I spy’ where you have to listen carefully to the initial sounds in words. Get three objects, two that begin with the same sound and one that starts with a different sound. Can they spot the odd one out and tell you why? E.g. car, cookie, banana.
For children that are in yellow group and will stay in Nursery next year, begin to listen to sounds around you as you’re out and about. What can children hear in their environment? Can they hear birds singing, a fridge humming, a bell ringing?
Our other learning and interests this week have included:
- Making collages and learning how to join different materials together in the creative area.
- Re-telling one of our favourite stories from earlier in the year, ‘The Gingerbread Man’, with our friends.
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- Throwing small hoops and aiming to get them on the cones. How many did you get on? Who got the most onto the purple cone?
- Drawing patterns and writing our names in the sand.
- And…enjoying some sunny weather!
Next week’s learning:
Have you seen the tadpoles in Nursery? Next week, we’ll learn about the life cycle of a frog and check to see if there have been any changes to our caterpillars. They were VERY big at the end of last week!
Sound of the week – W for wave
Nursery Rhyme of the week – 5 Little Speckled Frogs
Superworm
Whilst the sun did shine a little bit more this week, it was still quite chilly in the nursery garden. We didn’t let that stop us from exploring; we hunted for wriggly worms, slimy slugs and other bugs and we loved being able to access the music area and wobbly bridge now that the ground is a bit drier.
Our story this week was ‘Superworm’ by Julia Donaldson. We looked at some real worms that we found in the garden and talked about where they live. In the maths area, we compared the length of different worms and counted how many long and short ones there were. We continued this learning in the sensory area, counting spaghetti worms that we caught with tongs. In the dough area, children loved rolling dough to make a very long Superworm!
Help at home – Counting objects to 5
We’re working really hard on our counting skills. Here are a few things to remember when your counting together at home.
- Count anything and everything in everyday life! Birds on the fence, coins, biscuits on a plate, apples in the bowl…
- It is often easier to count objects accurately if they are in a line so encourage children to touch/move each object as they count it.
- Ensure that they only say one number for each object as they point to it/touch it.
We also found a snail outside and looked at the spiral patterns on the shell. In the creative area, we drew spirals and circles and made swirly snails in the dough, too.
Our other learning and interests this week have included:
– Using a straw construction set to make masks, flowers and fireworks.
– Working together to create a new Pizza shop role play area. Children drew their favourite pizzas to add to the menu and helped to gather the items that they would need, including making a pizza oven! We’ll share some more photos of our creations next week.
Next week’s learning:
We’ll find out about spiders and enjoy reading ‘Spider Sandwiches’. We’re still watching our caterpillars closely and have noticed how much bigger they are. We may even have some more wriggly visitors coming to Nursery… Can you guess what they could be?
Letter sound of the week – V for volcano
Nursery rhyme of the week – Incy Wincy Spider
Welcome back!
Children returned to Nursery brilliantly this week and settled in happily. We heard all about your Easter holiday trips and visits from the Easter Bunny.
The weather was very mixed this week; we had wind, rain, hail stones and sunshine! Please make sure your child has a waterproof coat everyday as we go outside in all weather.
As well as enjoying an obstacle course, children helped to sow some vegetable seeds.
In maths, we looked at the number five. We know that we have 5 fingers on each hand and we clapped and jumped five times. We looked at objects that are all linked to the number five.
Help at home: Enjoy singing number songs linked to the number 5 together with your child such as 5 Little Ducks, 5 Little men in a flying saucer, 5 Currant Buns or 5 Little Monkeys .
In our story times, we read a very popular story by Eric Carle, called ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and started to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly.
We also had a special delivery in Nursery; children were very excited to find out what was inside the little cardboard box. Inside, we found 5 tiny, spiky caterpillars! We’ve been checking on them everyday, and just like ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, they’re very hungry and are getting bigger and bigger each day.
Children showed an interest in looking for creepy crawlies outside. We found lots of creatures hiding under logs including wood lice, slugs and some very long worms.
Next week’s learning
We’ll continue with the children’s interest in bugs and worms. We’ll read Superworm and learn all about wriggly worms! If you don’t have the story book at home, follow the link to watch the animated version on BBC iPlayer.
Sound of the week: J for jellyfish
Nursery rhyme of the week: 12345, Once I caught a fish alive
Easter
Although it was a shorter week than usual, it’s been a very busy one!
We enjoyed learning about Easter celebrations and taking part in some traditional Easter activities. Children made their own Easter cards and practised drawing patterns to decorate an egg outline.
We loved making Easter nests and tasting Hot Cross Buns.
Outside, children enjoyed playing egg hunt games with their friends, taking turns to hide and then find the eggs. We practised our counting skills at the same time and compared how many eggs we’d found with the eggs in our friend’s baskets.
How many blue eggs did you find? Who has the most/fewest?
We hope that you have a lovely holiday and we’ll look forward to hearing all about your adventures when we return to Nursery on Monday 15 April.
Eggs, chicks and rabbits!
Towards the end of the week, children were very egg-cited to find lots of Easter themed enhancements to our Nursery provision.
We’ve been counting rabbits, carefully picking eggs out of a nest using tongs and decorating egg shapes in the creative area.
Next week, we’ll continue with some Easter themed fun and will find out about how some Christians celebrate Easter.
In our group times this week, we learnt about the number 4. We looked at 4 candles on a cake and put 4 counters into a 5 frame. We could see that there was only one space left.
Help at home: As you play with your child or during snack time, have a go at including some of these things into your play and conversation.
- Can you count 4 objects? Remember to line them up and touch/point to each one carefully as you say one number for each item.
- Can you count to 4 and show 4 on your fingers?
- Can you spot the number four on house doors or car number plates?
- Count 4 objects from a pile and remember to STOP when you get to 4.
Some children have shown an interest in ‘spinning’ objects and have loved exploring spinning and spirals.
Next week’s learning:
Sound of the week – F for flamingo
Nursery rhyme of the week – Humpty Dumpty
Eat your peas!
Look at our beanstalks! Children have been fascinated over the last few weeks as they watched and waited for their seeds to grow. We talked about the shoot and roots as they appeared and have made sure that we watered and kept them in the sunlight to help them grow.
We read ‘Eat your peas’ during story time and continued our learning about vegetables and healthy foods. We picked some healthy foods to add to our plates and talked about other food that we might choose to eat occasionally.
In the creative area, we did some observational drawing of different vegetables and looked at the shape and colours as we drew. We even had some beetroot to draw that we harvested from our Nursery garden.
In the play dough area, we rolled tiny balls of dough to make peas and counted out the correct number to go into each pod.
In the maths area, children looked at lots of carrots and sorted them by length. There was lots of conversation using different vocabulary related to size. Look how long this one is! This carrot is tiny, it’s very short. Your carrot is longer than mine.
Children have also been practising their counting skills and have been trying to make sure that they count carefully, saying one number for each item as they touch it or point.
Help at home: Practise counting different objects during play and in everyday life. Make sure children say one number for each item; it often helps to move each item as you count or line them up so that children only count each object once. Can they remember how many they had in total without counting again?
We also enjoyed exploring and peeling different vegetables and outside, we cleared the planters, ready to start growing our own veggies!
Next Week’s Learning
Letter sound of the week – b for bear
Nursery rhymes of the week – 5 Little Ducks and Pat-a-cake
World Book Day
We LOVE reading in Nursery and we’re always excited to join in with celebrations for World Book Day.
Thank you for bringing some of your favourite stories for us to share together in Nursery.
Here are a few photos from today- Can you name the characters and match them to the book?
All about me!
Children enjoyed learning about how they’ve grown and changed from being a baby. We looked at our baby and toddler photos in group time; thank you for emailing them to us. We talked about some of the things that children can do now, that they couldn’t do when they were a baby such as talking, riding a bike and eating food. In the Creative area, we looked at our faces in the mirrors and tried to draw a self portrait. It was quite tricky, but we used a circle shape for our face and then added two eyes, a nose and a mouth. Some children loved adding extra features including curly or spiky hair and long eye lashes!
To continue our learning about ‘growing up’, we helped to take care of the babies in the water tray, carefully giving them a bath and washing their hair. In the playdough area, we looked at the numerals on different birthday cards and put the correct number of candles on our chocolate playdough cakes.
As part of our ‘Understanding the World’ curriculum, we’re beginning to learn about different forces. Children loved exploring the magnets in the discovery area and taking them around Nursery to see what they were attracted to and which objects they would ‘stick’ to. During story time, we talked about pushing and pulling forces when Fix-it Duck got his truck stuck in the muck. (Can you tell that we’re reading rhyming stories, too!)
Reminders:
- It’s World Book Day on Thursday 07 March 2024. For more information, see previous communications.
Next week’s learning:
Next week, we’ll continue with our ‘growing theme’ and will listen to ‘Oliver’s Vegetables‘ by Vivian French. We’ll be talking about the different foods that we eat and where they come from.
Nursery rhyme of the week – I’m a Little Teapot
Sound of the week – ‘r’ for rainbow
Jack and the Beanstalk
Fee Fi Fo Fum! We loved reading Jack and the Beanstalk this week and re-telling it with our friends in the book corner.
We talked about the beanstalk that grew outside Jack’s window and how we could grow our own. Mrs Gosper looked at some seeds with everyone and helped children to work out what they needed to do to help it grow. If you look carefully through the waving window, you’ll be able to see our ‘growing’ area.
Children are very excited to see what will happen to their seeds… Watch this space!
In maths, we’ve been learning about the number 3. There are lots of stories involving the number three, we’ve read some of them in Nursery including The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Can you think of any more?
In group time, we looked at 3 spots on a dice, 3 counters on a five frame and spotted that there were 3 corners and sides on a triangle.
Help at home: Have a look to see if you can find groups of three things around your home. Can you spot the number three on any house doors or number plates? We also liked watching this song all about the number 3.
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.
Reminders:
- Nursery Coffee Morning – Monday 26 February 2024
- We have lots of water bottles, hats, gloves and jumpers that have name tags missing which makes it really hard to give things out to their owners, especially when we have duplicates. Please take a moment this weekend to check your child’s belongings are still named. Thank you in advance!
Next week’s learning:
Next week, we’ll learn about ‘growing up’ and will talk about how we change as we grow and get older. Thank you to everyone who has sent in a baby and toddler photograph already. If you haven’t had time yet, please read our previous post and e-mail us your photos as soon as possible. Thank you.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Wind the bobbin up
Sound of the week – ‘u’ for umbrella
Wanted! Baby photos
Next week, we’re learning about growing up and looking at how we change as we get older.
It would be great if we could look at some photographs of children when they were babies and toddlers. If you are able to, please send us an email with one photograph of your child as a baby and one photograph of them as a toddler. We’ll use these in group time and will also be adding them to our Home Corner family display.