Dinosaurs
As the children continue to explore the provision lots of different interests have been emerging, this week it has been dinosaurs. We’ve developed a small world dinosaur land to encourage creative play and communication.
“This dinosaurs says roar”
” my dinosaur has sharp teeth”
We enjoyed using the ramps last week. This week we used them to roll some of the apples and conkers that we found in the nursery garden. We counted them as they reached the bottom.
We experimented with other things that roll too. In the paint this week we tried our hand at painting with rollers. This up and down motion will help us later when it comes to developing our skills as a writer.
Next week, we’ll talk about the changes that we are noticing outside. Look out for a brown bag in your child’s folder – we’d like you to fill it with autumn treasure that you find and return it to Nursery.
Our focus story is the popular story “We’re Going on a bear Hunt” We will be exploring this story using our own puppets and props.
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt – watch the story hear told by Michael Rosen.
Our Nursery Rhyme of the week will be Baa Baa Black Sheep. Listen to the rhyme together here
Reminders:
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- Please don’t forget to send a family photograph for our home corner display Please send it to scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
- We play outside in all weather – please remember to send your child with a waterproof coat every day.
The Great Big Book Of Families
This week we’ve been reading The Great Big Book of Families. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.) Through the book, we have explored and celebrated the variety of families. In the writing area, we drew our families and we used loose parts to make the faces of people in our families.
Help at home: Photos
Thank you for sending your family photos. There’s still time to email one if you haven’t had the chance yet. Over the next few weeks, we will also be thinking about our homes. To help support our discussions, please send in one picture of your front door. You can email photos to scholesreception@spherefederation.org
Phonics
This week, we have learnt the phonemes (the sounds a letter makes) i, n, m and d.
The children have learnt how to identify the sounds by their graphemes and how to form the graphemes in their writing. They have practised identifying initial sounds and blending sounds together to say the whole word.
We have introduced new vocabulary linked to our phonics learning:
Phoneme– The sound a letter (grapheme) makes
Grapheme– The letter that represents the sound
Segmenting- Breaking up a word into its phonemes and sounding aloud (ie. cat becomes c-a-t)
Blending- Blending the phonemes together to read the word. (ie. d-o-g becomes dog)
Each week we will be sending a ‘learn at home’ sheet, which recaps the phonics learning from the week. Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.
Help at Home: Be Sound Detectives – Find objects around your house or outside that have an initial sound that we have learnt: s a t p i n m d
School Library
Over the last couple of weeks we have introduced the children to the school library. They have impressed us with how well they followed the school rule ‘We are respectful.’ They were quiet in the space and they were very careful with the books. This week, your child chose the book they wanted to bring home to share with you. Please remember that this is a book to foster a love of reading. It is a book for you to share at home and not for your child to read aloud to you.
eBooks
Next week, you will be issued your first eBook to share with your child. The first book will be a wordless book. As with the library books, these books can foster a love of reading, even without words. Discussing story events, characters and settings all help your child to understand comprehension in reading.
Please read with your child each week. As teachers, we have access to reading reports. We will be giving out certificates in class to celebrate your child’s reading at home.
Your login details and reading record will be sent home soon. Please let us know if you do not have access to a device to read at home, as we have iPads for loan at the school office.
Poetry Picnic
Each week, we will learn a new poem and will 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 is called Chop Chop.
Chop Chop
Chop, Chop, Choppity Chop.
Cut off the bottom and cut off the top.
What there is left, we put in the pot.
Chop, Chop, Choppity Chop
Here’s a video of Rainbow Class performing the poem. Look out for a video of Sunshine Class next week.
Frida Khalo Gallery
Each half term, we will introduce the children to a new artist. This week we introduced Frida Khalo. We watched a short informative video to find out about her. After that, we set off to visit a ‘gallery’ that we had set up for the children. At the ‘gallery’ we viewed photos of some of Frida Kahlo’s work. We noticed how many of her paintings had bright colours in them and that animals featured in many of them too. Frida’s self portraits will inspire us to paint our own self-portraits over the next couple of weeks.
Let’s get busy.
This week, many children continued with their transition sessions and have stayed for a full day at Nursery. We’ve had lots of happy faces as children waved good-bye to parents and carers each morning.
Here are a few photos of our play and learning this week – you can see that children are very busy and happily, engaged in play. This is just what we like to see once children have settled into their new environment! We strive to make Nursery a happy and healthy place to learn.
We were really excited to pull up the carrots from our garden this week. Look how big they are. We washed them, cut them and enjoyed them at snack time. Yum, yum.
Now that children are familiar with our Nursery classrooms, over the next few weeks, you’ll start to see some changes in our areas of provision as we introduce new small world areas and themes for our learning.
Help at home – Can you sing the ” Wheels on the bus” nursery rhyme? Can you remember all of the actions? The Wheels on the Bus
Next week we will be reading our first focus story ” The Three Little Pigs”. We will be using story props to retell the story. The Three Little Pigs
Reminders
- Don’t forget to let us know your child’s current interests for our “What makes me tick” board.
- We need your child’s All about me sheet brining back to nursery, it’s not too late.
Science-The Human Body
We have begun our biology topic: The Human Body. We have been able to name many parts of our body and learn some new ones. This week we were working scientifically by investigating the question: ‘Do the oldest children have the longest feet?‘ After comparing our feet, we drew around them and put them in order of birthday month. Here are some of our findings:
No because some of the youngest children have big feet.
Some older children have big feet and some have small.
We all grow at different times and will be different sizes.
Help at home by naming and talking about different body parts, bones and their function.
Welcome to 1A!
What a fantastic week we’ve had in 1A! The children have settled very well into their new classroom and we are all getting to know each other. I am very impressed at how quickly the children have adapted to their new environment and routines.
We have practised some of our sounds in phonics and practised our handwriting. We’ve written our full names every day this week using a whiteboard pen! We are going to do this every morning when we come into school.
It is also important that we strengthen our fingers, so we’ve done some ‘dough disco’ to practise our fine motor skills.
In Maths, we’ve been counting all the way to 10 (forwards and backwards). We’ve also been practising writing our numbers the right way around in books. Today, we worked together to identify and order numicon from 1-10.
All of the children have been super brave and resilient this week. We’ve talked about our emotions, what makes us happy and how we can recognise emotions in others.
In PE we played a co-ordination game called ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and cone’. We even had fun balancing the cone on our head and walking from one end of the playground to the other without dropping it!
Well done 1A for a brilliant start to the year. I can’t wait to see what the year brings.
Topic – Exploring Our Green and Pleasant Land
This half term, Year 5/6 have begun an exciting new Geography topic. We’ve been diving into the natural beauty that surrounds us – both near and far – and learning how these precious places are protected and why they matter.
To kick things off, the children explored the many benefits of National Parks across the UK, from protecting wildlife and habitats to encouraging outdoor adventures and boosting our wellbeing. We’ve been amazed by the variety of landscapes and the work being done to preserve them.
Bringing the learning closer to home, the class have also been identifying green spaces within Leeds and our local area, thinking about how these spots provide a place to relax, play, and connect with nature – even in a busy city.
It’s been a brilliant start to the topic, and the children have shown real curiosity and enthusiasm. We can’t wait to continue our journey, learning more about how we can protect and appreciate the green spaces around us!
Help at Home: Ask your child about their new topic vocabulary.
Happy Holidays
We say it every year, but we can’t quite believe it’s already the end of term!
Thank you for all of your kind words, cards and gifts this week. We hope that you all have a great Summer holiday and we’ll look forward to seeing some of you in Nursery in September and some of you, next door in Reception! We’d also like to say good bye to those children that are moving to other schools – we hope that you love your new school and make lots of new friends
Don’t forget Nursery opens for our returning children on Monday 08 September 9 -12 ( please follow the information in your transition letter)
Have a fantastic summer holiday.
Nursery team
1A-Beach Party Fun!
We have had the most amazing day! Playing is what we do best. A HUGE, heartfelt THANKYOU to ‘Mr Whippy Leeds’ for treating ALL of KS1 to an ice cream or lolly of their choice! (The teachers enjoyed their treat too!)
The photos will speak louder than words…
11 July 2025
Our whole-school homework this week is:
Reading: please make sure your child is reading on a daily basis.
Number Fact Fluency: Use Numbots or Times Table Rock Stars in regular short bursts.
Pupil health Questionnaire
I can share my views about health.
We’re proud to be a happy and healthy school.
Each year, we ask you to complete a short health questionnaire. Your views can help us to become even happier and healthier.
Parents/carers: please complete a survey with your child, to find out their views on some of our key health issues at school, and comment at the end.
You can find the link to the survey using the QR code below.
Or you can click on this link .
Please submit before Thursday 17 July 2025.
The Snail and the Whale
The Snail and The Whale
We’ve been reading The Snail and The Whale, another book by one of our favourite authors, Julia Donaldson
We’ve been retelling the story in our own words and writing special blackboard messages, just like the snail trail messages in the story!
The book had some fantastic adventurous words to describe landscapes and actions. Our word of the week was humongous. We discussed the meaning of lots of other words too.
Can your child tell you what each of these words mean? They could use the images to remind them.
Transition
On Wednesday, the Reception children had a wonderful visit to their new Year 1 classroom. It was a delightful experience for the children as they met their new teacher and explored their future learning environment.
The children were excited and engaged, participating in fun activities to make them feel welcome and at ease. This visit was a positive step in helping the children transition smoothly into Year 1. They left with big smiles and lots of enthusiasm!
Phonics
Summer 2 week 5 has focused on root word ending in: –er, –est.
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 Sliced Bread
Nell Bank
On Thursday, we set off on our trip to Nell Bank. We began by listening to a story about Pete who liked to be TIDY but maybe a little bit too much.
We worked together safely to clear up a big mess! During this activity, we explored ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and discussed what would happen to litter if it was left.
Afterwards, the children had the opportunity to go on a mini-beast hunt to help Pete find lots of worms. Following this, it was time to help Pete make a new home in the woods. One of their favourite parts of the day (outside of lunch, of course) was the water play area.
