Nursery

Dear parents and careers,

we hope that you and your children are safe and sound during these tough times and I’m sure keeping your children busy helps everyone to stay happy and engaged.

Our next half term topic is Dinosaurs.

Children may explore the topic by reading fiction and non fiction books about dinosaurs, such as Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs, Dinosaur Roar, Dinosaurs Love Underpants, Fun facts about Dinosaurs.

1. Some ideas for home learning (and much more) are included in our Home learning Pack available from the school’s office:

Fossil cookie recipe

Dinosaurs Hight Chart

Dinosuars counting song

Dinosaurs challenge 

 

2. YouTube channel provides a range of videos to support children’s interest in dinosaurs. Try these links:

 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=harry+and+the+bucketful+of+dinosaurs 
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=land+before+time

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=natural+history+museum+dinosaurs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XP6rlhupaw

3. The following links to online games (from safe websites) will help your children to learn about dinosaurs and will support their fine motor skills, hand and eye coordination and independent working:

https://pbskids.org/games/dinosaur/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zdp4382/articles/znc3y9q

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/search?q=dinosaurs&filter=cbeebies

 

 

 

Here are some of the activities you can do at home to help your child learning during the school closure:

 

• Excellent Home Learning Hub Timetable (inc. links) from Twinkl (3-5, 5-7 and 7-11 ages) includes link to Joe Wicks (P.E. with Joe) daily PE lesson:   https://www.twinkl.co.uk/home-learning-hub

 

• Basic Knowledge Wallet:  

  Your child has been given a wallet containing numbers 1-10 and the Bingo game to practise numbers recognition and order as well as your child's name card to develop own name recognition: 5 min a day will take you long way!!!

 

• Reading stories https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/#

 

• An additional Easter /Summer homework pack for your child to complete during this time will soon be available from the school office.  

 

We have included below a number of useful websites to support you at his time.  Remember the content of these websites is not under school control.

 

Nursery Learning:

 

• Reading resource:  https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/

 

• Twinkl (resources to print at home – search for EYFS – early years foundation stage):  https://www.twinkl.co.uk/search?term=

 

• Cbeebies – search for numberblocks and alphablocks:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies

 

• Colouring pages- http://www.coloring-book.info/coloring/

 

• Literacy and numeracy games:

 

www.ictgames.com

 

www.starfall.com

 

www.topmarks.co.uk

 

www.phonicsplay.co.uk

 

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/

 

https://nrich.maths.org/13371

 

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/Early-Years.html

 

• Educational channel https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcoursekids?app=desktop

 

• Home activity packs https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/support-tools/home-activity-worksheets

 

• Arts and Crafts https://www.redtedart.com/

                         https://theimaginationtree.com/

 

• Best Ever No-Cook Play Dough Recipe

You need:

• 2 cups plain flour (all purpose)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil  (baby oil and coconut oil work too)
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
• 1 to 1.5 cups boiling water (adding in increments until it feels just right)
• gel food colouring (optional)
• few drops glycerine (my secret ingredient for stretch and shine!)

 

Method:

• Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl
• Add food colouring to the boiling water then into the dry ingredients
• Stir continuously until it becomes a sticky, combined dough
• Add the glycerine (optional)
• Allow it to cool down then take it out of the bowl and knead it vigorously for a couple of minutes until all of the stickiness has gone. * This is the most important part of the process, so keep at it until it’s the perfect consistency!*
• If it remains a little sticky then add a touch more flour until just right

 

• Ideas for parents https://parentzone.org.uk/article/10-ways-safely-entertain-your-kids-home

 

• Mindful activities:

1. Practise kind thoughts by prompting your children to think of 3 people they’d like to send kind wishes to. Who are they? Why do they deserve ‘kind wishes’?

2. Tense different muscles in the body for 5 seconds and then release slowly. How does it feel?

3. Explore textures in nature, take a walk around the house to collect several different objects and observe/describe how each feels

4. Find shapes in the sky by laying down together and choosing different objects to search for in the clouds

5. Have a mindful look out of the window pointing out sights and objects, open a window and listen to the sounds, what can you hear?

6. Explore touch by choosing several objects, then comparing the difference in how they feel dry vs. wet; this can also be done whilst blindfolded.

7. Use a happy moment to ‘soak in the good’: when did it happen? Why did you feel so happy? Explain to others

8. ‘Colour your feelings’: Children colour in a silhouette of their head/face depicting each emotion with a new colour

9. Listen to some music and see how many different instruments you can each hear

10. Explore gratitude by going back and forth naming as many things possible that you are grateful for

11. Describe emotions: Sit with the children and ask them to describe different emotions. How does it feel when they are angry, happy or worried? You could prompt them by suggesting that they visualise their emotions as colours, or types of weather. 12. Bubble balloon game: low up some balloons and play the don’t-touch-the-floor game, but focusing on gentle movements. Pretend that the balloons are bubbles that might pop, so you can only tap them delicately.

13. Guided relaxation/visualisation: Get the children to lie down on the floor, on comfortable mats. Take them through a guided relaxation exercise (eg focusing on all of their muscles in turn) or guided visualisation story (eg imagining they are lying on a beach). There are plenty of these available to download online.

Still stuck for ideas? Then visit https://www.waterford.org/resources/mindfulnes-activities-for-kids/ for 51 Mindfulness Activities for Kids.

 

• Non-screen activities from Pobble: https://medium.com/pobble/simple-and-fun-non-screen-activities-that-children-can-do-at-home-115543cb3b9c

 

• Home learning booklet from TTS:http://www.tts-group.co.uk/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-TTSSharedLibrary/default/vaea75f5663a038b8658d258fd198e57ce70b35d6/images/homepage/Early_Years_Home_Learning_Collection.pdf?version=1,584,037,589,000

 

• Try these simple scientific experiments:

1. Frozen Eggs!

Equipment: egg, bowl, safety-pin, toothpick, straw, water, petals, leaves, blu-tack.

How to: after washing it thoroughly, blow out the egg; seal the smaller hole with blu-tack; into the larger hole, push leaves and/or petals; carefully pour water into the egg; seal the larger hole with blu-tack to keep in the water; freeze the egg overnight; peel the egg and explore your creation.  What can you see? How quickly does it melt? What colours have you made?

Taking it further: children could experiment by freezing different things inside the egg, using coloured liquid or even different sized eggs.

 

2. Can you see sound?

Equipment: bowl, cling film, rice.

How to: stretch the cling film tightly over the bowl; pour a small amount of rice onto the surface of the film; gently tap the bowl. What do you hear? What do you see? The vibrations that make the drum make a noise are making the grains jump!  

Taking it further: try different types of grains: lentils, couscous etc.  What happens if you put more grains on the film? Do the vibrations still make the grains jump if you tap the surface the bowl is resting on?

3. Make a frog jump!

Equipment: coloured paper, scissors, balloon.

How to: cut out frog shapes using the paper; place them on a flat surface; blow up a balloon and rub it on a jumper to create static electricity; hold the balloon over the frogs and watch them jump up.

Taking it further: do different types of paper and cardboard work in the same way?  How long does the frog stay stuck for? Does the amount of time you rub the balloon make a difference?  Does the size of the frog change how long it sticks for?

 

4. Build a sugar cube tower!

Equipment: plate, water, food colouring, sugar cubes, foil, cling film, tissue.

How to: add a few drops of food colouring to some water and pour onto the plate; add a stack of sugar cubes and observe what happens (the coloured water should move up the stack of cubes and eventually make them collapse); try adding a small sheet of foil on top of one sugar cube and stack some more on top…does this stop the water reaching the top cubes?  

Taking it further: try the same with some cling film, and some paper or tissue. Which work the best? Do brown sugar cubes react in the same way as white?

Welcome to Nursery!

 

This is the place where lots of learning takes place in many ways. We learn through  play.

New children are settling well; they become more confident in exploring our nursery environment.

 

We start at:

8:30am -11:30am (AM session)

12:30pm - 3:30pm (PM session)

Punctuality is the key to success!

 

A date for your calendar:

THE SCHOOL IS CLOSED

 

Our class's display 'The Tree of Kindness' promotes children's social, emotional and moral development.

 

During the Autumn term we have learnt about ourselves, our families and our homes. We also enjoyed reading books about animals and learnt new animal names from the stories, such as spider monkey and water buffalo.

During the Spring term children read traditional stories and talked about favourite characters, settings and events. We have learns about the positional language, sizes, shapes and cardinal numbers. The Superhero topic helped children to develop their own creativity and imagination by talking about and discussing superpowers. Children loved to sing and act to the Superhero song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx59hSyY2ds

Summer term topics include Transport (bus, plane, boat, bicycle, car) and People who Help us (doctors, police, firefighters, postmen, bin collectors, bus drivers, nurses, shop assistants). Following the Easter break the home learning packs will be available for collection from the school's office. The YouTube channel provides a range of educational videos in relation to our topics https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEB&search_query=transport+for+children and https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=people+who+help+us+for+children

 

These are the books we have read so far:

 

 

 

 

 

Our library visits are on Fridays. Your child may borrow one book to share with their family at home.

 

Due to our limited resources we kindly ask parents to keep some spare clothing for your child in the nursery.

 

 

Nursery staff are there for you if you are concerned about your child's learning or just want to share about your child's experiences away from our setting.