As we come to the end of a very busy and successful half term, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all parents and carers for your continued support and donations, We really do appreciate it all and thank you to all who have borrowed books from our "library" We hope you have all enjoyed sharing stories.

Miss Killick, Miss Joyce and Mrs Gibbs are all so very proud of how well the children have adapted and settled into Turtle Class. The children are little superstars!!!

This last week has been another fun packed week with lots of exploration and learning.

Book of the week

We have continued with brown bear, Brown Bear what do you see? We have been learning the order of the animals and sequencing the story. This repetition builds children's oracy skills and develops language.

In Maths we have been subitising using the characters of the book. Subitising means looking at a group of objects or a formation and instantly knowing how many there are without counting, Turtle class have been practising up to 5. You could try this at home by playing quick and simple games such as The dice hunt. Roll a standard dice and whatever number it lands on, Your child has to race around room to find that exact number of items. Or at snack or meal times you could arrange the food into distinct patterns on their plate and before eating you could ask "Can you see the 2 crackers without counting?" Focus heavily on 1-3 to begin with and build up to 4 and 5 once confident.

Rhyme of the week

This week we have been recapping our previous rhymes - If you're happy and you know it, Wind the bobbin up and Head, shoulders, knees and toes. The children made choices about how they wanted to sing these rhymes and remembered previous ways. I am super proud of you all!!!

As we have been learning Brown bear, and its nearly Halloween, The children learnt a new rhyme called Orange Pumpkin, Orange pumpkin what do you see? I wonder if they can remember the lyrics and sing it to you?

Learning and provision

The weather is changing and the children are now wearing their coats more. We are encouraging independence by allowing the children to attempt to put their coat on themselves. We have been using the Montessori coat flip method. Please see video attatched and keep practising this at home with your children. They have done really well with this and are only needing a little support for starting off their zips.

This week in our classroom, the children have had opportunities to Bang golf pegs into pumpkins using small hammers, this has been a huge hit with all children. We have some great construction and carpentry workers in the making!

In our small world area Turtle class arrived to find a spiders web and inside were 5 spiders hiding which the children had to find using the tweezers only. This activity was building counting skills to 5, giving each spider a number which is counting 1:1 correspondence and building the muscles in their hands, wrists and fingers.

In the investigation area, the children had to make a bridge for the bears. They had paper cups and lolly sticks and had to work out what to do.

On the malleable table Turtle class had to roll, squeeze, pat, and mould the playdough to match the autumn squiggles. As usual, this area is always a firm favourite but it was also nice to see new faces visit this area who don't normally.

Outside, the children explored more pumpkins. We had an area set up with cornflour and water where they could scoop out the pulp and seeds. This opened up lots of conversation where the children were exposed to a rich vocabulary with words such as pulp, flesh, stringy, seeds, sticky, gooey, bumpy. smooth and stalk.

In the mud kitchen children could practise their cutting skills by cutting up pumpkins. we had a junk modelling area set up which also allowed Turtle class to practise scissors. We showed the children how to carry, hold and cut correctly and safely.

Black history Month

This week Turtle class have been working together to produce a piece of collaborative art inspired by the artist Rachel Jones and the singer Maxi Priest. They have been moving their oil pastels to the music. We cant wait for you to see it at parents evening!

Maxi Priest - Close to you

National Apple Day

On Wednesday Turtle class celebrated National Apple Day with a range of activities.

There was apple printing inside and apple bobbing outside, with a range of baskets. We heard a story called Apples on top and we tried 3 different types of apples and voted for our favourites. We tasted Golden delicious apples which are yellow, sweet and crisp, Granny Smith apples which are green, tangy and firm and Pink Lady apples which are pinkish, super sweet and floral. The favourite apple was the Granny Smith!

The nursery team wish you all a lovely half term break and will see you back in Nursery From Tuesday 3rd November for another fabulous half term.