Welcome to Belmont Nursery

Class teachers:

Mrs Caroline Roberts (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
Ms Melanie Pearce (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)

Early Years Practitioners:

Miss Kimberley Buckles
Mrs Christina Towell

Names on clothes

Some children have started to lose their jumpers/fleeces already. Can we please remind you to NAME ALL of your child’s uniform, including coats and shoes. Otherwise newly purchased items will be lost. Thank you.

Please also put names on water bottles and lunchboxes.

Shoes

Please can we ask that you send your children in to school with shoes with no laces as we are finding it very time-consuming constantly having to re-tie them.

Thank you for your support.

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.

Library Books

After the half term holiday each child will bring home a library book and a ‘reading for pleasure’ book and they will need a book bag.

Library day will be each Wednesday.

Please can you return books in the book bag on Tuesday. 

Home School Partnership evening

It was lovely to see some of you again for our  Home School Partnership meeting.

As promised here is a link to our slides.

Home School Partnership Evening 2025

Autumn Themes for Nursery.

Here is an overview of the themes for the first term of Nursery

Autumn

Kitchen roll inner tubes

Please can we have donations of kitchen roll inner tubes to use for our fireworks printing activity.

Breadsticks

Please can we also have further donations of breadsticks as the children really enjoy these at snack time.

Wellington Boots

If your child is coming to school in wellington boots please can you provide a change of shoes for them to wear inside.

Many thanks!

EYFS Half-Term Reminders

As we reach the half-term break, we want to thank you for your support. This term, our focus has been on developing children’s independence, listening skills, and understanding of our school values — Be Respectful, Be Safe, Be a Learner.

Here are some ways you can support your child over the half-term:

🌟 Be Respectful

• Encourage polite speech and listening to others.
• Remind children to take care of classmates, teachers, and belongings.
• Support children in following instructions promptly, even if it’s not what they want to do.

👂 Listening and Following Instructions

• Ask your child to repeat instructions back — this helps tune their ears and ensures understanding.
• Praise children when they follow instructions the first time.
• Play listening games such as Simon Says, Follow the Leader, or What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?
• You can also model good listening by being ready to greet your child at the gate without being on your phone or wearing ear buds — showing them that listening and connection matter.

👐 Independence and Personal Responsibility

Encourage children to:

• Dress and undress independently (shoes, socks, jumpers).
• Use the toilet confidently and manage intimate needs.
• Use cutlery correctly during meals.
• Tidy away belongings and carry their own coats and bags.

🧸 Looking After Our Environment

• Remind children to treat toys, books, and school property with care.
• School budgets are limited, so using items carefully helps everyone enjoy them.

🥗 Healthy Living and Wellbeing

• Sleep: 10–12 hours per night.
• Screen time: No more than 1 hour per day.
• Diet: Encourage healthy, balanced meals and snacks.
• Exercise: Activities that build muscle strength, core, arm/hand strength, and stamina.
• Hydration: Ensure children drink enough water throughout the day.

Working together helps children develop the skills they need to thrive at school. Thank you for supporting them to Be Respectful, Be Safe, and Be Learners.

Have a lovely, restful half-term!

The Early Years Team

Rhyme of the week   

We will be singing a counting song.

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

Click on the link to hear the rhyme.

In class we will be:

• Printing firework patterns
• Looking at different signs of Autumn
• Using positional language – up, down, over, behind, in front, next to

If your child says they do nothing at Nursery, try these ideas

• If possible go for a walk as walking seems to work well to encourage  chatting
• Share one great thing about your day and encourage your child to tell you something great about their day
• Ask silly questions such as, “Did you play on the school roof today?” “Did you wear wellies on your hands in school today?” Hopefully your child will then correct your misunderstandings about school by telling you something that really happened!
• If your child doesn’t want to chat then tell them something about your day such as what you had for lunch. Then they can see the conversation modelled when you ask, “What did you eat today?”
• Play a game when you get home from Nursery. Play for a few minutes and listen to your child as it can be amazing what snippets of their day they start to chat about when engaged in role play!

Reading at Belmont

A prime focus for us is to instil and develop a love of reading for all learners. In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to Read for Pleasure. As such, the children choose two books each week from a selection of story and fact books. This is at the heart of our commitment to encouraging our children to become lifelong readers. These books come home with the children on their library day and must be returned before another book can be borrowed.

Please remember that you shouldn’t expect your child to read these books alone. Please read the books to or with them. Discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters and explore the facts in a non-fiction book. The main thing is that everyone has lots of fun!

There are two types of reading books that your child will have access to at home:

1. A Reading for Pleasure sharing book.
   Children will not be able to read this on their own. This book is for you to both read and enjoy together.
2. A Library book.
   As above, please spend time with your child reading and discussing the book together.

Helping your child with reading

Nurturing young readers

Ways to support your child’s learning at home.

Personal, social and emotional development

• Practise putting on their own coats.
• Learn how to do up zips
• Play a simple turn taking game at home – parents can model how to lose gracefully and show resilience by playing again!
• Talk about how we can be kind to others (including turn taking and sharing)
• Practise washing hands with more independence
• Practise putting on and taking off shoes and socks

Literacy/Phonics

• Go on a listening walk where you both identify and describe the different sounds in the environment
• Sound talk simple words such as, “Can you put on your h-a-t” “Can you see the d-o-g”
• Point out words which rhyme with others
• Point out words with the same initial sound, like ‘apple’ and ‘ant’ (alliteration)
• Clap the syllables in names and simple words

Maths

• Practise showing ‘finger numbers’ (showing one finger to represent one, two to represent two etc.)
• Look for numerals in the environment (e.g. on buses, doors, in the supermarket)
• Practise counting objects (making sure to point to each object, or to move it, when saying each number name) and then match a numeral to this amount
• Talk about shapes using 3D shapes to build a model (cube, cuboid, cylinder, sphere, pyramid) and flat shapes (square, triangle, circle, rectangle) to make a picture
• Talk about the different height, length and size of objects for example: the tall tree, the big dog, the small flower

Understanding the world

• Look for and talk about signs of the different seasons (tree leaves, conkers, warm and cosy clothes, daffodils, ducklings, t-shirts etc.)
• Talk about different celebrations through the year
• Talk about any any different countries or places you have been or where family or friends live
• Naming animals and insects you might see together in the park

Expressive Arts and design

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

Think Equal

Think Equal is a global initiative that seeks to end the discriminatory mindset across our world and ensure positive life outcomes for our children. Together with world experts Think Equal has designed a programme to teach social and emotional learning to early years (3-6-year-olds). Think Equal’s vision is a safe, free, equal, cohesive and sustainable world. Through the power of narrative we provide young children with a profound grounding in social and emotional skills and competencies including: equality, empathy, and peaceful conflict resolution. We provide the concrete tools with which to build a strong foundation for individual and societal progress, making communities safer, healthier, more equal and just.

This complimentary resource has been put together to help you to support your child’s social and emotional development in the home in fun and engaging ways. It  is to be used alongside the Think Equal programme and stories being used in school.

The Home Kit serves as a platform to reinforce topics covered in the classroom, fostering meaningful conversations at home. Through a variety of resources, games, and exercises, you can nurture your child’s growth and help them become empathetic, compassionate, and resilient individuals.

This week’s learning:

This week the children have been learning about similarities and differences between all of our friends and that we are all individual and unique.

Home Kit Level 1 Week 6 – How we feel

Reading for Pleasure Books for  our class

As part of our focus on reading in school, we would like to develop the lending of ‘Reading for Pleasure’ 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.

If you would be able to donate a book, perhaps in celebration of your child’s birthday, it will be added to our special Nursery lending box. All books will be stamped to show who has generously donated them to the class. They will then be ticked on the poster on our door to avoid duplicates.

The books come from the ’50 Recommended Reads for Nursery’ list which can be found here.