Keeping active – new gym fitness equipment
There was great excitement with the arrival of the new outdoor fitness equipment before Christmas. The wet weather slightly delayed the installation but it is now ready to use. Everyone wants a go!
This is part of our plan to increase physical activity undertaken within school. The UK Chief Medical Officers found that, “the latest evidence shows there is a clear link between physical activity and chronic disease.” We want children to be physically active for at least the Chief Medical Officer’s recommended 30 minutes during the school day, and this will help us to do this.
Writing Warriors
Wow! Some children have had a very exciting start to the term. They have been sent a letter from Wiz. Wiz is a Writing Warrior. A Writing Warrior is somebody who solves missions by writing.
These children have been chosen by Wiz to be Writing Warriors! The Writing Warriors in our class will be sent missions by Wiz and will have to complete these by writing.
If your child has received a red exercise book labelled Writing Warriors, your child has been chosen to be a writing warrior. When your child has completed a mission at home please put their Writing Warrior book in Wiz’s tray – your child will be able to show you where this is!
Naughty Bus – a ‘hook’ for learning
When we arrived back in school there had been a little trouble. A visitor had created a bit of a mess in our classrooms, resulting in a crime scene! There was a special message from a police officer asking for our help. We looked for clues and found the Naughty Bus had done it. He told us he was sorry though and asked if he could stay and be our friend. He brought his book too, which we have enjoyed reading this week.
Measuring
We always try to follow children’s interests in Nursery and develop their ideas. On Wednesday, some children picked up a tape measure from the maths shelves and wanted to ‘measure’. We looked at the numbers on the tape measures and talked about what they could be used for. Thinking about children’s own experiences of measuring, we talked about going to a shoe shop to get our feet measured.
There was a lot of interest in this activity and before long, the initial two children had been joined by many others. All of them wanted to have their feet measured and waited patiently for their turn. Measuring our feet required team work, turn taking and lots of conversation involving mathematical vocabulary associated with size. Who had the biggest/longest foot? Did anyone have the same size feet? Which teacher had the shortest/smallest foot?
Stop and read!
To encourage a love of reading Foundation 2 take part in ‘stop and read’ time every day. At ‘stop and read’ time the children can choose to sit on either rainbow or sunshine carpet – the children really enjoy having this choice and find it exciting sitting on a different carpet!
To choose the books read at ‘stop and read’ the children vote for the book they would like to listen to. Each child can place a lego brick alongside the book they would prefer. The tallest tower wins. We talk about the front cover and how it can give us an idea about the book. We also talk about the blurb at the back of the book and how it can give us a clue about the book and help us decide if we would like to listen to the story.
If your child has a book at home they would like to put on the voting table for ‘stop and read’ please bring it in to school – it would be great to share their favourite stories!
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! We hope that you enjoyed the Christmas holidays and had lots of fun with family and friends. Please remember to complete the Home Link activity by emailing us a couple of photographs for your child to talk about during group time.
Before the holidays, children showed an interest in the story of the Gingerbread man. This week, we’ll be reading ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and have some areas in Nursery linked to the story. We have ginger cloud dough in our sensory area, ginger play dough to make our own gingerbread characters and lots of buttons to count in our maths area.
Remember to look at the website regularly to keep up to date with our learning in Nursery each week.
Primary school applications
If your child was born between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016 they should start primary school in September 2020 and you will need to make an application for a place at a primary school.
Your application must be completed before 15 January 2020. You may have received a letter providing you with further details on the application process but you do not need the letter to apply for a Reception place. If you need further details, please visit the website.
Please speak to a member of staff if you have any questions.
Christmas party
We had a fabulous party day today. The dancing, snacking and games lasted all day! We were all worn out but had a fabulous time. We wish everyone a restful break.
Merry Christmas!
Pop choir performed some songs for us this afternoon. The whole school then joined in with a Christmas sing-a-long. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to everyone!
Home Link activity – Christmas holidays
Please send us some photographs of your Christmas celebrations with family or of an exciting day out that you enjoy. We will share these photos during group time in the first week back in January; they’ll be a great way of starting our conversations.
Please email scholesf1@spherefederation.org
We hope that you have a lovely Christmas holiday and wish you a very happy New Year!