This Week at Nursery
This week at Afternoon Nursery, we would have been beginning to think about Spring! We would have used a 'chatter bag' full of pictures and spring objects to talk about what you can see at this time of year and what happens in the Spring.
If you are able to, maybe you could go out in your garden or go for a walk or a drive to look for signs of spring.
This word mat may provide prompts for talking and introducing new vocabulary to your child:
BBC Teach has a short video with beautiful images of Britain in Springtime set to music that you could watch with your child:
Rhyme of the Week
Our rhyme of the week would have been 'Little Ducks'. Here are two different versions of the song (please always supervise your child while they are watching songs or videos on the internet):
This version of '3 Little Ducks' by Mr Tumble:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/something-special-three-little-ducks
This version of '5 Little Ducks':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ccCPcujnys
Story of the Week
Our story of the week would have been 'Oh Dear' by Rod Campbell. You can watch an online version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0zLKTIjH0g
See if your child can name the different farm animals and make the sounds that they make!
Mathematics
We were going to work on the mathematical concept of categorizing objects according to properties such as shape or size. At home you could take groups of objects e.g. toy cars, teddies, duplo bricks. See if your child can sort them in different ways. Can they sort the objects by size putting the big objects in one pile and the small ones in another? See if they can use words like 'big', 'large', 'huge', 'little', 'small' or 'tiny' to describe the objects. They could also sort objects by colour and this would be a good opportunity to reinforce the names of the different colours. Children could also sort objects by shape or type e.g. by putting cars into one pile and lorries into another. At Nursery, we usually take photos of the ways that each child has managed to sort objects. If you would like to take photos and add your own observations to Tapestry I would love to see how your children have got on.
Understanding of the World
To tie in with our Spring topic, we were going to start planting seeds in pots to plant out in our garden later on. As the weather seems to be finally improving, if you have flower or vegetable seeds at home then you could start to do some planting. If your do not have seeds but have a garden or outdoor space, try to at least get out in the fresh air and sunshine every day.
Expressive Art and Design
For Expressive Art and Design we were going to make Spring pictures. Here are some photos for inspiration for creating Spring art at home so that you can choose which to do based on what materials and resources you have access to at home.
Physical Development
At this time it is really important to ensure that children are washing their hands properly. Here is a lovely song and video to show children how to wash their hands:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/washing-your-hands-song
Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language
Finally, we would have done lots of work on playing together. When you play with your child, please remind them to use kind hands and quiet voices. Model how to share and take turns.
Also listen to what your child is saying and develop their language skills by repeating back what they say to you, introducing new vocabulary and commenting on what your child is doing so that they are hearing lots of correct language that they will hopefully go on to use.
A reminder that more information on developing your child's communication skills can be found on the BBC's Tiny Happy People site: