Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Summer Term
Week 2
Week beginning 9th June
On the Beach
Literacy
This week the children have been exploring all things connected to the beach. During our literacy lesson the children have created beautiful beach pictures the children then spoke about what they have seen at the seaside developing their communication skills.
To support our phonics understanding the children really impressed us with their understanding of initial sounds and cvc words.
Maths
This week during our maths lessons the children have been exploring weight using the balance scales during our key worker time. They enjoyed finding out how many cubes each object weighed.
The children have also been busy with Mrs Carter practising their number writing and printing skills to create wonderful under the sea number lines.
During our creative lessons the children have created beautiful rainbow fish and wobbly jelly fish using a range of materials to create neon patterns and shapes.
Next week the children will enjoy learning all about the letter l and start to name and learn about different farm animals in preparation for our first school trip to Ashlyns Farm on Friday 20th June.
SUMMER TERM 2
Week 1
2nd - 6th June 2025
This week we have been finishing our topic about homes and talking about our
half-term holidays. We worked in our keyworker groups to talk about what we did during our half-term break and looked at some pages from a book called
'You Choose.'
We looked at all the different places we could travel to and chose our favourite and then decided how we would like to travel there.
We looked carefully at some of the toy vehicles in the nursery and chose our favourite to paint with Miss Bishop.
In Literacy, we have been continuing to learn our phase two letter sounds. This week, we learnt the letter sound 'b' for bag. We thought of lots of things beginning with the letter sound 'b' and drew them on the interactive whiteboard. Then we practised writing the letter b on our own whiteboards and on the board.
We have also been practising writing our names and counting and writing numbers one to ten.
Our new topic is 'On the Beach'.
We created our own beach pictures with Mrs Bevan. We used cut out sandcastles, paint, sand and printed with sea-life shapes.
Next week, we will be reading Kipper's Beach Ball by Mick Inkpen and learning the letter sound 'f' for fan and making fish pictures.
What is a Hoebble?
What is a Hoebble?
Homes and Habitats
Week 5
19th - 23rd May
What a fun and exciting week we have had in the nursery and across the whole school.
Last Friday and on Monday all of the classes kept finding piles of stones in the classrooms. It was all very mysterious!
The teachers used the internet and discovered that the school was being visited by some 'Hoebbles.'
In the nursery we kept on finding stones and decided to make the Hoebbles feel welcome. The children worked together to make the Hoebbles some beds and homes.
The children collected things from nature that the Hoebbles would like and found some shiny objects to place in the homes. They also left some small pieces of fruit and milk bottle lids full of water for them to eat and drink.
We talked about what is important to us in our homes and what a Hoebble might need.
The children drew pictures of what they thought a Hoebble might look like and described them.
During our phonics lessons this week we have been learning all about the letter h, finding lots of objects beginning with h and practising writing the letter h correctly.
We hope you all have a safe and enjoysble half term. We look forward to seeing you all for our final half term in Nursery. We will be learning all about the beach.
Week 4 -Homes and Habitats
Week beginning 12/5/25
Maths and Understanding The World
This week in our maths and understanding the world lessons we have been problem solving and measuring to construct our own homes and bird houses using wooden lolly sticks and using the small junior hack saws to safely saw pieces of wood to construct a bird house. These are now pride of place in our Nursery garden. We hope that some lovely birds make their nests in them.
Literacy
During our literacy lessons the children have been talking about who lives in their homes and using the 2D shapes to create a picture of their homes. Reinforcing the shapes triangle, square and rectangle and using the language small and big to describe the size of each shape.
During our daily phonics lessons the children have been reinforcing all their letter sounds and learning to recognise and use their new sound r.
Key worker
During our key worker time this week the children have enjoyed working together to stack bricks to build houses and flats. The children enjoyed working together and comparing their creations.
Next week the children will enjoy completing their learning about homes, introducing the letter sound h and participating in their first ever sports day!
Homes and Habitats
Week 3
5th - 9th May 2025
This week we have been learning about birds and their nests.
In our mathematics lessons, we ordered eggs by size and drew a nest. We used size language when comparing the eggs.
Alan said, "Small, big."
Amelia said, "This is smallest. This is shortest. Biggest."
Aurelia said, "Really, really, really small, a bit big, really, really big."
Azem said, "Tiny, medium and big."
We played some size related games on the interactive whiteboard identifying the biggest and smallest pictures.
We also made some repeating pattern paperchains from red, white and blue strips pf paper to celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
Everyone had an amazing time at the school VE Day picnic celebration.
In our keyworker groups we used positional language to describe the position of a character in relation to a tray or bowl and had fun moving the character into different positions. We learnt some new vocabulary; 'in, under, next to, in front, behind, on top and beside.'
We learnt to take turns and watch and listen to what our friends were doing.
Next week, we will be learning the letter sound 'r' and talking about our own homes. We will use different types of construction to build houses and flats.
Homes and Habitats
Week 2
28.4.25-2.5.25
This week we have been learning all about the habitats of snails.
We found some snails and made a lovely home for them in a terrarium with compost, water, sticks, leaves, grass, apple and tomatoes.
Snails carry their homes on their backs and like damp, wet habitats. They like to eat leaves, fruit and vegetables. We looked after three snails and watched and observed them. They like to slide around the terrarium, munching on the leaves and fruit. They often hide in their shells upside down on the roof of the terrarium. We will look after them for a week and then carefully release them back onto the nursery garden in a safe , leafy and damp spot.
We have been reading lots of books about snails, including 'Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell' and 'Snail Trail'.
In the story, Snail Trail, we followed the silvery trail of the snail through a variety of famous artists paintings until the snail came to a piece of artwork by Henri Matisse, called 'The Snail'.
We learnt that Matisse created a collage of different materials to create his snail. Then we created our own snail collages in the style of Matisse.
We continued our work on snails with a challenge to make a snail with a pipe cleaner. Some of the children bent, rolled and twisted the pipe cleaner to make their snails and others wrapped the pipe cleaner around their finger to create the spiral shell.
We also used our fine motor scissor skills to try and cut around the outline of a snail and the spiral of a snail's shell. It was quite tricky, but we all had a go!
Next week, we will continue to learn about habitats including learning about birds and bird's nests. Our letter sound of the week will be 'u' for umbrella, up, and under.
In our mathematical lessons we will practise using size and positional language.
Summer 1
Habitats and Homes
Our topic this term is habitats and homes. We will be learning about minibeast's habitats, bird's nests and talking about our own homes.
Week 1 - Homes and Mini-Beasts
Welcome back everyone to our Summer term. This term we will be learning all about homes, buildings and different habitats. The children will enjoy making a range of different structures using different materials.
Literacy
This week in literacy the children have looked closely at our book You Choose and have chosen their favourite home/ building they would like to live in using the pictures provided.
During key worker time the children have enjoyed talking about their Easter holiday. The children spoke clearly about all the wonderful activities they did. They were very good at listening to their friends talking and waited for their turns patiently. During phonics the children have enjoyed learning about the letter sound k and naming objects beginning with k including key, king and kiwi.
Maths
During our maths lessons this week the children have really impressed us with their counting, sorting and sharing skills. Showing good problem solving skills to sort mini-beasts into three categories accurately counting their legs to place them in the correct groups.
The children have also been challenged to create their own ladybirds sharing the spots equally to make them the same on each side. Excellent work and effort from everyone! This is not an easy concept to understand.
Understanding the world
The children have enjoyed talking about different homes and structures this week we have introduced mini-beasts and different types of buildings we constructed a class mind map of different buildings including houses, caravans, restaurants, cinemas and flats that we will explore as our topic progresses.
Next week the children will explore mini-beasts with shells and different materials and textures linked to this. During our maths lessons we will continue to develop our problem solving skills. During our phonics lessons we will explore the letter sound e and practise our cutting skills to create spiral patterns.