Hi All,

Here is an overview of our week at Nursery School:

Indoor focus – We have been busy comparing quantities when making reindeer food, and making pirate punch by mixing different colours to create new colours. We have had a focus on emotions and encouraging the children to express how they are feeling throughout the day. We have been identifying letter sounds in play and when writing names. We have had Sarah in from ‘Brave Kind Minds’ to do some Christmas mindful movements sessions with us, wrapping presents, designing and writing labels in Santa’s workshop. The children have enjoyed making and identifying patterns with the Numicon and have had fun with the playdough using the Christmas modelling dough mats.

Outdoor focus – Following the children’s recent interest in pirates we have been using the large blocks and loose parts to build pirate ships, listening to and singing pirate songs. We created a stage where the children continued to enjoy dancing and exploring new movements to a range of Christmas Songs. Some children were keen to design and complete obstacle courses, and some children have been learning how to use the monkey bars safely. We have also been up in the Forest School area looking for minibeasts and making more bird feeders.

Forest School – This week all the children had a camp fire at Forest school. We were SO impressed by how all the children listened carefully to instructions and kept themselves safe around the fire. Every child toasted a marshmallow and enjoyed trying / eating them along with some toasted chocolate chip brioche.

Big Experience Programme – As part of our big experience programme we started taking the children to the Coop in small groups, they had a lovely time discussing what they could see and sharing their own knowledge. They all had a shopping list and were responsible for getting one item from the list. We also learnt a new song about keeping safe when crossing the road:

Stop, look and listen before you cross the road.
Stop, look and listen before you cross the road.
Use your eyes and your ears before you use your toes.
Stop, look and listen before you cross the road.
Stop, look and listen before you cross the road.

Thank you to all of you that came and helped with the trip, we could not do these trips without your support. The last group will go to the Coop on Tuesday afternoon.

Core Song and Poem – We have been recalling all of our Christmas Songs and Poems this week ready for our performance on Thursday.

Information / Reminders
– Snack – We have quite a lot of savoury items and fruit for next week, so please don’t worry about donations this week. I know a few of you have asked about party food for Friday, we will be having a festive snack in the morning and afternoon. I will put up a list with some food items on that you can bring on the day, but we will not require everyone to sign up as in the past we have always had a lot of food left over.

– Christmas Jumper Day: Thank you to all of you who have already donated. So far we have raised £25. There is still time to donate, here is our fundraising page  https://christmas.savethechildren.org.uk/fundraising/cjd240030766

If you would prefer to just give your donation to us, that is fine I will have a pot out by the gate and then we can pay it into the account at the end of the week.

– Christmas Performance: We will be holding this on Thursday the 19th of December at 11.20am and 3pm. If your child can wear Christmas clothes / jumpers to school this day that would be great. I will also be asking you to let us know which performance you will be coming to and who is coming so we can do a register and tick you off when you arrive. When you arrive if you could wait outside the front entrance, Sarah will let you in from 11.10 am and 2.50pm, just before the performance times. If your child does not normally come to school on a Thursday please speak to me, send me a message and we
can arrange for them to come in for the session that fits in with their attendance pattern.

– Christmas Party: This is on Friday the 20th of December. If this is not a day your child attends they are more than welcome to come in for a session that fits with their attendance pattern. The children can wear party clothes this day.

– End of Term: The children will finish Nursery on Friday the 20th of December at 11.50am and 3.30pm.

I hope you all are having a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow for our last week of the term

Kind regards
Zoe

Hi All

Here is an overview of our week at Nursery School:

Indoor focus – The children had fun exploring and investigating the changes when playing with the gloop (cornflour & water). In the water tray we had some dinosaurs that had been frozen and the children had to think about how they could rescue them. They added warm water, salt, and attempted to break them out using a range of tools. Last week, the children enjoyed making footprints in the snow so in the creative area we put out some animals / dinosaurs and trays of paint so they could create more footprints 🐾 As the weather was windy some of the children were keen to make kites, we discussed what a kite needs to fly and had fun seeing if there was enough wind to make them fly. One of our books this week was ‘Dear Zoo’ so we set up area with a copy of the book and the animals from the story where the children could recall and act out the story. Some children challenged themselves with a world map puzzle (50 pieces), this was a lovely activity and really got the children asking questions about the world. We also had snow dough out which is a different texture from normal play dough, this was a good opportunity to ask children about textures and opposites – is it hot / cold / dry / wet / rough / smooth / soft / hard?

Outdoor focus – We had a great time in the mud kitchen, mixing up concoctions using natural materials such as sand, water, mud, leaves, pinecones etc. This was also another good opportunity to discuss textures. We had fun acting out favourite stories and making up new ones, I particularly enjoyed going on a skeleton dinosaur hunt. During some of our outdoor sessions we had ‘Frozen’ music playing where the children danced and sang along to the words. On the decking we had some fake snow in a tuff spot tray was some animals that live in the arctic regions along with some factual information about these animals.

Forest School – Groups C & D enjoyed listening to nature, checking in with one another’s feelings, making some bird feeders and of course having a warm drink and a biscuit this week. We hope to be having a fire for a last session this term. I will send you out a risk assessment beforehand to read, I will then ask you to sign it to say you have read it and are happy for your child participate in the session.

Maths focus: Preposition – We talked about prepositions at group times thinking about what we were sitting on, who we were sitting next to and which children we were in between. Then the children were asked to demonstrate a range of prepositions to show their understanding. During another group time the children were asked to place an object in different places around the room – in, on, under, beneath, next to, beside, on top of, behind or in front.

Phonic focus: Instrumental Sounds – We continued to develop our awareness of sounds made with instruments and noise makers. We played ‘Adjust the Volume’ where we experimented and discussed a range of sounds. We also played ‘Which Instrument?’ Where the children had to identify which instrument had been played by just listening to the sound. We also looked at rhythm by adding a song to accompany each instrument.

Core Song – Robin is My Name (a Christmas song)

Poem – Five Little Reindeers

Five little reindeers playing in the snow,
The first one said, ‘Can you see my nose glow?’
The second one said, ‘Listen to me sing.’
The third one said, ‘I can hear the bells ring.’
The fourth one said, ‘Let’s eat some pie.’
The fifth one said, ‘I’m ready to fly.’
Then clomp went their hooves,
And the snow fell white,
And five little reindeers flew out of sight.

– See if your child can remember these and the actions. We will be performing this song and poem amongst others to you at the end of the term.

Information / Reminders

– Parent helpers needed – We are planning on taking small groups of children to the Co-op before the end of term but we will not be able to do this without your help as we go down to a 1:2 ratio for trips. We would be looking for 3 – 4 parents per trip. You would need to be able to offer an hour and quarter of your time. Morning visits would be from 10.15 – 11.30 and pm visits would be from 1.15 – 2.30. The dates we are hoping to go on these trips are Wednesday the 11th, Friday the 13th and Tuesday the 17th of December. When you arrive we will go over the risk assessment before heading off, you will be responsible for holding your child’s hand and one other child’s hand. Please comment on here if you are able to help and for which session.

– When phoning into school – Can you please select option 2 for Nursery School Office and not option 4 for Pre-School. If nobody answers then please do leave a message. If it is urgent and nobody is answering then you can select another option to leave a message with Ace Childcare or Ace Pre-School. Thank you.

– Christmas Performance: Thursday the 19th of December at 11.20 and 3pm.

– Christmas Party: Friday the 20th of December. If this is not a day your child attends they are more than welcome to come in for a session that fits with their attendance pattern.

I hope you have had a lovely weekend.

Kind regards

Zoe