Hi All

Here is an overview of our week at Nursery School:

Indoor focus – We have continued with our term’s theme of Winter and Investigation, the children enjoyed doing another science experiment (Walking Water) with Marlena where some children helped to prepare the experiment, then watched in awe as the red water ‘walked’ up the paper towel and into the empty jars and stopped when it was level with the remaining red water in the middle jar. The children continued to be interested in shapes in the environment and were challenged to name shapes and to prove how they knew the shape name by giving explanations about the shapes properties. The children continued with creating cold pictures and collages. Some of the children enjoyed relaxing with cushions and blankets while listening to calming music, especially when coming in from the cold. This led on to having great discussions about the weather, season and how we feel if we get too cold. Some of the children are not independently choosing books and sharing them with one another. The home area is still popular where more and more independent role play is being seen. The children continue to be imaginative in their play and act out many scenarios throughout the day. The dinosaurs have also been a hit this week where the children have asked questions and shared their knowledge with others.

Outdoor focus – The children have been busy up in the mud kitchen, this week it was turned a ‘Pancake Cafe’ for the dinosaurs. The children used clay and natural ingredients to make some tasty treats for the dinosaurs. The windy weather created excitement and sensory experiences for the children. The children enjoyed playing ‘hide and seek’, creating with the large blocks, making a range of new obstacle courses, throwing and catching games and discovering new ways to make ball runs using loose parts available to them.

Wow activity – This week we started woodwork, we began by using nuts, bolts and tinkering blocks. By the end of the week some of the children were confidently using the nuts and bolts to attach the tinkering blocks to make their own creations. This activity was so good to develop the children’s hand, eye coordination and strengthen their fine motor skills. Their concentration, perseverance and determination was incredible.

Forest School – Groups C & D did Forest School this week. We had fun deciding how to build a shelter as a group and what materials to use. We modelled and encouraged the children to learn and use key vocabulary such as shelter, frame, rope, pegs, strong, tarpaulin & waterproof. For the next two weeks we continue to use ropes and make a rope bridge for the children to use. Then we hope to have a camp fire for the last session where we will cook popcorn.

Maths focus: Shape – This week the children used lolly sticks to create shapes and enjoyed playing shape bingo. The children were encouraged to talk about and explore the 2D shapes and mathematical vocabulary such as sides, corners, straight, flat etc.

Phonic focus: Body Percussion – We played a game called ‘Listen to the music’ where the children were Introduced to several musical instruments. They were then asked to think of an action to be assigned to each instrument (e.g. Clap, wave, jump). The children then took turns at being the leader and selected one of instruments to play and all the other children had to remember and do the correct action for the chosen instrument. Another game we played was called
‘Follow the sound’ where the adult produces a body percussion sound which is then ‘passed’ to the child sitting next to them such as clap, clap, clap. The sound was then passed around the circle until it is returned to the adult. The adult then asked the children some questions such as do you think the sound stayed the same all the way around? What changed? Did it get faster or slower?

Core Song – I Can Sing A Rainbow

Poem – I Can Build A Snowman

I can build a snowman,
I can build it high.
I can build a snowman,
Up into the sky.

– See if your child can remember this poem and the accompanying actions.

Information / Reminders

* Library visits – Sally from the library will be coming in this Friday (31st of Jan) to visit the children at nursery to talk about her job and our trip to the library, she will then read a book to them. Sally will come in the morning and afternoon. Then the following week we will go down to the library on Tues am, Tues pm and Fri pm, thank you to all of you who have offered to help with the trip and sorry to those of you who have offered to help on different days that we are unable to go, this is to do with the library not being able to accommodate us on those days and the days we have limited staff. To make these trips happen on a 1:2 ratio we need 3 more parents for Tuesday am (4th of Feb), 4 more parents for Tuesday pm (4th of Feb) and 2 more parents on Fri pm (7th of Feb). if we cannot get enough parent helpers we may have to extend the visits into the following week. . If you do not wish for your child to come on the trip or have any questions the please do let us know. Timings for the trips in the morning will be 9.45am – 11am (approx). and in the afternoon will be 1.15pm – 2.30pm (approx). I will send a separate memo to those of you who have offered to help to confirm your availability and details.

* Packed lunches – We are a nut-free school, please do not send any nut products in your child’s lunchbox. We also would like to encourage healthy eating and would ask you to not to include any sweets, chocolate and to limit crisps. We suggest a healthy lunchbox would contain the following items:
– Starchy foods like bread, rice, potatoes or pasta
– Protein foods like meat, fish, eggs or beans
– A dairy item, like cheese or yogurt
– Vegetables or salad and a portion of fruit

* Illness – We have had quite a few children off this week with coughs, colds and temperatures. Please do keep your child at home if they have a temperature (over 37.5). For general coughs and colds if your child is generally okay in themselves then they are fine to come into Nursery. We have also had a couple of cases of conjunctivitis, please see the NHS guidelines for signs and symptoms and how to treat – https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/conjunctivitis/ 

* Lending Library – Please don’t forget we have a lending library at school. Your child can choose a book, we just ask that you to sign the book out and then back in once you return it. You can keep the book for as long as you wish.

I hope you have a nice weekend and we will see you next week.

Kind regards

Zoe

 

Hi All

Happy New Year and welcome back. I hope you all had a lovely break and are ready for the year ahead 😊

Our returning children have come back and it is like they have never been away, which is a really positive sign. This term we are welcoming eight new children to Nursery School, some of whom have had their first settling-in visits, these have gone well and will continue to happen this week. Our older children have been great at helping to settle the new children by showing them around and helping them with the routines in place.

Inside focus

This week some of the children enjoyed doing an experiment with Marlena where they placed yellow roses in different coloured pots of water to see what would happen. They were amazed when the roses changed colour, this allowed for children to be curious and ask questions to help deepen their understanding.

We introduced a ‘reading rocket tent’ in our book area which has gone down well with the children. The wrapping station has been transformed into a Chinese Kitchen where the children have engaged in role play and have been busy cooking and pretending to eat a range of foods.

Outside focus

Outside the children have building with the large blocks, concocting potions with ice, powder paint and other natural resources. We have some new bikes and helmets which the children have been keen to test out amongst many other learning opportunities.

This term

Our overarching theme will be ‘Winter & Investigation’. We will be introducing woodwork as our ‘Wow’ activity, our maths focus will be ‘Shape’ and phonics will be ‘Body Percussion’.

Please see our website to see the Medium term plans – https://www.ace-chipping-norton.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Medium-Term-Planning-2024-25-Term-3.pdf  and for our key curricular experiences and cultural capital – https://www.ace-chipping-norton.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Medium-Term-Planning-Term-34-2024-25-Key-Experiences-Cultural-Capital.pdf 

Information / Reminders

– Please do bring in your weekly snack donations if you can, any day of the week is fine to bring in your donation.

– Please name all items of clothing, if you have lost any items of clothing please do look on the table in the reception area (by back door), any items of clothing remaining at the end of the week will be placed in our spare clothes or donated.

– Focus Children: Please do look out for memos for when it is your child’s focus week, it is really helpful to get your viewpoints before the week and then your child’s key person will arrange a parental call for the following week to discuss how your child’s progress, this is also a good chance for you to ask any questions or discuss any worries you may have around your child’s development.

– Forest School groups will commence this week, please find updated lists. Your child will partake in Forest School once a fortnight, please ensure you child has sufficient layers on and a pair of wellies in school for forest school days. We have waterproof’s but you are welcome to bring in your own for your child to use.

– Applications for Primary School: If your child is due to start primary school in September 2025 you have until this Wednesday (January the 15th 2025) to apply. Please do ask if you need any help. Here is the link to the application page – https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/schools/apply-school-place/reception-applications/make-application 

We all look forward to seeing you next week for a another busy and fun week.

Kind regards

Zoe

 

Hi All,

Here is an overview of our week at Nursery School:

Indoor focus – We have been busy comparing quantities when making reindeer food, and making pirate punch by mixing different colours to create new colours. We have had a focus on emotions and encouraging the children to express how they are feeling throughout the day. We have been identifying letter sounds in play and when writing names. We have had Sarah in from ‘Brave Kind Minds’ to do some Christmas mindful movements sessions with us, wrapping presents, designing and writing labels in Santa’s workshop. The children have enjoyed making and identifying patterns with the Numicon and have had fun with the playdough using the Christmas modelling dough mats.

Outdoor focus – Following the children’s recent interest in pirates we have been using the large blocks and loose parts to build pirate ships, listening to and singing pirate songs. We created a stage where the children continued to enjoy dancing and exploring new movements to a range of Christmas Songs. Some children were keen to design and complete obstacle courses, and some children have been learning how to use the monkey bars safely. We have also been up in the Forest School area looking for minibeasts and making more bird feeders.

Forest School – This week all the children had a camp fire at Forest school. We were SO impressed by how all the children listened carefully to instructions and kept themselves safe around the fire. Every child toasted a marshmallow and enjoyed trying / eating them along with some toasted chocolate chip brioche.

Big Experience Programme – As part of our big experience programme we started taking the children to the Coop in small groups, they had a lovely time discussing what they could see and sharing their own knowledge. They all had a shopping list and were responsible for getting one item from the list. We also learnt a new song about keeping safe when crossing the road:

Stop, look and listen before you cross the road.
Stop, look and listen before you cross the road.
Use your eyes and your ears before you use your toes.
Stop, look and listen before you cross the road.
Stop, look and listen before you cross the road.

Thank you to all of you that came and helped with the trip, we could not do these trips without your support. The last group will go to the Coop on Tuesday afternoon.

Core Song and Poem – We have been recalling all of our Christmas Songs and Poems this week ready for our performance on Thursday.

Information / Reminders
– Snack – We have quite a lot of savoury items and fruit for next week, so please don’t worry about donations this week. I know a few of you have asked about party food for Friday, we will be having a festive snack in the morning and afternoon. I will put up a list with some food items on that you can bring on the day, but we will not require everyone to sign up as in the past we have always had a lot of food left over.

– Christmas Jumper Day: Thank you to all of you who have already donated. So far we have raised £25. There is still time to donate, here is our fundraising page  https://christmas.savethechildren.org.uk/fundraising/cjd240030766

If you would prefer to just give your donation to us, that is fine I will have a pot out by the gate and then we can pay it into the account at the end of the week.

– Christmas Performance: We will be holding this on Thursday the 19th of December at 11.20am and 3pm. If your child can wear Christmas clothes / jumpers to school this day that would be great. I will also be asking you to let us know which performance you will be coming to and who is coming so we can do a register and tick you off when you arrive. When you arrive if you could wait outside the front entrance, Sarah will let you in from 11.10 am and 2.50pm, just before the performance times. If your child does not normally come to school on a Thursday please speak to me, send me a message and we
can arrange for them to come in for the session that fits in with their attendance pattern.

– Christmas Party: This is on Friday the 20th of December. If this is not a day your child attends they are more than welcome to come in for a session that fits with their attendance pattern. The children can wear party clothes this day.

– End of Term: The children will finish Nursery on Friday the 20th of December at 11.50am and 3.30pm.

I hope you all are having a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow for our last week of the term

Kind regards
Zoe

Hi All

Here is an overview of our week at Nursery School:

Indoor focus – The children had fun exploring and investigating the changes when playing with the gloop (cornflour & water). In the water tray we had some dinosaurs that had been frozen and the children had to think about how they could rescue them. They added warm water, salt, and attempted to break them out using a range of tools. Last week, the children enjoyed making footprints in the snow so in the creative area we put out some animals / dinosaurs and trays of paint so they could create more footprints 🐾 As the weather was windy some of the children were keen to make kites, we discussed what a kite needs to fly and had fun seeing if there was enough wind to make them fly. One of our books this week was ‘Dear Zoo’ so we set up area with a copy of the book and the animals from the story where the children could recall and act out the story. Some children challenged themselves with a world map puzzle (50 pieces), this was a lovely activity and really got the children asking questions about the world. We also had snow dough out which is a different texture from normal play dough, this was a good opportunity to ask children about textures and opposites – is it hot / cold / dry / wet / rough / smooth / soft / hard?

Outdoor focus – We had a great time in the mud kitchen, mixing up concoctions using natural materials such as sand, water, mud, leaves, pinecones etc. This was also another good opportunity to discuss textures. We had fun acting out favourite stories and making up new ones, I particularly enjoyed going on a skeleton dinosaur hunt. During some of our outdoor sessions we had ‘Frozen’ music playing where the children danced and sang along to the words. On the decking we had some fake snow in a tuff spot tray was some animals that live in the arctic regions along with some factual information about these animals.

Forest School – Groups C & D enjoyed listening to nature, checking in with one another’s feelings, making some bird feeders and of course having a warm drink and a biscuit this week. We hope to be having a fire for a last session this term. I will send you out a risk assessment beforehand to read, I will then ask you to sign it to say you have read it and are happy for your child participate in the session.

Maths focus: Preposition – We talked about prepositions at group times thinking about what we were sitting on, who we were sitting next to and which children we were in between. Then the children were asked to demonstrate a range of prepositions to show their understanding. During another group time the children were asked to place an object in different places around the room – in, on, under, beneath, next to, beside, on top of, behind or in front.

Phonic focus: Instrumental Sounds – We continued to develop our awareness of sounds made with instruments and noise makers. We played ‘Adjust the Volume’ where we experimented and discussed a range of sounds. We also played ‘Which Instrument?’ Where the children had to identify which instrument had been played by just listening to the sound. We also looked at rhythm by adding a song to accompany each instrument.

Core Song – Robin is My Name (a Christmas song)

Poem – Five Little Reindeers

Five little reindeers playing in the snow,
The first one said, ‘Can you see my nose glow?’
The second one said, ‘Listen to me sing.’
The third one said, ‘I can hear the bells ring.’
The fourth one said, ‘Let’s eat some pie.’
The fifth one said, ‘I’m ready to fly.’
Then clomp went their hooves,
And the snow fell white,
And five little reindeers flew out of sight.

– See if your child can remember these and the actions. We will be performing this song and poem amongst others to you at the end of the term.

Information / Reminders

– Parent helpers needed – We are planning on taking small groups of children to the Co-op before the end of term but we will not be able to do this without your help as we go down to a 1:2 ratio for trips. We would be looking for 3 – 4 parents per trip. You would need to be able to offer an hour and quarter of your time. Morning visits would be from 10.15 – 11.30 and pm visits would be from 1.15 – 2.30. The dates we are hoping to go on these trips are Wednesday the 11th, Friday the 13th and Tuesday the 17th of December. When you arrive we will go over the risk assessment before heading off, you will be responsible for holding your child’s hand and one other child’s hand. Please comment on here if you are able to help and for which session.

– When phoning into school – Can you please select option 2 for Nursery School Office and not option 4 for Pre-School. If nobody answers then please do leave a message. If it is urgent and nobody is answering then you can select another option to leave a message with Ace Childcare or Ace Pre-School. Thank you.

– Christmas Performance: Thursday the 19th of December at 11.20 and 3pm.

– Christmas Party: Friday the 20th of December. If this is not a day your child attends they are more than welcome to come in for a session that fits with their attendance pattern.

I hope you have had a lovely weekend.

Kind regards

Zoe

Good Morning

Here is an overview of our week at Nursery School:

Wow experience – This week most children were able to make beans on toast, Marlena read a story that explained where the beans begin and the processes involved to enable them to reach our plates. The children loved this activity and asked lots of questions developing their knowledge and understanding.

Indoor focus – The children were interested in activities on offer relating to ’cause and effect’, such as the magnetic objects we had out this week. They experimented with them and we discussed their properties such as how they; stick, pull, attract and repel when held against different types of metal. We also discussed fire and looked at what 3 elements were needed to make a fire. The children had fun creating their own camp fires in the role play area where they recalled their own experiences and discussed how we keep safe around fire.

We also continued to develop our fine motor skills by having tweezers, scoops, tubes and and pom poms to explore, some children sorted the pom poms into colours and others experimented with building ramps and slides for the pom poms to travel down.

In the water tray the children had fun washing the babies and clothes and hanging them out to dry, using pegs which also helps them to develop their fine motor skills by strengthening their muscles in their fingers. This then helps prepare them for mark making and writing later on. I have attached some other fine motor activity cards which you could do with your child at home to help them to develop this skill.

Outdoor focus – The magic came to us outside this week, our garden was like a ‘Winter Wonder Land’, the children were so excited by the snow. We encouraged and helped them to wrap up warm and put on waterproofs to keep them dry. We had to keep safe and the children were not able to use all of the garden as some parts were too icy. We made footprints, looked for other footprints, crated patterns in the snow, explored ice and discussed the science behind it, made concoctions in the mud kitchen using snow, ice and other natural resources and they helped to clear pathways.

Forest School – This week on Thursday the children in groups A & B did Forest School. We made bird feeders as we thought the birds many be extra hungry due to the weather and the ground being frozen. We also continued to develop our bug hotel.

Maths focus: Pattern – The children are really starting to understand the concept of a repeating pattern, we continued to make repeated AB patterns and challenged some children to make more complex patterns such as ABC / ABB patterns. We also had patterns and stamps in the creative area for children to explore during free play. The children also had the chance to join in physically with a song ‘Pump Up the Pattern’ that we showed them on the interactive whiteboard, here is the link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoFhVdYsmPg 

Phonic focus: We continued to explore Instrumental sounds. During group times we played ‘Grandmothers Footsteps’ using instruments / sounds to create different movements and had a ‘Musical Show and Tell’ where the children chose an instrument and performed a song and the other children discussed what they liked about the performance and what sounds they heard such as short, long, slow, quick, smooth or bumpy sounds. The learning attention was for the children experience and develop awareness of sounds made with instruments and noise makers.

Core Song – Out of the Corner of my Eye (a Christmas song)

Poem – Jolly Red Nose

Nose, nose, jolly red nose.
Tell me what gives you that jolly red nose?
Nutmeg and ginger and cinnamon and cloves.
That’s what gives me this jolly red nose.

– See if your child can remember these and the actions. We will be performing this song and poem amongst others to you at the end of the term.

Information / Reminders

– Jenny will be off for a couple of week as she has a planned surgery. We will have a supply Early Years Practitioner in on some days and other members of the staff team will be doing extra sessions in her absence. We wish Jenny a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing her when she returns. If your child is in ‘Blue’ Group we understand this may be unsettling but all members of staff have built good relationships with your children and we will support and reassure them. If you have any questions or worries please do speak to us.

– Christmas Performance: We are planning to do a short Christmas Performance for you, where the children will sing some Christmas songs and poems that we will be learning over the next month. More than likely this will be the first time your child has ever done this, if they find it overwhelming don’t worry we will support them. If they would rather come and sit with you or you come and sit with them then this is fine and can be accommodated. We want this to be a fun and positive experience for all. The date we are looking at is Thursday the 19th of December. It will be a short performance and we will do one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The times will be confirmed officially in Sarah’s email but it will be more than likely to be half an hour before normal collection times.

– Christmas Party – We will have a Christmas Party on the last day of term where we will have a very special visitor, have Christmas activities available, play games, dance and have a Christmas snack in the morning and afternoon. We may put up a sign-up sheet and ask for parental donations for this. This will be for the children only, if your child does not normally come on a Friday they are more than welcome to attend for one of the sessions that fits in with your child’s attendance pattern.

– Children in Need: I will let put a poster up next week displaying the total we raised for Children in Need. Thank you for all your kind donations for this worthwhile charity.

– Snack donations: Thank you for your continued support with the weekly snack donations it is very much appreciated.

I hope you all have a great weekend 😊

Kind regards

Zoe