Nursery
January 2021 - The Nursery is open
The Nursery is open and we look forward to welcoming you all back. We are only opening for one session a day which will run from 8.45AM until 11.45AM.
Please drop your child off at the front gate at this time. Your child will have their temperature checked each morning.
I will be posting pictures of the activities that we have been doing at school to inspire those of you at home.
Please watch the welcome video above.
Miss Fransch
Don't forget to send photographs of things that children have been doing at home to nursery@castle.emat.uk
A Celebration of Home Learning
Well done to all of our families that have been sending in evidence of the wonderful work going on at home during this lockdown.
This website has some brilliant ideas to help you with activities that you can do at home.
https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk/
This week we say well done to...
Well done to Anisa, Nuaym, Denis, Jorawar and Saahitya.
This week is Children's Mental Health week.We would love to celebrate the amazing children in Nursery and create a video of the children doing something that makes them special and unique. Below is a link for a special assembly to explain this week in more detail. Thank you
https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/schools-and-youth-groups/
Learning taking place Spring Term in Nursery
Week 6 Week Beginning 8.2.21
This week we have been thinking about measure. Our special story was The Runaway Pancake.
Week 5 Week Beginning 1.2.21
This week we have been learning about living and dead plants. The children have been mixing potions in the Eco Area and have been counting out Numicon tubes for Spider-Man, which they have been picking up with tweezers. We are learning to identify our names from within a group of names and have been using our imaginations in our play. We kept score as we scored basketball points using our own emergent marks. We are working hard at putting on our own coats with more independence.
At the end of last week, our children were very interested in super hero play. We have incorporated this interest into our provision this week. It was especially exciting to see them wanting to write messages for Spider-Man and attach them to the web for him to collect.
Week 4 Week Beginning 25.1.21
Our number of the week is 6. We have been counting out 6 objects from larger groups and hunting for the number around the Nursery.
We are using number names in our play. We used tally to keep a score of how many times we scored 6 as the car went down the ramp.
Our special story this week is Little Red Riding Hood. We will be acting out the story in a variety of ways, making traps for the wolf and writing get well soon cards and shopping lists.
Week 3 Week Beginning 18.1.21
One of our boys has been very interested in shadows this week. I showed him how I could draw around his shadow and we talked about how it was so much longer than him.
Later on he was enjoying drawing around the shadows of his favourite toys.
We are continuing to follow the children's interests in freezing and melting. This is what one of the children said about our large ice block that we made, "Ice was melting by a sun. The sun is hot, it melts the ice into water."
We are taking turns as we play the Incey Wincey Spider counting game. We are learning to count amounts and say number names in sequence.
We are learning to concentrate for periods of time and we are learning to pay attention to detail in our self directed activities.
We are learning to keep on trying and not give up when we find something tricky. We are learning to ask our friends and our teachers for help.
We love reading and sharing books together in our Nursery. Books are highly valued and children are encouraged to handle them with care.
Week 2 Week Beginning 11.1.21
The children are learning how to give instructions to the Bee-Bots. We have been using lots of words to describe position and direction. They willingly approach others to play and take turns.
Our children are curious about the world around them. They collected natural and man-made objects from the Eco Area and we froze them in water to make these beautiful tree decorations.
This week we are looking at the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children are learning that print carries meaning and how to handle books.
The children acted the story out with props. The bridge kept falling down so they problem solved by constructing a stronger bridge.
We have been practicing our counting skills as we play the Dog and Bone game.
The children are enjoying mark making in their play. They are beginning to make 'messages' for others.
Drawing a scene from the story and designing our own trolls.
The children collected the treasure from our small world pirate table. They were thinking of different ways to sort the treasure. They worked well together listening to each other's ideas. Later some of the children made treasure maps.
Week 1 Week Beginning 6.1.21
We are learning the rhyme Humpty Dumpty.
We experimented and discovered that Humpty Dumpty sustained more damage the higher the wall.
Expressing our own ideas about Humpty Dumpty using different media and materials.
We have noticed that one of our amaryllis plants has failed to grow. We discussed what may have caused this to happen.
One of the children noticed the pollen on the stamen. We talked about how bees carry pollen from one flower to another and watched a video clip. The children acted out what they had seen in the video.
We have been doing lots of counting in our icecream shop. We are learning to make comparisons between different quantities saying who has more, less or the same.
We have been exploring the outdoor area in the cold weather. We talked about why the ice had formed and observed it melting.
We found lots of different shapes which had been formed in the snow. Here is a circle.
Here is a triangle.
We enjoy mark making in multisensory play. We are beginning to show variation in shape and form in our marks.
Autumn Term 2020
Joining Hands - Autumn 2020
This term, our Joining Hands workshop will be taking place right here on our website!
The focus for this term is Reading as it is such a big priority for us here at Castle Academy. Please take a look at the videos below. The first introduces you to our English leader, Mrs Hemming, who has an important message for you and the second video shows a teacher modelling how you can read with your child.
Click here to see special notices and further material on how to support your child with their reading.
Nursery-Parent-Reading-Example.mp4
Toilet Training
Using the toilet is a new skill for many of our Nursery children. The NHS website has some excellent advice to help with toilet training.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/potty-training-tips/
Our Nursery staff are eager to support you and your child with toilet training and will encourage all children to visit the toilet at regular intervals during their session. Please provide spare clothes and wet wipes so that we can change them if they have an accident.
Please watch Pirate Pete's Potty Adventure together and talk about what Pete is doing.
There is also a toilet song to make using the toilet fun.
WELCOME TO OUR SEPTEMBER NURSERY STARTERS
Please watch the brief welcome video message. We look forward to meeting you in September.
FAREWELL MESSAGE TO OUR NURSERY CHILDREN