Nursery

Hello and a huge welcome to our class webpage.

Our Nursery staff team are: Miss Quartermaine (M,Tu,Th,F), Mrs Lowery (W), Miss Ahmed and Mrs Hardy.

Our children have lots of fun, here you can find out what’s been happening in Nursery this week.

Class Update

28.03.24- Happy Easter

We had a lovely week celebrating Easter together. We learnt about Jesus and some of the things he did in his life. We read the story: The Promised One.

We had lots of fun making some lovely Easter cards with eggs and crosses. We used the grown up pens and decorated them beautifully.

Then we painted our own ceramic eggs with the watercolour paints. They were beautiful.

We made cornflake nest cakes with little chicks on top- yummy!

On our last day together we had an egg hunt and went searching in the library to see what the Easter bunny had left. It was all a lot of fun.

We’ll see you after the holidays on TUESDAY 16th April.

Have a lovely Easter/Eid and a relaxing break.

 

 

22/03/24- Amazing Africa

This week our world tour took us to Africa. We discovered the delights of many African nations. We started in Morocco where we found out about Mrs Hardy’s trip to Marrakesh. She showed us lots of lovely photos and told us all about going shopping and what you can eat etc. for lunch we had some cous cous and we all designed our own Moroccan slippers and tagine pots.

Next stop was Zambia where we found out about Miss Quartermaine’s adventures and the children she worked with there. We discovered that if you went to the holiday reading club, you might have to take your baby brother of sister with you and look after them while you learn to read.  We also found out that the biggest pest in the Nursery garden was an elephant because he used to come and drink all the water from the well!

Then we popped over the boarder to Botswana and had a quick safari. We saw giraffes, hippos, zebras, elephants and crocodiles. The crocodile was our favourite and we made some glorious pictures of him. We discovered that crocodiles do not have tongues so they can’t poke their tongue out! Most importantly, we found out that there’s no toilets on safari so you have to dig a hole and bury it afterwards!

We had a look at some photos of Hadrian on his trip to south Africa and Namibia. he met some animals and some children.

Finally, we went to South Africa with Arlo’s family and saw some fun video’s of Arlo meeting the animals. He found Giraffes, elephants, zebras and penguins!

That’s the end of our world tour. A huge thank you for all the things that you all contributed to it, it was a lot of fun and I’m sure we’ll have some future explores amongst us.

15/03/24 - Hong kong, Japan, Vietnam, Ireland, St Patcrick's day

This week we have discovered the delights of Hong Kong, Vietnam and Ireland.

In Hong Kong we looked at lots of lovely foods we might be able to try on a real visit and some of the animals we might find there. We also discovered, very excitingly, that it has it’s own Disney Land.

Off to Japan next, we had an exciting visit from Florence’s mum and we saw a beautiful kimono and tried eating blueberries with chopsticks. It turns out that we were all excellent with the chopsticks. Later, we designed our own kimonos.

Next stop was Vietnam. Again, lots of lovely foods to find out about and we looked at some of the different jobs people do; the fruit sellers with baskets, street food vendors and some of the fantastic bikes that are laden with goods and travel around the streets. Then we tried some sausage and looked at the traditional Vietnamese hats that are very useful for both sunny and rainy days.

Today we are off to Ireland and we’ll be learning about St Patrick’s day.

 

That’s all for now, we’ll leave you with our fab display of our lovely Indian Tigers that we made last week…

08/03/24- India, Iraq, Australia, World Book Day

This week was even busier than usual. We had lots of lovely visitors to tell us about some of our heritage countries and the excitement of World Book Day and Mother’s Day Breakfast

The week kicked of the week with a very exciting presentation about India. We loved it all, but especially the tigers. In honour of the tigers we made some beautiful tiger pictures. They’re coming soon to our classroom gallery.

Next, we found out about Iraq and all the wonderful things that started off there. We had a look at Ali’s prayer mat and some beautiful jewellery. Then we tasted some yummy dates.

Next stop was Australia, we found out about Kangaroos and looked at some landmarks and sang the song about the Kookaburra. We tasted some lovely fairy bread and lamingtons.

World Book Day was  a bundle of fun and we all dressed up and paraded around the hall. Arlo’s mum came to read to us in the afternoon.

Finally, we celebrated Mother’s Day with a very tasty cooked breakfast before school started. Yummy.

 

What a busy week!

 

01/03/24- Cheese in all it's forms! Poland, Ukraine, France and Georgia

Well, what a week! Our mad dash around the globe saw us visit; Poland, Ukraine, France and Georgia.

Monday was Polish day and Nela brought her flag and book to show us. We had a visit from Miss Alicja, who works in Reception, and she told us a lot about the country and taught us some Polish words. Then we read the story of the dragon of Krakow and we all enjoyed finding out about how the clever young lad was better than the knights a defeating the dragon. For snack time, we had some Polish Sausage and cheese dumplings. The sausage was super popular!

Tuesday was Ukrainian day. We had a visit from Roma’s family and we found out about the animals that live in Ukraine, we we’re very good at the quiz and spotted that lions do not live there. It was very exciting because we got to me Phoebe who is Roma’s dog and she is from Ukraine too! We tasted some lovely mini pancakes, some cheese bread (I’m sure that has another, proper name for those) and some chocolates. Hmmm, no prizes for guessing which of those we liked best. (Although everything was delicious!) Afterwards, we drew pictures of dogs because it was so exciting to meet Phoebe.

Wednesday was French Day. We have so much French heritage in this class that we were spoilt for visitors. The morning kicked off with some stories and Romane and Elizabeth’s mummies telling us about all things French. We had loads of foods to taste; cheese, bread, more cheese, pastries, more cheese, more bread, madeleines; it was a feast! We had a snack café running during the day so we could taste more things. In the afternoon Seraphine’s mummy came and told the children about Name Days, which was very exciting and we got a little card with the date of our name day on.

Thursday was Georgian Day. We looked at Nia’s flag and dress and found out about the places we could visit on holiday. Sally’s grandma and big sister came and they shared some videos of Sally there and we saw how many animals she gets to look after when she visits- lucky girl! We loved the chickens!

Of course, no virtual visit to anywhere is complete without tasting the food and we were, again, spoilt with the offerings. We had some delicious cheesy pastries, some bread with beans inside and the most amazing use of plums I’ve ever seen. The plums had been cooked and somehow made into a sweet roll, very similar to those fruit Yo-Yos that we all love. Needless to say, we enjoyed that and asked for more!

On Friday we had gymnastics, library and extra PE with Mr S, so no time for a new country, but we talked about the things we had learnt throughout the week.

 

A HUGE, HUGE thank you to everyone that came in or sent in food, books, clothes, flags etc, You all helped make our learning so special this week.

Next week we are off to India, Iraq and Australia and we also have World Book Day and Mother’s Day to look forward to.

 

23/02/24- London, UK, Pancakes, Spain, Netherlands, More Pancakes, Lunar New Year

Whoa, we packed so much into this week it’s hard to believe it’s only been one week!

We made an excellent start back to school. Everyone quite happy to be here, despite a few tears at drop off.

We started the week by talking about our holiday news and all the amazing places we’ve been on our travels. Very on point for our topic this half term!

Next, we discussed London and all the landmarks we might see on a day out. The London Eye was very well known by the children, but by far the most popular was THE DINOSAUR MUSEUM! (apparently, it’s so exciting that if you are three or four it is only possible to shout its name!) Glad to hear so many of the children love it.

Tuesday was: Pancake Day the second! We missed out in half term, so we were glad to make up for it this week. (Great photos on Instagram) We Read Mr Wolf’s pancakes, whipped up a batter and then had to wait as patiently as possible for them to cook. The best bit was choosing the toppings. Most of the teachers were traditional lemon and sugar eaters, the children were far more interested in chocolate and marshmallows!

Hola Wednesday! It was Spanish Day. We found out some interesting things about Spain, Learnt about the Spanish Tooth Mouse: el ratoncito perez. did you know that if your tooth falls out in Spain, there’s no tooth fairy, the mouse collects it instead? We made good use of our own teeth by tucking into Spanish Tapas of omelette and cold meats- Yum.

On Thursday we had a visit from Mandy. She came to tell us about her home country of the Netherlands.

Some of us were very excited to ask Mandy about the pirates and crocodiles that live there and then we realised they had misunderstood and thought Mandy came from Peter Pan’s Never Land! However, we were still very excited to learn about the Netherlands and we tried some Dutch pancakes- poffertjes. They were equally as delicious as the ones we had earlier in the week, but a totally different size. They were beautifully presented with little Dutch flags on the top.

Mandy read us a story that’s well known in Netherlands and it was all about making pancakes. Then we set to work on an exciting art project making traditional Dutch houses. They look great and our display is coming soon!

Friday saw us take a whirlwind trip back to Lunar New Year. We joined the rest of the school for assembly and really enjoyed Mr Schumm’s dragon dance. We also had a feast of stir fry noodles, rice and veg for lunch.

Next week we are learning about Poland, Ukraine, France and Georgia- undoubtedly we’ll be eating our way around the world!

 

A message about Smart phones from Mr Gane- something to think about for the future.

IMPORTANT

Always ahead of the curve, St Stephen’s has already instituted a ban on smartphones for children in school, and is strongly promoting collective  action by parents to not give their primary aged children smartphones at all. There is now a strong and growing movement to persuade government to take the issue of smartphone addition and the mental health damage it can cause children, more seriously – have a listen to this very powerful, short radio discussion from earlier in the week. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0h9h4nt. Let your Class Rep that you will join the No Smartphones Moratorium, if you haven’t already.

09/02/24- Lunar New Year

This week we have been busy celebrating Lunar New Year. We had a great time learning the story of The Great Race and finding out about the animals of the Chinese zodiac.

We read lots of great books about the festivities and found out about the important parts of the festival. One of our books was very good at explaining how Lunar New Year is celebrated in different countries.

We found out that many people decorate their homes with flowers, so we made watercolour pictures of vases with flowers.

We were very excited to find out about lucky packets/pockets. Even though different cultures have different styles of packets, they are usually filled with money and given to children. We made our own ones and put chocolate money inside.

As it is the year of the dragon we made lots of lovely dragon pictures and enjoyed pretending to breath fire with them afterwards.

2/2/24- Three Billy Goats Gruff

Dear all,

This week’s book has been a run away hit. We have been so busy retelling the story and making up lots of troll and goat games. Lots of bridges have been built, lots of goat pictures have been made and we’ve really enjoyed listening to the story together.

As always we read a few different versions and talked about what we liked best. The two main ones we focussed on were these:

The Ladybird First Favourite tales

The Three Billy Goats Gruff- Mac Barnett

Some of us liked the more colourful version which focussed more on the goats and some of us liked the darker version that focussed on the troll. Lots to talk about and we had some great ideas, including:

“I liked the pictures”

“I liked they way the story was told.”

“I like the bit where the goat pushes the troll in the water.”

Our Word of the Week was over and I think we definitely nailed it as the goats kept going over those bridges. So plenty of opportunity to use the word.

26/01/24

These last two weeks have been great fun, if a little germy!

Last week……

We read the story of the Gingerbread man and then made our own real Gingerbread Men, they turned out to be as mischievous as the one in the book and they ran away from the oven and caused mayhem all over the nursery.

Overnight, they were spotted reading books, playing with the toys and even taking a nap in the dolls house. So, we built our own traps using junk materials and set them for the following afternoon. Happily, we managed to round them all up and scoff them before they could run away again.

This week….

We read the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We enjoyed many different versions of the story, including one where the bears snuck into her house and messed it up, though, unfortunately for them they got the wrong address and it turned out to be The Big Bad Wolf’s house instead!

We had a porridge café at the start of the week and made porridge. We filled in our own little order forms and had to decide whether we would like raisins or honey on top, and, crucially, we had to write our names so that Mrs Hardy knew whose order it was. Nothing like the motivation of food to help us learn to write our names!

We’ve been enjoying the Oi Frog collection of books. They are brilliant for helping us learn to rhyme. If you have them at home, get them out and get reading. If you don’t, I’m sure you can find them in Shepherd’s Bush Library. They’re a great read.

Our mathematical skills are shaping up really nicely. We are mostly confident with recognising numerals and matching the numerals to groups. This week we have been refining our skills by playing dice games togther. Orchard Toys have a brilliant collection of number games if any of you want one to play at home.

However, you can also play a really useful game with just a dice and a collection of any objects (pasta, coins, small toys; the possibilities are endless.) Pop your collection of things in a basket in the middle of the table. Take turns to roll the dice and count out the correct number of objects. From this game your child can learn to;

  • Recognise the number of dots on the dice
  • Count a fixed number accurately (by counting the dots if they need to)
  • Count out the correct number of objects for a larger group.

Next week we’ll be reading the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

St Stephen’s Instagram : Who has spotted the new Instagram account?
 
Do take a look using the links below and follow us to keep an eye on what’s been happening here from day to day. There will be details of up-coming events like Bollywood Night as well as snapshots of life from across the school from Nursery’s gingerbread escapades to Y5’s Maths Club link up with St Paul’s Boys’ Y11s and loads more to follow. Children whose parents have given consent will appear anonymously, unless specific permission has been obtained when pupils names will be included.
 
This Instagram account supersedes the previous X / Twitter social media account, which is now dormant, so take a look right now and give us a ‘follow’.
 

Have a great weekend.

12/01/24

Welcome to 2024, lots of fun in store for our littlest people!

This week we got back into our routines, had lots of fun and really enjoyed playing together.

We set up a hot chocolate café in the garden as it was so cold and we all felt like we needed hot drinks. Sadly, it wasn’t real hot chocolate, but we enjoyed the pretend play. The children charged some extortionate prices, honestly, the rivalled Winter Wonderland, I got charged £25 for mine!

This inspired us to set up a real hot chocolate café in the class on Friday and we made proper hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream- it was very tasty.

We’ve been reading the story of Little Red Riding Hood and exploring different versions of the book. Some of us liked the scarier version where she and grandma got gobbled up and then rescued, and some of us liked the more gentle version where granny hid under the bed. We all enjoyed the version called; Little Red, where we weren’t sure if Little Red had eaten the wolf!

We are really working hard on our rhyming skills this half term (rhyme helps us with our phonics later in the year.) We have been reading the Oi Frog books; dig them out if you have them at home. And, we’ve been learning a song called, A Cat Sat on a Mat where we have to match objects to animals that rhyme with them i.e. cat and mat, bear and chair, frog and log. Lots of fun!

Numberwise, we are recapping numerals 1-5 and learning to match them to groups of objects. Alongside this we are learning to accurately count out the correct number of objects i.e. find me 5 pencils from the box.

All in all, we’ve had a really great week back and it’s really clear to see that we’ve bonded well as a class.

15/12/23 -Christmas craziness!

We well and truly kicked off Christmas this week. We were very excited. We’ve been busy little elves making Christmas things to bring home. We won’t tell you too much now as we don’t want to spoil the surprise, but we did find an excellent use for our left over clay (a sneak peek below.)

Wednesday was the best Wednesday ever because we invited our parents/carers in for the first showing of our Nursery Nativity. We then had a lovely Christmas lunch together.

Today we had the second showing of our Nativity and we got to show it to the whole school this time. It was very exciting to see our brothers, sisters, parents and nannies etc in the school hall.

Aside from all the festivities we had a quick recap of the Number four. As we seem to have all managed to forget what it looks like! Poor number four- and such an important number for our class!

 

08/12/23- Stick Man

This week we have read one of our absolute favourite stories- Stick Man by Julia Donaldson. We had so much fun telling the story together with lots of props.

We have our fine motor skills a good work out and made stick men with sticks, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, foam leaves etc. We all really enjoyed it. Our Stick men will be having a story with us on Monday before they come to live in your homes!

On Tuesday we had loads of fun dressing up and telling the Nativity story. We now have hundreds of bits of film that will be stitched together and made into our Nativity Film for you all to see. It should be brilliant, let’s hope it all comes together nicely!

On Wednesday we got to see the Reception Nativity. It was amazing and we all really enjoyed it. Apparently we were very well behaved audience members!

The latter part of the week was back to stick man and we cut up loo roll tubes and paper to make family trees.

Have a great weekend. Don’t forget to check our class email for more news about Christmas lunch!

01/12/23 Owls and Donkeys

Dear all,

 

It was supposed to be a week of owls and we did manage to learn a little about owls and enjoy a couple of good books about them; Owl babies and Billywise.

However, the week was mostly hijacked by a pair of rather lovely donkeys. They were the definite highlight of the week and we all have some lovely pictures to go in our special books. We all got to brush the donkeys and say hello to them. Mr s, Our PE Teacher made himself very useful and lifted up every child over the barrier when it was their turn to visit. I bet he didn’t think he’d be weightlifting for PE this week!

Number of the week was 5. I think we’re pretty good at numbers 1-5 now- whoop, whoop.

Much of our week was spent making lovely Christmas Bags for the Christmas Fair. Don’t forget to pop along and buy them tomorrow. Each child has one. Miss Ahmed was like the chief Elf this week and manned the printing table whilst we all took a turn to make one.

As it’s now December, we have have started our Book Advent. Each day we open a new book and read it together. the book stays in our class library, but when it’s our turn to open it, there’s also a surprise chocolate hiding inside!

24/11/23 - Hedgehogs

Dear all,

This week has been all about hedgehogs. Our words of the week were ‘prickly’ and ‘spiky’ and we had many opportunities to use them.

We made some fabulous artwork, combining different skills. First, we had to print autumn leaves on our background paper using stampers. Next, we added the shape of the hedgehog using paint and a brush. Finally, we switched back to printing and used a cotton bud to print a face and cardboard triangles to print the prickles. They are the cutest pictures and we will be making a little hedgehog gallery in class before sending them home.

We really enjoyed using clay a few weeks ago to make diyas for Diwali, so this week we made some more time for clay exploration and we made some really cool, clay hedgehogs with lots of prickles.

REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT NEWS: you must make sure that you apply for your child’s place in Reception class. The deadline is January 15th so make sure you have all your forms completed and submitted on time. Please don’t forget!

Bookings for school Christmas Dinner are open on Parentmail, please book yourself in if you are joining us. If you are not sure how to do this, let me know via email and I’ll forward the email to someone smarter than me that will be able to help you.

Have a lovely weekend.

 

17/11/23- Autumn

This week we have been trying to learn about autumn, though the trees are stubbornly refusing to do full autumn for us. Never the less, we have managed to find some leaves and we’ve read some great stories about trees and seasonal changes. We particularly enjoyed Leaf Thief and Tap the Magic Tree.

Our word of the week was crunchy and we talked about things we could think of that are crunchy, like carrots and crisps etc.

Our Number of the week was 3 and we spent some time counting things. We did three claps, three jumps, three stamps. I wonder if you can spot any number threes this weekend?

 

10/11/23- Diwali

This week we have been learning about the Hindu, Sikh and Jain festival of Diwali. Diwali originates in India, but many people in the UK celebrate too.

We joined the celebrations and made some diyas lamps as Diwali is about celebrating light over dark. It was hard work using clay and making them the right size and shape to hold a tea light. Next week we will paint them (we’re still waiting for them to dry.)

We made some fabulous Rangoli patterns to bring good luck. Usually people make them on the ground outside their homes and some communities have competitions to see who can make the best one. It was rather wet this week so we made ours on paper to take home.

In the garden we have been focusing on throwing and catching skills- always great if you can have a practise at home too!

Next week we are learning all about Autumn and the seasonal changes. We’d love a few, well chosen, autumn leaves if you are out and about this weekend and could collect us some? Not too many though! Also, we could do with toilet/kitchen roll tubes to make trees!

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

03/11/23 - Handa's surprise

This week the weather has had a distinctly soggy feel to it! Luckily we didn’t see much of the storm. Now the weather has turned to the wetter side, please ensure that your child has plenty of spare clothes in their bag as we love to play outside, but we often get a big soggy and like a change. On that note, we also need a suitable coat for the garden every day, we are definitely into the unpredictable part of the year weather wise.

To make ourselves feel warmer and sunnier we headed off to East Africa for our story times and read all about Handa and her lovely basket of fruit. Inspired by the story we have been looking at fruits and vegetables and painting/drawing pictures of them. Mrs Hardy has mounted our work and she’s making a lovely display of it. So, you’ll be able to see it in class.

Drawing is a great activity for us to do at the moment as it helps us develop our fine motor skills and our imaginations. Miss Quartermaine is hoping for a class of artists! We have some favourite crayons at school which we’ll tell you all about soon because they make fab Christmas presents. When looking for colouring pencils for children, it’s worth avoiding the very, very cheap ones (if possible) because they often don’t have enough pigment and produce very feint lines which then encourages us to press too hard and learn bad habits. If in doubt, test it yourself. If you can make a mark fairly easily, your child will too, but if you have to use a lot of force, your child will be using even more.

In the garden this week, we’ve continued using the palm drills and clamps to make holes in conkers. This is the start of our woodwork sessions. Throughout the year we learn different skills at the woodwork table- this term is all about drilling.

As it’s Bonfire Night this weekend, we started making some pictures on dark paper and talked about how it needs to be dark to see fireworks. Some of us have made bonfire pictures, some of us made firework pictures and some of us made general night time pictures. Lots of great work!

We have started some number work and our Number of the Week was 1. See how many ones you can spot when you are out and about this weekend. We’ve been learning to recognise the number 1 and sorting things that represent 1 from things that are not 1. For example, if we pull 1 conker from the bag it can go with the one things and if we had two stones they had to go in the bin. Bad news for the stones, but they’ll get their moment in the spotlight nest week when we learn about 2.

Our word of the week next week will be celebrate/celebration- see how often you can fit that into a conversation this weekend! We’ll be learning all about the Hindu/Sikh/Jain festival of Diwali.

If you pop off to a fireworks display this weekend, do see if you can take a photo to send to us. If you email it to me, the kids love to see them on the big board and talk about what they did.

That’s all for now, have a great weekend and enjoy the fireworks.

20/10/23- Black Voices week

This week we have been celebrating Black Voices Week with the rest of the school. We had lots of fun reading Baby Goes to Market and seeing all the things that baby puts in Mama’s basket. The story is set in west Africa and we really enjoyed looking at the pictures. Our favourite bit was the taxi, it’s a motorbike taxi, so very different to the taxi’s we are used to.

We had a look at some African wax print fabric and printed our own designs. We dressed up in chitenge fabrics and made ‘iro’ wraps to carry our baby dolls.

Towards the end of the week, we had the exciting job of helping to get out special books ready. We had already decorated the covers and the teachers had taken a few photos of us. We’ve started to stick our photos in and reflect on the things we have done in our first half term at school. It was a tearful start in September, but we are all so happy and busy now that the days disappear so quickly!

See you back here on Monday 30th October for lots more fun.

13/10/23- We're Going on a Bear Hunt

Wow, what a week we’ve had! We really managed to get stuck into some fun activities. We read; We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and made our own massive bear hunt in the garden. We set up all the areas from the book and then followed the trail to the cave to find the bear. Some of us even took our shoes and socks off and explored the squishy, squashy mud with our toes!

We also made some Bear Hunt sensory bottles to explore in class.

On Wednesday, we joined the rest of the school for Hispanic day and we learnt about the Colombian Donkey Festival and came to school dressed in the colours of the Colombian flag.

On Thursday, it was Teddy Bear day and we all brought a favourite cuddly toy to school to join us for a honey sandwich which we made ourselves.

And today? Well, we’ve just had our first ever experience of having our school photos taken. I think we can give ourselves a pat on the back as we were all very good and most of us managed a smile.

Next week is Black Voices week and we’ll be reading Baby Goes to Market by Atinuke. Next Friday is Red Card to Racism Day and we all wear red to school.- get digging out those red clothes!

06/10/23- Dear Zoo...

This week we have been enjoying the story of Dear Zoo. We had a lovely bag of animals to go with the story and if we were really good at sitting we sometimes got chosen to look after one.

On Monday and Tuesday we tried really hard to draw the animals. Some of us are already able to draw and for some of us it was our first time having a go. Either way, we all did very well. We’re keeping our pictures at school to make a display.

On Wednesday it was Harvest Festival. We made plates of food to show God what we are grateful for.

On Thursday, Mr S came and taught us some throwing skills. We tried to throw balls onto tyres.

On Friday we had gymnastics with Miss Shannon and Miss Fiona. We have been learning lots of action songs and our basic gym shapes.

A little bit of fun home work for you this week! See if you can find us any conkers to bring in. We need lots and lots because we will be starting woodwork after half term and the first activity is conker drilling for all of Nursery and both Reception classes.

29/09/23- Brown bear, Brown Bear

This week we’ve been reading the brilliant story of: Brown Bear, Brown Bear. It is one of Miss Quartermaine’s favourite books (probably because se got a gold star for painting a picture of it when she was five!) But, aside from past art award glory, it’s a cracking good group read because we can all join in.

We’ve been having lots of fun joining in with the retelling and if we sit really nicely we might even get chosen to hold one of the special animals.

We made our own version of the book, starring al of us. First, we had to have a go at cutting out our own photos and then we learnt how to use the glue sticks to paste them into the book. Next week we can have lots of fun reading it and spotting ourselves. We did a grand job with the scissors and we’re please to report that everyone still has 10 fingers and we have all made a great start to our cutting skills. Have you got children’s scissors at home? If not, now is a good time to start practising cutting skills.

Hope you all have a fab weekend, we’ll see you here on Monday for some Dear Zoo fun.

22/09/23- Where is the Green Sheep?

This week we have been reading the story of; Where is the Green Sheep. It was lots of fun and we had to wait until the end of the story to find out where he was. Once we had read the story we played a game of hide and seek with our very own toy sheep. He hid all over the Nursery and garden and we had to help Mrs Hardy find him. Lots of brilliant language in the book to develop our speech and language skills; under, over, behind, big, little, thin, wide etc.

This half term we have two really important things to focus on;

Firstly, our language skills and vocabulary. So we’ll be sharing lots of good books with lots of great words and plenty of repetition to get us all joining in.

Secondly, our Personal, Social and Emotional development. We’ll be learning group skills, like, sitting together and lining up. friendship skills, like, asking how to play and being kind to others etc.

Plus are lots of exciting activities to try out each week. Next week, as one of our focused activities with the teachers, we’ll be practising cutting out. Scissors at the ready!

15/09/23

Hello and welcome to the start of our weekly updates.

We’ve all had our first full week at school and some of us have managed to stay for full days too. We’re pleased to say that after a slightly tearful beginning we’ve settled down and the fun has begun.

We’ve been reading the very exciting story of; Kitten kid, and finding out where he’s been hiding. Most of us can now manage to sit for a whole story- hooray!

We have discovered the bubble machine, the mud kitchen, the space toys and all sorts of lovely things.

Lunch has been going really well, we have a healthy appetite as a group and generally demolish whatever school dinner is sent to us. So far we’ve had fish fingers, peas and chips, Chinese chicken and rice, sausage and mash and a lentil curry. Most of us have a second helping.

We’ve had our first every gymnastics session in the school hall and Miss Fiona and Miss Shannon taught us some gym moves!

 

weekly lessons:

  • Thursday AM – music with Miss Rachel
  • Thursday AM – PE
  • Friday AM- Gymnastics with Fiona and Shannon

Information

Here are some useful links for home:

My uso

BBC schools radio

Link to NSPCC

 

Termly Learning Goals

Summer learning- summer I can

Key Books for Summer 1

Here are some of the lovely books we will be reading together this half term:

  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar
  • Tad
  • Bee books
  • Usborne beginners (titles relevant to our topic)
  • How Flowers Grow
  • Tilly Plants a Tree
  • Ruby Plants a Raddish
  • Duck/hatching books

Topics we will cover this half term

Life Cycles;

  • Caterpillars/butterflies
  • Tadpoles/Frogs
  • Bees
  • Flowers/plants
  • Ducks

For Early Phonics- Start to our Read Write Inc programme

For Early Maths- Shapes

summer I can – click the link for our topic plan