In early years we have been reading The Smeds and The Smoos book by Julia Donaldson. The children have been getting into character and have been joining in with the rhymes. There has been some fantastic expression from both Nursey and Reception children.
Nursery
The Smeds and The Smoos book by Julia Donaldson
In continuous provision the children have been building homes, talking about the shapes that they have used. They have been making planets for The Smeds and The Smoos in the loose parts area and giving some great descriptions. The children have also painted some amazing pictures and designed some funky shoes for the Smoos.
Week 8
Week 8
The children are taking part in doddle sticks which allows the children to learn the movements for forming letters and then the second set of pictures is the children having ago at forming some letters.
Week 7
Week 7
It was the last week of our Space topic this week and we continued with Aliens Love Underpants. We also talked about Valentines Day and made Valentines cards for our families.
Writing
The children talked about people they love and drew their families. We discussed how the aliens love underpants but we love our families more. The children then explored colour mixing to make a handprint heart.
The children then got to design their own underpants. Some were very colourful! The children are really hoping the aliens don’t steal them.
Maths
This week we focussed on 1:1 counting and used our finger numbers to sing the song ‘5 little men in a flying saucer’
We also looked at 2D shapes looking closely at the sides and edges. The children used shapes to paint a rocket.
Understanding the World
This week we investigated how to make the stars light up in our Glow in the dark Stars experiment. The children looked inside the box to see some stars but once in the dark they couldn’t be seen. We used a torch to ‘charge’ the stars and watched what happened.
Week 6
Week 6
Our Space topic continued and this week we looked at the story of Aliens Love Underpants.
Writing
The story is full of cheeky aliens so the children got to create their own aliens, some had 4 eyes, 5 arms and even 10 legs!
As the aliens LOVE underpants so much we thought it would be a good idea to send them some underpants. Mrs Squibbs made an extra large pair of underpants for them and the children drew their faces on them. In case the aliens didn’t recognise the children from their drawings they attempted to write their names as well. Mrs Squibbs has sent the pants in a rocket to keep the aliens happy and hopefully stop them coming to take more underpants!
Maths
The aliens enjoy taking patterned underpants so this week the children had to match their underpants and then try and create an ABAB pattern using the underpants. The children sang the pattern to help them be able to extend it, eg stripes, spots, stripes, spots, stripes…
Expressive Arts
We looked at playing instruments this week and how music makes us feel. The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to ‘Gustav Holst – The Planets’ and from the video they could see how many instruments were being played. The children listened to the music and moved their bodies in a way to express how the music made them feel.
Have a listen to the music, it’s very powerful
Proms 2016 – Gustav Holst – The Planets [Edward Gardner, National Youth Orchestra] – YouTube
Understanding the World
The Nursery children were very excited to receive a letter from the aliens!
The letter explained that they needed help getting magnetic items back to their planet as they had dropped them when sneakily stealing underpants from Earth.
We explored magnetic and non-magnetic items and were intrigued to find that not all the metal coins were magnetic! Brass was not picked up by the magnet! We carefully sorted the different items into 2 different groups so we could send the magnetic items back to the aliens.
PE
In PE the children got given their very own spaceship (hoop). The children whizzed round trying to avoid Mrs Squibbs who was tagging them. Once tagged the spaceships lost their power and the children had to stand still until Miss Beaty recharged their spaceships so they could zoom off again.
The children then practised their throwing skills. They threw beanbags into their spaceship and if they got 2 in they got to collect a new pair of underpants, which made them very happy.
PSHE
During PSHE this week we looked at different products like laundry detergent, medicine, tablets, washing up liquid, etc. We discussed what they were. The children were interested in the white tablets as they thought they were sweets. We talked about how they should always ask before eating anything and we talked about why bottles have caps that are difficult to open for children.
Week 5
Week 5
Chinese New Year
This week the children learnt all about Chinese New Year and we celebrated the year of the Tiger. We found out that to prepare for Chinese New Year families clean their houses to get rid of bad luck, decorate their homes with lots of red and gold decorations and then celebrate with a family meal. To end the week of celebrations it is tradition to watch a Dragon and/or Lion Dance.
Writing
The children thought about who they would invite to their celebration and wrote invitations to those people. We read the story of The Tiger who came to Tea and discussed if we would invite the tiger to our party.
The children got to look at how people in China write as they write in mandarin. Some children chose to practise some mandarin and had a go at writing their names using the mandarin alphabet. Some letters are very tricky to write!
Maths
We found out that children who celebrate Chinese New Year are traditionally given money in red envelopes. In Maths the children 1:1 counted the coins they had been given and talked about what they would like to buy. The next day they got a choice of items to buy and they had to give Mrs Squibbs the correct amount of coins. The children could buy noodles, Chinese cake, chopsticks and much more.
Throughout the week children made and decorated lanterns and used chopsticks to pick up noodles. We looked at where China is using Google Earth and talked about how we would travel there. We also discussed how people who live in Oldham celebrate Chinese New Year and how we live in a diverse community.
Chinese New Year Meal
Tuesday 1st February was the official day for Chinese New Year 2022. On this day the children and teachers enjoyed a special meal where they had noodles and Chinese cake. The noodles were very popular with some children even asking for seconds, the cake, however, was not so popular but all the children had the confidence to try a little bite.
To finish the week we watched a video of a traditional dragon and lion dance.
During PE the children got to recreate a dragon dance and had lots of fun listening and dancing in response to the tambourine being played.
Week 4
This week was our final week of looking at and reading ‘Whatever Next’. The children thought about where they would go in their rocket and they made marks to show us their chosen destination.
We learnt about Tim Peake who went to space just before the Nursery children were born. We looked in detail at his spacesuit and we now know they are not always white and they are made specifically for that astronaut. The children tried on Mrs Squibbs’ spacesuit coat and the quickly realised that wasn’t the right size for them.
The children enjoyed using an app called ‘NASA selfie’ where they got to become real astronauts! Check out our Nursery astronauts in the photos.
In PE we rode the moon buggy scooters and bikes and went around the moon picking up moon rocks. The children were very careful not to fall in the craters.
Maths
We continued with our super subitising this week. We learnt how to play pairs where we had to match the numeral to the picture showing that amount.
PSHE
Our topic this half term had been about safety. We took a look in our playground and the area around our school. We looked at the floor markings outside our school and the speed bumps and discussed how they are there to keep us safe. We also looked at the floor and realised it was softer in places to stop the children from hurting themselves on the equipment.
Whatever Next Video
Nursery singing a song based on the story ‘Whatever Next’
Happy New Year
What a great start Nursery have made to 2022! It has been lovely getting to know all the pupils and we also welcomed 5 new children who have really settled in well.
This half term our topic is Space. We have been reading the story Whatever Next! where baby bear makes his own rocket and travels to the moon.
Week 1
The children enjoyed acting out the story with their own rocket, space helmet and took some food with them.
The children talked about and drew what they would take with them in their rocket. The children chose some interesting items to take including sausage rolls, scrambled egg and their ‘elephant cuddly’.
We started to talk about the moon and we watched a video of astronauts boarding the rocket and we got to listen to a story read by an astronaut in Space, her hair was all over the place! We talked about how her hair was flying around, as was she, because there is no gravity in space. We enjoyed watching how Tim Peake drank from his water bottle in Space, we had to watch it a few times as it’s so amazing.
To finish our first week we started our Astronaut training by taking part in some Space yoga.
Week 2
This week some children chose to paint the characters from the story and some children used resources to make their own rockets for the astronauts.
We talked abut 2D shapes and made rockets using and naming the foam shapes and/or paper shapes.
This week we looked at the moon in more detail and we discussed the holes that are called craters. Some children chose to be creative, making their own moons, rockets and aliens using playdough.
We continued our Astronaut training, this time we went on the playground equipment practising our balancing skills. We also watched gravity in action as we threw balls in the air and watched as they fell to the floor because of the gravity on Earth.
Week 3
This week we got to look through a telescope. The children enjoyed looking and exploring the telescope and we talked about how sometimes you can still see the moon in the daytime but unfortunately we couldn’t see the moon as it was just too foggy ☹ Instead the children looked at a starry night scene on the IWB. A few children then used the ‘junk modelling’ to make their own telescopes.
As well as learning about the moon we discussed the owl from the story and we talked about how some owls are nocturnal but not all of them. The children learnt this means they sleep in the day and wake up at night, the opposite to us as we are classed as diurnal. As part of our learning about owls we made our very own ‘Owl Toast’ using fruit to make the features of an owl including wings, beak and large round eyes. The children thought the owl toast was “delicious”.
To finish our third week we revisited craters on the moon. We watched a video of what happens when a space rock hits the moon and the children were amazed. We talked about how some craters are big enough to fit the whole school in! To show the formation of craters in action the children dropped rocks on to the shaving foam moon and watched how they left a ‘crater’ just like on the real moon.
Astronaut Training was an agility assault course this week. The children liked being timed using a stopwatch and tried to be faster each time.
Alongside our topic based learning the children have been busing in Maths and Phonics.
Maths
The children have been learning and practising the skill of subitising. Subitising is when you can see an amount (up to 7) and know how many there is without counting, just like we do using a dice. The children matched numeral to dot arrangements, matched to how many fingers on a hand, to how many cubes in a tower and in lots more ways.
Phonics
We have been thinking about sounds we can hear in the environment and sounds we can make with different objects and instruments. The children had to listen very carefully on our listening walk and when we played a game of ‘Guess the instrument’.
In preparation for writing we have been strengthening our muscles during our daily Doodle Sticks sessions. The children enjoy making shapes to music with their ribbon sticks and finish the session making marks on paper which prepares them for writing and forming letters of the alphabet.
