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.
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been using the song ‘five little aliens’ to explore one less within 5. We’ve been using Hungarian 5 frames (or ‘die’ frames) to represent and subitise numbers.
Later in the week, we used the aliens and frames to explore ‘5 and a bit’ We started with 6, then 7 aliens and noticed what each are ‘made of’ by subitising what we could see across the frames, for example:
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 A Little House.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 2 has focused on our final sounds of phase 3: air, er
We’ve learnt the tricky words; are, sure, pure
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight
Help at Home
You can support your child with tricky words through lots of fun games and activities. Here is one you can try this week.
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!
Living and Learning
As part of our learning this week, we have being listening to a very catchy song about PANTS.
The NSPCC have created some fab resources for us, and you, to use when teaching our children how to keep themselves safe. Ask your child about the PANTS rule and sing along to the song!
Lunar New Year
The children have enjoyed learning about Lunar New Year and engaging in activities around the classroom and outside.
Diary Dates
Mon 3 Feb 2025- Fine Motor Control, Stay and Learn Coffee Morning
This session is all about Fine Motor Control and Writing. It’s followed by a chance to meet up with other parents/carers and your child’s class teacher.
Tue 11 Feb/Thurs 13 Feb 2025- Parent-Teacher Meetings (pre-booked appointments)
Dinosaur Roar
It’s been great to see our new children becoming more familiar with Nursery routines and lots of them have now stayed for their first full day. Well done, yellow group!
Children continue to explore nursery and are independently choosing resources to enhance their play; we’ve created amazing constructions, working together and sharing ideas.
We have also enjoyed finding out about dinosaurs. Digging up dinosaur skeletons in the sand tray, finding out about dinosaurs in our small world area and learning their names.
In the sensory area, we loved playing with the slime in our dinosaur swamp! Ergh.. it’s very sticky!
Mark making always plays an important part of our learning in Nursery and this week the children have been practising their skills in many of our provision areas. In the paint, sand, message centre and making patterns on giant pieces of paper.
In group time, children in red, blue and green group helped Mrs Beesley with her shopping bags. One bag was very heavy and the other bag was quite light. We looked at the different items in each bag and compared them. Children had to find an item that was heavier or lighter than the tin of baked beans. You could try this at home.
Our sounds next week is Oo
Make your mouth into a round shape and say o.
Our Nursery Rhyme of the week next week is Row Row Row your Boat.
Can you sing the rhyme fast, slow, loud or quiet?
Have a happy and healthy weekend and thankyou as always for your continued support.
The Nursery Team.
1A Geography Topic
Our new topic is well and truly underway and this half term we are practising being Geographers. To begin our topic we discussed the difference between the land and the water on our planet. We used atlases to find land and water on different maps.
We have also been learning about the United Kingdom and we now know which four countries make up the UK. We have also learnt the four capital cities and the seas that surround the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom Song has been a great tool to help us remember all the new information we have learnt.
Help at home: You could listen to the United Kingdom Song with your child. You might want to learn some of the words and the sign language featured in the video. Look at Google Maps, other maps or atlases to find the UK and the seas that surround it.
Spellings for Testing on Thursday 17 January 2025
Year 1: school, she, so, some, the.
Year 2: after, again, any, bath, beautiful, because, behind, both, break, busy.
Which strategy helps your child to learn their spellings at home? Try this one:
Lost and Found
It has been great to see all the children this week and hear about their magical Christmas experiences.
The weather has definitely matched up to our new topic this half term – Fire and Ice.
In literacy, we have been reading the story Lost and Found.
In the story, a boy finds a penguin at his door and goes on an adventure to try to find his home, as he thought he was lost.
Just like the boy, we explored and learnt about where penguins live and extended our vocabulary by learning a new word: iceberg.
Here is some of our super writing!
Phonics
We have begun learning our Phase 3 sounds. This week, we have learnt four new digraphs/trigraphs ai,ee,igh,oa.
Maths – super subitising!
This week we have been practising our subitising skills. This means, we have been looking and saying how many objects we can see – without counting one by one.
One there and two far away. That makes three!’ Jaxon
Two and the bottom and two at the top. Billy
Check out our other learning.
Home Link
How fast can you melt an ice cube?
What happens if you put the ice somewhere hot/cold? What happens if you put salt on it? How different does it look after 10 minutes?
You may choose to record your results using drawings or use a timer.
Notices
Stay and Learn – Tuesday 14 January 9am – 10am
Our Stay and Learn sessions are a chance to find out more about your child’s journey through Reception. You can observe some teaching and learning, and pick up some tips to support your child at home. This session is all about Phonics (phase 3).
Swimming dates
Rainbow – 22 Jan, 5 Feb
Sunshine – 15 Jan, 29 Jan, 12 Feb
Please ensure your child is in their PE kit on these days, including trainers.
Applications for a Reception place.
A quick reminder.
Applications for a Reception place for September 2025 can be made until 15 January 2025. Guidance on applications can be found on Leeds City Councils You Tube video
A quick guide to school admissions
Please remember that you still need to apply for a Reception place at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School, even if your child attends Scholes Nursery.
KS1 football dates reminder
Dear parents,
This is just a quick reminder of the dates for 5 aside football for KS1. This is for the children that play semi-regularly at Fives in Seacroft.
Our next match day will be Monday 10th February 2025.
Thanks,
Miss Young 🙂
Merry Christmas Everyone!
We have had a wonderful and very busy last week of term. From sing a longs to a visit from Santa we have had it all! We were all so proud of the children this week, they sang and performed so well on Monday and Tuesday. We hope you enjoyed it.
Here are some photographs of all of our Christmas celebrations – what a week it has been!
Please don’t forget to send us some photographs of your Christmas celebrations with family or of an exciting day out that you enjoy. We will share these photos during group time in the first week back in January; they’ll be a great way of starting our conversations. Here is a reminder of the email address for your photos
scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
We return to Nursery on Monday 06 January.
We hope that you all have a Happy and Healthy Christmas, see you all in the New Year!
Thank you for your donations
A huge thanks for your generosity at our Christmas shows.
Our Junior Leaders were stood with collection box in hand at each of the four ‘performances’ that our Nursery, Reception , Year 1 and Year 2 children put on.
We managed to raise £331 for Willow Foundation
This money will help families who are facing some difficult times to enjoy the opportunity to make some very special memories. We will continue to raise money for our school charity throughout the year. As always, a big thank you for your continued support.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas
The Jolly Christmas Postman
Literacy
This week we enjoyed the story, The Jolly Christmas Postman.
The children loved seeing the different letters, gifts and cards inside each envelope.
Inspired by the book, we wrote our own postcards with special messages. We learned about the journey of a letter from the post box to our front door and can’t wait for our own letters to be delivered!
Maths
We have named and described 2D shapes. We enjoyed searching for these shapes around our classroom. In provision, we created shape pictures by rotating and manipulating shapes to match a picture.
Art
The children developed their observational skills by carefully looking at a Poinsettia before drawing it with wax crayons. As they examined the plant, they noticed details like the veins running through the leaves. Using these observations, they coloured with intention and choose colours purposefully.
Check out our other learning…
