Week beginning 27.1.20

Dear all,

This week

We have been celebrating Chinese New Year this week, the children have been interested in the celebration and have thoroughly enjoyed acting out the story.

The children have been particularly fascinated in finding out how the animals of the Zodiac decided who would have which year named after them. They have impressed us with in their recall of order and the extra details of the story they have discovered such as why the dragon came 5th and how the rat and the snake were sneaky in how they secured their place.

children finger painting

Some children have been exploring mixing paint on the table, they have created new colours, made marks and printed them onto paper. This was lots of fun.

Outdoors the weather has not deterred us from great fun and developing some really cooperative play. At this time of year it is rewarding to see our Emotion Coaching, Apprenticeship and Risk and Challenge key concepts being demonstrated and expressed independently in the children’s play. This shows up as children problem-solving and resolving conflicts independently. A great example of this, on Thursday, was a group of children seizing the idea of making a cannon in the garden. Children used a pipe, large clamps, supports; and a long stick with a ball on the end as a plunger and they developed and made the cannon better and better until it no longer fell over and worked. They then took turns in great imaginative pirate and super heroes scenarios to shoot the balls out of the end of the pipe. The balls plopped weakly out of the end to much delight. We took a video of the experience and will play it to you and the children at the start of day as you drop off on Monday.

This week on toast Tuesday the children had the option of trying beans on toast which went down well and was a different topping to try and on Forest School Friday we cooked popcorn on Zoe’s fire bowl, while learning the popcorn poem.

This week’s poem:

Popcorn

Popcorn, Popcorn, Sizzling in the pan.

Shake it up, shake it up,

Bam, Bam, Bam.

Popcorn, Popcorn, now its getting hot.

Shake it up, shake it up,

Pop, Pop, Pop.

saucepan containing popcorn

Forest Friday

What a lovely end to the week, the children started the session outside and soon got into being only in the fresh air. Some children enjoyed making clay tiles, they then collected leaves, twigs and stones from around the garden which they then pressed into their tile.saucepan on campfire

Most of the children came to the fire circle where we talked about what we need to make a fire and recapped on how to stay safe around a fire. Linking with this week’s poem we decided to cook popcorn on the fire. The children were interested in how we could do this and looked at the corn in the pan before it was cooked, we then compared it to when it had cooked. We listened for the popcorn popping and repeated our poem with the actions as it was cooking. After a whole day in the garden calm, happy, resilient and satisfied children returned home.

Writing folders

We have definitely had a craze of children bringing folders in this week, which is terrific. We are in the process of making an area for these folders so the children know where they can easily access them. And next week we will make sure we model to children how to punch holes and file our beautiful writing.

Sofa Superheroes

It was lovely to have some of our parents in this week reading and sharing experiences with the children. Please remember you are welcome anytime, if you can spare some time please do come and speak to us.

Reminders

  • Please remember to come and talk to us, we may be busy but we will find time remember nothing is too big or too small to discuss. You can also always email anyone one us at nursery.school@cnacecentre.co.uk if you feel appropriate.
  • Please make sure your child’s coat has a working loop and that all items such as hats and gloves are named. Many clothes are being left behind at the moment.

Lost Wellies

A pair of new green Mountain Warehouse wellies have gone missing, the wellies are named and if they have by any chance gone to the wrong home, we would be very grateful for their return. Thank you.

Next Week

We hope you have a relaxing weekend and as always look forward to seeing you all next week.

Best Wishes

The Nursery School Team