Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Spring Term
Week 3
10th - 14th March 20225
Literacy
This week we have been learning all about how we grow and change. Thinking about what we could do as a baby and what we can do now that is different.
In phonics this week we have explored the letter sound g naming objects beginning with g and practising our letter formation. Next week we will explore the letter sound o. During our focused activity time the children really impressed us with their drawing and writing all about their families.
Maths
The children have enjoyed exploring size this week measuring using cubes and then finding out who is the tallest and shortest in the class. Next week we will be measuring more objects using a meter stick and finding sets of objects.
Understanding the world
During our understanding the world lessons this week the children have enjoyed creating Blossom trees and making spring lambs and sheep to be displayed in the Nursery.
The children have also loved playing in the nursery garden and a fantastic visit from Mrs Rattee who was very kind and brought in 7 beautiful reptiles. The children loved meeting them and stroking them the children were so well behaved.
Next week we will be taking part in Science week, exploring lots of different scientific concepts and planting a range of different seeds and beans. Our class stories next week are Jasper's Beanstalk and Jack and the Beanstalk.
Living Things and Life-Cycles
Week 2
3rd-7th March
In our Literacy this week we have been reading the story 'Monkey Puzzle' by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.
The children used circle shapes to create their own monkey and added facial features and zig-zag legs and arms.
Our letter sound this week is letter 'd' for dog.
We have also been learning the names of animals and their young and matching pictures of adult animals to their babies.
In our mathematics work, we have been practising our careful counting and ordering objects by size. We used size language to make comparisons;
'big, bigger, biggest, small, smaller, smallest'.
We have been noticing the changes in the seasons as the weather has been getting warmer and we painted some beautiful pictures of Spring daffodils.
We have learnt about the life-cycle of a butterfly and are really excited to see our 'real caterpillars' grow and change. We hope they will spin cocoons and emerge as
Painted Lady butterflies that we can release into our nursery garden.
We created symmetrical butterflies by using shapes and coloured spots on the interactive whiteboard.
On Friday, we all wore our pyjamas for our school Pyjamarama World Book Day and enjoyed lots of book and story related activities!
Next week, we will be talking about ourselves and our families and how we grow and change. We will talk about what we could do when we were babies and what we can do now.
We will read books called 'All about ME' and George Webster's book, 'This is Me.'
Spring Term 2 - Life Cycles
Week 1 - Week beginning 24th February 2025
Welcome back everyone to the second half of our Spring term. This half term we will be learning all about life cycles of animals and humans and exploring lots of lovely learning opportunities.
This week we have introduced the Life Cycle of a Butterfly our class story this week has been 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle. The children have enjoyed retelling the story, understanding the order of the days of the week and developing their understanding of the Life Cycle of a Butterfly. The children have also learnt a fun caterpillar song to accompany their learning.
Maths
In our maths lessons this week the children have really impressed us wit their counting skills and their problem solving ability. The children have been finding different ways of making three and four using cubes for example two and two makes four and two and one makes three.
The children have also been introduced to the mathematical concept of symmetry. Using shapes to create symmetrical patterns and paints to create symmetrical butterflies.
Understanding the world
The children have loved learning about the Life Cycle of a Butterfly, creating their own big and little caterpillars using paints and shapes to print. The children then used their knowledge to create their own life cycle pictures using the correct vocabulary egg, caterpillar, cocoon and butterfly as they placed the images in the correct order. The children know understand that a Life Cycle is a continuous process that is not broken.
Literacy
In Literacy this week the children have enjoyed talking about their half term holiday and learning all about the letter sound m.
Next week the children will be learning about the letter sound d and exploring the story Monkey Puzzle.
Healthy Living
Week 6
10th - 14th February
This week we have been reading 'Handa's Surprise' by Eileen Browne.
The children enjoyed retelling the story in their own words using story props.
Cataleya retold the story to her mummy and said, "Handa had a friend and a basket full of fruits. But then some animals came; elephant, zebra, monkey, parrot and took all of her fruits. Handa started walking and walking with the basket on her head until she found a treee full of different fruits. But then and goat came running and bumped into the tree hurting himself and making all the fruits fall into Handa's basket. Handa then met with her friend again."
The children talked about the fruits and described the different animals.
Everyone made a rainbow fruit salad to taste during snack time.
The children enjoyed creating their own fruit basket by painting a paper plate by dipping a lolly stick in paint to add spots on half a paper plate and counting, choosing and sticking four different fruits to their basket.
In our maths lessons we have been learning about number ten, counting our fingers, building towers with 10 bricks, linking 10 camels together, making numbers with multilink cubes, printing 10 hearts and trying to write the numbers 1 to 10 and singing number rhymes.
In our My Happy Mind lessons we have been continuing to talk about kindness and being thankful for everything we have and being able to do things we enjoy.
We have had lots of fun in our new Performance Area outside under our canopy; dressing up, making up our own stories with the hand puppets and playing the percussion instruments as we sing and dance.
We wish all of our families a safe, healthy and happy half-term.
Next term, our topic is 'Living Things' and 'Life-Cycles.'
Our first topic book will be 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle.
Week 5
Healthy Living
Week beginning 3rd February 2025
Literacy
This week the children have been exploring the letter sound i and naming objects beginning with the i sound including igloo, insect and inside. During our phonics lessons we have practised writing our new letter sound and our phonics actions to help us remember each sound.
Understanding the world
This week we have explored the celebration of Chinese New Year - The year of the snake. During our focused activity time the children have created dancing dragons, Chinese lanterns, following the outline of Chinese letters to represent their names using black and gold paints and practising our cutting skills to create spiral snakes.
Maths
On Friday the whole school celebrated number day. The children enjoyed lots of number based activities including number puzzles, dominoes, writing numbers and exploring the school looking for numbers. The Nursery children especially enjoyed their visit from the year 6 children to read number stories to them and play games. Good fun was had by everyone!
My Happy Mind
To continue our understanding of gratitude and appreciation the children have created a wonderful gratitude tree each child has added a special leaf to say what or who they are grateful for. Wonderful work from everyone.
Next week the children will explore their final sense - Taste and create their own healthy rainbow fruit salad using a range of different fruits. In phonics the children will be introduced to the letter n and as a class we will be reading the story Handa's Surprise.
Week 4
27th - 31st January 2025
Healthy Living
This week in Literacy we have been reading a vegetable poem and singing it to the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.'
Our sound of the week is letter sound 'p' for pan.
The children listened to the letter sound, thought of things beginning with the letter sound and practised writing the letter p.
They consolidated the letter sound by creating their own pink pigs.
The children have been using picture cards form the story 'Oliver's Vegetables' to sequence and retell the story in their own words.
In our mathematics we have been consolidating our learning on the number eight.
The children added 8 pipe cleaner legs to their black dough spiders.
They counted the 8 tentacles on an octopus and carefully counted and added
pom-poms to match the number on each tentacle.
In our 'My Happy Mind' lessons we met Arabella the character for the theme Appreciate.
We talked about things we are grateful and thankful for.
The children drew pictures and were able to say what they are thankful for.
Elayda is thankful for her mummy. Amla is thankful for her family.
Lorenzo is thankful for his motorbike. Jaxon is thankful for the trees, because he likes the leaves. Zayden is thankful for "A, b, c." Stanley is thankful for, "My daddy and my cat." Misha is thankful for, "A ladybird." Kevin is thankful for, "Spidey, me and a robot. My toys."
Next week, the children will be learning about Chinese New Year and the Year of the Snake.
Our number will be 9 and our new letter sound is letter i for insect.
It will be Children's Mental Health Week and we will be thinking about ways to make us feel good, healthy and happy.
We will be taking part in 'Elmer's Little Feet'. This is a range of activities developed by Living Streets, the UK charity for everyday walking.
We will be encouraging all our nursery children to walk to school.
Week 3
20th-24th January
Understanding the world and Expressive Arts
The children were very excited this week to have a visit from our caretaker Mr Reinke. He worked with the children to make a fabulous music wall using different materials. The children arranged the pots, pans, tubes and bells onto the palate, Mr Reinke then helped the children to secure each part using cable ties and his drill.
The children have loved making wonderful music outside using sticks as beaters to create different sounds.
Understanding the world - Our sense of touch
Our main learning focus this week has been exploring our sense of touch. Using our hands and feet the children have explored different textures developing their language to accurately using the words bumpy, smooth, hard and soft whilst describing materials. The children have created a sensory trail using our jigsaw mats, created sensory hands using a range of different materials and linked to our story Oliver's Vegetables created their own vegetable gardens and described the textures of carrots, peas and a cauliflower.
Maths
During our maths lessons this week the children have been focusing on the number 7 and using vegetables to print wonderful pictures.
Phonics
We are so proud of all of the children so far they have learnt the sounds s,a,t and are looking forward to learning the sound p next week.
Healthy Living
Week 2
13th - 17th January 2025
Our letter sound this week was 'a' and our number was 6.
The children consolidated their learning of some 2-D shapes and used three circles to create an ant's head and body, then counted to six as they added the legs. They learnt that 'ant' begins with the letter sound 'a'.
In our phonics lessons, we have been thinking of things that begin with the letter sound 'a' and sorting objects that begin with the sound 's' or 'a'. We have been recognising our names and practising writing them.
In Understanding the World we have been talking about our five senses. This week we learnt about our sense of smell. The children were invited to smell a variety of different smells including; lemon, coffee, mint, vanilla, ginger, garlic and cocoa. The children tried to describe the smell and if they had smelt it before they tried to identify it.
Edison smelt the vanilla and said, "It smells like cake."
Parker said, "It smells like ice-cream."
Lorenzo smelt the cocoa and said, "It smells like chocolate milk."
Yousuf smelt the cocoa and said, "It's cookie."
Next week, we will continue to learn about our senses and will learn about our sense of touch by exploring and describing lots of different textures.
Our number of the week will be number 7 and our letter sound will be 't.'
We will be reading, 'Oliver's Vegetables' by Vivian French and Alison Bartlett.
Spring Term 1
The children's personal, social and emotional skills are developing well and many children have formed positive relationships with their peers and familiar adults.
The nursery children enjoy exploring, learning and playing in our nursery environment, in the classroom, outside under the canopy and in our large nursery garden.
The children enjoy a variety of cross-curricular activities led by adults and activities that they choose themselves.
Learning together in our Nursery setting
Welcome back to our Spring Term
Week beginning 6th January 2025
Welcome back everyone. The children have been very busy during their first week back after the Christmas holiday.
This week we have introduced our new topic healthy living. The children have been enjoying naming their favourite foods and using the creative materials to create different meals. the children have also learnt the meaning of the words healthy and unhealthy and have carefully sorted foods into two groups stating which ones they can eat lots of and ones they can eat occasionally. During our maths lessons the children created a whole class graph looking at fruits we like to eat and have practised our counting skills to 10.
Phonics
This week we have started our daily phonics lessons. This week we have focused on the letter s and have created a class min map of words beginning with s, sorted objects beginning with the letter s and practised forming the letter s correctly. Each week we will learn a new sound. Next week the children will be learning the letter sound a.
Understanding the world
The children have loved exploring the garden during the icy weather we have explored the garden finding icy objects in the garden including sticks, leaves and ice. The children also enjoyed watching the bubbles freeze on the slides and tables it was lots of fun.
Next week the children will be exploring our sense of smell and learning about the letter sound a.