I’ll huff and I’ll puff…
Week 3 – “I’ll huff and I’ll puff…”
The story of the Three Little Pigs was really popular last week; it was great to hear so many children re-telling the story using the puppets and language from the story. In the construction area, children made houses for the pigs and there was a lot of discussion about houses being ‘demolished’. We looked at some plans for new houses on an iPad and began to draw our own architect’s plans. Mrs Brown enjoyed creating some ‘mixed-up’ fairy tales with children on Tuesday, involving big bad wolves, princesses and giants…Thankfully, they all lived happily ever after!
The cold weather provided more fun learning opportunities; we compared the size of our footprints in the snow and used different coloured paint to investigate what happens when you spray snow. There are some new icy paintings on display in the Rainbow room that we created after looking and talking about the frost. The winter-themed stories in our book corner have also sparked a new interest in penguins! Over the last week, staff have noticed children asking to listen to a story called ‘Tacky the penguin’. We talked about the iceberg that Tacky stands on. Many children hadn’t encountered them before and so we decided to try and make our own mini icebergs. We filled balloons with water and put them in the freezer. We’re looking forward to finding out what happens to them when we get them out at the beginning of next week.
We’d also like to welcome our new children and their families who have joined nursery this week. Everyone has visited nursery for their first session now and we look forward to getting to know all of the new children over the next few weeks. We’re really pleased that they’ve already started to make friends with our older children.
Week 4 – What are we learning this week?
There will be more ice investigations when we take our balloons out of the freezer and create an arctic world for Tacky’s friends in the water tray. We continue to be led by children’s interests, so many areas of nursery have a traditional story theme. We’re going to read another favourite story that has appeared on our interest board – this week we’ll be shouting, “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum!” as we play with Jack and the Giant in his castle outside. In maths, we’ll count beans and golden coins carefully, making sure that we say one number for each object and lining them up to help us count each one once. We will also be talking about rhyming words during group times next week. Try to find some words that rhyme in your bed time stories this week!
Cultural Homework
The standard of the creative homework in Year 3/4 last week was fantastic! The presentation of artwork and handwriting is improving weekly. We saw many different examples of cultural experiences from the children ranging from films, art and sculptures, to holidays, hobbies and books.
Here are just a few examples to show the range and quality of work from our students.
Life Forces
We began our Life Forces big topic this week. Each class has talked about what they would like to find out. There were some very insightful questions including, “How to zebras get their stripes?”
We are looking forward to answering the questions and the children are particularly excited about all the Science this will involve. The BBC Bitesize website has some excellent resources that we’ll be using to support our learning.
Maths, NSPCC and Golden Stars
We’ve been continuing our addition and subtraction focus in maths. There are some examples below of how children use concrete resources and pictorial representations in their books. The Top Marks website is great for fun ways to work on maths skills at home and we particularly like Hit the Button to help with rapid recall of maths facts.
The children listened and contributed well during the visit from the NSPCC with their mascot, Buddy. They told us all about the Speak Out Stay Safe campaign. Ask your child what they learnt.
We also learnt about how there is always someone to talk to at Childline and were shown how to remember the number, 0800 1111, using our hands.
Well done to our Golden Stars from the last two weeks.
Fantastic homework!
Recently, the standard of homework has been high. The pupils’ skills and dedication has been going from strength to strength! We’d love to show some of them to you!
We find them inspiring. They are creative; demonstrate the children’s interests; show research skills (without copying huge chunks from the internet!); maintain the high standard of presentation we expect; and are all relevant to the task set.
Following learning conversations and feedback in class, it’s been very clear that the children have really enjoyed the opportunity to research and present their findings.
They are fantastic – well done, everyone. Keep it up! We can’t wait to see next week’s homework!
Terrific Tessellations
This week, we began our new Life Forces topic with a focus on the key characteristics of mammals and fish. In art, we were inspired by the work of MC Escher (1889-1972) and created our own fabulous tessellations of mammals and fish.
Ask you child to explain how they modified a square to make their tessellating template.
Thank you!
Thank you to those of you who were able to attend the ‘marvellous maths’ stay and play today. It was great to see so many of you there and the children enjoyed sharing their learning with you.
We focused on the number 9. We focus on numbers to twenty throughout the year to get a depth of understanding of what the numbers represent. We talked about what number 9 looks like – not just the numeral but also what it looks like in our environment. For example, 8 flowers and 1 tree – that makes nine!
If you were unable to attend, your child will be bringing home an information booklet with ideas of how to support your child at home. The children also enjoy watching number blocks – a great conversation starter about numbers!
Which liquid is the most viscous?
This week, in our science-based mini topic, What’s the matter?, we planned a test to find out which liquid is the most viscous.
We had to think about:
- how we would test the different liquids
- what we would need
- what we would measure
- what things would need to stay the same to keep the test fair
- what one thing would change each time
On Friday, we carried out our tests and recorded the results. Ask your child to describe what is going on in each of the pics below.
Home Link – The Three Little Pigs
This week, we’re going to be reading the story of The Three Little Pigs so we’d like you to enjoy reading this story at home together.
You could also…
- Draw, paint a picture or collage of the Three Little Pigs
- Make a house that you think the Big Bad Wolf wouldn’t be able to blow down! What would you use?
- Re-tell the story using different voices for the pigs and the wolf
- Think of some words that rhyme with pig
- Look for the number 3 and groups of 3 things when you are out and about (eg 3 on a bus, 3 lights on a traffic light, 3 red cars etc…)
- Listen to the story on-line
- Visit a farm and find out about pigs!
Run, run as fast as you can!
The Gingerbread Man story has provided us with lots of fantastic learning opportunities. The story props in our small world area have been very popular; children have enjoyed using them to re-tell the story and it has been great to hear children using lots of storytelling language and some of the repeated refrains from the story. At the beginning of the week, children had lots of fun trying to find The Gingerbread Man that kept hiding around nursery! We talked about the Gingerbread Man running everywhere and some children remembered that he shouldn’t run in nursery and decided to draw some posters telling him to slow down and walk.
We also continued to practise our counting skills – counting out and drawing the correct number of buttons on our gingerbread men. Children are becoming much better at accurately counting objects and at counting out 3-4 objects from a group. Remember to keep practising these important skills at home.
As you are no doubt aware from the muddy trousers and tights that you have to wash, we’ve still been playing outside in the cold and damp weather! This week, we’ve taken advantage of the mixed weather conditions. On Monday, we looked at the patterns in the frost and were inspired to create some icy artwork and on Wednesday, we listened to the pitter patter of raindrops under a tent that we made. Children loved colour mixing with paints in the puddles and creating footprints with their wellies.
Week 3 – What are we learning this week?
Thank you to those of you that have added your child’s favourite fairy tale story to our interest board. If you haven’t had chance yet, please do so next time you’re in nursery. Last week, whilst we were in the middle of making a den, children began to include a favourite character into their role play – can you guess who?
“I’ll huff and I’ll puff…” This week, in response to their play and favourite stories, we’ve added some ‘Three Little Pig’ themed enhancements to nursery provision. In the maths area, we’ll be investigating and looking at the number 3 (3 pigs, 3 wheels on a tricycle, 3 buttons on a gingerbread man, 3 sides on a triangle…). What can you find linked to the number 3 at home?
We’re also really looking forward to welcoming our new starters for their first sessions in nursery. As you will remember, the first few sessions at nursery for some children can be quite daunting; please be patient and bear with us if staff are helping to settle the new children.
Reminders
- Have you applied for your school place yet? The Deadline is Monday 15 January.
- Have you got any ‘Wow’ moments to e-mail us? What has your child done recently that has impressed you? We’d love to know too, so please let us know.