Nursery News 6th June 2022

NURSERY NEWS

6th June 2022 – Edition 263

Find out About

A. Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday- A reminder.

B. Keeping Children Safe in the Heat.

C. Our School Rules.

D. What the children are learning about this week

A.Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday- A reminder.

The government decided that the Platinum Jubilee would be marked with an additional Bank Holiday for everyone, making the 2nd and 3rd June, 2022 Bank Holidays. Schools, however had already set our term dates. We were advised that we need to choose an additional day to be closed, so that school staff and pupils can benefit from the extra days holiday. Willow Nursery School will be closed on Monday 27th June, 2022.

B. Keeping Children Safe in the Heat.

We are now moving into the last part of the school year. Summer brings it’s challenges, one of which is keeping the children hydrated. The children should all have their own water bottles and we remind the children to drink frequently. We would like to ask all parents to donate a box of ice pops. We have a freezer in the classroom. When it is very hot we can then ask all the children to sit quietly in the shade or inside for a few minutes, to have a break from the sun and eat their ice pops. This has worked very well in past years. The children enjoy the treat.

C. Our School Rules

At Willow we have some very simple School Rules that we use with the children. Our rules are positive telling children what they should do when in our school. The Big Nursery children are very familiar with our school rules. Little Nursery may still be learning them. We use our rules daily, to help children understand our expectations. We use the rules globally, for example explaining that children should always have listening ears when an adult is talking to them at Grouptime. We use the rules to give specific advice. For example if a child begins to sprint along the library corridor we use the rules as an immediate reminder calling ‘Walking Feet!’ Here are some explanations as to how we use our rules.

Little Voice. We need to use our little voice at school to help us learn and concentrate. I sometimes use this before an action. ‘We need to line up for lunch, but we need to use a quiet voice.’ We can maintain a quiet purposeful working atmosphere.

Looking Eyes. We need to use our looking eyes to learn what is happening around us. I ask children to use their looking eyes to look at the storybook at grouptime. This way we can get and hold the children’s attention.

Listening Ears. We need to use our listening ears to enjoy stories, listen to our friends and teachers. I use this to regain everyone’s attention during a group activity, or to quieten down noisy individuals!

Kind Hands. We need to use our kind hands when sharing toys with other children and putting our toys away. If a child snatches a toy from another child we say ‘oh you need to remember to use your kind hands!’ –this often distracts the children and calms them.

Walking Feet. We need to use walking feet inside school otherwise we may run into other children and hurt them and ourselves. A child moving from quick walking, into a jog and then taking off into a sprint along the Library corridor will be reminded: “Use walking feet.” It can be used to slow the children’s movement down, maintaining a safe environment.

Our rules are used to maintain an ordered environment. The staff at Willow do not let any inappropriate behaviour go unchallenged. Some children take longer than others to learn how to behave appropriately at school. All children are individuals, which we celebrate. Children come from a wide variety of home environments, which we must embrace. Our school is a community of individuals, like the rest of society. Our job as parents and educators is to nurture and mould children into the young people we aspire for them to be.

We currently have some tricky situations to deal with in Little Nursery. They are not unusual in our Nursery by any means. We usually have to deal with difficult social issues such as these at least once in every academic year. But for parents of a 2 or 3 year old it may be it is the first time your child is mixing in a group socially without you. Children are exposed to language and behaviours from other children, that they may not see in their own homes. So, as a staff, we try to reduce incidences of inappropriate language or behaviour that the children exhibit. We talk to children and explain that they should not say those words in school, or physically hurt others. It may take some children a few years to learn that swearing is not appropriate in school. When my daughter first heard swear words I was very clear to teach her that yes, we know these words exist, but as a child you should not use them, and it would ultimately reflect badly on her if she did.

Unfortunately, I do not have a magic wand to eradicate all the parts of the children’s behaviour that is undesirable. So we spend lots of time promoting behaviour that is desirable, and praise individual children when they work in our positive social framework. As part of a community children have to learn to deal with difficult situations. The situations children face potentially become more difficult as the children grow older. Part of our role is to teach children to be resilient, to make good decisions and contribute to society in a positive way.

D. What the children are learning about this week:

The theme in little nursery is The Hungry Caterpillar.

In Catkins, Mrs. McGrath will be showing the children that they can paint using different media. She will be dipping fruit into paint and stamping the fruit onto paper. The children will use some of the fruit that is featured in The Very Hungry Caterpillar story. Mrs. McGrath will discuss with the children the different colours that they can see on the fruit as well as the colours of the paint.

In room three, Miss Gaffney will be supporting the children with their writing skills. The children will have the opportunity to look at their names and then try to form the letters themselves. Miss Gaffney will encourage the children to write as many letters of their name as possible, but will focus mainly on the children’s initials. Each letter will be written on separate circles and when the task is complete they will be pieced together to create their own caterpillar names.

Outside, the children will be expressing themselves through music and gaining control of their whole body through continuous movements. Mrs. Brinkley will show the children how to make their own streamers using sticks collected in the garden. The children will then be encouraged to wave their sticks around as they move to the music.

The theme in big nursery is the Royal family and London.

In room one, Miss Howe will be playing London Lotto with the children. They will take it in turns to find the London landmarks in the game that match those that are on their boards. London Lotto will help the children learn the landmarks and famous features of London.

There will also be a group read of Busy London for the children to take part in. The children will focus on understanding the key concept of reading from left to right and top to bottom.

In room two, the children will be working with Mrs. Patterson to make and decorate crowns. Children will build on their fine motor skills with cutting, colouring and sticking to personalize their crowns.

There will also be pictures of the Queen for the children to reference as they paint her portrait. Children will be encouraged to paint with increasing detail, remembering to pay close attention to The Queen’s hair, facial features and jewels.

Outside, Miss Skai will play a London landmark quiz game with the children. The children will look at lots of pictures of various landmarks around London. Miss Skai will use these images as prompts to quiz the children on what they have learnt so far this week. While the children are taking part in the quiz they will be developing their

communication skills as well as building an understanding of different questions and instructions.