Nursery News 11th November 2024

NURSERY NEWS

11^th November 2024 – Edition 351

Find out About:

A. Walk in the Dark event THIS WEEK

B. BBC Children in Need.

C. Wipes and Nappy Sacks

D. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Green Group Parents: Basic Skills.

E. What are the children learning about this week?

A. Walk in the Dark event THIS WEEK.

Miss Howe is organising a ‘Walk in the Dark’, an activity for children and their parents to attend together, after school, on Thursday 14^th November at 5:00pm. Children will need to arrive, wrapped up warmly, ready to search the Nursery Garden for hidden soft toy animals. Children will need to bring a torch, because the garden is very dark in places! Brothers and sisters are very welcome too.

We will provide refreshments for everyone who attends. (Free of charge). We plan to offer hot dogs/ cheese rolls, biscuits and squash.

If you plan to come, please send an email to Mrs Selth  cselth@willownursery.co.uk entitled ‘Walk in the dark’ detailing your child’s name and how many adults and children will be coming, so we can buy enough food….

We find this is a very enjoyable event for the children, and for all the adults. It is a simple idea, but the children never usually see their school or garden in the dark.

 B. BBC Children in Need.

Friday 15^th November is Children in Need. As in previous years, we will collect money in Charity buckets, should anyone wish to donate.

C. Wipes and Nappy Sacks

Please remember to put a pack of wet wipes and nappy sacks in your child’s change of clothes bag.

Nappy sacks are important, so that we have somewhere to place your child’s wet clothes to send them home. School is busy. Nappy sacks are not just used for toileting ‘slips’. Clothes become wet or messy through fun nursery activities or can become wet or muddy due to the weather conditions in the school garden.

If we are unable to find a child’s nappy sacks or wet wipes inside a child’s change of clothes bag, we will place a reminder note inside the bag to remind parents to include some.

The Local Council is pushing childcare settings to charge parents for consumable items such as nappy sacks and wet wipes. I am resisting this, as I feel free childcare should be just that – ‘Free’ . However this means parents must help us by providing these consumable items for their own child.

D. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Green Group Parents: Basic Skills.

Mrs Patterson teaches Big Nursery Green Group children ‘Basic Skills’ on a Wednesday morning. The children move to a quiet space in Room 5 where they work in small groups (approx. 8 children) to learn reading, writing, mathematical skills and problem solving.

We would like to invite Mrs Patterson’s Green Group parents in to observe a 30 minute reading/writing activity on Wednesday 20^th November.

A further invitation letter will follow to Green Group parents so that we can match up time slots, so parents can join their child’s small group.

Big Nursery Red Group will have their Basic Skills groups in the Spring Term 2025 and Big Nursery Yellow Group will have their Basic Skills groups in the Summer Term 2025.

E. What are the children learning about this week?

The theme this week is ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?’, which is one of our core books, and we will be focusing on reading skills.

Children will have the opportunity to read this story in the classroom, it will be offered to them as part of a group read. When we share ‘group reads’ it means that staff sit with a small group of three or four children, and we look through books together. We will make sure the children follow the pace of the book at the same time, turning pages and looking at the words and pictures on each page as a group. Our core book will also be available for children in the library, for those that want to sit quietly and enjoy the book at their own pace.

The children will learn about all of the animals and colours from the story as they hunt for story characters hidden around the garden. Once children find an animal character, they will be reminded of the story and asked to share what they can remember. Staff will model lots of descriptive words when they talk to the children about the characters and prompt children to do the same.

One of our learning intentions this week is to learn ways to be kind and caring towards others. This can involve reminders to use kind hands, share resources and be considerate of the feelings of others. It is important to us, that our students treat each other with kindness and respect at all times.