Welcome to Nursery
Teacher: Mrs. Riley
Teaching Assistants: Mrs. Eley (Monday – Wednesday)
Mrs Beattie (Wednesday – Friday)
Miss Nelson
Miss Crawford
Homework will be given out when the children have settled into Nursery routines and when appropriate.
Words of the Week – we are introducing our children to new vocabulary each week, please ask your child what these words are, what they mean and encourage your child to use them as often as possible when speaking.
Each week your child will have the opportunity to bring home a ‘library book’ from our classroom. These books are for you and your child to share and enjoy together.
There are a wide variety of story books, information books and rhyming books for your child to choose from. There are also a number of books that contain just pictures and no words.
After reading your child’s library book together, talk about what has happened at the beginning, in the middle and end of the story. Can your child retell the story or answer questions about what has happened? (Talking about the story will help to develop your child’s speaking and listening skills and will get them ready for reading and writing stories independently as the progress further up the school).
There is no set day for your child to change his/her library book – just get them to bring it back to school when you have finished with it and they can choose another to take home the same day.
We love to read in our school and believe
‘The more that your read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go’.
A child
A book
A read
A chat
That is the way the mind grows,
Not with a test, but a tale….
Michael Rosen
Some useful information for the year ahead...
Nursery Curriculum Map 2020-2021
Nursery Home Learning Lockdown Timetable
How to login to Google Classroom
Have a look on Twitter and keep up to date with our latest news and suggested activities…
and
A big thank you to all the parents who have supported the many new school routines and rules to enable us to reopen safely. Following a summer of many emails and phone calls to find out information on each child changes in the usual transition procedures were obviously needed. Home visits were replaced with visits to Nursery one family at a time. Information was gained on each child’s experiences during the period of lockdown and concerns parents had relating to support needed for their child to settle into Nursery. Transition involved short stay and play sessions in much smaller groups than usual with parents wearing masks and keeping at a safe distance. All children have amazed us with their independence at the beginning and end of the session where parents are usually welcomed into the room to help with settling their child. Many children had not attended a childcare setting since March.
A big focus in Nursery will be on children’s speech and language development. All children are assessed within the first half-term using “WellComm”. This toolkit identifies children needing speech and language support, which can make a crucial difference to their confidence and attainment.
Once the children have been assessed parents will be given information on how they can also support their child at home in similar ways to staff in Nursery. Greatest impact will be when home and Nursery work together.
If you do have any concerns about your child’s development please do not hesitate to speak to a member of the Nursery staff.
Google Classroom will be used when there has been a positive case of covid confirmed in Nursery resulting in the Nursery Bubble closing for 14 days. Each child has their own password and username.
New admissions to Nursery
Usually we are more than happy to welcome parents and children to view the Nursery within the school day, in this way you can get a true feel of the ethos of our school. Unfortunately at the moment this is not possible due to the restrictions around the covid pandemic. Give the school office a ring or send an email to arrange a date and Mrs Riley will be more than happy to show you around the setting at the end of the school day. Many thanks for your understanding.
Useful Websites
Thinkuknow is an education programme from NCA-CEOP, a UK organisation which protects children both online and offline.
The Thinkuknow websites offers advice about how to help keey your child safe when they’re playing on a phone, tablet or computer. As well as advice, the website also offter a series of short age appropriate activities to do at home with your child linked to online safety.
Thinkuknow Parents Support Tools – home activity worksheets, early-years
Some useful videos from BBC Children in Need. Dr Radha shares her top tips on looking after your wellbeing.
BBC children in Need – Dr Radha’s Wellbeing Tips
Every pupil from Nursery to Year 6 has a user name and password for Education City. This enables children to continue their learning at home, playing fun activities linked to what they have been working on in class. If you you have misplaced your password or login details, please get touch and we can reissue them J
Reading
A nursery account for ‘Oxford Owl’ has been set so that you and your child can continue to access story books at home. The ebooks are free and are feature some really lovely stories for you to share with your little one.
On the web page go to the pink/purple ‘My class login’ button and insert the username and password:
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/please-log-in?open_loginbox=true
Username: nurseryriley
Password: stanley
Anything that you do to develop your child’s love of language is a good thing. If you are looking for specific ideas, there are lots of starting points here on Phonics Play.
We have a lot of fun in nursery exploring Phase 1 (this is all about developing pre-phonics skills). There are many ideas for developing these skills at home on the Phonics Play website.
The website is currently free to access (just type in the username and password below).
https://new.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources/phase/1
Username: march20
Password: home
There is also a handy parents page that is all about helping your pre-school child at home – none of the suggested activities on the webpage need to be planned, are formal or are a big deal. They are just little things that can be added into everyday play with your child – we hope that you find them useful J
https://new.phonicsplay.co.uk/parents/pre-school-children
Phonics Bloom is another popular website that we use regularly at St. Anne’s. Many of the games are free to access on this site (we only use the free ones in school) and again the Phase 1 games are similar to activities that we practise in class.
https://www.phonicsbloom.com/uk/game/list/phonics-games-phase-1
As the year progresses in Nursery, we start to learn our letter sounds too.
Previously we followed a program called ‘Jolly Phonics’ which is a lot of fun. This video explains the special order that we learn our letters and goes through the actions as well as how we say the sounds.
Our Jolly Phonics Songs – encourage your child to remember the action and song to go with each letter. (Unfortunately, the songs are in alphabetical order on this video and are not the order that we learn them in at nursery so don’t stress if you your child can’t recognise them all yet – we might not have covered them in class yet!)
“Read Write Inc” is the scheme the school is using from September 2020 following recent training by all staff.
Corma Beanstalk are working with Very UK, to bring you a series of online Storytime sessions. There are some brilliant books featured and they are being read by some very familiar faces.
Each week a new story will be available, and each one will also be accompanied by some top tips to help make sharing books fun and engaging!
We love to read J
Did you know that reading books aloud to children stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world?
It helps them develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word.
In Nursery and Reception, we encourage all our children to take home a library book each night – please try and find a quiet moment to share a story each night with your child. Library books can then be brought back to school the next day and your child can choose another story to take home J
For helpful advice and tips on reading at home please visit the ‘Booktrust’ website below:
https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice
Many little things light up hungry little minds. Children take everything in, and even the smallest things you do with them can make a big difference.
Children love it when you chat, play and read with them, even when they’re too young to understand everything. Whatever the time and wherever you are, you can turn almost anything into a game and every little thing you do together will help set them up nicely for the day they start school.
We understand that due to the coronavirus outbreak, you and your children are spending more time at home and you might be looking for a bit more inspiration for things to do. Start by trying some of these simple, fun activities.
Family Zone is full of free activities and ideas to keep your child busy at home, whilst also benefiting reading, writing and language development.
