Nursery Newsletter
April 2012
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome back!
We hope that you had a good break.
The theme for this half term is Growing and Changing. Below is a brief outline of the curriculum to be covered in the Nursery:
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Our focus this half term is to help the children to operate independently within the environment and to show confidence in linking up with others for support and guidance.
Communication, Language and Literacy
This half term we will be focusing on using talk instead of action to reflect on past experience and linking significant events from own experience and from stories. The children will become involved in filling in an egg diary and later a bean diary showing the process of growth and change in nature. We will also link this experience with some traditional stories referring to this growth, e.g. ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘The Enormous Turnip’.
You can help your child at home by:
- Talking about change and growth through life cycles of different animals and plants. e.g. egg hatching, tadpoles, names of baby animals
- Encouraging your child to join in with sections of the story that are repeated throughout e.g. and they pulled and pulled but they couldn’t pull up the enormous turnip.
- Talking about the characters involved. Who is their favourite character and why? What are the characters feeling? Are they good characters?
Mathematical Development
This half term the children will continue to learn through daily numbers sessions, counting songs and action rhymes encouraging children to count beyond 10.
The children will also begin to focus on measurements and will be creating their own bean diary to record the growth of their plant.
You can help your child at home by:
- Using mathematical language in everyday contexts and in fun activities such as cooking using a recipe, comparing objects based on length and weight.
Knowledge and Understanding of the world
This half term the children will be examining living things to find out more about them.
We will have an egg incubator in the classroom for 4 weeks which will enable your child to experience the miracle of life first hand. Children will be encouraged to look after the chicks after they hatched for a week. We will discuss and record the changes and growth. We are also planning a visit to the local Garden Centre with the children to get first hand experience about plants, seeds and garden tools.
Physical Development
The focus this half term will be moving body positions as necessary while stretching, reaching, curling and balancing. Children are also encouraged to become independent in fastening clothes, taking off and putting on shoes and socks, dressing and undressing.
Creative Development
This half term the children will be having a go at close observational drawing of chicks and later plants. They will also be taking part in the collaborative production of large scale artwork relating to our topic.
OUR GARDEN CENTRE
We are in need of items for our Garden Centre role play area, so if you have any of the following that you no longer need, we would be grateful to receive them in the Nursery: plants, plant pots, soil, seeds or anything else that you think will make our Garden Centre come alive!
MESSY PLAY
Our aim in the Foundation Stage is to provide the children with as wide a range of activities and experiences as is possible, including some very messy play both outside and indoors and in all weathers. These activities will include mud, rain, glue, paint, water and wet sand and clay. We have some changes of clothing within the nursery and a selection of Wellington boots, but not enough for each child and no spare waterproof coats. Please ensure that your child is appropriately dressed to allow them to participate in all of these activities. We appreciate your support.
NURSERY VOLUNTARY FUND
Thank you to all parents/carers who regularly contribute to the Nursery Voluntary Fund. With the money we have been able to buy valuable resources, such as cooking and play equipment for the Nursery. The fund helps us to continually provide the children with a vast and varying range of experiences.
VOLUNTEERS
In the Nursery we recognize and greatly value the skills and experience of all parents and carers. If you would like to help out in the Nursery in some way we would like to hear from you. Previous volunteers have for example, helped change books, translated books into different languages, helped during the celebration of different religious festivals, and shared specific skills such as sewing, cooking and making cards.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask Bunmi, Tara or myself.
Yours sincerely,
Judit
Nursery Teacher