Happy faces
This week, as part of our Expressive Arts and Design curriculum, we’ve re-visited learning to draw ourselves. We used mirrors to look at our faces and talked about what shape we needed to draw on the paper first. We then looked at our features and tried to add more details to our drawings such as hair, ears and eyes. Some children added tiny little lines for eye lashes and drew spirals for curly hair.
Have a go at home together. Can you draw each other? Start with a circle shape for your face and then add in some features.
You might have also spotted some funny faces on the table and window! We talked about some of the different faces that we make when we feel happy, sad, worried or angry and used iPads to take selfies of ourselves! In our loose parts area, we used the resources to create some of these faces with our friends. What could you use for the eyes? How would you make a sad face?
At the beginning of the week, children enjoyed some ‘red’ themed activities as there was a lot of excitement around Valentine’s Day. We cut out different sized heart shapes in the dough area and decorated them with crystals, we used mini hole punchers in the fiddly fingers area and there was a lot of activity in the mark making area as children created their own cards and signed their names.
We’ve also been busy building dens and obstacle courses with tunnels and slides in the Sunshine Room as the windy weather prevented us from being outside at the start of the week. In our small world area, we worked together to draw some roads and create a city to drive the cars around.
We hope that you all enjoy half term and we’ll see you on Tuesday 01 March when Nursery opens. Remember, we are closed on Monday for a Training Day.
If you’d like to send us a photograph of your favourite holiday activity or if your child wows you with something that they achieve during the week, please e-mail us. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Reminder – WORLD BOOK DAY
It’s World Book Day on Thursday 03 March and if your child chooses to, they can dress up as one of their favourite book characters and bring a copy of their favourite book to school. Please refer to the earlier school email for more details. Also, please be mindful of typical Nursery activities when choosing a costume – children need to be able to play both inside and outside comfortably and safely and they also need to be able to access the toilet easily in their costumes!
Please make sure you write their names on their books so that they make it home again for bed time.
A Super-Comic, Super Final Week!
This week, Reception have been learning about the features of a comic book and having a go at creating a comic page of their own. They have also enjoyed using technology to create their own Superheroes!
Click here to have a go at home too!
We gave our Superheroes a name and wrote labels or sentences describing them:
We have also been continuing to learn about people who help us:
In maths this week, we have been learning about “five and a bit” when composing numbers to eight: “five and two more makes seven”, for example. We have also been creating a “staircase pattern” when exploring one more. We made staircase patterns using multilink cubes.
In phonics, we have learnt the phonemes; ur, ow, oi, ear and tricky words; my, by, all
We have been exploring floating and sinking in the water tray, Numicon and number composition in the sand tray, practising our turn taking skills through multi-player board games, balancing in PE and much more! Take a look:
Parent-Teacher Consultations
Thank you to all of our parents/ carers who attended our parent-teacher consultations this week. We’ve loved having the opportunity to share your children’s successes and next steps with you. We are so proud of all the progress each and every child has made since September and that we know they will continue to make. Spring 1 term has seen such a boost in their confidence and we look forward to seeing what the next few months will bring, as they continue their learning journey with us.
Home-link challenges
It’s the half term break! We want you to relax, recharge and enjoy family time together.
If you do wish to keep practising skills at home next week, here are some suggestions:
-Write a list of fruit and vegetables (this links to our book that we will be reading on our first week back!)
-Explore ways to make the number eight.
-Practise letter formation, using the Little Wandle phrases.
-If you go out for a walk, see if you can spot some first signs of Spring.
Don’t forget to enjoy your library and eBook reading together!
Diary Dates…
Monday 28 February- Training Day; School closed to pupils
Thursday 3 March- World Book Day; Dress up as your favourite book character. You can also bring in your favourite book. Please ensure this is named. Thank you.
PE : sequences and balancing using large apparatus
Living and Learning: Safety Week
Last week, all pupils took part in our themed ‘staying safe’ week. From online safety workshops to visitors from Dogs Trust, years 5 and 6 had great opportunities to learn, interact with and ask for advice about many aspects of safety. Here’s a quick run through of what our safety week looked like:
Staying Safe Online Workshop
With constant developments in technology and the growth of social media platforms, this workshop was a real favourite for our pupils. We learnt all about the risks to look out for whilst using websites, social media platforms and mobile apps to ensure we are staying safe online. The workshop was fantastic and the pupils’ learning really thrived, with their opportunity to ask questions and raise any concerns being met with useful and accurate responses.
Road Safety Workshop
Although our pupils felt pretty confident on how to stay safe on the roads, there were a few shocks and surprises to us all! As our Year 6 pupils are close to starting their high school journeys, it was super important to learn about the risks of walking to school/catching the bus in the morning. We all need to make sure that when we are crossing any roads, we should: ensure our mobile phones are put away; make sure we don’t have two headphones in; and make sure we are looking both ways, more than once, before making a decision to cross.
We also took part in other safety areas across the week, such as fire safety, Dogs Trust and our online safety day.
This was a fantastic and productive week for all involved – thanks to all the visitors that came in and gave us their time to help us learn.
Year 2 maths : multiplication and division
The year 2s have begun to learn about multiplication and division and are loving it! We use real objects and pictures, linking this to calculations. Talk about what each number represents in a calculation.
Help at home by encouraging your child to play on Times Tables Rockstars and watch BBC Supermovers videos.
Year 1 maths : using part whole models
The year 1s have been telling subtraction stories in maths.
We have also used part whole models to help us.
Help at home by making up some subtraction stories of your own.
Safety week
This week, we joined in with school’s safety themed week. We’ve been learning all about staying safe in lots of different situations, such as online safety and road safety.
We spotted things around Nursery that could be dangerous and talked about the things that we can do at school to stay safe, such as keeping the floor clear of toys so that we don’t trip, locking the Nursery gate to keep us safe and putting cones on our playground when the play equipment is too slippy to use. We also spotted things that could be dangerous in our homes.
During group time, we played a subitising maths game on our iPads. Before we did this, we talked about ways to stay safe whilst using technology at home such as making sure that we are near a grown up and using apps and games that our parents and carers have said are ok for us to play. We also agreed that we’d tell someone if we saw any thing that we didn’t like pop up on our screens.
On Tuesday, we had a special visitor in Nursery. Sue, our school crossing assistant, came to talk to us about how she helps to keep us safe on the road near school and about other things that we can do to stay safe when we’re walking near roads. We looked at Sue’s lollipop ‘stop’ sign and talked about why she wears a very bright coat. How is it different to Mrs Long’s coat?Outside, we made our own signs and made sure our Nursery roadway was safe as people played on the trikes.
Later in the week, we had some more special visitors…
Some firefighters came to visit and showed us some of the features of their fire engine. We were very lucky and got to try on their helmets and to hold the hose. The siren was very loud! We also talked about the ways they can help people who get into danger.
Talk to your child about keeping safe at home and about road safety. What can they remember? Can you think of some other ways to stay safe when trying different activities such as swimming or going to the park?
Safety Week
We have had a very special week talking and learning about people that help us. There are so many highlights! We know that your child/ren will have been filling you in on their most memorable parts.
A fire engine and fire fighters came to the school playground to educate us on their important role of helping people in the community. Fire fighters took the time to show us their vast equipment on the fire engine itself and gave different scenarios when they might be used. We learnt about what fire fighters wear when facing a fire. Some children were able to wear a protective helmet.
The children even followed a tutorial on how to draw a fire fighter. We were really impressed with the results:
Our Police Headquarters role play was extremely popular outside this week. There have been many ‘bad guys’ caught and arrests made. Our bikes are well used and its great to see the children taking turns and involved in such great physical play. We have also been writing up police reports and parking tickets.
On Internet Safety Day we spoke about what the internet is, how we use it and what to do when we’re unsure (STOP and ask a grown-up).
We asked the children:
‘What is the internet?
It’s electric-Netflix. Poppy A
It’s Wifi-Ronnie
It works on screens at home-Stanley
Do you have a limit on how much time you use a screen?
Half an hour-Charlie
Why is it not a good idea to spend lots of time on screens?
You could get a headache-Jack
To help support our focus this week we set up many areas of provision to aid our understanding of those that help us. We had dentists, vets, road workers, doctors/nurses, rescue vehicles, a supermarket etc. We did speak about Superheroes and real life heroes. So many children said their parents were their real life super heroes.
Take a look at some of the incredible learning that took place this week:
Next Week
On Tuesday, the NHS school nurses team will be in to carry out routine checks on your child’s height, weight, hearing and vision. They will send a little report home.
Reminder
Please ensure that you send your child’s library book back to school each Thursday. If you have any outstanding at home, please return them.
Reading
We have received some very positive feedback about our new ebooks. Please continue to instill a love of reading with your children.
Home-link
Can you draw and label a picture of the heroes that you are thankful for?
Living and Learning (Staying Safe Week) : staying safe around dogs
- If a dog is resting, leave it alone.
- If a dog is eating, leave it alone.
- Stay quiet around dogs.
- Dogs don’t like hugs, they prefer gentle strokes.
- If a dog takes a toy, swap it, don’t take it.
Living and Learning (Staying Safe Week) : fire safety
