Summer One

This half term we are talking and learning about how to stay healthy.

We have been talking about the job of a doctor and looking at the different equipment he/she might use and how to use it. The children will be taking on the role of a doctor in the home corner, whilst caring for our dolls. We will be talking about different kinds of foods; which are healthy to eat and which are not so healthy.

The nursery are taking part in the Supervised Tooth brushing Program.

We have been visited by Kendra from the program who has talked to the children about caring for their teeth and has demonstrated the correct way to brush our teeth. The children are now brushing their teeth each day during the session.

Click on the picture below to listen to the 'Brush your teeth' song. This song lasts for 2 minutes and the children listen to this as we brush our teeth in Nursery.

Brush your teeth

Eid

We have been learning about the Islam  festival Eid al - Fitr. 

Eid, is a Muslim holiday which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting

Please click on the picture below to watch a family prepare for Eid and celebrate this festival.

   Rhyme

Rhyming is an important first step in the reading development for children. When a child learns to rhyme, they learn to focus on how language works. They also begin to notice all the individual sounds within each word.

If your child knows that jig and pig rhyme, then they are focused on the ending 'ig' but also that the 'j'and 'p' are different sounds. Because rhyming skills are significant predictors of children’s later success in learning to read, every effort should be made to give young children the opportunity to develop these rhyming skills.

A great starting point is nursery rhymes.    

Ask your child:

• What nursery rhymes do you know?
• Can you teach someone at home a rhyme?
• Sing nursery rhymes with your child and miss out the second word that rhymes. For example, 'Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great...........(fall). Leave a gap to allow your child to fill in the missing word.
• As they become more confident see if they can think of any other words that might rhyme (wall, fall, tall, ball). Reminding your child that these words all sound the same at the end.

If you aren’t very confident with singing nursery rhymes they are easy to find if you type ‘nursery rhymes’ into YouTube. BBC nursery rhymes is a good site to use.

Read a rhyming story at bedtime and see if your child can pick the words that rhyme (they are usually at the end of sentences). Read these books with plenty of intonation and expression so that your child can tune into the rhythm of the language and rhyming words. Encourage them to join in with repetitive phrases such as “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.”  

So have a look through the book shelf to see if you have any stories that rhyme, all stories written by Julia Donaldson are very good for finding words that rhyme.

Tips for teaching rhyme:

• When talking to your child about rhyme the best explanation is that ‘words that rhyme sound the same at the end’.
• When teaching your child anything it is important that it is fun and in short bursts (no longer than 5-10 minutes).
• Remember that the concept of rhyme is very tricky for young children; don’t worry if they don’t get it straight away!

Summer 2

This half term we will be focusing our learning about farms. 

We will be learning about all of the different animals that live on a farm and the names of their babies. We will be listening to many stories about farm animals and will be celebrating all of this learning by visiting Bocketts Farm on Monday 4th July and Wednesday 6th July.