Welcome back to nursery 2018!
Welcome back to nursery. We hope that you had a lovely break and enjoyed the Christmas and New Year celebrations. We were really pleased to see so many happy and excited children on their first day back last week. It’s lovely to know that children enjoy coming to nursery and that they feel happy and safe, and have formed good friendships with their peers and staff.
Children were keen to share their news about Father Christmas and to tell us about some of their holiday adventures. However, two weeks is a long time for a 3 and 4 year old and they often forget! We’d love it if you could send us some photographs and a short description of something that you did in the holidays. It could be how you spent Christmas day with family, an outing to the seaside/theatre/park, playing in the snow (for the morning that we had some!) or anything else that your child would enjoy sharing with us. The nursery email is scholesf1@spherefederation.org Having a photograph to talk about that your child can really relate to, helps to boost their confidence and provides a great opportunity for them to talk about their own experiences. We often find that children who may be quite shy and reluctant to talk, often have lots to say when they can see a photograph and remember something special that they have done. We look forward to a full inbox this week!
We had lots of fun returning to nursery, building robots out of Christmas boxes, drawing around each other to create a large gingerbread man, using the remote control cars to navigate around nursery and taking part in throwing activities, where we had to reach the targets throwing the beanbags in different ways.
Last week, we spent time settling back into nursery routines and we introduced children to the popular traditional tale, The Gingerbread Man. Children really enjoyed listening to the story and are already beginning to join in with some of the repeated refrains “You can’t catch me…” We will continue to enjoy re-telling the story this week and we may even have a go at baking our own gingerbread men if we can catch them before they run away! Of course, there’ll be lots of counting opportunities too; children will be counting out buttons for the gingerbread man.
You can read the story of The Gingerbread Man on-line and there’s also a link to a game at the end of the story where children can match the correct number of buttons to the numeral on the baking tray.
This week, staff will be visiting the new children at home before they join us for a “Stay and Play “session on Friday afternoon. The current nursery children will be able to show us what fantastic friends they are by welcoming the new children and helping them to play and settle into nursery. This is a great opportunity for the children to demonstrate how much they have matured since they started nursery in September and how confident and independent they have become.
Dinosaur Stomp
Each class has been working hard to achieve their 30 active minutes during the school day. Remember the challenge includes weekends – but all 60 minutes have to be done at home! Have a look at the Change for Life ideas or sign up to Go Noodle at home for fun ideas to keep active.
We used the end of Golden Assembly to do the Dinosaur Stomp (from Go Noodle) and a jungle animal dance to complete our 30 active minutes today. It was a great way to round off our week!
Library visit!
Today, we went to the school library. Foundation will be visiting the library every Friday. There are lots of new and exciting books! We talked about what a library is and that we must keep quiet to let others read.
Your child has chosen a book to take home. Please bring your child’s library book back by Friday 12 December if they would like to change it.
Golden star of the week!
Well done to our golden star of the week!
Reflecting on our learning.
Children reflecting on their own learning is an integral part of the learning journey and all children in school have regular opportunities to do this. Some of the ways reflection can happen is through verbal discussions with an adult, peer discussions or through written feedback.
Here are a couple of examples of written feedback in maths. This reflection is detailed, specific and shows the learning journey this child has made in these particular lessons. It is great to see the use of our 8 Rs for learning in the feedback!
Let’s Get Active!
As part of our commitment to being a happy and healthy school, we’re continually looking at ways to increase the 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 to reduce this risk by ensuring that our children can achieve the recommended 60 minutes, or more, of physical activity per day. The government wants schools to provide 30 minutes of this.
In response to this we have launched the 30:30 Wristband Challenge.
Y1-6 children should have brought a recording sheet home. We’ll be taking part in the challenge in school and are encouraging children to continue this at home as well. We already do 10 minutes of Wake Up, Shake Up per day (join in here). We are now striving for 10 minutes of running per day and a further 10 minutes using interactive online resources. The Change for Life website has fun ideas how you can achieve 30 active minutes at home, too.
What would happen if …?
Today, we started our science based mini-topic.
We made and recorded predictions about what would happen when we poured water on to Skittles.
Eva predicted that the Skittles would move around and float in the water.
Annabelle predicted that the Skittles would move and the colouring would come off in the water, leaving them white.
Finlay also predicted that the water would make the Skittles move and leave them white.
This is what actually happened!
This got us thinking!
- Freya: What would happen if we poured hot water on Skittles?
- Evie: What would happen if we poured milk on Skittles?
- Brandon: What would happen if we poured lemonade on M & Ms?
- Conor: What would happen if we poured water on Smarties?
- Ben: What would happen if we poured water on Skittles that were placed in a line instead of in a circle?
- Lilia: What would happen if we also added an extra Skittle in the middle of the dish?
The children are keen to try out some of their ideas at home. Let us know what you find out!
Movie Makers
We learnt so much reading Naughty Bus last half term: retelling the story orally and with props, writing it, writing our own naughty vehicle stories and making movies! We really enjoyed thinking of naughty ideas and using iPads to capture images to make videos in iMovie.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! We’re looking forward to seeing lots of refreshed, smiling faces this week and we can’t wait to find out all about your Christmas excitement and holiday adventures. Don’t forget to e-mail us some photographs and let us know what you have been up to over the last two weeks. The children love to share their photographs with their friends and it’s a great opportunity for them to develop their speaking and listening skills.
Before the holidays, children really enjoyed counting buttons onto a gingerbread man on the interactive whiteboard. This led to discussions about ‘The Gingerbread Man’ story which is one of our nursery favourites. Some children were familiar with the traditional tale, whilst others hadn’t heard it before. This week, we’re going to enjoy listening to the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and will hopefully be able to use the small world story props to re-tell the story.
You may even be able to smell something delicious cooking over the next two weeks…
If you have the story at home, you could read it together this week to help familiarise your child with the story.
WOW
We are so impressed with those children who have worked hard over the Christmas holidays and have learnt how to zip up their coat. It has made a very big difference to your child’s independence. They can get ready to go outside quickly without adult help. Thank you to those of you who have emailed a picture – your child will be getting 3 challenge cubes!
There’s still time to complete the challenge. A reminder of the challenge is below.
Your child’s challenge is to learn/practise to zip up their coat.
This will help your child to become more independent and get ready to play outside without adult help.
Can you email a photo of your child practising to zip up their coat? Your child will get 3 challenge cubes for having a go!
The email address is: scholesf2@spherefederation.org