Further explorations into space...

This week we have continued our space theme.

We have been reading a book called Alien's Love Underpants by Claire Freedman.  It was very funny.
 

The children have loved developing their fine motor skills by scrunching to make planets and sticking the right number of eyes to our aliens.

 

We used a paint brush dipped in water to trace chalk numbers, a great activity for learning how to hold a pen as well as learning about the shape of numbers.

 

Why don't you try this at home?

We went on a shape treasure hunt and matched shapes to the right shape planet.

We practiced our counting skills by rolling a dice and putting the matching number of features on our aliens. What a funny face! 

We have also been adding two groups to find a total using numicon in the play dough.

 

It was very frosty during the week and we found ice in our water tray. We had fun thinking about how the ice had got there, what it was made of and what would happen if we held it in our hands. The children described the ice as "freezing", "cold" and "shivery".

Next week our text will be Owl Babies and we will be thinking about what animals come out at night and what happens in the day and what happens at night.

 

Zoom Zoom Zoom, We're Going to the Moon

Welcome back, we hope you had a relaxing week at home.

This week we are thinking about fireworks and linking this to space. Our role play is a space station.

Our story of the week is Whatever Next! by Jill Murphy, about a bear who takes a trip to the moon.

We have been retelling this story with props and picture cards.

We have been making firework pictures and our own play dough aliens.

We have played with small world rockets and made our own.  

We made our own planets.

We have fished for the letters in our name with the magnetic rods.

We have counted and added using buttons to fit in our numicon shapes.

We have been practising holding our pens in the right grip and making marks by decorating planets with spots, stripes, dots and zigzags which is great practise for writing.

We have been developing our fine motor skills by placing buttons on zigzag lines, straight lines and wavy lines. It is great for practising the pincer movement used to hold pens.

You could try this at home with raisins and your child could eat their lines when they have finished...yummy!

An activity you could try at home:

Take some card ( the inside of a cereal box will do) and draw some large spots on it.

Give your child some pegs and ask them how many pegs they will need to match each spot. Help your child count each spot one at a time, touching each spot as you say each number.

Ask your child to clip each peg onto each spot.

Why is this useful? : This activity encourages saying one number name for each object (counting 1:1) as well as fine motor skills which help prepare your child for writing.

What can I do to extend this activity: If your child is ready you could ask your child after they have placed some of the pegs on the card "How many more will you need?" to help your child understand the concept that 2 numbers go together to make a larger number.

 

 

 

Next week we will continue to explore themes of light and dark.

 

Festival of Lights

What a busy week we've had in Nursery.

We have been learning about Diwali, the festival of lights.

We listened to the story of Rama and Sita. We made masks to retell the story.

We dressed up in special clothes.

We will be making Diwali sweets later in the week to remember the gifts that Hindus give each other at this special time.

We heard how Rama and Sita used candles in little holders called Divas. We made our own divas using clay and sang a song called This Little Light of Mine while we watched Mrs Page light our candles. It was very beautiful. We knew we had to sit very still as lit candles can be dangerous, and we must NEVER light a candle ourselves.

 

We are playing games like eye spy in phonics, thinking about what sound our names and our friend's names begin with. Why not try to play at home with your family?

We played a fun game matching letters to those in our names.

 

 

 

 In busy fingers we rolled the right number of play dough balls for our number then counted them, splatting each one as we went, so we knew that we had counted all the balls.

 

Next week is half term. After this we will continue to think about light and dark by exploring the themes of fire works and space.

Have a wonderful holiday!

 

 

Colour Magic

This week we are continuing to explore our Autumn theme.

This week is also science week and we explored colour and how to change colours.

We went on an Autumn Treasure Hunt and found lots of autumnal items including different coloured leaves and acorns.

We chose a coloured leaf and made a laminated collage, using lots of other similar coloured items.

We sorted vehicles of different colours and talked about our choices.

We went on a colour hunt and found coloured strips around the classroom, then placed them on the right poster, naming colours and talking about what other things were the same colour.

We explored what happens when we mix two colours. We used our new colours to paint animals from this week's text Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle.

 

In the play dough we made number cookies by pressing numicon into the play dough and counting how many bumps it had left.

In the house we painted letters and shapes on the wall.

Next week we will be thinking about the festival Diwali and after half term, light and dark, as well as fireworks.

Seasonal Changes

Autumn

This week, we are exploring what changes we can see now that it is Autumn.

We have listened to the story Bear Hunt and added our own verses using autumnal objects:

We're going on a bear hunt, We're going to catch a big one

What a beautiful day!

We're not scared.

Uh oh! Conkers! Smooth rolling conkers.

We can't go over them, we can't go under them

Oh no! We have to go through them!

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Whoosh! Whoosh!

What new verses could you add?

We retold the story in our sensory tray using natural autumnal objects to add sound effects.

We will shortly go on a autumn treasure hunt and will make art using our treasure. Perhaps you could find some autumn treasure while out walking with your family and share it with us.

We've been using natural objects to count.

We made Autumn happen in our parachute games - tossing the autumn leaves so they tumbled around.

 

We have been having lots of fun developing our finger strength in our busy finger activities.

 

 

 We celebrated French day by singing Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in French, taking a virtual trip to Paris and tasting croissants.  

Next week is Science week. Mrs Hardie, our Science Co-ordinator will be sending home some fun science activities you could try at home with your family.

Have lots of fun!