It’s nearly time…
We’ve had a super summer and we’re looking forward to another fun filled year in Nursery. Hopefully, you’ve all had lots of adventures too; we can’t wait to find out about them.
If you are one of our older children and are returning to Nursery, you’ll have received a letter before the holidays to about your first two days. Remember, we’re on home visits during the first week so we’ll have to wait until Monday 13 September until we see your happy faces again! Please refer to your letter for further details.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (07-09 September) the Nursery team will be out and about to say hello to all of our new children and their families for their ‘door-step’ Home visit. Fingers crossed the weather will be kind to us but we’ll have an umbrella with us, just in case! During this short visit, we’ll introduce ourselves and answer any questions that you may have. Your child’s individual transition into Nursery (which included a Home Visit date, ‘Stay and Play’ details and their first session date) was outlined in your transition letter that you received in July. Please get in touch with us as soon as possible if you have any queries. Our Nursery email is scholesf1@spherefederation.org
What does my child need?
- A waterproof coat (NAMED)
- A pair of wellies (NAMED)
- A water bottle (NAMED)
- A drawstring bag containing a full change of clothes (including a top, trousers/leggings, underwear and socks – ALL NAMED)
- A sun hat on sunny days (NAMED)
In case you missed it above, you must NAME all items that your child brings to Nursery! You don’t need to get special name labels, a simple marker pen (e.g. Sharpie) in the care label is fine! It is very hard to return missing items to their owners when they’re not named.
Next week, we’ll also be busy preparing Nursery for you to come and play. Keep checking our News page and we’ll post some photos for you as soon as we’re ready.
See you soon!
Happy Holidays!
What a busy two weeks! We’ve had so much fun, playing in the sunshine, visiting the farm, joining in Sport’s Day races on the field and dancing at our ‘Under the Sea’ party. We’ve put together a short video for you to watch of our last few weeks in Nursery.
Nursery Video – End of term fun!
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. Finally, we’re very sad to say good bye to Miss Backhouse but we hope that she has enjoys her very well earned retirement.
Sunshine and Rainbow Superstars
Wow! What a fabulous year we have had!
Every member of the class has been absolutely amazing!
Here are a few snapshots of our final week in reception.
Have a wonderful summer and see you all in September.
Go Go Go-Karts!
We tested our prototype Go-Karts today and what an exciting event that was! This is the final part of the design – make – evaluate process.
All of our efforts in making the go-karts came together in the big test!
It was great to see so many different types of go-karts, with different components, come together. The children went through a quick and steep learning curve when testing them, realising what needed to be strengthened or supported in order for them to function better.
The design criteria for our go-karts was:
- to roll
- to steer
- to keep a character safe inside the kart
We also evaluated our Karts – see Aaron’s great work below.
Healthy living week and more! …
It has been such a busy week, here in Reception…
Healthy Living Week
As part of Healthy Living Week, we have been learning about ways to keep our bodies and minds healthy.
We have been thinking about the benefits of exercise and sports. As well as our sports day races, we’ve enjoyed dancing and movement play in the classroom and outside.
We’ve also been taking part in challenges, trying to beat our best scores in long jump, speed bounce and balancing.
We’ve been discussing personal hygiene and how to look after our teeth. We conducted an experiment using white egg shells (which are a bit like the hard enamel on our teeth), to see which drink was the most healthy for our teeth. We made predictions about which drink we thought might cause the most damage/staining on the egg shells. Take a look at our results:
We looked at the Eatwell healthy balance plate and made our own healthy balance paper plates, by cutting out pictures and drawing food onto them.
We’ve also been thinking about keeping our minds healthy, taking part in mindfulness/ relaxation videos and reading stories.
A visit from the farm
We were so lucky to have a visit from the farm this week! We made lots of new, animal friends and learnt all about how to take care of them. It was wonderful to see so many faces full of joy and excitement.
Transition Morning
The children spent some time with their new classes and teachers on Wednesday. Although there were a few nervous faces before the visit, all children came back happy and excited for year one!
Cooling down with some sensory ice exploration
Sports Afternoon
Thursday… the sun was shining, water bottles were filled and athletes were ready for Reception Sports Day 2021!
Running, egg and spoon, hurdles, sack race, plus many smiles and memories made.
Home Link Challenge
And just like that, we find ourselves preparing for the last week of the school year!
Such a bittersweet time for the adults in Reception. We are going to miss our amazing children so much but we couldn’t be prouder of how much they have achieved this year, the resilience they have shown and how ready they are for new adventures in year one.
This week’s home link challenge is a transition talk-time. Talk to your child about their happiest memory of their time in Sunshine/ Rainbow class this year. What are they most proud of achieving? What are they most looking forward to in year one?
Please send us an email with their responses, so we can share their thoughts and memories in class.
Reminders and Requests
-We will be sending lots of things home this week. Please send your child into school with a named carrier bag as soon as possible. Thank you.
-A reminder that on Friday 23 July (the last day) Reception may come to school in brightly coloured clothes for our Sunshine and Rainbow party. Your child may also bring in a party snack on this day.
Year 5/6 Sport Afternoon
Year 5/6 had an amazing afternoon today, completing our Sports Day. Despite the heat, the children applied themselves brilliantly to all the races. The races included hurdles, long distance, relay and the bean bag sprint – it was like the Olympics!
Well done to everyone that participated – you were amazing!
Farm…at school!
We were very lucky to have Ian’s Mobile Farm at school this week.
The children enjoyed petting the animals, watching ‘Meg the dog’ do her obedience tricks and we even got to brush the donkeys!
Farm visit – allergies
Please remember to make sure that staff know if your child is allergic to any animals before the farm visit on Tuesday. Thank you
Winning Warriors!
Well, we survived. Every single warrior made it to the end of the Total Warrior course. There was great anticipation before we set off – nerves were building.
Once the race began, sounds of squeals, giggling and screaming filled the quiet countryside. The children overcame the Bog of Doom, mud slides, skips of muddy water and of course, the famous water slide at the end. They overcame fears, supported each other, encouraged others and got mud in all sorts of places!
It was an absolute pleasure to take the Year 6 on this visit – it certainly seemed a great way to end the year. Sorry to the parents for all the extra washing at the weekend! We hope every single warrior enjoyed themselves – although I’m not sure who enjoyed it the most, the children or the teachers!
Five Little Speckled Frogs
One of the first things that we noticed on Monday morning was that our tadpoles had grown front legs! As we have been learning about the life cycle of a frog over the last few weeks, some children were able to explain what was going to happen next. We took some tadpoles out of the tank to look at them more closely and we could see that their tails had also started to shrink. Towards the end of the week, we released some of the froglets back to the pond as they were starting to jump around the tank and needed to be free. Hopefully, they’ll all be happily sitting on a log with their friends in the pond now! Here’s a link to one of our favourite songs for you to sing a long together at home – Five Little Speckled Frogs.
In the dough area, we used dough extruders to help strengthen our finger muscles. Our oldest children will be moving to Reception soon and this is a great way of helping to prepare their hands for writing and holding a pencil effectively. We had to push really hard to squeeze the dough through the holes to make spaghetti.
An extremely large cardboard box has been very popular this week, providing many hours of open ended role play opportunities. It’s been a pirate ship, a bus, a train and a cave so far.
Next week, we’re really looking forward to welcoming some four legged visitors to our school field on Tuesday. We can’t wait to meet the animals and learn a little bit more about them. In preparation for the visit, we’ve created some farm small world areas and children have already begun to talk about their previous experiences of visiting farms.
Did you receive your ‘Under the Sea’ party invitation? Don’t forget to let us know if you’d like your child to attend the party if they don’t usually come to Nursery on Wednesday afternoons.