Nursery Notice Board

20th December 2024

Welcome to Nursery

Thank you all so much for your kind gifts and lovely messages. We all hope that you have a lovely holiday and wish you a happy New Year!

Here are two 'Wake Up Shake Up' dances we have been enjoying in Nursery.

Reminder:

Please upload any pictures of your child's adventures over the Christmas period onto Tapestry.

Home School Partnership Evening 2024

Reminder:

Please make sure that you have put your child's name on their jumpers/sweatshirts/cardigans/coats and their water bottles and lunchboxes. Thank you.

Please collect your child on time as it can be upsetting for children to see that their new friends are going when they have not yet been collected. Thank you.

Please can you make a donation of plain bread sticks and rice cake/corn cakes for the children to share at snack time. We will also be very grateful for donations of spare socks and trousers. Thank you.

In class we will be:

• Listening to the story and talking about New Year.
• Making wishes for the New Year.
• Using different materials to make a 2025 collage banner.

To reinforce your child’s learning you could:

Personal, social and emotional development

• Practise putting on their own coats
• Play a simple turn taking game at home
• Talk about how we can be kind to others (including sharing and turn taking)
• Practising washing hands with more independence
• Practise putting on and taking off shoes and socks. 

Literacy/phonics

• Point out words that rhyme with others
• Point out words with the same initial sound like 'apple' and 'ant'
• Go on a listening walk where you identify and describe the different sounds in the environment
• Talk about the initial sounds in words
• Sound talk simple words e.g. "can you put on your c-oa-t?" "can you see the c-a-t?"

Maths

• Practice showing 'finger numbers' (showing one finger to represent one, two fingers to represent two etc.)
• Practice counting object (making sure to point to each object when saying a number names) and then to match a numeral to this amount
  
• Look for the numerals in the environment (e.g. on buses, doors, in the supermarket)
• Discussing the height, length and size of objects 
• Discussing shapes and using these to make a picture/ build a model

Understanding the world

• Look for and talk about signs of autumn
• Talk about different celebrations through the year

Expressive Arts & Design

• Sing Nursery Rhymes and songs
• Exploring colour and colour mixing
• Practice drawing shapes to make a picture
• Take part in simple pretend play and play with small world toys

If your child says they do nothing at Nursery, try these 5 things. 

1. If at all possible, go for a walk. Walking seems to work nicely to facilitate chatting.

2. If they don't want to chat at all, tell them about your day. Explain what you had for lunch and where you have been. Then they can see the conversation modelled when you ask "what did you do today?

3. Play a game. When you get home from Nursery, play for 5 minutes. It is amazing to see what they drop into conversation when engaged in play, especially role-play.

4. Share one good thing or one bad thing about your day. Encourage your child to do the same.

5. Asking silly questions or opposite questions.

Phase 1 Phonics

Phase One of Letters and Sounds concentrates on developing children's speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Phase 2. The emphasis during Phase 1 is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills.

Phase 1 is divided into seven aspects. Each aspect contains three strands: Tuning in to sounds (auditory discrimination), Listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing) and Talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension).

For more information, click here.  

Singing Nursery Rhymes

In school we use Little Wandle's Rhyme Time activities. They have made a video of each rhyme which you can view on their parent page.

So far we have learnt:
Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive

Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer

Five Little Pumpkins

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

The Wheels on the Bus

Learning Trees

Please take a look at the Nursery Learning Tree.  This is an overview of the learning that the children will doing this term.

Autumn 2024 Learning Tree 

Spring 2025 Learning Tree

Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)

Please find below information from Hounslow about Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP)...:

EYPP is extra Government money to boost your three or four year old’s early learning. Your child’s childcare provider or school nursery could get up to £353.40 per year to help with your child’s education. Your childcare provider or school will get the EYPP payment paid to them.

Your child could enjoy

• Exciting new learning activities
• Extra equipment to help with learning
• Toys, books and equipment to use at home to help them learn
• One to one or small group sessions
• Widening their life experiences.

It helps your child to:

• Be ready for school
• Develop the language skills that will give them a good start
• Develop self-confidence and social skills
• Keep healthy and active
• Your childcare provider or school nursery will work with you on how best to spend the money

For more information, please click on the following link

Names on clothes

Please name ALL of your child’s uniform, including coats and shoes. As I’m sure you are aware, the children do have a tendency to leave jumpers and cardigans around. If they are not named, it becomes very difficult for us to reunite lost items with the correct child.

Please also put names on water bottles and lunchboxes.

Home School Communication Book

This book is intended to be an additional way for parents and school staff to communicate information.  If you have something that you would like to tell us, please write in the Home School Book and hand it to the member of staff who is on the gate. We will read your comments and reply either in writing or in person. Please note that this book is not for communication about going home arrangements.

Drinks and Snacks

We encourage the children to drink water throughout the day.  Please can children bring a bottle of water with their name on every day. These will be stored in the classroom so that the children can help themselves throughout the day. You can also order milk.  Please see website for more details. 

To reinforce our commitment to healthy eating, we like to be able to offer the children fruit/vegetables and bread sticks or rice cakes as a snack during their session.  We would very much appreciate donations and will let you know when to bring these in at the beginning of September. 

We are a no nuts school.  We have no nuts in our school dinners and children are not permitted to have products with nuts or sesame seeds, as some children have serious allergies to these foods. Please be mindful of all snacks that you send into school that may contain nuts that are not obvious.

It is essential that you inform us of any allergies that your child may have. 

Reading for Pleasure Books for class

As part of our focus on reading in school, we would like to develop the lending library of books within each class. This will enable the children to foster a passion and love of reading at Belmont and ensure that they have access to high quality texts.

Please find links to two book lists that have a variety of books that we would love to have in class.  Once a book has been donated to the class we will add a tick to show we now have it.  Please check the list to ensure that the book that you would like to donate is one that we don't already have.
The books come from the Recommended Books for Nursery List which can be found here.

Additional Information

Nursery staff

Class teachers: Mrs Caroline Roberts & Ms Melanie Pearce

Early Years Practitioners: Miss Kimberley Buckles, Miss Charlotte Smith

Teaching Assistant: Ms Nasrin Pasebani

PTA Class Reps

Bananas:

Blueberries:

Grapes:

Strawberries: 

Visible Learning

As you may be aware, the school is engaged in the Visible Learning.  As part of this process all staff have undertaken projects within their year groups.  The characteristics of effective learning are a key element in the early year's foundation stage. They detail the ways in which children should be learning from their environment, experiences and activities. Children will be displaying the characteristics of effective learning every day.  We would like the children to become more familiar with these so have created alien characters for each characteristic. 

Characteristics of Effective Learning Aliens

You can support us with the project by:

1. Using the language of learning with the children. For instance, rather than asking “what work have you done?” you could ask “what have you learnt?”

2. Talking to the children at the beginning of the week about the learning that we will be focusing on. This is always on the weekly letter that comes home.

3. When the children are engaged in learning outside of school, make this explicit to the children. For instance, “you have been learning how to write your name.”  

4. Become familiar with the alien characters and encourage the children to think about which characteristics they have been using in their learning. For example, “I loved how you kept on trying to learn to ride your bike.  You have been a real Trying Trip.”