Home Learning 2019-2020
Newsletter Summer 2. Week 7 Nursery.
Week beginning 13th July 2020
Dear Parents and Carers,
This is the final Home School letter and activities, we hope you have enjoyed the activities. Thank you for the fantastic support you have given your child and the school.
It has been wonderful seeing a small group of Nursery children for the Summer 2 term and to see how much they have grown in all areas of their development.
In school, the children have been sharing the excitement of preparing for Reception year. School uniforms, buying school shoes, having a book bag, talking about staying all day for lunch, and meeting new teachers and friends. Time for young children seems the longest tunnel to travel and wait, but their joy and wonder of learning and bright beginnings is precious to see. I hope we can all embrace the new normal to school life and our daily routine with the same positive attitude and excitement as our children.
Continuing doing the fabulous job of home schooling, yes it’s parenting with a new label. We encourage you to complete as many activities as possible in a fun, every day, everywhere experience.
Main focus areas;
Communication- speaking, full sentences, answering questions appropriately, and listening.
Social, Emotional- waiting, turn-taking and recognising/ talking about ones feels
(I’m feeling cross because, I feel worried, I happy because….)
Math- numbers to 10/20. One to one counting, recognise and order.
Literacy- write name independently, correct letter formation, sound discrimination, initial sounds…identifying the sound heard.
Continue singing the Jolly Phonics letter sounds, talk about everything you do, and ask your child many open-ended questions. Role model being a good listener and speaker, praise all mark-making efforts.
On behalf of the Nursery Team, We would like to thank you for the time we have spent with you and your child. We wish you a happy, safe and relaxing summer holiday.
Best wishes Lisa, Sharon, Helena and Maria.
Newsletter Summer 2. Week 6 Nursery.
Week beginning 6th July 2020
Dear Parents and Carers,
Beautiful weather and parks to explore. This week’s activities focus around the theme of trees, taking the time to appreciate trees in all their wonder and splendour. Viewing nature from different heights, looking up from the trunk of the tree, over tree tops from a high hill, or a line of trees such as Chestnut Drive in Bushy Park. How any different colours can be seen, tell-tale signs for weather changes and imagining who or what may live in their magnificent branches. Leave a little message or twig design at the base of a favourite tree for someone else to enjoy.
Math. Encourage your child to show curiosity about numbers. Task- Guess how many in the jar.
What will you will need:
• Jar
• Any number of objects to put inside the jar
This challenge can be varied every day. Change the number of objects you put inside the jar and each time your child can practise estimating how many objects there are. Try using various sized objects. After estimating, count the number of objects together and discuss how close you got to the correct answer! Was your estimation more or less? Was it more or less than the previous day? Was your estimation close? As a challenge, your child could practise writing down their estimations.
You could also fill multiple jars and estimate which has the most!
Enjoy.
The Nursery Team.
Newsletter Summer 2. Week 5 Nursery.
Week beginning 29th June.
Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope you have all remained cool after the heat wave from last week. We have seen a few pictures of children enjoying pools and picnics in shady locations.
This week has a water themed story book called- Mr Gumpy’s Outing by John Birmingham. A wonderful link into water play and investigative activities.
Math- Shows an interest in shapes and space by playing with shapes or making arrangements with objects.
Task: 1 minute object challenge.
What you will need: Stop watch and any household items!
Discuss how long one minute is, then set a one minute timer and see how many objects you can gather within the time frame. Each time you do it, set a challenge, for example: find me five objects that are blue, find me three objects that are rectangular shaped, find me two objects that are shaped like an oval, or find me three objects of the same size!
You can vary it with size, shape and colour and the number of objects. Make this a fun challenge by taking turns
Communication and Language - Uses talk to connect ideas, explain what is happening.
Task: Look carefully at the picture. What do you see? What could it be and why?
Open ended activities and questioning encourages better creative thinking and discussion.
https://explorify.wellcome.ac.uk/en/activities/zoom-in-zoom-out/prints
Show your child the zoomed in image. Talk about what it could be and why. Give your child some time to think and use their imagination. See if they can explain their ideas. You can then zoom out on the image to find out what it was!
Have a happy week,
The Nursery Team.
Newsletter Summer 2. Week 4 Nursery.
Week beginning 22nd June.
Dear Parents and Carers,
Let’s celebrate the magic of nature.
The activities this week can be enjoyed by using your garden, parks, or walking down the street. Encouraging your child to be observant of the changing world around them, acknowledging their senses and using them in their play. This may take some subtle role playing and little reminders here and there. Language and communication skills, talking about what they have see, hear, how something feel, smell and taste. Extending and modelling sentences and questions, and sharing discoveries with other people in the family.
When the children were in Nursery we shared an activity in Transient Art. Transient art is simply art without glue! Non-permanent art that is process orientated with no expectations. It can be small-scale or large-scale and individual or collaborative.
Anything can be used, natural and man- made. We would love to see your ideas, please share them on Tapestry.
Have a happy week,
The Nursery Team.
Newsletter Summer 2. Week 3 Nursery.
Week beginning 15th June.
Dear Parents and Carers,
This week we are inviting the children to be fact finders. Researching facts we can ask, learn and share with others, by using non-fiction books, using the internet or simply asking questions beginning with I wonder why….? Older siblings in the family may wish to search for facts with their younger siblings. Create a mini book, or add to post it notes to share with others.
Math- When children arrange objects from smallest to largest, largest to smallest, shortest to taller or thinner to thickest, they are learning seriation skills. These skills are often related to more complex math concepts, such as ordination or placing numbers in the correct order (for example, 4,5,6). Seriation skills also help to develop problem solving skills, as children must first be able to analyse the situation and then develop a solution.
Opportunities and resources are endless. Set the challenge.
Jolly Phonics. Please continue singing the songs and rhymes. This week we are introducing m, d, g, o. Make up silly alliteration sentences and listen to silly sentences. What sound can you hear at the beginning of each word? Encourage nonsense language and lots of laughter.
Happy Father’s Day to all our Daddies young and old. Enjoy Sunday.
Have a happy week,
The Nursery Team.
Newsletter Summer 2. Week 2 Nursery.
Dear Parents and Carers,
Our focus story this week is Superworm. By Julia Donaldson.
“Never fear, Superworm's here! He can fish Spider out of a well, and rescue Toad from a busy road. But who will come to Superworm's rescue, when he's captured by a wicked Wizard Lizard? Luckily, all of Superworm's insect friends have a cunning plan... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRdbB_tRPsg
The suggested Home Learning Activities mostly refer to the story book.
A Gratitude Scavenger Hunt is an activity to share one to one with your child, and with family friends and loved ones. This activity lends strongly to the Prime Areas; Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language Development. Encourage lots of talking, discussing and questioning. We would love to see any pictures or comments we could add to your child’s Tapestry journal.
Here are some ideas to get you started.
- Find something that makes you happy.
- Something to give to someone else to make them smile.
- Find one thing you love to smell.
- Find something that is your favourite colour.
- Find something beautiful in nature.
Continue listening to the Jolly Phonic songs and rhymes. If searching on line, there are small clips and videos the children can watch and sing along to.
In school we will be revisiting s, a, t, p, I, n, and introducing ck, e, h, r.
Continue to refer to letters using the sound, encouraging your child to say what they hear when playing games and attempting to scribe independently.
Play games like, I spy with my little eye. Modelling the correct sound for children.
For example “m” is a long sound, “mmm” as in Mummy, not ma. “e” is a shorter sound, like in egg, and not “eeee”
Let’s give thanks and gratitude,
Enjoy.
The Nursery Team.
Hello from Hannah
Newsletter Summer 2. Week 1. Nursery.
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome back to Summer term 2. At this time of the year we often explore the theme Spring and new life. The outdoor area is so inviting to explore with a variety of minibeasts to investigate and noticing changes in the weather, clouds, shadows, wind tell-tales and new plant life.
Math. Children need lots of opportunities to investigate math ideas and the situations in which to apply them. Explaining, talking and discussing are an important part of learning math, and as adults we can challenge their interests and extend their thinking. Ask open ended questions about how things work and why they happen. For example; “I wonder what would happen next? What would you see if? What could we try next?
Sunny weather brings water play, whether in the paddling pool, water tray or bath. Some ideas to enrich mathematics in water play include:
Introduce plastic numerals/ coins and sieves.
Make holes in the sides of a plastic bottles and watch, measure how the water spurts out. Compare the length of two or more water spurts.
Plastic bowls of different sizes and teas sets. (Discuss volume, full, empty, half full, empty, the same, how do you know when the cup is full?)
Stir a bag of ice into the water, discuss time and measuring time.
Use plastic balls and balloon pumps and have a ball race, first, second, last.
Float different sized plastic lids with punched holes and see how long they take to sink.
I’m sure you can come up with other wonderful ideas to share.
Enjoy the sunshine together.
The Nursery Team.
21st May 2020 World Record Drawing Attempt
Today at 4pm, author and illustrator Rob Biddulph will be making a Guinness World Record attempt for the largest online art lesson ever. You will need to register beforehand to be sent the video link.
For more information, visit https://www.artworldrecords.com/.
Happy drawing!
Ms van den Broek
Newsletter Summer 1. Week 5. Nursery.
Dear Parents and Carers,
Today is International Family Day. The whole world has had the opportunity to embrace their immediate family over recent weeks, and possibly with extended families around the world.
The suggested activities this week focus on the Family, with another Julia Donaldson book, Monkey Puzzle.
Next week we will be focusing on the signs of spring, new life and life cycles of some mini beasts. You may like to collect some mini beasts in preparation.
If we were in school these are the types of activities we would be sharing with the children. The expectation for focus learning would be short, sharp bursts. We would only spend 20 minutes maximum on our whole class sessions and most activities would involve learning through play.
In Nursery we would be playing many games involving sound effects and body percussion and Rhythm and rhyme. These are vital steps in learning sounds and letters.
Use the outdoors as much as possible to encourage exploring different ways of making sounds with their bodies. Stomping, splashing, and marching to beat.
Encourage children to mark making using their own squiggles and marks. Children need to hear sounds before they can recall and write letters. Parents and older siblings can model writing for different purposes. Please use the correct letter formation, and verbalising what you are writing. Celebrate all their efforts and encourage correct pencil grip.
Have a lovely week end.
Lisa and Sharon