Autumn 2 Term
Week commencing 14th November
This week has been a full on Design and Technology week. Thank you for everyone who has contributed to bringing in all different types of materials. The children have had an amazing time designing and creating. This week the children looked at various ways of joining and building different materials to make a model. We then looked at creating our very own SQUIRREL ASSAULT COURSE. We explored and experimented different materials and joining methods that we would need to ensure that our assualt course is waterproof and stays intact outside. The children were brilliant at joining materials using hole punchers, sellotapes, split pins, treasure tags and string. We also developed our cutting skills and used a range of different materials to cut, and even had a go at different ziggy zaggy scissors...they were super fun!
We continued to learn about Monster Phonics and loved exploring Tricky Witches house to see what noises her house makes. We also learnt how to make models using wooden blocks and how to write about what we made.. super writing skills from the children. This week the children discussed what emotions are and talked about what makes them feel happy, sad, angry etc... We will be exploring more of this next week. We have also been looking at representig number in different ways and even had a go at writing numbers on our whiteboards..that number 2 was a tricky one!!
We've also got our christmas costumes out and will be having a little dressing up next week. We have been practising our lines and singing the songs that we hope you will enjoy on our christmas show day! We are very much looking forward to our Church visit next week too!
Week Commencing 7th November
This week the children have been introduced to Monster Phonics Phase 1. Phase 1 phonics develops speaking and listening skills. Children learn to become attuned to the sounds and begin to develop oral blending and segmenting skills. This teaching lays the foundations for teaching of systematic synthetic phonics.
The government Phase 1 curriculum consists of 7 aspects. Each aspect contains 3 strands:
- Tuning into sounds (auditory discrimination)
- Listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing)
- Talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension)
The children have thoroughly enjoyed being introduced to all the different characters and have already told me who their favourite character is. The children had lots of fun playing on the Diwali game with Mrs Kaur, they were taught how to roll and recognise the numbers on a dice and were shown how to move the correct number of spaces... it was a bit tricky for some, but we got there in the end! Why not play a board game at home with your children too? It's a great way to practise moving and counting correctly. The children were also introduced to the duplo bricks and were super at knowing how to build a strong rocket in celebration of Bonfire night... can they teach you the trick Mrs Kaur taugh them? How do you build a strong rocket that won't break when pushed over?
The children also made some beautiful firework paintings by dipping twisted pipe cleaners in paint with a sprinkle of glitter, they looked amazing and they now hang proudly outside Mrs Collins office... all the teachers in the school loved and complimented on them! To help develop the understanding of shapes, the children were shown how to use different shapes to make pictures, we had houses, trees and rockets and so much more... lots of imaginative scenes were created using shapes! We also did some great leaf cuttings outside to practise our scissor skills and introduced our challenge of the week 'To be able to use the scissors confidently' - all the children achieved their challenge and now have their stars in the sky... ask them about it and I am sure they will fill you in! It's all about Growth Mindset - believing in yourself and not giving up...they will have a new challenge every week! The children also had lots fun washing lots of dishes in the water tray ... great washing skills here with sponges and brushes! We are still continuing to practise writing our name and we are doing brilliantly at learning how to put our coats on independently now...has your child sang the song to you yet? Don't help them put their coats on anymore now because guess what?!... they can do it now!...here is the song, just in case they forget
" Coat on the ground, coat on the ground, tag at your toes, tag at your toes, hands in the holes, hands in the holes, now DIP and FLIP!" I am super proud of them and they are so proud of themselves too! What a busy week!
Don't forget to check out the Diwali photos in the Gallery section on the website!
Week Commencing 31st October
What a busy week we have had this week! Firstly, a big thank you to all the parents for attending the look at our learning sessions. We hope you enjoyed seeing all the wonderful things your child gets up to in Nursery...thank you for being part of our learning and all the support you give.
This week we are continuing our learning of Diwali... we are looking at the different gods that hindus believe in and we have also been practising to recite the story of Ram and Sita. The children love the monkey god, Hanuman, he was the warrior god that helped to rescue sita. We practise drawing henna patterns on simple paper hands using different lines and patterns, these formations will help us with our writing of letters soon. We have been learning more about 2D shapes and understanding their properties. We went on a shape hunt arond the whole school to see what shapes we can spot... the children really enjoyed this. We then created colourful rockets using lots of different shapes, it was so much fun.
The children are now beginning to practise writing around the classroom. We are forming diffferent lines and patterns as part of our mark making skills. We have also been practising to recognise and write our name... it's a little tricky but we know with lots of practise at home and at school we can do it!
The children have been continue to practise learning about numbers 1 2 and 3 and are showing different ways to represent this on the whiteboards.