Mmmm Fruit Salad

The children's maths task today was to cut up different fruits for a fruit salad and then to share it out equally. They all then enjoyed eating the delicious fruit salad.

Natasha's Bilingual Story

Natasha and her family made this fantastic book about a Russian Fairy Tale. The book was beautifully presented and translated into English, which meant we could enjoy it at story time. We would love to share more bilingual stories with the children.

EYFS Stay and Play session

All Nursery and Reception parents, guardians and childminders are invited on Wednesday 1st May for a stay and play session. Please come and join us for some fun and cakes.
Sessions times are 10.30 - 11.30 and 2.30 - 3.15. If your child is in one of the Reception classes, then you can choose which session to attend. Afternoon Nursery parents are welcome to stay until 3.30pm.

Reception Weekly Newsletter

Term: Summer 1 Date 29.04.13

Yippee!!! Both Aspen and Fern class managed to achieve over the 95% attendance for this week. Aspen class’ attendance has been the lowest in the school for most of the year. Last week we saw a significant improvement. Let’s see if we can keep it up and reach over 96%!!!!

Our topic this term is ‘Story land’. We are focussing on fantasy stories and stories from different cultures. Following on from last week’s story, ‘Handa’s Surprise’, this week we will be basing new skills around the story, ‘Handa’s Hen’.

Your child will be taking part in the following activities within the seven areas of development (activities are subject to change, depending on the children’s interests; however, the skills remain the same):


Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Discuss where the story ‘Handa’s Hen’ is set. We will be continuing to discuss differences between Africa and England.

Communication and Language
Sharing the story ‘Handa’s Hen’. Where do they think the story is set? Why? How is it different to ‘Handa’s Surprise’? We will be encouraging children to retell the story using different props.

Physical
Continue to explore our new outside area and reinforcing the rules.
Developing fine manipulative skills through making fruit salad.

Literacy
The children need to be bringing in their reading books daily. We praise the children who regularly read at home to an adult and have a reward system in place.
Writing our names encouraging correct pencil grip.
We will be continuing our daily Read Write Inc sessions.
Writing instructions to make a fruit salad.

Maths
Exploring ‘Ten Town’ encouraging correct number formation.
Singing number songs.
Sharing fruit out equally – looking at doubling and halving.
Simple addition and subtraction calculations using the animals from the story, ‘Handa’s Hen’.

Understanding of the World

Year 3 will be sharing stories and teaching the younger children about road safety. We look forward to Rowan class joining us Monday afternoon.

Expressive Arts and Design
Music express
Enjoying our daily dance warm up to the ‘5 a day’ fitness programme.
Role play – green grocers shop.
Fruit printings.
Creating a large collage outside.
Making African masks.

Messages:
Please follow Broadford on facebook (remember to press the ‘like’ button) and twitter. We update the Early Years blog regularly with photos and information.
If you have any cardboard tubes, we would be most grateful for them.
Show and tell this week will be on Friday. Children may bring in something related to Handa’s Hen or a different country to talk about.
Our ‘Stay and Play’ session for parents and guardians will be on the 1st May. We will be having two sessions. Either come to the morning sessions at 10.30 until 11.30 or the afternoon session at 2.30 – 3.15. Siblings welcome to come and join in the fun.

Ways to help at home:
Sharing books to encourage story language and imagination.
Playing letters and sounds phase 2 and phase 3 games on the computer.
During play working out simple addition and subtraction calculations.

Homework this half term is ‘Story Land’. Children can either produce a poster about their favourite books; this may be a favourite story or an information book. Alternatively, the children could work on producing their own story demonstrating their great writing skills and imagination. Homework will need to be returned by the end of this half term.

St George's Day in the Reception Classes.

The children had great fun learning about St. George and the Dragon. After watching a video clip, they were inspired to make shields, flags and English roses made from crepe paper. The boys certainly got into role play.

Thomas's Nan runs the London Marathon

Thomas shared his nan's fantastic achievement with all of us in Aspen class. He brought in his Nan's racing number and medal from the London Marathon. We celebrated his Nan's success with a marshmallow clap, a silent cheer and a great big whoosh!

Our very own Nursery Ballerina

Sophie brought her certificate into nursery today to show her peers, She has passed her first ballet exam with flying colours. Well done Sophie.

Nursery Newsletter 22.04.13

Term:  Summer 1                          Date 22.04.13

We are all well rested and ready to learn in the Nursery after the Easter Break.  The children have had a fantastic time using our new outdoor area and we are in the process of arranging a Parent and Carer stay and play session to give all of you the opportunity to try out our wonderful new equipment.

We will continue our Jungle theme this week, as the children have expressed an interest in continuing to do so.  Our stories for the week are ‘Walking through the Jungle’ and ‘Rumble in the Jungle’. We will also continue to explore various related non-fiction texts.

Personal, Social and Emotional

• Demonstrates friendly behavior and forms good relationships with peers and familiar adults.
• Keeps play going responding to what others are saying and doing.
• Begins to accept the needs of others and can take turns and share resources, sometimes with support from others.

Communication and Language                                                    

• Understands use of objects (e.g. “What do we use to cut things?’).
• Listens to stories with increasing attention and recall.
• Joins in with repeated refrains and anticipates key events and phrases in rhymes and stories.

Physical Development:

• Uses one-handed tools and equipment, e.g. makes snips in paper with child scissors.
• Understands that equipment and tools have to be used safely.

Mathematics

• Reciting numbers in order to 10.
• Consolidating place value.
• Sometimes matches numeral and quantity correctly.

 

Understanding of the World

• Talks about why things happen and how things work.
• Shows care and concern for living things and the environment.
• Shows an interest in technological toys with knobs or pulleys, or real objects such as sound movements or new image

 

Expressive Arts and Design

• Uses various construction materials.
• Uses available resources to create props to support role play.
• Using movement to express feeling.

 

Literacy

• Taking part in letters and sounds.
• Joins in with repeated refrains and anticipates key events.
• Describes main story setting, events and principles of characters.

Messages.

Just a reminder that the snack money contribution of £1 is due, thank you to all those who have already paid it. 

Also don’t forget to keep borrowing books and writing those book reviews.

Thank you for your continued support.

100% Attendance for March

Congratulations to all of the children who received a 100% attendance award for March. They were Charlie, Roxie, Maliat, Molly-May, Conner, Fayo, Jayden, Sophie, Grace, Deborah, Summer-Rose, Charlie, Chloe, George and Olivia.

St George's Day

The children sat in the tree house to enjoy the beautiful weather and listen to the story of St George. They also enjoyed making flags

Making smoothies

Nursery children thoroughly enjoyed making smoothies. The children were able to use a knife to cut fruit of their own choice and operate the smoothie maker. "Absolutely delicious" was one child's comment.

Reception Weekly Newsletter

Term: Summer 1 Date 22.04.13

The outdoor environment proved very popular last week, judging by the beaming smiles from both the children and staff.

Our topic this term is going to be ‘Story land’. We will be focussing on fantasy stories and stories from different cultures. This week we will be basing new skills around the story, ‘Handa’s Surprise’.
Your child will be taking part in the following activities within the seven areas of development (activities are subject to change, depending on the children’s interests; however, the skills remain the same):


Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Discuss where the story ‘Handa’s Surprise’ is set. We will be locating Africa on a map. We will be encouraging the children to discuss differences between Africa and England.

Communication and Language
Sharing the story Handa’s Surprise. Where do they think the story is set? Why? Encourage children to retell the story using different props.

Physical
Exploring our new outside area and how to use the equipment
PE in the hall.

Literacy
The children need to be bringing in their reading books daily. We praise the children who regularly read at home to an adult and have a reward system in place.
Writing our names encouraging correct pencil grip.
We will be continuing our daily Read Write Inc sessions.

Maths
Exploring ‘Ten Town’ encouraging correct number formation.
Singing number songs.
Playing a data handling game and answering questions: who collected most fruit? Who has the most bananas? How many more pineapples does one child have than the other? Etc….
Weighing the different fruits to find out which is heavier or lighter?

Understanding of the World
In small groups, children to touch, smell and taste fruits. Can the children name the fruits? Discuss the shape and texture of each fruit. Which fruits have rough skin, smooth skin? Guess at what colour the fruit is inside. Can the children see any seeds? Does the fruit look different if we cut it a different way? Etc….

Expressive Arts and Design
Music express
Enjoying our daily dance warm up to the ‘5 a day’ fitness programme.
Role play – green grocers shop.
Observational drawings of fruits.
Fruit printings.
Show the children the different fruits. Can they create a representation of the fruit using different materials?Creating a large collage outside.


Messages:
Please follow Broadford on facebook (remember to press the ‘like’ button) and twitter. We update the Early Years blog regularly with photos and information.
If you have any cardboard tubes, we would be most grateful for them.
Show and tell this week will be on Friday. Children may bring in something related to Handa’s Surprise or a different country to talk about.
Our ‘Stay and Play’ session for parents and guardians will be on the 1st May. We will be having two sessions. Either come to the morning sessions at 10.30 until 11.30 or the afternoon session at 2.30 – 3.15. Younger Siblings welcome to come and join in the fun.

Ways to help at home:
Sharing books to encourage story language and imagination.
Playing letters and sounds phase 2 and phase 3 games on the computer.





Homework this half term is ‘Story Land’. Children can either produce a poster about their favourite books; this may be a favourite story or an information book. Alternatively, the children could work on producing their own story demonstrating their great writing skills and imagination. Homework will need to be returned by the end of this half term.

School is so much fun!

An amazing time was had by all the children and staff this morning in our new outdoor area. Physical development is a prime area in the Early Years. The children now have a fantastic area to excel in developing their physical skills. What a joy it is coming to work, spending time with the children with such amazing resources!

Our New Outside Area

Who would have thought that learning is so much fun? We are so lucky! Thank you Mr Drakes!!!!