Hi Everyone

We have had such a lovely but busy term in Nursery School, highlights from this term have to be our recent visits from Wesley Smith our local police officer, and the Chipping Norton firefighters. The children got to listen about their jobs within the community, learn new vocabulary, ask any questions, see the emergency vehicles, listen to the sirens, sit inside the fire engine, and spray the fire hose 😊 This was such a great experience for our children.

This term our over arching theme has continued to be around – Community / Occupations along with following the children’s interests. The children have been discussing and thinking about Chipping Norton and discussing local shops, schools and attractions.

For maths we have been focusing on pattern and prepositions (words that show the relationship between a number or object and another number or object).

For phonics we have been looking at alliteration and for music we have been exploring rhythm. The children have also been interested in space, going on bug hunts, printing, castles, doing science experiments, making dens to name a few things.

Next term our overarching theme will be Summer / Transition & Sustainability (Environment), as soon as the medium term is done I will let you know and send the link to where you can find it on our website. Out maths focus will be on shape and measure, for phonics (for our older children) we will be looking at oral blending and segmenting and for music we will exploring and playing a range of musical instruments.

Our poem this week – Sliced Bread

Slice, slice, the bread looks nice.
Spread, spread, butter on the bread.
On the top put jam so sweet,
Now it’s good enough to eat.

Our song this week – Five Little Firefighters

Five little firefighters standing in a row,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, let’s go.
Jump on the engine with a shout,
As quick as a wink the fire is out.

Four little firefighters standing in a row,
1, 2, 3, 4, whoosh, let’s go.
Jump on the engine with a shout,
As quick as a wink the fire is out.

Three little firefighters standing in a row,
1, 2, 3, whoosh, whoosh, let’s go.
Jump on the engine with a shout,
As quick as a wink the fire is out.

Two little firefighters standing in a row,
1, 2, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, let’s go.
Jump on the engine with a shout,
As quick as a wink the fire is out.

One little firefighter standing in a row,
1, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, let’s go.
Jump on the engine with a shout,
As quick as a wink the fire is out.

Information / Reminders

INSET Day – No children in Nursery School on Monday the 2nd of June, all children are due back on Tuesday the 3rd of June.

Grapes – If you put grapes in your child’s lunchbox can you please make sure they are cut (length ways) this is following our health and safety guidelines.

Just a reminder we are a nut-free school.

Please can we ask that you name your child’s clothing, water bottle and lunchbox to help us at particularly busy times of the day.

Forest School working party – Saturday the 31st of May 9.30am – 12.30pm – If you can please do come and give us a hand to develop our Forest School area. We ask that you do not bring children this time as there will be tools and gates will be open etc. Please do let us know if you can make it 👍

Transition Visits – For children going to school in September, some reception teachers will be visiting nursery school next term, we will let you know which day your child’s teacher is coming as soon as they have confirmed. This allows them to meet your child in an environment they are confident in and allows us to time to talk about your child etc.

For any children going to Holy Trinity in September, I have had an email to confirm they have two coffee mornings coming up next term. The dates are Tuesday 10th June at 9.45 and Wednesday 25th June at 9.15.

Spare socks plea – If you have any spare socks (3-4 years) any donations would be very welcome 🧦

Leavers celebration – We will confirm at the start of next term when our leavers celebration will be / timings but more than likely it will be on the last day of term (one in the am and one in the pm) which is Tuesday the 22nd of July.

We hope you all have a lovely half term and we look forward to seeing you next term for our last term before the Summer.

Thank you for all your support, help and donations it is as always very much appreciated.

Kind regards

Zoe 😊

 

Hi All

I hope you are all well and having a good weekend. Can I just start by saying how well all our new children have settled into nursery and how all of our returning children have helped to support them by looking out for them and showing them the ropes.

Our overarching topic has been around community and occupations. The children have been busy looking at photographs of Chipping Norton where they have identified numerous shops and places. It has been lovely hearing the children share their knowledge of the community and represent it within their play. We are awaiting a date for Chipping Norton Firefighters and the Police to come and visit us, hopefully we can expect one visit if not both this term. I will let you know the dates as soon as they have been confirmed.

Maths – We have been focusing on ‘Pattern’ for maths where the children have been making repeating AB patterns physically and by using loose parts. Next week we will be recalling pattern in provision and also focusing on prepositions.

Phonics – This term we are focusing on ‘Alliteration’, listening for initial sounds of words / names and thinking of more words beginning with these sounds. We have played ‘I spy’ linking sounds to names, made ‘Silly Soup’ which consisted of objects / pictures of things all beginning with the same sound and have been making up silly alliterative sentences such as ‘Faron finds fabulous foxes funny’.

Forest School – Groups A & B did forest school last week, where we focused on woodland animals ‘Habitats’, they enjoyed sharing information books and learning about where the different animals live, they looked for bugs / insects and gathered natural resources to add to our ‘Bug Hotel’. Regarding our new children we have decided to run a few open sessions to introduce them to Forest school, we will continue to do this over the Summer term and in the Autumn term they will be allocated a group where they will do Forest school every other week, this worked well last year.

STEM – We will start our science experiments probably next week, we have lots of exciting activities to try and will begin with making a ‘cloud in a bottle’.

The week before last we were lucky enough to have Holly from ‘Funky Pants’ come in to do a session with the children. It was a lively music and movement session which the children loved and for the ones that found it a little overwhelming they enjoyed some time outside. Thank you to Holly and for those that made this a possibility, we are extremely lucky to have the support to be able to offer our children at ACE experiences like this.

Our core songs from the last two weeks have been ‘London Bridge’ and ‘The Wheels on the Bus’.

Our core poems from the last two weeks have been:

I have a Little Frog

I have a little frog,
His name is Tiny Tim,
I put him in the bathtub,
To see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water,
And gobbled all the soap.
And when he tried to talk,
There were bubbles in his throat.

Dance

Do a dance says one foot.
Other foot says let’s jiggle.
Hands say clap, slappity slap.
And all of me says wriggle.

Information / Reminders

*Thank you for all your snack donations, we have a lot of fruit left for this week but are a little short on savoury snacks such as rice cakes, breadsticks, crackers etc.

*Please please please can you name your child’s water bottles and lunch boxes, this helps especially when separating the bottles before lunch and helping the children at lunchtime if they can’t remember what their lunchbox looks like and there may also be multiple children with matching lunchboxes.

*Please feel free to add any new interests your child may have on the board in the cloakroom, this helps us to plan for these.

*If collecting your child at 11.50, from next week we will get your child ready and bring them to you at the gate. We will endeavour to have coats, bags, water bottles etc and encourage the children to go to the toilet before leaving. This is to support members of staff who are on lunch duty and to ensure other members of staff can go on their lunch break on time and be back by 12.30 for the afternoon session. This change may take a little getting use to but we have done it in the past and it has worked well.

*Trip to the High Street – We are hoping to take the children in small groups to our local High Street as part of our over arching theme of ‘Community’ and ‘Occupations’ this term. Please let me know if you are able to help in the last week of term on:
Monday the 19th of May (am) 9.45 – 11
Monday the 19th of May (pm) 1.15 – 2.30
Wednesday the 21st of May (am) 9.45 – 11
Friday the 23rd of May (am) 9.45 – 11
Friday the 23rd of May (pm) 1.15 – 2.30

I will confirm once I know we have enough support, if you have not helped out on a trip before – We start by meeting and going over a risk assessment that you will be asked to sign and then you will be assigned your own child and one other child to hold hands with. We always stay together and there will be a member of staff at the front leading the group and another member of staff at the back (staff will be wearing hi-vis jackets). We also talk the children prior about keeping themselves and their adults safe and we do regular safety check ins and sing a song about what we do when crossing any roads.

*Working Forest School Party (Saturday the 31st of May) – We are developing our Forest School and top field with ‘Little Wild Things’ and ‘Nicholson’s’. This is very exciting and we will send out some more information soon about what our plan, vision is but it will bring great benefits to our children at ACE and the local community. If you or anyone you think of who might be interested can come and help us on the 31st of May at 9.30 -12.30 for the first working party this would be great. At this moment I am going to say not to bring your children along to help as there will be dismantling and tools on site etc. But for future working parties this may be a possibility as it would be lovely to get them involved in planting and transporting. Please let us know if you can help

Kind Regards
Zoe 😊

Hi All

I hope you are well and you are enjoying the beginning of the Easter Break. We have had a busy few weeks leading up the half term so apologies for only sending an update now.

Our songs from the last few weeks of term were:

– Mary Mary Quite Contrary
– I’m a Little Bean
– Spring is Here

Our poems from the last few weeks were:

– Hungry Birdies

I have built a little nest,
look inside, look inside.
Hungry birdies with their beaks,
open wide, open wide.
And the little birdies grow,
day by day by day.
‘Till they spread their wings and fly,
far away, far away.

– Mrs Blackbird

Here’s a nest for Mrs Bluebird.
Here’s a hive for Mr Bee.
Here’s a hole for Bunny Rabbit,
And here’s a little house for me.

– Furry Furry Squirrel

Furry, furry squirrel,
Hurry, hurry, hop.
Scurry up the tree trunk,
To the very top.
When you reach the branches,
Hurry, turn around.
Furry, furry squirrel,
Scurry to the ground.

These songs and poems are linked with our planning around growth and Spring, we encourage all the children to join in with words and actions. By introducing children to new vocabulary and supporting them to explore the meaning of new words is key to their development.

Learning

Maths – We have been exploring numerals and encouraging the children to represent different quantities along with supporting the children to subitise (recognising the pattern of number) without having to count. Repetition is key, the more they see and do this the more it will be stored in their long term memory.

Phonics – We have been supporting the children’s awareness of rhythm and rhyme. We have done this by sharing songs, stories, playing musical instruments and having bespoke activities at group time and revisiting within provision.

Enhancements – By providing enhancements inside and outside in a rich environment supports the children’s learning in all areas of their development, these are often linked to the children’s interests, celebrations and our planning intentions. This term the children have particularly enjoyed large scale mark making, cafe role play, growing cress, planting flowers, representing and matching numbers, being creative with clay and nature, celebrating Holi, experimenting with and creating different textures, developing their fine and gross motor skills, making car washes, experimenting, going on bug hunts, making collages using a range of media, playing games, building stages, performing, acting out songs / stories, creating and completing obstacles.

NSPCC Pants (The Underwear Rule) – Now and again throughout the term we do talk ‘PANTS’ to help children understand that their body belongs to them, and they should tell a safe adult they trust if anything makes them feel upset or worried. By discussing such topics helps children to understand that they have a right to say no and if they need to speak out about something someone will listen. Here is the link to the NSPCC online page which gives you tips and advice to help keep your children safe. The children do enjoy joining in with the ‘Pantosaurus’ video / song which leads to discussions around ‘PANTS’ rules – https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/pants-underwear-rule/ 

Reminders / Information

* We are aware we still have a few outstanding parental consultations from the end of last term, we will contact you to arrange these at the beginning of next term.

* In the children’s cloakroom we have a whiteboard and we would like to ask you to add any recent interests your child has, this will help us to tap into these and use in our planning and provision.

*Staffing update – We are delighted Lauren Hester who has been working in Childcare / Pre-School will be joining us for the Summer term. Lauren is on a placement year from university, where she is studying psychology.

*Yellow Group – Due to new children starting and therefore numbers increasing, we will be opening the outdoor classroom for yellow group to start their day. So, when you come in please find your child’s new peg which will be as you come through the gate and head up to the outdoor classroom where Marlena and another member of staff will welcome you. Once they have had group time and snack all doors will be open and they can choose where they would like to play. At the end of the day yellow group will be collected from the main classroom as they are now.

* If your child is due to start Primary School in September, we will be asking you to let us know which school they have been allocated as we work with all schools to support a successful transition to school. I believe you will get an email this week to confirm places, so please look out for this.

* Inset day – Tuesday 22nd of April
* Home visit day on the 23rd of April
* First day of term – Thursday the 24th of April.

I hope you all have a great Easter break and we look forward to seeing you all for term 5 😊

Kind regards

Zoe

Hi All

This is our weekly poem:

Poem – A Little Seed

A little seed for me to sow,
A little soil for it to grow.
A little hole, a little pat,
A little wish, and that is that.
A little sun, a little shower,
A little wait, and then a flower.

Theatre Trip – We have decided to just take the older children to the theatre this time as our younger ones will get the chance next year. I am sorry for any disappointment.

World Book Day – Your child is welcome to come in dressed up on Thursday as their favourite book character and bring in a book (please do name).

I hope you all have a nice weekend and those that have been feeling poorly are feeling better.

We look forward to seeing you next week 😊

Kind regards

Zoe

Hi All

Here is an overview of our week at Nursery School:

Indoor focus – We have been exploring weight by weighing different objects and asking the children to identify which objects are heavier, lighter, and the same in weight. The children have been completing and making their own mazes which they have enjoyed. We have provided many opportunities for children to develop their cutting skills where they have persevered and succeeded in what they have set out to do. Some of the children have completed electric circuits, the children were keen to do this independently and went on to add switches to their circuits. At the playdough table the children have been measuring length by making caterpillars and comparing which is the longest, shortest and recognising if any were the same in length.

Outdoor focus – The children have been busy washing some of the toys / resources this week and thinking about the best methods to clean them – lots of warm bubbly water, cloths, sponges and brushes seem to be the best solution for getting them nice and clean. We have continued to measure objects by drawing around them and asking the children to predict which will be the longest / shortest in length before comparing them. In additional to this we had fun building a range towers using the blocks / loose parts and comparing them height. The children have enjoyed having stories outside and playing games such as ‘duck, duck goose’. The top of the garden has been very muddy so we have been encouraging the children to put on their wellies independently. They have been busy on the climbing frame, wooden obstacle courses and in up in the mud kitchen where we have seen lots of imaginative role play / scenarios.

Wow activity – The children have continued to use hammers / nails and screwdrivers / screws in woodwork sessions. The children followed safety instructions and wore safety glasses and gloves to keep themselves safe while using the tools. The children have loved using real tools and have developed their skills over the term. we will continue with woodwork sessions next term.

Forest School – This week groups C & D had fun making a rope bridge at Forest School, most children were willing to have a go and mastered how best to travel along the rope bridge safely to the other end. Lots of team work was seen and the groups came together to support and encourage one another to succeed. It was evident the children felt a sense of accomplishment and were proud of themselves for having a go.

All being well we aim to have a campfire next week at Forest School. For some of our younger children we may suggest they need more awareness and to be able to show us they are ready to participate in the campfire this time. Every week we include aspects of fire safety at Forest School but for some children this takes time to master. So, if they do not do this time hopefully they will be ready by the end of next term. If you have not seen or signed the risk assessment for ‘Fires at Forest School’ I will get you to do this next week so we know you are happy for your child to participate.

Maths focus: Measure – During group times, the children were challenged to identify capacity by matching words to pictures and building their own towers and comparing them to others.

Phonic focus: Body Percussion – This week we recapped on action songs where we actively encouraged the children to join in with the words and actions.

Core Song – 2D Shape Song

Poem – Spring Wind

When the spring wind blows,
In her gruff and growly way,
She’s saying keep your mittens on,
I’m blowing cold today.
But when the spring wind blows,
In her soft and gentle way,
She’s saying take your jumpers off,
I’m blowing warm today.

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

Information / Reminders

*If able would you take the time to look at the stars and moon with your child, we have been discussing light and dark and many children have said they have not seen the stars and the moon (I’m sure they have but just can’t remember). Our core book this week has been ‘Why is it Dark at Night?’ this book has generated many questions for some children which will continue to discuss and explore next week to help develop their understanding.

*Library Trip – The children who have not yet visited the library will be going on Friday the 14th either in the morning or afternoon. We ideally need one more parent helper in the morning and afternoon to ensure all the children can go this term. Please let me know if you can help and I will let you know the plan, timings etc. Thank you to everyone that came and helped with last weeks trip, we really do appreciate it and hoped you enjoyed it too. It really is great to get out in the community.

*Last day of term – Friday the 14th of February (normal time).

*Start of term 4 – Monday the 24th of February

Enjoy your weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Kind regards,

Zoe 😊