Highlights of last week

The children have settled back in well and have had a busy week with lots of different activities.

  • We have been exploring road safety by drawing large scale maps and acting out different scenarios. This is in preparation for Road Safety Week which starts the week of November the 18th.
  • We have also enjoyed reading, re-telling and acting out ‘The Gingerbread man’ in small and large groups.
  • Marlena has followed the children’s interests by creating some amazing indoor dens and has transformed the latest model into a mark-making, letter formation grotto for this week.
  • Helicopter stories have quietly begun; scribing and then acting out a child’s story will grow and snowball in a creative story telling curriculum which we will showcase at Christmas.
  • Georgia is enjoying creating micro libraries for all of us to share and add to, putting aside and sharing specific books which reflect each child’s interests and preoccupations. This is resulting in wonderful shared talking and thinking and nurtures a deep love of reading.

Last week’s group time activities were focused around:

We discussed Bonfire Night where the children recalled their recent experiences. Sarah and Zoe our PGCE students offered a range of exciting activities throughout the week where the children had the chance to look at and represent fireworks. The activities were:

  • Creating fireworks using puffy paint
  • Using mark making tools to create the different shapes and sounds of fireworks in powder paint.
  • Using shapes to create rockets

        

Phonics

Last week we continued to embed phonics into the children’s continuous provision at Nursery School. Each week we will focus on one aspect of Letters and Sounds (Phase One) but there are many opportunities to bring to life all aspects of listening, as and when they arise throughout the day. This is the magic of learning through play. The children have also been enjoying songs from The Jolly Phonics scheme.  These songs teach individual phonemes (sounds) aurally and visually without a demand for forming the letter yet.  They give memorable actions, visuals and auditory cues for tuning into the initial sounds in words and prepare children for hearing phonemes in consonant vowel consonant words, systematically working towards reading and writing.  We started last week with singing the songs for ‘s’ ‘a’ and ‘t’ and will continue these sounds this week with visuals and actions on the whiteboard. Have a look at the sounds we are currently focusing on (they are in the correct teaching order) and encourage your child to join in with words and actions. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2wpdvv.

Information
  • Please read our minutes of Forest School in Nursery School meeting, held on Friday 8th Thank you to all those of you who attended. The minutes will be sent in a separate email.
  • Please try and remember to bring a donation for snack, we welcome all fruit, apart from peaches and nuts due to allergy. Carrots, pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, breadsticks, plain crackers and rice cakes are also great healthy snacks. We will continue with toast Tuesdays as this is proving very popular but don’t worry there is always fruit available for those who don’t like or fancy a piece of toast on a Tuesday.
  • In the morning can we ask you to support your child to hang their coat and bag up, come to their colour group to self-register and support them to engage in the small group time activity to start their day. This helps the children recognise they are part of a key group and helps us to plan for the children’s next steps.
Friends of the Ace Centre
  • On Saturday the 23rd of November the Friends of The Ace Centre and staff are organising a “Dig Day” in the Nursery School garden. These days are great fun and we will keep you well-watered and fed, including cooking hot dogs outside for lunch.
  • The Friends of the Ace Centre are organising a separate Christmas Party for families on Friday the 6th of December 10 – 12. This will be a ticketed event (£5 per child) and all children attending will need a parent present, more information to follow. Nursery School will run as usual for those children not attending the separate party in the hall. This is a separate event to our Nursery School Christmas party so whether you attend the Friends’ party or not, your child will not miss out on Christmas fun.  More information to come in the next newsletter.

Best Wishes  

The Nursery School Team