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Nursery - St Teresa

Welcome to Nursery!

Your teacher this year is Miss Frankland

alongside Mrs Lydon and Miss Burns

The children have settled back into nursery with big smiles and have shown a fantastic attitude to their new learning environment and challenges in the classroom which has been a pleasure to see! We are looking forward to sharing some more exciting experiences and adventures this term...find out what we will be getting up to over the next few weeks and how you can support your child's learning below!

Setting the scene for a great day...

Please ensure your child brings a labelled water bottle to school each day and at least one spare set of clothes (more if you think they might need it). Please remember that children should bring water in their bottles and not juice or any other drink. Milk and water are available in school at all times for the children.

Key Dates

Summer Term

Monday 8th April - Friday 24th May

Summer 2 Term

Monday 10th June - Friday 19th July at 2pm

Nursery Closure Dates

Thursday 16th and Friday 17th May 2024

Nursery classroom

The nursery gates open at 8.35am and will close promptly at 8.45am. Please ensure that your child arrives on time ready to start the day.

At the end of the day the gates will open at 3.10pm

Reading Books and Home Learning Logs

Reading books are changed once weekly. These will be given out each THURSDAY and need to be returned the following MONDAY can read it together, talk about the pictures and what is happening or what might happen next. As they become familiar with the story, you can ask them what they remember about the story and also encourage them to talk about and sequence the story - the beginning, middle and end etc.

Alongside your child's reading book they will also bring home a project based challenge to complete at home. We will give these out on the first THURSDAY of half term and your child can complete it over the half term. We ask that their project is brought into school in the last week of term to share and celebrate with their peers. You will be given a sheet of paper that will be stuck in your child’s learning log that will outline what the project is and ideas of activities you can do. We feel this will give children more freedom to learn about real life world events, share personal experiences and will help motivate them to engage in home learning as it is child managed. It will also encourage them to be more independent, inquisitive and encourage outdoor learning together.

Throughout this half term we will we will be focusing on the following key texts...

An overview of our learning objectives for this half term...

Phonics

Phonics starts early in Nursery and each morning when the children arrive they use their name template to write their names! As we progress through each stage of phase 1 phonics we use every opportunity to re-cap and practise skills we have already learned throughout the day! As the children are becoming more confident to hear and say the initial sounds in everyday words, we are now beginning to associate the letters that represent these sounds and often use them to label the marks we make!

You can support your child's developing awareness of phonics (sounds in words) by reading, talking and singing with them on a daily basis. You could spot words that rhyme in nursery rhymes or claps the syllables in words and you can talk about the first sound ( not letter) that we hear in words eg cat begins with c and your name begins with c. In school we will be playing lots of listening games, singing and reading together every day.

We have also been working hard to segment and blend sounds to read simple cvc words using fun games! This is something we will continue to focus on throughout the summer term.

Maths

In Maths the children are now building on their hard work learning to recognise numerals. We will be broadening our experiences of how these numbers are used in the world to give your child a thorough understanding of not just what they look like but how to use them to solve problems! You can support learning at home by using number in everyday situations such as counting out different amounts of items whilst out shopping, counting out how many forks or plates you need for dinner, or looking out for numbers in the environment (road signs, the tv remote, door numbers etc) We have been learning how to share a small number of objects in different ways and in different contexts.

We have also introduced measure and what this means... we will be using words such as tallest, shortest, longest, shortest, heaviest, lightest as we explore similarities and difference in a meaningful way.

.Help at Home

Please find below lots of useful websites and links to great resources that can be used to support your child's learning at home!

Government support for home learning for children aged 0-5 years.

https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk/

Here is a list of websites/ apps and youtube videos that we love and will help with our learning at home!

Phonics websites

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk

https://monsterphonics.com/games/

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-3-games.html

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds

https://www.ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy.html

https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks

Phonics apps

Jolly Phonics Lessons

Meet the alphablocks

Read with phonics games

First words sampler

Teach your monster to read

Phonics YouTube Videos

ABC song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zKr44iBFT0

Tricky words songs phase 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMyssfAUx0&list=PLLhLRwvEimbCmlsD-JXwS2PqC0LvvIVTu

Letter names and sound song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neItURLvyIQ

Alphablocks

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_qs3c0ehDvZkbiEbOj6Drg

Jack Hartman

https://www.youtube.com/user/JackHartmann

Geraldine the Giraffe

https://www.youtube.com/user/breakthruchris

Maths websites

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/topics/numeracy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/numberblocks

Maths Apps

Kids counting

Maths Tree

Bugs and Numbers

Busy things

Maths ages 3-5

Maths YouTube videos

Jack Hartman

https://www.youtube.com/user/JackHartmann

2D shape song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTeqUejf3D0

Numberjacks

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWKuiktSh-V3E4ysPU0VC3Q

Numberblocks

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPlwvN0w4qFSP1FllALB92w

El Nombre for number formation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB6RGn7x4ks

Meet Bobby Bear

Bobby Bear is our new UNICEF nursery Mascot! Bobby will be used during some of our group activities to discuss feelings, news times and other activities. Every Friday a child will get the chance to take Bobby home. The bear will come with a story book, a tooth brush and his bear book for you to fill in with your child. The idea of taking Bobby home is for your child to take the bear along with on things they like to do at the weekend, and then be able to share an aspect of their life with their friends by looking at their time with Bobby. The bear book could include some photos and/or comments about what they have done at the weekend, so that we can share this experience with them the following Monday.

Our celebration wall has been a great success! The children have loved sharing and celebrating their achievements at home with the class and all of their friends! Thank you for your continued support!

BookStart

Bookstart is a nationald programme designed to support parents reading with their children. Research shows that children who recieve bookstart packs are far more likely to regard reading as one of their favourite activities!

The packs are filled with free books and useful guidance materials which are available for different ages and stages of development!

For more information about Bookstart and the different packs available please visit the Bookstart website or alternatively click on the following link - https://www.booktrust.org.uk/supporting-you/families/our-programmes/bookstart/

You can also find usefull tips and activity ideas to help with your childs development on the 'Learn With Me' page by following this link - https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/people-and-community/family-information-service/education-and-learning-advice-for-families/early-learning

Number and Shape

You can practice counting with your child - anything can be counted! Stairs, cars, items of shopping etc!

Encourage them to look out for shapes in their environment - road signs, windows, plates etc!

Talk to your child about the size of different things - encourage them to use words like tall, short, taller, shorter, big and small etc!

Writing

Your child is working hard at school to develop the muscles in their hands to enable them to learn to write - activities include using and manipulating playdough, learning to use scissors with one hand, using pencils, felt tips and other mark making materials.

You can support your child by encouraging these sorts of activities at home!

Also by encouraging the children to talk about the marks they have made - even if it looks like nothing more than a squiggle - There may be a story behind these marks!

Look out for and encourage your child to recognise signs and print in the environment - they are learning that writing serves a purpose and carries meaning! (This could be anything! - shopping lists, food labels, road signs, etc

The children access the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum through a mixture of adult directed and child initiated activities which are available both inside and outside the classroom so please ensure that child is equipped for the weather each day!

We plan for and adapt our teaching to meet the changing needs and interests of the children that we observe daily and welcome you to let us know if there is something at home that your child has expressed a particular interest in!

Please feel free to approach us with any ideas, expertise and/or resources you would like to share!