Homework – number stories
All year 1 and 2 classes had some fantastic homework to share this week. Number stories are all around us. Help your child at home by talking to them about numbers and calculations, looking for them in everyday life.
World Book Day
Although the snow tried to ruin World Book Day this year, children still found the time to share their books with each other.
Home Link – Shapes
As part of the Maths EYFS curriculum, children need to be able to talk about the shapes of everyday objects. They’re encouraged to play with shapes and to spot familiar shapes in their environment. As they become more confident, they may begin to name 2D and 3D shapes and be able to talk about their properties (e.g. number of sides/corners, straight/curved).
This week, we’d like you to talk all about shapes. Here are some ideas of activities that you might like to do together.
- Go on a Shape hunt inside or outside (e.g. clock – circle). Take photos of the different shapes that you find.
- Make a shape picture. What would be a good shape for a… door, wheel or a fish’s tail?
- Find a selection of objects in the house that you could dip in paint to print with. What shape print does it make?
- Push different shaped objects into playdough – what shape print does it leave? Are there straight lines or curved lines? Are there some lines that are long/short?
- Collect some objects you can find in your house that are 3D shapes, e.g. cereal packet, crisp tubes, boxes of tea, oranges and DVDs. Sort them out into groups of the same shapes. How many objects do you have with corners? How many round objects do you have? How many have curved edges or sides?
- Take part in a shape scavenger hunt. See if you can find: 5 round objects, 4 tall objects, 3 objects with straight sides and 2 objects with more than 4 sides. Take a picture of what you find.
You can watch Mr Maker’s shape video and a song all about shapes.
You may have lots of other ideas too! Please make notes of the vocabulary that your child uses to talk about and describe the shapes that you find and let us know. It’s really useful information that helps us to plan next steps for your child’s learning.
All about shapes
Week 3 – Round, straight, tall… All about shapes!
Thank you to everybody who was able to attend our World Book Day celebrations and for providing some very creative costumes! It was fantastic to see so many people enjoying reading together. The children really enjoy it when you are able to join us in nursery.
This week, children have enjoyed exploring and talking about shapes. We’ve made shape pictures in the maths area, made repeating shape patterns with shape links in the fiddly fingers area and we’ve investigated printing with different shaped objects at the painting table.
What shape is the wheel?
Will it roll?
There was lots of communication, cooperation and problem solving in the Sunshine room on Friday as children worked out how to get the wheels to roll down the ramp without falling off.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve noticed several children have a shared interest in the body and doctors. We’ve had conversations and lots of questions about what’s inside our bodies, we’ve talked about visits to the doctors/hospital and some children enjoyed reading ‘Zog and the Flying Doctors’ for World Book Day. As a result, we’ve decided to follow this interest further and have created a Doctors Surgery in nursery. Providing new role play opportunities is a great way to develop children’s social and communication skills. Doctors role play also helps to encourage empathy between children and it allows them to act out real life situations and be creative!
Week 4 – What are we learning this week?
As the role play area was only created on Friday, we’re sure that this area of nursery will be very busy! We’ll continue to learn about shapes and we’ll go on a shape hunt around school. We’ve also noticed that there are some signs of Spring in our nursery garden (when it’s not covered in snow!) so we’ll begin to talk about Spring time. We’ll continue to practise ‘robot talking’ words and will be learning about the letter letter ‘p’ (as well as the letters – s,a,t,d) in group times.
Mimika Theatre – Landscape
Some of KS1 had the pleasure of stepping inside the magical tent to experience a story with no words. The journey took them on an adventure through different habitats.
- ‘It was really good! The crocodile shoots out and made me jump. I loved it.’
- ‘It was so good. I’ve never seen anything like it before.’
Children who have not seen the performance due to the snow will get an opportunity within the next few weeks.
Shared Reading
1K loved sharing some of their favourite books with 3/4N. It encourages reading for pleasure.
Mimika Theatre
This week, some children had the chance to watch the Mimika theatre company present ‘Landscapes’ within a white, domed-shaped tent. The performance explored the diversity and complexity of the natural world.
‘Landscapes’ uses a variety of techniques including puppetry, an image based story line, an immersive stereo soundtrack and a variety of sensory events and visual effects to involve and engage the audience.
Before the performance began, the children were introduced to two of the puppets (the snake and the crocodile).
Then we took a seat inside the dome…we were all very excited!
We watched in wonder as a story unfolded through four different landscapes (desert, rainforest, sea and the Antarctic).
People who help us…nurse visit!
This week we had some special visitors in F2.
As part of our ‘people who help us’ topic, Ruth and Sarah (a hospital nurse and a community nurse) came to visit us. They spoke to the children about how they care for people at home and in hospital.
They asked the children what the role of a nurse is?
- “Put plasters on.”
- “Might do an x-ray if somebody get hurt on their bone.”
- “Help you get healthy.”
They brought some of their equipment (stethoscope, bandages, heartbeat monitor) to show the children. They showed the children a stethoscope and explained how they use it to listen to a person’s heartbeat and their breathing. They modelled how to dress a wound using a bandage. The children talked about their experiences of bandages:
- “If your hand is bleeding you need to put it on your hand.”
- “One day when I was riding on my bike I fell off and daddy put one on my hand.”
- “I hurt my elbow and had it all up my arm.”
We’d like to say a big thank you to Ruth and Sarah for coming in to see us. We’d love to have more visitors to talk about their job and how they help others. Please speak to a member of the F2 team if you are interested.
Living and Learning
This week, class 5/6M thought about the different types of compliments we give and receive. We decided that you could classify them based on whether it was about a skill, your looks or a personality trait. Which one do you like to receive the most? The children also made a pledge about giving compliments.
Weekly skipping challenge
For the past few weeks, children have set themselves a skipping challenge: how many skips can they achieve in a minute? Most children have made good progress. Some have made outstanding progress. One child, who had never seen himself as a skipper, has gone from five skips to a super 70 skips per minute. Try to make skipping part of your 30 active minutes at home.