Class News

Remote learning 18.01 – Winter

In Nursery, when we get some wintry weather, we often quickly adapt our daily plans to learn about ice and snow and to read winter themed stories. Obviously, planning for remote learning makes this a bit trickier, so we’ve planned these activities based upon the forecast of some more cold weather heading in our direction! If this doesn’t happen, please pick and choose the activities that you can do, and save some of the others for the next cold day!

Reading

There are lots of great stories that take place in a snowy setting. You might have ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ at home or a favourite story that involves penguins or polar bears. Here’s a story for you to watch called ‘The Snowy Day’.

• How do you feel like when you open the curtains, look out of the window and see snow?
• Can you remember the sound that Peter’s feet made as he walked through the snow? We love listening to the ‘crunch’ of freshly fallen snow!
• What tracks did Peter find in the snow? Have you ever seen some tracks in the snow? What made the tracks?
• Peter put a snowball in his pocket. What happened? Where did the snowball go?

Phonics

In Nursery, we practise our listening skills when we’re singing and using instruments. We have to shake the instruments until we hear the music stop. Find something at home that you can use to make a noise – this could be an instrument, a pot with rice in or a wooden spoon and a pan! Shake or bang along to the music and remember to listen carefully for when to stop.

 Mark-Making

• Draw a snowman. Think carefully about what shape you need to use for the body and head. How many eyes do you need to draw? What shape could you use for a carrot nose?
• Paint a winter picture. What colours would you use?
• Draw around your hands and carefully cut them out to make some paper gloves. Add patterns to decorate the gloves. Will they be spotty or stripy?
• Add a small amount of water to a baking tray (shallow) and put it out overnight when the weather forecast is cold. Hopefully, when you return to it in the morning, you will have a thin sheet of ice. Bring it inside and have a go at painting on it. What happens?

Mathematics

• You will need a large snowman outline (cut out white paper circles or draw one onto paper) and some buttons/pompoms/beads for buttons. Just like in our previous Gingerbread Man activity, put 1-6 buttons on the snowman and count how many buttons the snowman has. Encourage children to count carefully, pointing/touching each button as they say each number. Some children will work with numbers up to 3 confidently, others may be able to work with numbers to 5 or 10. Choose the number of buttons according to your child’s confidence levels.
• On a different day, instead of counting how many buttons are already on the snowman, ask children to select a given number of buttons from a pile. They may find this tricky and sometimes forget to stop! Keep the numbers small, below 3-4 to start with. (If your child can do this, increase the numbers up to 10.) Remind your child how many buttons they need to get and what number they are going to ‘stop’ at. Keep checking as they count – have they reached the ‘stop’ number yet?

• If your child is working confidently counting up to 6, introduce a dice. Roll the dice once each and add the corresponding number of buttons to your snowman. Which snowman has the fewest/most buttons?

Extension ideas

Some of our older children might enjoy playing the ‘Snowman Dice Game’ from Twinkl. The mark making skills required might be a too challenging for some children, but you could always draw the pieces onto paper and then collect each part as you roll the dice.

Creative

• Create a winter tree picture using some twigs that you collect from your garden or a walk. You will need some coloured paper, twigs, glue, cotton buds and white paint.

• Need some quiet time? Grab your favourite snack and a blanket and enjoy watching ‘The Snowman’ by Raymond Briggs.
• Are you wearing a woolly jumper to keep warm? Here’s Aunty Mable and Pippin in an old episode of ‘Come Outside’ telling us all about how they are made.

Understanding the World

• Talk to your child about the seasons. The BBC has a short video clip that you could watch to discuss things that you can see changing as the seasons change. Children might be able to spot some of the autumnal changes that we talked about in Nursery before Christmas.
• What season is it now? How do we know? What clothes do we wear in winter? How is this different to summer time? Listen to this song all about winter – Did you talk about some of the things in this video?
• On your next walk, have a look for some signs of winter. We’ve created a Winter Scavenger Hunt sheet for you to print or copy. Take it with you on your walk and tick off the items as you find them.

If your child comments on some of the changes that they see and you have time, please make a note of the words that they use and send us an email with their comments. (Please note it down word for word, just as they say it!)

• Investigate freezing and melting. Choose a selection of objects (that can go in water and be frozen!) and put them into some empty pots (yogurt pots, ice cube trays) with a small amount of water. Freeze them overnight (or longer) and remove once they’re frozen. Put the frozen items into a tray and allow your child to investigate. What does it feel like? What has happened to the water? Play with the ice and watch what happens to them over time. Talk about the changes that children can see happening. What’s happening to the ice? Discuss the basic process of melting and think about other things that might melt such as ice-creams on a sunny day.

Physical Development

Fiddly Fingers

Lots of us have memories of making paper snowflakes as a child and we thought that this would be a great activity to practise our ‘snipping’ skills. You will need some paper (cut it into a square shape) and a pair of children’s scissors. Loosely, follow these instructions on how to fold your paper – don’t worry too much about this part! In Nursery, we’re interested in learning how to fold and use scissors safely, rather than a perfect snowflake at the end of the process!  Please ensure that your child is supervised when using their scissors.  Show your child where to cut and let them enjoy snipping the paper. What does it look like when you open it out?

Movement

Join in with these Cosmic yoga sessions at home. There’s a shorter clip, Winter Wonderland, and a longer story called Joybob The Polar Bear.

Independence skills

At this point of the year in Nursery, we usually have a long line of children needing help to put their gloves on before we go outside! Over the next few weeks, encourage your child to put on their own gloves. Teach them to close their fingers at first to get their hand into the glove and then to open them slightly and wiggle each finger into place. Keep trying – it’s tricky!

Key Worker activity/videos

In our Key Worker session this week, we’re going to do our ‘Dough Disco’ song. Those of you that join our Zoom sessions will be able to have another go and practise each of the moves. You’ll need a small ball of playdough (or similar), just enough to fit in your child’s palm.

We also like to sing this song on cold, snowy days. It’s called ‘5 Little Snowmen’.

Friday Story Time

Are you sitting comfortably?  Great, here’s Mrs Long with our story for this week. It’s called ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers.

Home Learning 5/6S

Hello 5/6 S!
How are you all? I hope you are all well and that you’ve managed ok with your home learning. I’m missing you all lots and I can’t wait to have you all back in the classroom with me.

A few of you have emailed your work in for me this week. However, I would like to hear from more of you. Well done to Alfie, James and Imogen for sending your work through to me – you’re stars!

Alfie sent me some sentences that he worked on in the Reading Fluency sessions. He really thought about his use of vocabulary. Here are his sentences:

Super home learning

Thank you to everyone who has emailed their class teachers letting them know how they are getting on at home.

It has also been lovely to see lots of faces and hear about what you have been doing on our daily class Zoom meetings.

I have enjoyed learning about split digraphs with Mr Parker.

Email your class teacher if you need the invite re-sending.

Our email addresses are :

1KN Miss Lowry/Mrs Lake : kaylowry@spherefederation.org and natalielake@spherefederation.org

1,2V Mrs Latham vickylatham@spherefederation.org

2C Mr Gathercole carlgathercole@spherefederation.org

Here are some examples of what people have being getting up to at home. Do what you can and, most importantly, stay happy, healthy and safe.

Happy Home Learning!

Hello everyone!

We’ve had some lovely messages from pupils and parents that I wanted to share. Teachers really enjoy receiving pictures, poems and photos of everything that you’ve done at home.  Keep up with the hard work everybody – you’re all doing  a fab job!

Here are just some examples of children’s work at home:

Week Commencing 11.01.20: Home Learning

Story link activities to select throughout the week

Literacy

1. Make a story map of the key events in the story Lost and Found. We practice creating these lots in class.

1. Sometimes, when people lose a pet, they put up posters to help find them again. Can you make a ‘lost’ poster for the Penguin in Lost and Found. Don’t forget to add lots of details describing the penguin, so that the reader knows what to look out for. What does the penguin look like? What colour is it? How big is it?
2. The story doesn’t have any speech in it. Ask your grown up to draw out a speech bubble and pretend you are the boy from the story (perhaps you could draw him next to the speech bubble) Have a go at writing what you think he might have said when he first met the penguin.

A writing reminder

How did your child find the writing activity? Remember its okay for things to be spelt phonetically. It is important that your child grows into an independent learner. Encouraging your child to write the words as they sound rather than always spelling them correctly. We encourage the children to use their own skills, rather than copying an adult.

Understanding the World

Spend some time watching the penguins at Edinburgh Zoo:

https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/penguin-cam/

What do you notice about them?

How do they move? (perhaps you can walk like a penguin too!)

Do they like to be alone or in groups?

Do they live on land, in the water, or both?

These penguins are in a zoo. Where can we find penguins in the wild? Ask an adult to help you find this information in a book or by using the internet.

Expressive Arts and Design

1. Build a boat for your toys! You could use any construction toys you have at home (such as lego, duplo) natural or found objects outside, or recycled food packaging. Perhaps you could tell a story about an adventure your toys go on in their brand new boat!
2. Make a ‘Paper Roll Penguin’ You could follow this guide or, if you do not have coloured paper, create your own version using plain paper, the paper roll and colouring pens or pencils!

Physical Development

Get Moving! Join in with this Jack Hartman Penguin Dance: video

Did you know… ‘PE with Joe’ is back? Joe Wicks is hosting his live PE sessions again from Monday 11^th January 2021, 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 9am) You can subscribe to his channel here for alerts. A great way to keep fit at home!

Remote learning 11.01 – Zog and the Flying Doctors

This week, our learning is going to be themed around the popular children’s books ‘Zog’ and ‘Zog and the Flying Doctors’. We’re sure that lots of you will have enjoyed watching the new animation over the holidays.

If you are unfamiliar with the story, you can listen to it here and if you would like some quiet time, why not snuggle up on the sofa and enjoy watching it on BBC iPlayer.

Zog

Zog and the Flying Doctors

Reading

• What was your favourite part of the story?
• Can you remember the characters that the Flying Doctors helped in the story?
• What do you think princesses should be like?
• If you’d like a challenge, try completing this quiz

Phonics

As part of our Phase One phonics learning, we practise making different noises with our own voices.

– Can you roar like a lion?

– If you don’t want to wake the sleeping King, what could you say? ( Shhhhh)

– What noise does Zog make when he lands? (Bang, crash, thump!)

– What noise do you think Princess Pearl says when she sees a silly, frilly dress? (Eugh!)

Can you think of any other sound effects that you could make from the story?

 Mark-Making

Do you have some wrapping paper left over or some old wall paper? Turn it over and roll it out on the floor. Hold it down at the corners using some tins/books/tape. Can you draw a giant map for Zog to show him where to go? What will be on your map? You could draw some trees for a forest or a tall mountain. What about a castle or a river?

Remember, in Nursery, the process of mark making is the most important part. The end product may not ‘look’ exactly like you think it should, but the marks that your child has made will mean a lot to them. If you have time, try to draw a little bit with your child before leaving them to continue alone. As you draw, talk about your marks and what they show (keep them simple). It’s great if they can talk to you about what they are drawing as they make each mark.

•  Here’s a Zog colouring sheet if you have a printer at home. We try to talk about choosing the correct colour for things at Nursery.
• You might also like to try and follow the lines very carefully with your pen to help Zog win a golden star .

 Mathematics

Watch this song about 2d shapes and talk about the names of the basic 2D shapes (circle, square, triangle and rectangle). Then, look at these pictures of castles and see what shapes you can spot. How you know it’s a triangle? How many sides does that shape have? Can you see a shape with a curved side?

 Pictures taken from Twinkl Google images.

 Extension ideas

– Cut up a selection of different sized shapes and ask your child to create their own castle or maybe even a dragon picture. There are lots of ideas online.  What shape would be good to use to make a doorway or window?

– Have a look on Google images at castles to see what other shapes you can spot.

Creative

• We love to create buildings using Duplo in Nursery. If you have Lego or Duplo at home, can you build a castle?
• Sir Gadabout has a shield and a sword in ‘Zog’. We know that some of you love to play ‘knights’ so maybe you’d like to have a go at making your own shields using any recycling items that you have such as cardboard delivery or cereal boxes etc.
• Role play being a doctor/nurse and help to make some of your toys better. Use your imaginations to think about what could be wrong; in the story, the mermaid has sunburn and the lion gets a sore throat. You could make a bandage (toilet roll) or use some old plasters that are hiding at the back of a cupboard somewhere.
• Before lunch, we often choose to listen to this song about a dragon on the doorstep.

 Physical Development

Fiddly Fingers

Draw or print a dragon outline. Get some clothes pegs and show your child how to squeeze them to open them. Use the pegs to add spikes onto the dragon’s back (like in the dinosaur photo below). You could challenge them to add 2 blue spikes or 3 yellow ones.

Movement

Get moving and join in with this Happy Dragon dance!

Independence skills

In the story, the Lion has a sore throat and cold and needs to blow his nose a lot! Can you blow your own nose? Next time you need to blow your nose, get a tissue and look in the mirror.  Hold the tissue to your nose, pinch your fingers gently around the tissue and blow.  Remember to pinch and pull as you move the tissue away from your nose. Look in the mirror to check that your nose is clean and do it again if you need to. What’s the last thing that you need to do? Throw your tissue in the bin or flush it away and then wash your hands well.

Key Worker activities

Watch these videos (click on the two links below) and join in our Key Worker activity at home. Listen carefully to the clues and animal noises. Which animal is it?

Animal Guess Who video

If you enjoyed playing, have a go at the game at home. We’d love you to make up your own clue and send a video for us to guess which animal you have!

We often play games that help to develop our visual and memory skills. Look carefully at the animals and see if you can work out which is missing! You can easily play this game at home- just choose 5-6 items and find a tea towel or towel to hide them.

Animal memory game

Friday Story Time

This week’s story time is a book called ‘Do not bring your dragon to the library’ and is read by Miss Whitaker. We hope you enjoy listening at home; click on the video link below.

‘Do Not Bring Your Dragon To The Library‘ written by Julie Grassman.

Have a great week of home learning. Please make sure you e-mail us each week to let us know how you all are and which activities you’ve enjoyed.

Home Learning

An update on our Home Learning…

This is what you can expect to see on your child’s class news page each week during lockdown.

The learning for week beginning 11.01.21 will be posted on Sunday 10.01.21.  All subsequent weeks will be posted on a Friday evening.

As teachers are also teaching our key worker children in school, these videos may not be from your child’s teacher. However, every Friday the children will be able to enjoy a story read by an adult from their class.

Each week a menu of activities will be presented that can be completed during the week. This menu will relate to the book of the week. The activities will cover all aspects of the Early Years curriculum. There will also be the following screencasts and videos.

As always, your child’s teachers will be available via email for any questions. We will also endeavor contact you by phone once per week, just to check in with you.

A message from Mrs Beesley and Mrs Long

Well done for making it through the first week of lockdown (again)! When we heard the news late on Monday evening, we quickly adapted our Nursery plans to include some learning activities that you could enjoy at home. We hope that you enjoyed listening to ‘The Gingerbread Man’ story and that you found some time to join in a few of the activities.

Here’s a short video message from Mrs Beesley and Mrs Long.

Our theme for next week is all about a little orange dragon… Can you guess which book we’re going to listen to?  We’ll post all of the activities and videos for next week on Sunday.  Please choose as many of the activities  as you would like to do. We know that most families are trying to juggle both work and learning at home, often with two or more children in different year groups. This is very hard and it’s impossible to replicate ‘Nursery’ at home. Try to just have fun together when you can and remember that  we learn through play in Nursery.  We also try to follow children’s interests so if they’re interested in something else, don’t worry about adapting our activities to suit your child.

From next week, we will post all of our learning activities for the following week on Friday afternoon. Hopefully, this will give you a chance to read through them and gather any bits that you might need.

Please try to email us each week to let us know how you are. It doesn’t have to be a long email, just a quick hello and maybe 1 or 2 photos of what you’ve enjoyed. We’ll post some of these photos at the end of the week so that your child can enjoy seeing their friends learning at home too.

Scholesf1@spherefederation.org

If you have any feedback on things that you enjoyed or anything that you found difficult, please do let us know.

Have a good weekend at home and enjoy getting some fresh air on one of your favourite lockdown walks.

08 January 2021: Home Learning

07 January 2021: Home Learning