Arty Ideas
During weekly art sessions, we focus on different art skills, often in our ‘Arty Ideas’ books. This week, we were looking at regular and irregular patterns. We discussed what makes a pattern regular or irregular and then had a go at creating some of our own. It was great to see how each pattern is unique, just like the children!
Help at home by looking for patterns around your house or environment (eg wallpaper, flooring, walls, fences).
PE – dodgeball
We have been having a great time over the last few weeks learning lots of new dodgeball games. As a class, we are very competent players at the original game, however the children needed to test their skills at some brand new games. Dodgeball is a fast paced game that requires quick movements, good defence and an accurate aim. The children played games of ‘poison ball’ which is a ‘last person standing’ game. They played large team games such as ‘benchball dodgeball’. This involves losing your team to a bench on the opposite side of the court if they are hit. It’s a game of attack and defence. These new games have definitely been great fun and we are all out of breath by the end of our PE sessions.
Poem of the week: On The Ning Nang Nong!
Every week we have a different poem of the week. We read this every day in school. This week we are reading On The Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan.
Day 1 – Miss Young reads the poem to the class and models fluency.
Day 2 – Miss Young reads with the class and we focus on our prosody.
Day 3 – The class read it without Miss Young.
Day 4 – Children read the poem on their own and in a pair.
Day 5 – We all have a practise of saying the poem with our best fluency and prosody, without looking at the words. The poem is then sent home as part of children’s homework.
See below a video of 2C reading their poem of the week. This is day 3!
KS1 visit from our lovely lollipop lady, Sue
Today, the whole of KS1 had a very special visitor. Our beloved lollipop lady, Sue. She came along to inform our history learning and shared her memories of shopping as a youngster.
The children all listened carefully as Sue told us how there were not as many shops as there are now and how there weren’t any supermarkets. You needed to go to lots of different types of shops for your groceries such as a butchers, a bakery or a green grocers. Sue’s father was a green grocer and he started out his business by selling tomatoes from a box which he carried around on his head!
Sweets and pop were a once weekly treat and snacks weren’t really readily available. It was mainly just three meals a day. There was no choice of meals either – everyone in the family ate the same thing and you rarely got to choose what it was. This was the same at school. There was only one choice of school dinner or you could go home for lunch. Meals were seasonal. You had to wait until fruits and vegetables were in season to eat them. You couldn’t get them in the shops all year round like you can today.
The children loved that Sue passed through the gates today to join them in class and the session was very interesting and informative. Thank you Sue!
Help at home – Talk to your child about what shopping was like when you were a child. You could also ask older family members, friends or neighbours to share their experiences with your child just like Sue did. Questions that may help your discussions might be:
- What kind of shops did you buy your food from?
- How did you pay? Were you able to pay with your phone or watch?
- What kinds of foods were available? Was there as much choice as there is today?
- What was your favourite meal? Is it the same now?
- Did you get your shopping delivered?
- Do you have any photographs that you could share together?
Wanted! Baby photos
Next week, we’re learning about growing up and looking at how we change as we get older.
It would be great if we could look at some photographs of children when they were babies and toddlers. If you are able to, please send us an email with one photograph of your child as a baby and one photograph of them as a toddler. We’ll use these in group time and will also be adding them to our Home Corner family display.
Flavoursome Fruit Salad
What a welcome back to school! Yesterday, Class 1A spent the afternoon working on the latest DT project. We made fruit salad… and delicious they were too!
We started the same as we always do with a food project – by washing our hands and making sure that they’re nice and clean. Bye bye germs! The children then worked in groups to prepare fruit for a tasty fruit salad. We thought about the word ‘ingredients‘ and looked at the selection that we had… bananas, oranges, kiwi fruit, strawberries, grapes, tinned pineapple and tinned peaches and orange juice. Mrs Brown demonstrated how to slice the fruit safely and then we used the bridge hold to slice our own pieces of fruit. We also used other skills such as peeling by hand and segmenting fruit.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the process and we shared the resources respectfully. Nearly everyone devoured their fruit salad giving a huge thumbs up. Others gave new fruits a lick to see if they liked it. Mrs Brown was very proud of them all!
Well done for great careful listening Class 1A!
Help at home – under careful supervision, you could give your child experiences of helping to prepare their own foods for breakfast, lunch or dinner. They could help to measure out liquids that you need for a recipe for the family. They could use child appropriate knives to prepare fruits and vegetables for meals or snacks. Perhaps they could begin to help to prepare their own healthy snack to bring to school?
Nursery Coffee Morning
Swimming Spring 2
Lunar New Year
We had a great final week of half term; children loved reading a book about the Lunar New Year and we watched some short video clips to find out how people prepare for the festival and celebrate with their families.
To join in with the celebrations, we painted ‘good luck’ banners in the creative area and we danced and played instruments to a Chinese dragon song.
We enjoyed decorating a lunar lantern with some patterns that we’re learning (circles, zig-zags, waves and lines) to help improve our pencil control.
In group time, children in red, blue and green group learnt about the number 2. We looked at a domino that had one spot on one end, and one spot on the other. When we looked at the spots together, there were two. Children knew that they had 2 eyes, 2 ears and 2 feet. We jumped twice and counted two claps.
Help at home: Have a look around your house and surroundings – What can you find two of? You might see two wheels on your bike or 2 eggs left in the box. Can you spot any number twos on doors or number plates? Send us an e-mail to let us know how you get on – you could send a photograph to show us what you find. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Learning after half term:
We’ll be reading Jack and the Beanstalk and beginning our ‘growing’ theme. If you have a copy of the book at home, please read it together to help familiarise your child with the story. We’ll be looking for signs of spring in the garden, too. When you’re out and about over half term, see what ‘signs of spring’ you notice – it could be flowers beginning to grow or birds singing.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Baa Baa Black Sheep
Sound of the week – ‘e’ for elephant
Have a happy and healthy half term and we look forward to finding out about your holidays when we return to Nursery on Monday 19 February.
The Magic Paintbrush
This week, our focus book was The Magic Paintbrush.
We began by listening to the story for enjoyment. After becoming familiar with the story, we were then able to discuss the main events and characters.
The children then explored what they would do if they had a magic paintbrush.
After reading, we also learnt about the Lunar New year and how it is celebrated.
They put up lanterns. Libby
They have fireworks. Violet
They have a new animal every year. Austin
Special dinner. Melissa
They clean the house. Sienna
Stay and Learn
On Tuesday, it was great to welcome adults into the classroom to share different ways to develop our fine motor skills.
Lots of activities can be done with items you already have a home!
Maths
During our lessons, we have explored weight using lots objects made from different materials and of various sizes.
We have focused on using mathematical vocabulary to compare different items.
heavy heavier heaviest
light lighter lightest
Poetry Picnic
Each week, we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. This week’s poem is Mrs Bluebird.
Phonics
We use the chunking method to read words with more that one syllable. We have also spotted words containing double letters (e.g. rabbit) – these are diagraphs too!
Ask your child to chunk and read these words.
sunset chicken carpet carrot
Your child will have come home with a grapheme mat and a tricky word mat. If any sounds are highlighted on the grapheme mat, these are those that your child is not yet secure on. Please keep practising these at home.
Tricky words can be just that-tricky! In Little Wandle phase 3, we learnt lots of new words. The children will continue to learn new tricky words fairly rapidly over the Spring 2 and Summer terms. We’ve previously introduced a few fun games you can play at home to practice tricky words. Here’s another you could try!
Musical tricky words
- Write the tricky words on individual pieces of paper, lay them out on the floor
- Play your child’s favourite song for them to dance around to
- When the music stops, your child should pick a word to quickly run to and stand on
- Your child reads the word they have landed on
- Remove that word and repeat until there are no words left!
Internet Safety
On internet safety day and throughout the week, the children have discussed ways they use the internet and how to stay safe online.
Here is a link you may find useful to help and support staying safe online.
More learning
