Starting school: Tips to try at home
Staying Safe
This week, we’ve joined in with school’s safety themed week. We’ve learnt all about staying safe in lots of different situations.
In school, we explored how we can stay safe in our classroom and outdoor areas. We also set up our very own Forest School area in our garden, Year 5 and 6 came to see us in big Forest school and reminded us how we need to use the equipment to keep ourselves and each other safe. Sarah has been great at making the rules simple enough for us to remember them. Thank you to the big kids for helping us stay safe.
We also talked about the important adults who help to keep us safe, as well as the ways we can help to look after and support each other.
To finish the week, we watched a road safety video and discussed different types of road crossings and how to cross roads safely.
Reminders
We will return for our final term on Monday 01 June.
Mad about Minibeasts
This week our focus book is Mad about Minibeasts by Giles Andreae.
We have looked really closely at spiders this week, we went on a spider hunt and found lots of spiders and some spider webs. We were very careful not to touch and break the webs because they are so delicate.
We talked about spiders and how many legs they have and made some in the playdough area.
“Spiders have 8 legs, they can run so fast.”
“It’s got a big body and so many legs!”
Help at home: Go on a minibeast hunt and see how many spiders you can find? Where do they like to make their webs?
Superworm
This week our book focus was a favourite amongst nursery- SUPERWORM! by Julia Donaldson
Superworm has lots of different jobs and is very helpful towards his friends, but we need to watch out for that sneaky Wizard Lizard!
We’ve tried really hard to be minibeast hunters this week and have looked so hard for some worms but they have been hiding. We think it’s because its been so dry. But we will keep looking for some next week!
Our caterpillars have been busy building their chrysalides. We’ve put them into the butterfly garden. Will we get to see them hatch? Watch this space!
Fine Motor Control and Writing Stay and Learn
On Wednesday afternoon, we were so lucky to invite so many of our parents and grown-ups in to explore some fine motor challenges with us. We had the chance to show everyone just how well our pincer grips are developing.
Some of the activities included pegging out the washing, creating butterfly paintings using cotton wool buds, and filling the holes in LEGO pieces with water using pipettes. The children showed great focus and enthusiasm throughout.
Mrs Kendrew then spoke to our grown-ups about how we are developing both our gross motor skills (big movements) and fine motor skills (small and pincer movements) to support correct pencil grip. We also discussed the 4 P’s of handwriting: posture, pencil grip, paper position and pressure.
Finally, we talked about writing for a purpose—for example, creating shopping lists, labels, cards, letters and postcards. These are all activities that can easily be practised at home using the children’s phonics knowledge.
Help at Home: try some of the example above and bring them in to show the teachers. Don’t forget the 4 P’s of handwriting when you do.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
This week we had a special delivery in Early Years the children were so excited to find what was inside the little cardboard box that arrived by post. Inside, there were 5 teeny, tiny caterpillars! They were so hard to see that we needed to use the magnifying glasses. We’ve been checking them everyday and they are getting bigger and bigger, just like the caterpillar in this weeks story The Hungry Caterpillar.
The weather has been perfect for some gardening outside too. We got our green fingers busy and planted some flowers and herbs in the garden. We talked about making sure that we watered the seeds so that they will grow.
We then finished the week with Forest school, we had such an amazing time with Sarah, we made butterflies and decorated them with flowers. We explored the slack line, the swing and all the exciting areas in forest school. We can’t wait to go again next week!
Wheels, wings and other things
Summer 1
This half term will be learning about bugs and will be going on lots of bug hunts. We will be learning about the life cycle of a butterfly and will hopefully set some free! We will be using some hand drills to build a bug hotel for our outdoor area.
We are also hoping to develop our outdoor space a bit more so if anyone has any compost, plant pots, tree stumps or plants we would would really appreciate them.
Reminders and Notices
Forest School- It is our turn to go to Forest School after the holidays. Please send your child to school in their PE kits on Friday with waterproofs and wellies in a labelled plastic bag.
Rabbits Don’t Lay Eggs
We ended the spring term with the focus book Rabbits Don’t Lay Eggs! by Paula Metcalf.
This was a very funny book, that definitely made us chuckle! We were also very lucky to receive a visit from the Easter Bunny who kindly left us all a tasty Easter egg in forest school! Thank you so much Easter Bunny and the PTA helpers!
Our final week in school was full of Easter fun, we made cube carrots in the maths area, Easter bonnets in the workshop area and used our funky fingers to cut out and make Easter chicks.
Have a happy and healthy Easter break and we will see you on Monday 20th April.
Spring Planting
This week we’ve replanted our sunflower seeds because they’ve really grown.
We’ll be sending them home at the end of term to see who can grow the tallest sunflower. Good luck everyone!