1,2B Abbey House Museum Trip
We visited Abbey House Museum to enhance our history topic learning. Seeing how things have changed, looking at artefacts helps to bring learning about things in past to life.
We enjoyed our workshops all about toys. We learnt about how old toys were often made from different materials to modern toys.
Experiencing the Victorian street was so exciting and helped immerse us in what it must’ve been like in the past.
Of course, the coach journey and lunch were actually the most exciting parts. Thank you for your voluntary contributions and to the family members who came as extra adult helpers too.
Getting busy!
This week we’ve created some amazing constructions, fantastic art work and continued to develop of mathematical thinking in provision. Working together and sharing our ideas.
Our new starters are settling in so well, becoming more familiar with the Nursery routines and finding their way around. Great work green group! Our September starters have done a fantastic job in welcoming them. Lots of new friendships are beginning to form which is wonderful to see.
In Maths this week we’ve been exploring the concept of heavy and light. The children have been searching nursery for objects that are heavy and those that are light. We found lots of different things. How did you get on at home ? Remember to let us know using the nursery email address scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Each half term we have vocabulary that we focus on. The adults in nursery use this vocabulary when they play with the children in the areas of provision. Over the past few weeks the vocabulary we have focused on has been-
winter
frozen
melting
igloo.
We have used our small world area, sensory area and our outdoor area to introduce and reinforce this vocabulary. The igloo in the small area has supported this learning.
Help at home
You could continue this learning by continuing to use this vocabulary, where appropriate, at home too.
Next week’s learning
Story of the week
We look forward to reading ‘Dinosaur Roar’ by Paul and Henrietta Stickland in our story times next week. This is always a very popular story to share
Nursery rhyme of the week
Can you join in with the rhyme and the actions at home?
Sound of the week
Make your mouth into a round shape and say o.
We need your help?
The children are really enjoying making models from boxes, kitchen rolls, plastic pots etc. You’ve probably noticed as so many amazing creations have been making their way home. We’re sadly running out of resources to make these models. If you have any of the items listed below, instead of popping them into your recycling bin, we would love them in nursery.
Items we need
cardboard boxes (cereal box sized are the largest we need)
kitchen roll tubes (not toilet rolls)
plastic pots
plastic lids
plastic bottles
Have a happy and healthy weekend and thank you as always for your continued support.
The Nursery Team
Abbey House Museum 2C
What an amazing day! 2C have been absolute super stars! We are so proud of every single one of them. We have had the best day learning about the past through real life interaction with historical artefacts. Wow! Ask your child to tell you a new fact that they have learnt today.
Penguin Huddle and Claude Monet
In our literacy lessons this week, we enjoyed reading Penguin Huddle by Ross Montgomery. In the story, the penguins huddled together during an icy storm but it was so cold that they got stuck together and couldn’t break free!
Our word of the week is: huddle. Ask your child to tell you what it means. Can they use it in a sentence?
Here is some of our super writing from this week.
We also watched a short clip from an episode of BBC Frozen planet to find out more about where penguins live. We located the UK and the Antarctic on a map and found their locations on a globe.
How is the Antarctic environment different to the United Kingdom? After watching the clip, we looked at some photographs of the Antarctic and compared them to the United Kingdom to find similarities and differences.
Focus Artist: Monet
This week, children loved exploring the art of Claude Monet. We found out about his life and his amazing pictures of the natural world! On Thursday afternoon, we visited a special ‘pop-up’ Art Gallery in the Hub.
When looking at the artwork, we used sentence stems to talk about our opinions.
I like it because…
I don’t like it because…
Children’s examples of speech.
“I like it because it’s looks the same as outside, look outside the window, it’s the same.”
“I like the colours, the pink and the blue.”
“I don’t like it because it’s a bit grey and it looks cold”
After looking at the gallery, we took inspiration from some of the pictures to create our own Monet inspired artwork. We’ve also been exploring colour mixing to find out what happens when you mix two of the primary colours (red, blue and yellow) together.
Maths -composition
This week, children consolidated their understanding of the composition of 5 using the familiar rhyme ‘5 Little Ducks’ By singing the rhyme and moving the ducks during each verse, children investigated part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 5 can be made of 3 and 2.
There are five ducks in the pond but when one duck swims away, we can see that there are four ducks in the pond and one on the hill. 5 can be made of 4 and 1. When another duck swims away, there are 3 ducks and 2 on the hill. 5 can be made of 3 and 2.
We also used our fingers to show this, first holding up 5 fingers and then putting one down each time.
Poetry Picnic
Our poetry sessions this week have been a little different as we learnt and recited a traditional nursery rhyme.
The children used gestures and expression to recite ‘Jack and Jill’.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 3 has focused on the digraphs ur, ow, oi and the trigraph ear.
We’ve learnt the tricky words; my, by, all. Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
Help at home:
Each week, we’d like to give you an idea of a game you could play at home to make reading even more exciting.
This week’s game is: Tricky Word Splat
- Write a selection of tricky words on paper/sticky notes.
- Place around the room/floor.
- Say a tricky word for your child to splat. You might jump on the words, splat with a masher or create your own ideas.
1A Abbey House Museum trip
What a brilliant day we’ve had at Abbey House museum!
We started off with a safety talk, before getting on the coach (which was very exciting) and setting off to the museum.
When we got to Abbey House, we dropped off our bags and did a fantastic workshop about household objects from the past. The children listened well and got involved with discussions.
After a yummy lunch, we had a look around the old streets at the museum. We saw a shop, pub, church and school.
We also spent time looking at the displays in the museum. We were on the hunt for a toy we have been learning about in class. It was a wax doll owned by a girl called Miss Maude Cooper. A long time ago, dolls were made of wax because the material was cheap. But children had to be very careful with these dolls as they could melt if they were close to heat. Sadly the doll was in storage, but we saw lots of other interesting toys and played with them too.
Then we came back to school on the coach. We are very tired but have had a brilliant day.
Thank you so much to our adult helpers. We wouldn’t have been able to go without you! We appreciate your help very much.
Living and Learning : British Values (Rule of Law)
We’ve been talking about British Values over the last few weeks. This week, we’ve talked about Rule of Law and linked this to our school rules. We listened to some scenarios and talked about how rules and laws keep us safe, make things fair and help people feel happy.
Science: staying warm
King Charles of all people wrote an impassioned letter to the children of Scholes asking them which material would keep his tea warm the longest.
Pupils in 5/6 investigated three materials:
- tin foil
- felt
- bubble wrap
They considered the independent, dependent and control variables before conducting the experiment.
Help at home:
- Repeat the experiment with different materials
- would a lid have changed the results
- Consider why the results were so similar
Writing: Letters So Good Even Gods Would Listen
This week in writing, the children have been stepping straight into the world of our class novel Viking Boy, writing powerful letters from the perspective of its brave protagonist, Gunnar.
Their challenge was to persuade the mighty Viking god Odin to return Gunnar’s father from Valhalla so he could help on his dangerous quest, and let’s just say that Odin would have found it very hard to say no. The children focused on persuasive techniques such as emotive language and rhetorical questions, carefully choosing words to tug at Odin’s heart (if gods have hearts!) and make their arguments as convincing as possible.
There was drama, passion, bravery, injustice, and even a hint of Viking fury, all wrapped up in beautifully crafted letters that were both moving and memorable. We had huge fun writing them, and a few of the letters were so emotional that they genuinely brought a tear to a couple of readers’ eyes. If Odin has a postbox, it is definitely overflowing by now.
Help at home: Ask your child to explain the persuasive techniques they used in their writing, such as emotive language and rhetorical questions, and see if they can give you examples from their Viking letter.
Reading: Book club
Every week, on a Friday, Year 3 and 4 children enjoy a Book Club session. During our sessions each week, children share their reading record activities, enjoy reading for pleasure and share favourite books they have read.
In our Friday Book Club sessions, we often use Authorfy. Authorfy is a website that we use in school to enrich the children’s reading. We’ve watched interviews with authors that we’ve learnt about and we’ve completed 10 minute challenges. It’s also a great place to look for inspiration of what to read next.
Authorfy is free for the National Year of Reading 2026!
Help at home by visiting the Authorfy website and exploring the different sections. Can you and your child complete a 10 minute challenge together? Can you find an interview from your favourite author? What book will you read next?
Manipulating Maths
Maths this week for Year 6 has been all about manipulating numbers. We have been looking at equations and seeing if we multiply one factor and divide the other, the product (the answer) always stays the same. This can be a really useful tool within mental maths as it can make an equation easier to solve. Here is a little example of a few calculations. We discussed whether they helped us solve the answer or whether there’d be an easier alternative.
