Spring 2, Week 6, w/c 25th March 2024

We are at the end of another busy term full of wonderful learning experiences. It has been brilliant to see the development of the children's engagement in daily activities. The children particularly enjoyed our sessions at forest school, celebrating World Book Day and a workshop to learn circus skills.

We ended the term with an Easter theme. During our discussions around Easter it was lovely to hear the children sharing their experiences of Easter, visiting family or attending church services. The children have been enjoying a range of Easter themed activities, creating cards and making their own Easter baskets for the egg hunt on Wednesday. We have also been developing our fine motor skills at the playdough station and using a range of resources to decorate the playdough eggs. 

The children looked amazing in their easter hats and headbands and enjoyed proudly discussing with the Nursery staff how they made them. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side on Wednesday for the Easter hat parade and egg hunt. The children were still very excited to search around the classroom and Early Years kitchen to find their egg. 

We hope you have a lovely break and look forward to welcoming you back on Monday 15th April, where we will start our new topic Sunshine and Sunflowers.

 Spring 2, Week 5, w/c 18th March 2024

It has been another busy week in Acorn class. The children have enjoyed the bit of sunshine we have been having this week and have particularly enjoyed not having to wear their coats as much during our outside exploring!

This week we have enjoyed reading the story Dear Dinosaur. The children enjoyed reading all the letters between the dinosaur and the little boy, Max. The children enjoyed working together to write a letter to the T-Rex too. It has been great to see the children more engaged during their carpet times. We are very proud with how far they have all come, and the progress they have made throughout the term. We also ended off our week by singing a range of weather-themed nursery rhymes. It was great to see how many songs the children already knew, and they were brilliant at learning some new ones that they will hopefully be able to sing to you over the weekend!

In maths this week, the children have been exploring the capacity. The children were introduced to capacity during their inside exploring time on Monday and Tuesday, so by the time we did our group time, they were familiar with the new terms. They were introduced to key words, such as nearly full and nearly empty, empty and full and half-empty and half-full. The children were able to identify if glasses were empty or full and we also explored the capacity of different bottles.

In our Jigsaw lesson this week, we focused on why it is so important to wash our hands before we eat and after they go to the toilet. The children were able to share why it is so important to wash our hands often during the day and could share why they thought it was important to wash their hands before they eat. We also shared ways in which we can make sure that we don't get germs, like washing our hands after blowing our noses or coughing into our hands and by not putting our fingers in our mouths. 

Our makaton sign this week was ‘hello’, see if your child can show you this sign at home over the weekend. 

Next week we look forward to an Easter themed week with crafts and activities and finishing on Wednesday with an EGG-citing Easter Egg Hunt! 

 Spring 2, Week 4, w/c 11th March 2024

It has been another busy week in Acorn class, the children have particularly enjoyed exploring our outside area searching for signs of spring. We do spend a lot of the day with the classroom door open so the children can choose to explore inside or outside. The weather can change very quickly and the children also freely explore our water area. Although children are encouraged and supported to wear their wellies boots, aprons or puddle suits, please do ensure that your child always has a spare change of clothes in school each day. 

This week we have enjoyed reading the story Cave Baby by Julia Donaldson. Each time we read the story the children were encouraged to join in with the repeated phrases and were challenged to look out for ‘the big brown bear’ throughout the story. We explored pictures of cave paintings and prehistoric animals, discussing their features and comparing them with animals that live today. The children then used black paper and chalk to create their own cave paintings. It was fantastic to observe so many of the children drawing the prehistoric animals and including their features with such detail. 

In maths this week the children have been exploring the mass of different objects. During our group time the children were introduced to balance scales. We collected a range of different objects from around the classroom and discussed which object we thought would be heavier or lighter. The children then experimented with the scales, investigating which object was heavier or lighter and discovering that the heavier objects mkae the balance scales go down. The children continued to explore this during their exploring time this week using a range of different objects such as, building blocks, playdough, dinosaurs, conkers, shells and pebbles. 

On Friday it was World Sleep Day, this linked perfectly with this week’s Jigsaw session ‘sweet dreams’. The children found a comfy place to lie and listen to a calming lullaby before discussing the importance of a good night's sleep, as that is when we grow and our bodies repair themselves. The children enjoyed sharing their bedtime routines and discussing our favourite bedtime stories. 

Our makaton sign this week was ‘happy’, see if your child can show you this sign at home over the weekend. 

Next week we look forward to exploring capacity with a range of exciting activities and a visit to the school library to choose their first library books to bring home. 

 Spring 2, Week 3, w/c 4th March 2024

We have had a super busy week in Acorn class this week! We started off the week by sharing our knowledge on the type of weather we see in the Springtime, since the weather is starting to warm up! We also made our own weather chart, discussing what the weather has been like in the mornings and in the afternoons, and also the changes in the weather. During our visit to forest school we enjoyed reading the story ‘The Gruffalo’, and enjoyed searching for gruffalo challenges  to complete. 

In maths this week, we have been learning about length and height. The children have enjoyed exploring how short, tall and how long certain objects were in the classroom, and especially enjoyed measuring how long, and short the dinosaurs were! During our group time, the children also explored seeing who was taller and shorter between the children. 

In our Jigsaw session this week, we continued discussing what being healthy means and the children loved having a delicious fruit and vegetable spread to have for snack! The children enjoyed being able to dish their own fruits and vegetables and enjoyed chatting about the tastes, textures and how yummy they were! They also shared which foods they thought were healthy, unhealthy and why they think we should eat more healthy food! 

During our inside exploring this week, we have been continuing our learning of Dinosaurs. The children have been busy painting different dinosaurs and at the end of the week, the children enjoyed cleaning and washing the dinosaurs! The children have also been busy creating crafts and cards for the special women in their lives, we hope you are all celebrated this weekend! 

On Friday, we enjoyed our World Book Day activities. The children looked wonderful in all their costumes and did loads of reading today! We also enjoyed reading the story ‘Tyrannosaurus Drip’ and explored the different behaviors in the book, and how we all are different and all unique!

Our Makaton sign this week was ‘sad’, see if your child can show you this sign over the weekend. 

Next week we look forward to continuing our Dangerous Dinosaurs topic, as well as exploring mass.

     Spring 2, Week 2, w/c 26th February 2024

We have had an exciting week in Acorn class starting our new topic Dangerous Dinosaurs!

We started off the week by sharing our dinosaur knowledge and then discussing dinosaur fats during our group time on Monday. The children were challenged to create and build their own dinosaurs using a range of resources such as play dough, pasta, feathers, buttons, cardboard, tubes, pots, glue and scissors. They made some wonderful dinosaurs and enjoyed explaining the different features of their creations to friends and adults within the class. 

Continuing our dinosaur theme of the week, we have been using our handprints to create our own dinosaurs and walking dinosaurs through paint to explore the different footprints. We have also been thinking about what a dinosaur habitat would include, and the children have created their own dinosaur habitat using dinosaurs, logs, trees and grass.

In maths this week we have been learning about the number 6. We enjoyed reading the story ‘Six Dinner Sid’. Throughout the story the children enjoyed counting the different houses Sid visited and the 6 meals that he ate. We have also been practicing our counting skills during our exploring time this week, counting 6 peg spikes onto the dinosaurs. It was fantastic to see the children being careful and touching each object as they said the number to ensue they were counting accurately. 

In our Jigsaw sessions this term we are discussing what we need to do to be healthy. This week the children enjoyed dancing to some music and discussing how moving our bodies makes us feel. Next week we look forward to exploring foods that are healthy and trying some new fruits and vegetables. 

On Friday we had an exciting morning with Mrs Scrivener. She introduced the children to the musical instruments boomwhakers, and they had an amazing time creating their own music. We have also been learning a new song called ‘move like a dinosaur’ . The children had lots of fun moving like a dinosaur by swishing 

Our Makaton sign this week was ‘good’, see if your child can show you this sign over the weekend. 

Next week we look forward to exploring the different types of weather and celebrating world book day!

 Spring 2, Week 1, w/c 19th February 2024

We were thrilled to welcome the children back into Acorn class this week after a restful half term. Our first week has been busy, colourful and ended with a wonderful reading breakfast. Thank you to all of the adults and siblings that joined us to share a story with your child on Friday morning. 

Our story this week was The Colour Monster. On Monday, we introduced the story in class and encouraged the children to use facial expressions to show the emotions we read throughout the book. The children thoroughly enjoyed reading the story and all week we have been talking about how we are feeling, and what colour each feeling is linked to. We also encouraged the children to talk about why they are feeling a certain emotion and they all did really well in being able to explain how and why they are feeling that way! 

During exploring time, our focus was exploring colour and explored feelings using different colour resources. The children loved exploring paint mixing and just having a go at creating different colours and patterns using a range of resources. The children also created their own colour monsters, which they did based on how they were feeling that morning. This was such a great opportunity for children to explore their emotions and  discuss with an adult why they might be feeling a certain way.

During Maths this week, we continued our focus on the number 5 by using Numicon during our group time. The children were challenged to find different ways they could make the number 5! Following our theme of colour, the children have also explored colour matching and sorting during our exploring time! Next week, we will start our focus on the number 6.

In our Jigsaw group time on Wednesday, our focus was understanding why we need to keep our bodies healthy. We encouraged the children to do some movements and then we spoke about what happens to our heart when we do a lot of running around, just like they do outside. We also played a game to see how many body parts the children knew. An extra challenge was given to the children to name some of the more tricker body parts!

On Thursday, we started our new Letters and Sounds journey with a sound walk around the school. The children really had to use their excellent listening skills for this task, which is exactly what they did! Their task was to listen out for all the sounds they could hear and then once we had come back to class, we challenged them to talk about the sounds they remember and what they could have been. The children enjoyed this and we look forward to another letters and sounds challenge next week! 

On Friday during group time, using the Rainbow rhyme picture cards, we encouraged the children to pick one of the colour cards and then find a word or words that rhymes with it. We also enjoyed supporting Mr Vickers in the afternoon by running alongside him for a few minutes during his marathon training run. 

We hope the you have a lovely and restful weekend after a busy first week back. We look forward to exploring our new topic Dangerous Dinosaurs next week!