Weekly Roundup 29 September 2023

Our topic is going well and children from both rooms have been exploring some activities related to the Three Little Pigs, one of our featured stories this week. After listing to the story, children in Bumbles enjoyed hiding around the room, protecting themselves from the Big Bad Wolf (Sunita!) and screaming with terror and delight as she huffed and puffed and blew their houses down! We've read the Three Little Pigs a few times this week as listening to longer stories and remembering much of what happens helps children's phonological awareness.

The Honey's room have also enjoyed lots of opportunities to sing songs and rhymes at circle time. By tuning in to the sounds of a story and noticing how words rhyme, children develop early literacy skills. You can help at home by sharing books that have repeated refrains and deliberately miss out a word in a rhyme, so the children have to fill it in: “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread —.” Or "I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house -!"

Draw children’s attention to a wide range of examples of print with different functions. These could be a sign to indicate a bus stop or to show danger, a menu for choosing what you want to eat, or a logo that stands for a particular shop. When reading to children, sensitively draw their attention to the parts of the books, for example, the cover, the author, the page number. Show children how to handle books and to turn the pages one at a time. 

Thank you to those parents that have returned their All About Me books. We've enjoyed looking through these and getting to learn more about the children and their families, especially their pets! In Bumbles, the children enjoyed some small world play with a toy veterinary surgery featuring an X-ray machine and a variety of poorly pets. In both rooms, the children have been using all their senses for hands-on exploration of natural resources and sorting materials with similar and/or different properties. They've used wood, sticks and straw to make houses at the craft table and investigated some natural resources at the work bench to create some interesting sculptures!

Our work bench was put to good use with some excellent design and engineering ideas from the children. We've discussed the types of houses we'd like to live in when we're older!
Our sensory area is being developed and our children that benefit from some additional support are enjoying spending time here with their Key Workers and Lou, our SEND assistant. It's a calm space in the Bumbles room which has a range of resources and activities that are suitable for both adult led and child initiated play. 

Next week our topic continues and there will be more opportunities to learn about ourselves and others and the types of homes that people around the world live in. If you can share any pictures of interesting homes with your children they can tell us about these next week. Perhaps you could upload a photograph of the type of home you lived in as a child - was it a flat, a palace or a caravan? We'll take a look at any pictures shared next week during circle time.

We'll be reading "You Choose" - by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart, a wonderful book for sharing which encourages conversation based around children's choices.

The staff team will be at the Nursery World Awards tomorrow evening to celebrate Sophie being nominated for Practitioner of the Year 2023. She's up against four other nominees in this category and we're all hoping she wins!!!! We'll let you know the result next week.

Have a great weekend.