We enjoyed the unseasonably good weather this week with lots of time spent in the nursery garden. The children particularly enjoyed exploring our obstacle course made from various bits of equipment - we experimented with different ways of moving (as well as playing the ever-popular “Lava Game”!). The children also had a great time playing racing games in the garden on the cars, trikes and scooters. They noticed that they went fast down the hill in the garden but more slowly going up.
When winter reasserted itself later in the week, we had fun indoors. There was some tremendous cooperative play with our new train track (kindly donated by Nikki). The children worked together to create a huge railway system which went all round the room and even under the furniture! They showed great turn-taking and sharing skills when they played together on their giant track. And on Friday the children enjoyed a disco with proper disco lights and showed us some fantastic groovy moves.
One of our areas of focus for this week was fine motor skills. The children were encouraged in their mark-making and we practised the correct grip for holding a pencil. At snack time, the children were asked to write their names on a list so we could check who had received their snack, then we encouraged the children to use a knife to spread butter, jam or Marmite on their muffins.
Our phonics sound this week was “d”. We also revised the sounds we have already learned, and the children showed great recall. Our mnemonic for writing “d” is “round the dinosaur’s bottom, up his long neck and down to his feet”. This amused the children greatly, and they enthusiastically joined in with air-writing the letter. If you want to support your child’s phonics learning at home, why not write the letters on post-it notes and stick them up in the kitchen where your child can see them every day? Our sounds so far are m, a, s and d, and next week’s sound is t.
Talking of next week, don’t forget that we are celebrating World Book Day on Thursday. Our staff will be dressing up as characters from their favourite books, and we’d love it if your children could do the same. Don’t worry if your child doesn’t attend on a Thursday, they are welcome to dress up on any day next week.
Lastly, a HUGE thank you to all of you who have donated to our Sensory Area crowd-funder. At the time of writing, we have raised £550 in the space of one week! We still have three weeks to go, so think what we could raise in that time. Please, do spread the word to as many people as you can and if you’ve yet to donate, what are you waiting for? It’s so easy to donate, and every little helps - just click on this link and give what you can: https://spsr.me/5hjH
Below is a gallery of what we are already going to be able to buy thanks to the generosity of our donors. If we raise more money, we can create an even more awesome sensory area for all our children to enjoy.
