Easter celebrations
This week, we’ve been learning about how some Christians celebrate Easter. We’ve made Easter cards, painted patterns on eggs, filled eggs in the sensory Easter tray and explored the interest table.
We listen to a story called ” We are going on an Easter Hunt” enjoying re-telling the story as the rabbits passed chicks, lambs and bees on the hunt. We followed some Easter traditions by decorating eggs and rolling them, going on an Easter hunt and tasting Hot Cross Buns. We spotted the important symbol of the cross on the top.
Help at home – Some of our older children are learning to hear the initial sounds in words. What can you find that begins with a ‘l’? You might find a lemon, a lolly or a leaf.
For our younger children in yellow group, this might be a little tricky. You could enjoy singing a rhyme related to Easter such as ‘Chick, chick, chicken‘ or ‘Little Peter Rabbit‘.
We hope that you all have a happy and healthy Easter holiday and enjoy some family time together. We’ll look forward to hearing all about your adventures when we return to Nursery on Tuesday 22 April.
Rabbits don’t lay eggs
We’ve been building up to the Easter half-term break with some egg-streamly egg-citing activities!
Rabbits Don’t Lay Eggs
We’ve been reading Rabbits Don’t Lay Eggs by Paula Metcalf.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
The story begins on a farm, with a rabbit named Rupert. All he wants is to be useful but unfortunately, he struggles to find anything he’s good at. Luckily, he soon finds an unexpected job on the farm!
Our ‘word of the week’ is creation – something that is made or created.
We also spotted some other adventurous words in the story:
Giggled to laugh lightly and repeatedly (a lot) in a silly way.
Glumly to look unhappy and disappointed.
In our writing, we transcribed the sentence Chicks are born on a farm. We also had a go at creating our own sentences, with spring pictures to inspire us!
Understanding the World; Easter
Through our literacy and RE learning, we’ve been discussing how we celebrate Easter and where our traditions come from.
We learnt that Easter is a Christian celebration and listened to the Easter story.
In provision, we’ve been exploring lots of Easter themed activities- we’ve loved going on egg hunts in the garden!
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been identifying the same and different attributes of various objects – e.g. colour, size, shape. We’ve been choosing ways to sort the objects.
We have also re-visited ways to identify ‘odd’ and ‘even’ numbers- we noticed that all of our even numbers are doubles!
In provision, we’ve been exploring doubles by putting the same number of eggs into 2 baskets and finding the total amount, we’ve been making repeating patterns using Easter objects and we’ve been playing a subtising/counting game! What a lot of maths skills!
Farmer Luke
On Thursday, we caught up with Farmer Luke via Zoom.
He started by showing us the tractor he uses to plant seeds and showed the children that these special tractors have tracks, not wheels, to protect the soil.
Luke showed us the different parts of the cultivator that work together to plant the grass seeds.
He asked the children to guess one of the plants- well done to Jenson, who knew it was a blackberry bush! Luke sends blackberries off in June/July to be turned into Ribena- yum!
Luke then answered some of our questions. We learnt lots, such as how long it takes for the grass to grow, where the tractors are kept and which jobs happened on the farm over winter.
We found out that winter is “less busy”. Lots of small jobs happen, such as pruning, farming the chickens, trimming edges and chopping up wood from fallen trees. Luke said “now it’s spring and things are growing, there’s lots more jobs to do!”
Bean Plants
Before we sent our bean plants home this week, we looked closely at the changes and how they had started to grow. If you decide to plant your bean at home, we’d love to see!
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. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called A Little Seed.
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
We always look at two words in the poem and share the definition. This week, we looked at the following words.
sow – plant (seed) by scattering or putting in soil
shower – a short period (time) of rain
click here to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!
Egg rolling competition!
We finished the week with our egg rolling competition. We saw super- creative decorated eggs- thank you for your amazing efforts. Well done to our winners, whose eggs rolled their way to victory!
Home learning
Can you write a diary about your half term? A sentence a day would be fantastic! Please bring your diary in to share when we return to school.
Writing reminder…
Remember, it is okay for things to be spelt phonetically. It is important your child grows into an independent learner. Encouraging your child to write the words as they sound rather than always spelling correctly is important. It encourages your child to use their own skills – rather than copy from an adult.
It is important you do not let your child simply copy your writing. They need to use their phonics skills to write. Here is an example of a child’s writing in Reception.
Final message and getting ready for year one!
On your return to school on the 22 April, we’ll be entering the final full term of Reception. The first step of the transition towards year one, is getting the children ready to come into school independently.
To support us with this, we are asking that children enter the classroom/cloakroom on their own from 22 April. We know a few children have started to do this already, which is great to see!
We encourage you to wave goodbye at the waving window and our door is always open for you to continue to pop in for a chat, if needed.
Thank you for your support.
We wish you all a lovely half-term break- see you in 2 weeks!
Reminders and Dates
SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1
Living and Learning and Science visitors in KS1
This half term we have been very fortunate to welcome some visitors into school.
A Living and Learning visitor
A couple of weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Lindsey from Diversity Role Models. She came to deliver a workshop on how important diversity is in all of our lives.
She read the story Odd Dog Out (which we all loved!) and then handed out coloured stickers. We needed to make groups by finding all the people who had the same colour as us before creating long ‘sausage dogs’ by linking together.
In each class, the teachers had been left in a group all on their own. They described how that made them feel.
It was so lovely how the children instantly offered for them to join their groups and we all decided that it was far better to create a rainbow dog where everyone could join in and be included.
Science visitor
Today we welcomed James from Solar For Schools into our classes. Firstly, he talked to us about what electricity is and how it can travel. We saw how, when we are connected, a circuit is created and electricity can travel through us. When we let go of a hand, the circuit broke and the electricity didn’t work.
He gave us wires, mini solar panels, mini lights, mini motors and mini buzzers. He showed us how to make a circuit to make them all work and we learned that if we covered up the solar panel, the circuit wouldn’t have any power and therefore, it wouldn’t work.
What fun we’ve had… And the half term isn’t even over yet!
Help at home: by talking to your child about differences and how people’s differences make our world an interesting and diverse place. You could also talk to your child about all the things that use electricity in your home. What are the things that use electricity? How do they work?
Railways, Reading and Rockets!
The National Railway Museum
On Monday, the children had a fantastic time at The National Railway Museum. They were very excited to go on their first ever school trip – especially travelling there by coach! We were super impressed with how well-behaved the children were. Well done, Reception class.
The children enjoyed looking at different trains and making comparisons of old and new. They had lots of fun watching the miniature railway and it led to lots of great discussions about trains, tunnels and transport. The children especially enjoyed sitting on the Japanese Bullet train.
To end our wonderful visit, we drew our favourite train of the day!
Literacy
We’ve been reading The Hundred Decker Rocket, by Mike Smith.
This story is about a girl called Ivy who sets off on an expedition to space- expedition is our word of the week! On the way, she meets some very messy aliens. When her rocket breaks down, the aliens help to fix it and make their own deck.
The story inspired lots of discussion around keeping our planet clean and why this is important.
In our writing, we designed our very own rocket deck that we will be making next week- this is where we need your help…
Please send your child into school with an empty shoebox next week. The children will be creating their very own deck, based on their designs.
Computing; Beebots
We’ve continued exploring Beebots. Beebots are a fun, early coding resource. We program the bee using directional buttons. The children had to pre-plan the algorithm they needed to enter, to successfully get the bee to its intended location (for example, a specific spot on the carpet)
Living and learning; Celebrating differences
Our living and learning statement this week is: I know we’re all the same and we’re all different.
On Wednesday, were were visited by Lindsey from Diversity Role Models.
The children listened to the story Mixed by Arree Chung
a charming and thought-provoking picture book with characterful illustrations and humour. Follow the colours as they overcome their differences in this sweet tale of acceptance and celebrating difference.
The children loved the story and it introduced us to some new, important vocabulary; diversity, harmony, vibrant.
The children had some thoughtful answers to Lindsey’s questions:
Why is being different good? “’cause we all like different things”-Lola
What would happen if we were all the same? “it would be confusing”- Robyn, “it would be boring”-Delilah
World Book Day
Thank you to the parents and carers who were able to join us for our stay and read session on Thursday, for World Book Day.
As part of our celebrations, the children enjoyed talking about their favourite books from home.
Another highlight of the day was when our friends from years 5/6 came to class to read with us!
On Tuesday, the children took part in a live story and draw-along with the author (Swapna Haddow) and illustrator (Aditi Kakade Beaufrand) of The Night Before Holi
As well as an opportunity to enjoy a new story, the children learnt about this Hindu festival, which welcomes the arrival of springtime.
Phonics
This week, the children have reviewed air, er and longer words that contain double letters.
Help at home; phonics challenge
Write these words on paper and ask your child to underline the double letters before reading them.
hammer shimmer cannot chatter muffin
Tricky words can be just that-tricky! We’ve previously introduced a few fun games you can play at home to practise tricky words. Here’s another you could try…
Secret password
Write different tricky words on paper and stick them next to different doors around the house.
Each time your child enters or leaves a room they must press and say the tricky word password.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we learn a new poem and we recite this poem every day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem was Pancakes by Christina Rossetti
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm. Can your child re-tell this week’s poem to you?
We hope you enjoyed watching the children recite this week’s poem aloud, in LIVE ACTION during our stay and read on World Book Day!
Dates for your diary
Reception’s Class Assembly- Thursday 13 March, 2.45pm
Stay and learn: Number Session 2- Tuesday 18 March, 9-10am This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school. This session is our second with a focus on maths.
These dates are also stuck to your child’s classroom door or window to view whenever needed.
KS1 – A little early World Book Day treat
Today, all three KS1 classes had the amazing opportunity to experience a zoom call with the renowned author Julia Donaldson and the talented illustrator Axel Scheffler.
The session started with Axel Scheffler reading us the story ‘The Smeds and The Smoos’. He then drew Bill and Janet from the story. We had a go at drawing along… but it was very fast!
Julia Donaldson then read us her story ‘Tiddler’. It was really lovely to hear for ourselves how she had imagined the voices would sound in the story. We listened attentively before Axel Scheffler then showed us how to draw Tiddler and Little Johnny Dory.
What a great start to the week!
Help at home: There are so many Julia Donladson stories, perhaps you could share some of them together at home. You can also find animated versions of the stories that we heard today a on BBC iplayer.
The Smeds and The Smoos
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001gncf/the-smeds-and-the-smoos
Tiddler
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0026dm6/tiddler
1A – Our Geography Journey
Learning about the streets around our school has been lots of fun. We have carried out fieldwork, presented data around our findings and written persuasive letters to Miss Hague.
During our fieldwork in Scholes village, we noticed that there wasn’t a safe place for people to cross the road safely near the Peace Flame and we saw how an older gentleman took a while to cross over to the bus stop. Another of our observations was that there was a lot of litter around the school gates. We really weren’t happy about that! Especially as there was not much litter elsewhere in Scholes! We decided to investigate further and carried out some more fieldwork. This time it would be on the school grounds.
During this fieldwork, we counted how many pieces of litter we could see on the KS1 playground, KS2 playground and the adventure playground. We weren’t happy to find that there was a lot of litter on the school grounds and we discussed how we could help the situation. Miss Hague often goes litter picking into Scholes village with some KS2 children and we wondered if she’d buy some litter pickers for KS1 too. We wrote some persuasive letters to her to try and convince her that it would be money well spent for school.
We eagerly await her decision…
A very busy week
This week, as part of our Expressive Arts and Design curriculum, we’ve re-visited learning to draw ourselves. We used mirrors to look at our faces and talked about what shape we needed to draw on the paper first. We then looked at our features and tried to add more details to our drawings such as hair, ears and eyes. Some children added eye lashes and eyebrows.
Have a go at home together. Can you draw each other? Start with a circle shape for your face and then add in some features
Tuesday was our Internet safety Day at Nursery. We talked about ways to stay safe whilst using technology at home such as always making sure that we are near a grown up. Only using apps and games that our parents and carers have said are ok for us to play. We also agreed that we’d tell someone if we saw anything that we didn’t like pop up on our screens.
We also followed an interest in magnetism this week. The children found the magnetic boards outside and wanted to find out more. We began exploring to find out which things were magnetic.
“It sticks to the cake tin, look”
“Metal, it sticks to the metal leg”
We found a construction kit that we could make models that used magnets to hold the parts together.
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.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Mary, Mary quite contrary.
Sound of the week – ‘Uu’ for Umbrella
We’re also 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 sessions and will also be adding them to our Home Corner family display.
scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Reminder – World Book Day
It’s World Book Day on Thursday 06 March. This year, we will celebrate by bringing our favourite book to nursery to share with our friends. Please make sure that your child’s name is in their book. If you can stay a little bit longer at drop off on Thursday morning, we’d love for you to share a book with your child or to join in with some of the World Book Day activities that will be in provision. It’s always a day that we really enjoy at nursery, so please join in if you can.
We hope that you all have a happy and healthy half term and we’ll see you on Monday 24 February.
Nursery Coffee Morning
Following the half-term break we will be holding another Nursery coffee morning.
Living and Learning: I know that people should treat others respectfully when online
Safer Internet Day is the UK’s biggest celebration of online safety. Each year, Safer Internet Day covers online issues or themes that speak about the things young people are seeing and experiencing online. It’s a chance to think about any worries we might have about using technology and the Internet, but it’s also about celebrating all the fantastic things technology can help us with.
The 2025 Safer Internet Day theme is: ‘Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online.’
We had a visit from d-side to discuss the importance of staying safe online. It’s important to remember:
- use a strong password with characters, numbers and capital letters
- always ask a trusted adult if you’re unsure about something online
- always check the PEGI ratings for games and if they’re suitable
- NEVER share personal information online
- always question if everything you see online is true
We talked about what is trust and can we trust eveything we see online. Here’s a reminder to think about if you’re being scammed.
Help at home: Discuss online websites that you use at home and if they’re trustworthy by answering the following questions:
– Who is it by?
– What else have they created?
– Do they have a good reputation?
– Is it high quality information?
– Does it look real and does it feature on other websites?
Feed the birds
It’s been a busy week in Nursery. The children love exploring the outside area, especially looking for worms and bugs under the logs. This week they began to notice that they couldn’t find many. Where they had gone?
We talked about the cold, frosty weather and how the ground had been very hard. The children then began to think about the birds in our garden and wondered what they were eating? We decided to make them some food. Cutting up lard very carefully, we mixed it together with bird seed, it was “sticky” and “gooey”
We pressed it into cups, added string, and then hung them in our Nursery garden. We took some home too, so that we could watch the birds at home. Let us know if your bird feeder attracts the birds into your outside space. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Some other activities from this week in Nursery.
Self-help skills are very important as the children develop. At lunchtime we are developing our skills of independence by learning how to use a knife and fork. We have been practising this skill in our dough area too.
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
Next week’s learning:
Sound of the week- “e” for elephant.
We will be choosing some of our favourite Nursery rhymes to revisit this week. Which is your favourite?
Pat a cake, The Grand old Duke of York or Jack and Jill?
The Nursery Team