Author: Miss Ward

This week the children took inspiration from our focus story-  Hodge the Hedgehog! We decided to build our own hedgehog house to take into the forest, we have noticed that the hedgehogs have been taking residence near the holly bush. We did some research to see what would make a comfortable and cosy home for a hedgehog and here’s what we got up to …

 

I wonder..

The children have been noticing recently that some pine cones are spiky and some are smooth. So we did an experiment!

Why do pine cones close their scales in water? 

predictions…

because they don’t like getting wet

it’s their coat

so it doesn’t get full of water

 

The answer is… 

To protect their seeds from freezing temperatures and hungry animals!

Help at Home:

Have a go at your own pine cone experiment. What happens to the pine cone in water? What do you think will happen when it dries?

Send us some pictures of your experiment to share in nursery to stjamesnursery@spherefederation.org

What’s happening next week?

Focus story– Whatever Next by Jill Murphy

Nursery rhyme of the week – 1,2,3,4,5  once I caught a fish alive

Sound of the week – I for Iguana

Parent Consultations:

Tuesday 28 November 3:30-6:00pm 

Thank you to those who have booked an appointment. We can’t wait to share your child’s progress with you. It’s still not to late to book if you would like one, there is a booking form in nursery if you wish to come.

Have a happy and healthy weekend!

Miss Ward and Miss Harvey

 

This week we explored the Hindu festival of light known as Diwali. The children got busy making their own Diva lamp, Menhdi patterns and using natural resources such as pumpkin seeds to create Rangoli.

It has also been World Nursery Rhyme Week!

This is a great way for the children to develop their listening and attention skills that will support them into becoming confident readers throughout school.

Here are some of the rhymes that we’re learning to sing:

• Wind the Bobbin Up
• Baa Baa Black Sheep
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
• Incy Wincy Spider
• Hickory Dickory Dock

Help at home: Listen to these Nursery rhymes and sing them together at home. Does your child have a favourite rhyme? Can you think of anymore? Let us know or send us an e-mail/video to stjamesnursery@spherefederation.org

We’ve also been having lots of fun in our PE sessions recently. We’ve been exploring different ways of moving our bodies.

Like a Snake- Mia

Like my Puppy- Charlie

I can do a Caterpillar – Louie

What’s happening next week?

Focus story– Hovis the Hedgehog

Nursery rhyme of the week – I’m a little teapot

Sound of the week – P for Penguin

 

Parent Consultations

This week you will receive an email to book an appointment to discuss how your child has settled into nursery and their learning, plus an opportunity for you to ask any questions or raise any concerns. 

Have a happy and healthy weekend!

Miss Ward and Miss Harvey

 

This week in nursery the children were very excited to talk about bonfire night and the fireworks they saw. We created our own fireworks pictures using wax crayons and black paint, we then scraped marks into the paint to reveal the bright colours underneath.

We also remembered those who served in the war. The children explored our remembrance themed tuff tray, through the poppy fields – we even tried on some war helmets, they were really heavy!

As part of our phonics learning, we’ve introduced the letter ‘s’ this week.  At this point in Nursery, children are learning to HEAR the sounds in words.  We took turns to pull some objects out of a bag that all started with the letter ‘s’. There was… a snake, sock, spoon, and even a sausage! We talked about the ‘s’ sound that we could hear at the start of each word. In Nursery, we focus on our listening skills. We’re not learning about letter formation just yet, that will come later in your child’s phonics journey.

Here is a link to a video to show you how we pronounce the letter sounds that we will be learning over the next half term. (The video is to help show how to pronounce each letter clearly, using the pure sound. Children don’t need to be able to recognise the grapheme (letter) yet, although they might begin to.)

Help at home: What can you find at home that begins with the letter ‘s’?  Go on a sound hunt together and look for some…. ssssssocks, ssssssslippers, sssssssoap. We often exaggerate the sound at the beginning of the word when we’re first learning to listen for initial sounds and then we repeat the word afterwards, saying it as it should be. Sssssocks, socks.

What’s happening next week?

• It’s ‘Odd Socks Day‘ on Monday so your child might like to wear odd socks for the day to celebrate what makes us all unique and spread kindness!
• Friday is a non-uniform day as we’ll be taking part in some spotty Children in Need fun!
• It’s been much colder outside this week and some children have been a bit chilly whilst playing outside. As we spend lots of time in our outdoor area, please make sure that your child has a warm coat, a hat and some gloves to wear. Don’t forget to add names!

Nursery rhyme of the week – We’ll be singing lots of popular rhymes as it’s World Nursery Rhyme week! If you’d like to send us an email with your child’s favourite rhyme and we’ll try to sing it at Nursery next week.

Sound of the week – T for tiger and teapot!

Have a happy and healthy weekend!

 

Miss Ward and Miss Harvey

The children have been busy thinking about all the different types of weather we may experience. We used our weather window to check what kind of clothing we needed to wear to go to the forest.

We need wellies because its been raining – Ella

It’s very foggy outside, I can’t see the rain- Charlie

I need my coat and my hat and gloves Miss Ward- Savannah

We chose a non-fiction book to look at some pictures and discuss what season why might be in based on what we could see in the forest. We looked at how we could tell when the weather was windy. The children noticed the leaves blowing, so we introduced them to a wind chime. We made our own wind chime for our outdoor area, practicing our fine motor skills by threading natural and recycled objects from around nursery.

Help at home: Could you make your own wind chime? find some natural/recycled items from around the house such as bottle tops, paper clips, pine cones- anything! This well help develop your child’s fine motor skills, strengthening those muscles which supports early writing. Send in a photo of your finished wind chime to our nursery email to share with your friends!

Email: stjamesnursery@spherefederation.org

 

You may of also noticed your child singing a song about a big red combine harvester!

Whilst the older children visited Church for their harvest celebration, we learnt our own harvest song. Here is the link below for you to share with your child at home.

Don’t forget the actions!

Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: Go to the settings cog (it’s 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.

 

It has been a lovely first half term! We hope you have a happy, healthy and well rested break.

Miss Ward and Miss Harvey

We’ve been cooking up a storm in our St.James kitchen!

The children followed a recipe to make their own Hedgehog bread. We observed the process of how the ingredient yeast can make the dough rise. We covered our dough to keep it warm and waited to see how big it would grow. We then shaped the dough into hedgehogs and used raisins to make their eyes.

This weeks story we have been reading was ‘ The room on the broom’ by Julia Donaldson. A definite favourite across nursery these week! We’ve been potion making and re-telling the story using props. We’ve also been exploring pumpkins, their shape, colour, texture and even taste!

In case you’re wondering it was delicious! The children said it tasted sweet and it was yummy.

WC 23.10.23

We will be making our own wind chimes this week whilst we are exploring weather and seasons. If anybody has any spare ‘bits and bobs’ they no longer want/need we would really appreciate them in nursery.

• dried pasta
• bottle tops
• buttons
• nuts/bolts
• beads
• cd’s
• wool/thread
• bottles
• tubes (no toilet rolls)

Notice

The rest of school will be having their parent teacher consultations this week. Nursery won’t be joining this one as ours is later on in the year, when the children have had more time to settle.

Have a happy and healthy weekend, hopefully the storm will of passed!

Miss Ward and Miss Harvey

 

 

We took a visit to the forest this week in search of a bear!

Our focus story for the next 2 weeks is ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ by Michael Rosen. The children having really enjoyed how engaging this story is, using repeated refrains throughout the book. We particularly enjoyed being able to join in with Michael Rosen himself re-telling the story.

Help at home: Enjoy reading ‘we’re going on a bear hunt’ at home and see what else you might find on your journey. What else could you see in the forest? What sounds might you hear? If you don’t have access to this book at home here is the re-aloud the children have enjoyed this week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iou5LV9dRP0

(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)

Have lovely weekend and we will see you next week for more bear hunt adventures!

Miss Ward

Nursery have had a busy week of learning. The children have been engrossed in purposeful play within our circle time’s and within provision. As we’re getting to know everyone, we like to talk about our families and home life.

To encourage children to tell us more about their family life, please e-mail or bring a photograph of your child with their family to Nursery next week. Our email is:  stjamesnursery@spherefederation.org

We will use these to create our own family trees to display in the classroom.

Our focus story this week has been The three little pigs. The children really enjoyed listening to the story and thinking about what might happen next. We used our themed tuff tray to role-play the story in provision.

Just a little reminder…

Have a happy and healthy weekend!

Miss Ward

The children have all been busy settling back into nursery routine and we also have some new faces!

Here’s what we’ve been getting up to over the past few weeks …

   

 

Notice

• Library day is on a Tuesday. Your child will bring home a story from our library once a week so this must be returned the following week.
• PE day is on a Wednesday. Your child may come dressed in a PE kit (joggers, t-shirt, jumper, trainers) just something comfortable to move around in.

Have a lovely weekend!

 

Miss Ward

We have had a very hot but busy week in Nursery. The children have done really well to keep themselves cool and hydrated. We talked a lot about sun safety and the importance of what this means. The children actively knew that when we were outside we needed to make sure we had our sun hats on, sun cream applied and we take some time out in the shade.

and of course a play in the paddling pool is also a bonus!

Our topic for this half term is focussed around the seaside. This week’s book has been… The snail and the whale by Julia Donaldson. In our maths learning we are exploring time. We talked about our morning and night time routines, here’s a few examples;

In the morning we wake up- Ella

I have a bath in the night and then put my pjs on and grandma reads a story- Gracie

I like to have a snack before bedtime- C

I like pancakes for my breakfast in the morning- Deacon

Here are some of the activities the children have been getting up to this week …

We made our own ocean exploring colour mixing with cornflour, water and powder paint. The children noticed how it can quickly change from a solid to a liquid.

We designed our own postcards from our favourite places.

The sea creatures were trapped so we needed to get our funky fingers working to untangle them. This process is supporting muscle development and fine motor control to supporting their writing.

We have also started our half term project, making our very own ice-cream parlour!

 

We hope you have a lovely rested weekend all ready in preparation for our school trip on Tuesday. We are so excited as I am sure you all are too!

Reminder- Tuesday 20 June (Piglets Adventure Farm)

Please make sure your child brings with them a small backpack that they are able to carry. This should include their packed lunch if they are bringing their own, a refillable water bottle, sun hat and some spare clothes just in case. I will be taking my own backpack full of emergency spares so please don’t worry if you forget something on the day.

Any last minute questions please feel free to catch me on the door or email me at: stjamesnursery@spherefederation.org

Miss Ward