November - Seasons and Weather. Celebrations and Christmas

Week ending  17th December 2021 

This week has been filled with lots of Christmas activities and the children are now really excited for the big day.  They loved the visit from Father Christmas and enjoyed watching him as he cycled around the playground and delivered presents for each class.   

The children were really well behaved for the visiting panto group  'Outside the Box' for the performance of Aladdin.

The children all joined in with the dancing at our Christmas party and enjoyed the party food too!

On the last day we had left over party food and popcorn as we watched a video and took part in Mrs Walkden's Christmas quiz.

I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures and videos below.

Have a lovely Christmas everyone - see you all in 2022. XXX

Week ending 10th December 2021

This week we have been very busy with a range of Christmas crafts.  We have been making Christmas cards, party hats and colouring in Christmas pictures.

We have created a Christmas card station in our post office role play area. 

Our outdoor play house is now Santa's Workshop and the children have enjoyed making their own decorations and experimenting with our woodwork bench and a range of tools.  

Week Ending 3rd December

A reminder that it is Christmas jumper day on Friday.

If the children would like to bring Christmas cards to give to each other, please send them in by Friday 10th December. They will be given out during the last week.

Week ending 26th November 2021

This week we have been getting messy and creative producing our potato prints - our works of art.

The post office role play is a great activity for teaching the children to express their creativity and imagination, while also teaching them about the post office.

Week ending19th November 2021

We have had another fun filled week in the nursery.  The children have enjoyed playing with the Gruffalo story sack, drawing pictures of their favourite part of the Gruffalo story and colouring in Pudsey bear pictures.

Thank you for your £1 Voluntary Donations to our nursery fund - this money allows us to buy additional resources and treats for the children. Please let me know if you have had any difficulties contributing via parent pay. 

From Monday we will be sending library books home on your child's allocated day. Reading and sharing stories can help your child get to know sounds, words and language, and develop literacy skills. We will appreciate your participation in the scheme.  In your child's library book bag there will be a card for your child's comments.  Just jot down what they have to say about the book such as their favourite part of the story.

In school the children take part in a family homework draw.  In the nursery we will work differently.  As Nursery children are mostly a bit too young to wait for their turn for a treat or to take on the responsibility of reading at home and exchanging their library books, we will not have the same system as in school.  Instead we will have a few Friday treats in the nursery e.g. An ice lolly, a video treat or a few snacks.  ( your contributions to our nursery fund will be useful for extra treats).   We will appreciate your involvement in our shared reading library book scheme.

This bright and colourful story sack is an excellent way to create and sustain the children's interest in books.  

Week ending 12th November 2021

We are learning about the four seasons of the year and the different types of weather that are associated with each of the seasons.  As a part of this topic we have made calendars for the new year 2022.

We have referred to the Floppy's Phonics book 'At School' to identify the different sounds associated with various weather conditions along with everyday sounds that can be heard as we work and play in our nursery.

This week we have played a Phonics game based on the letter sound 'A' the children looked for toys beginning with letter'A' from our sounds box to go into our letter'A' sound jar. 

I have added a copy of the latest newsletter sent out by Miss Vrlec.  Hopefully you have all received it by email!!!

Dear Parents/ Carers,

Here we are at the end of another week that seems to have whizzed by.  Thanks for working with us in getting parents back into the playground in the mornings, I know that parents have appreciated being back in the playground and the return to some sort of normality. As these new arrangements are successful we will continue to make changes to make the start and end of the day easier for staff, parents and children.

Tickets for the fundraiser which is to be held at Stretford Public Hall on 27th November are selling well. If you haven't got yours yet I'll try and put the link below and if the link doesn't work, please look at previous communication from us and navigate from there. All money raised will go towards further improvements we are trying to make in our playground as well as renewed resources in the classrooms.

https://owa.trafford.gov.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=id6TRz87ioMd_Vzc0Yw9KMm-QEbCQYWzA34jNfunBp3ggSYA2YTZCA..&URL=https%3a%2f%2fvickyparkfundraiser.paperform.co

Last year the PFTA organised some amazing events which allowed us to raise enough money to replace our old but well loved climbing frame. I am currently liaising with the company that are going to replace the equipment to see when the work can be carried out.

Next Friday (19th November) will be Children in Need. We will be joining in by asking each child to donate £1 or more. We will have collection buckets but in order to make it as easy as possible to donate, we have signed up to enable you to use ParentPay. As soon as we have details as to how to do this, we will let you know. The theme we have chosen this year is 'Wear your favourite colours'. The brighter the better and of course Pudsey Bear items are encouraged!

I know that you will be thinking about Christmas in school and school productions. We are absolutely going to be doing some sort of performance for you although it is likely to be individual classes and possibly in the open air. As soon as we have any more details, I will let you know because I know parents are mindful of booking time off work.

We look forward to seeing you virtually next week for parents evening when we can tell you how your child has settled into their new class and if there are any things that are to be particularly celebrated with them or that can be worked on in order to best help them.

Have a good weekend,

Miss Vrlec

 

Week ending 5th November 2021

We have made a good start on our new topic 'Weather and Seasons'

The children enjoyed the story 'Noah's Ark',  they used story book resources to retell the story in their own words and to make up stories of their own.  

The 'Noah's Ark' resources included pairs of animals, a wooden rainbow and two boats (arks).  We counted animals and focused on finding two animals the same as the animals enter the ark two by two.  

We talked about wet, rainy weather and rainbows.  The children had a go at drawing pictures of rainbows in their learning journey books, drawing semi circle shapes using lots of different colours.

Floppy's Phonics

Throughout each week the children take part in fun phonics activities.  

This week we shared the picture book 'Fun At School' focusing on environmental sounds.  We have also focused on the letter 'S' with a game. The children pick objects from a sound box, if it begins with the sound 's' they put it into our sound jar.

As the children progress higher up into school the approach becomes more formal.

Please click on the following link for more information on the teaching of floppy's Phonics in our school.