Summer1, Week 2, w/c 23rd April 2024

This week in Acorn class we have been busy exploring the world around us and learning how we can help to look after our planet! 

We started our week by reading the story Errol’s Garden by Gillian Hibbs. We enjoyed looking at the pictures and discussing the families and characters involved in creating the rooftop garden. Together we have created a plan for the nursery garden, and the children had a wonderful time creating their own plant pots to plant the seeds for our nursery flowers and vegetables. We have discussed how to look after the garden and we look forward to watching the seeds grow over the coming weeks. During our exploring time we have been busy exploring different seeds and developing our fine motor skills to remove seeds using tweezers from a variety of fruits and vegetables.

During our maths group time this week we have been exploring the vocabulary related to the position of objects. We revisited the story The Three Billy Goats Gruff and discussed the position of the troll under the bridge and the goats on the bridge. The children enjoyed taking turns to move our Jigsaw Jenie to sit on the chair, under the chair, in front and behind the chair. It has been wonderful to hear the children using the vocabulary to discuss the position of objects during their exploring time. 

In our Jigsaw session this week we have discussed the feeling ‘lonely’. We reflected on times we have been feeling lonely and what helped to make us feel better. We also thought about what we could do to be a good friend if somebody was feeling lonely including giving them a cuddle, inviting them to play or giving them a teddy to cuddle. 

We have had a very exciting arrival of 5 caterpillars. We are going to look after the caterpillars and hope to watch their lifecycle by eventually releasing the butterflies into the garden. During our exploring time the children have been busy creating their own caterpillars using play dough and using the measuring cubes to measure their length. 

Next week we look forward to our Nursery trip on Wednesday to Sutton Courtenay Environmental Centre. Please ensure your child is dressed in warm clothes, they will get into their waterproofs and wellies before we leave the school. All part time children are to be collected from school at 12 o’clock. 

 Summer 1, Week 1, w/c 15th April 2024

What a brilliant start to our new term! It has been another busy week back in Acorn class. The children have all settled back into routine again and we look forward to another busy term. We started off our term with our new topic, Sunshine and Sunflowers. 

Monday started off with playing some ‘Fred Games’. We used Fred Talk to help children practice blending sounds together. We used some useful words around the classroom and the children really enjoyed this. We introduced our new topic by reading the story, Butterfly Bouquet. During the story, we discussed how the body parts of the butterfly changed and how the girls’ garden changed and grows over time. We also learnt about the lifecycle of a Butterfly and the children were able to sequence the pictures in the order of the life cycle. See if your child can tell you about all the special facts they learnt about the lifecycle over the weekend!

On Tuesday, we learnt about sequencing in our Maths lesson. The children were introduced to the vocabulary related to time, such as first, next, then, after that and finally. We then continued to use the vocabulary related to time but this time it will be in the context of real events i.e. the things they do to get ready for nursery. On Thursdays, we review their learning and demonstrate their understanding by talking about or revisiting previous Maths sessions and our continuous provision activities. This week we revisited sequencing, this time time through the context of fictional events from a familiar story. We continued to use the vocabulary related to sequencing events, such as ‘first’, ‘next’, ‘then’. 

On Wednesday, we had a lovely Jigsaw lesson. Thank you to all families for sending their pictures in! This was a lovely surprise for the children! The children were delighted to see pictures of their families and their classmates’ families, and even more excited to talk about their pictures, family members and what they were doing when the pictures were taken. 

On Thursday, our group time was focused on Letters and Sounds. The objective was for the children to be able to distinguish between sounds and to remember patterns of sound. We did this through producing a body percussion and passing it on while we all sat in a circle. We were able to link this to our Maths topic this week by introducing a sequence of sounds and challenging the children to remember and repeat the sequence correctly. 

On Friday we shared a powerpoint of signs all around us. We invited the children to choose a sign that they recognise and say what they think the sign says. We encourage the children to talk about the places that they visit and their experiences there. 

This week we introduced and learnt two new Set 1 speed sounds: m and a. 

Our Makaton sign for the week is ‘please’. See if your child can use this at home over the weekend!

We hope that you have a lovely, restful weekend. On Monday we look forward to continuing our Sunshine and Sunflowers topic by introducing the story, Errol’s Garden.