Rhyme Time

We sing a nursery rhyme every day in nursery, repeating the same rhyme every day.

This week our rhyme is: It's raining, it's pouring.

Drop Everything and Read

Learning about the world through stories and developing a love of books is promoted through our daily shared reading sessions.

We hope children enjoy watching and listening to our daily stories.  Children can of course watch the videos again and again and use the stories to inspire play and creative tasks.

Making Meaningful Marks

Learning ideas:

Go on a shape hunt around your house.  Which shapes can you draw? 

Drawing around shapes free-hand should support your child to develop their fine motor control and confidence at becoming independent with their drawing skills.

Draw pictures of the things you create with sticks, linked to the 'Not a Stick' story.

Go on a letter hunt around your house and copy the letters you find.  Look on food packaging, shoes, books... 

Some children may find this rather challenging. Focus on making sounds and talking about the first letter sound in your child's name.  Ideas for encouraging mark making for children not yet ready for copying letters: draw lines, dots, and beginning to make shape like marks. 

Make prints in dough using fingers, pencils, stones...

See the simple dough recipe below.

8 tablespoons of plain flour, 2 tablespoons salt, 60 ml of warm water, 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, a couple of drops of food colouring (optional). 

Half fill a sealable food bag with paint, or gel, or flour. Lay it on a table and let your child make marks by pushing the paint, or gel, or flour around the bag with one finger.  Which shapes can your child make?

Parent/Carer:  Encourage conversation during the process of making meaningful marks and when your child has finished mark making.  Model making meaningful marks too to support understanding of drawings and early writing.

Making sense of number.

Play games which encourage counting and count objects during play, eg. when setting the table for meal times, helping to get food ready, tidying toys etc. 

Number names and numerals are just words and marks.  Helping children by exploring quantities through play, supports secure understanding of number values.

See the recommended learning challenges below:

Put fruit and vegetables into a bag.  Play a 'Guess the food' game - take it in turns to put your hand in the bag with your eyes closed and describe what you can feel.  Who can guess the food correctly?  How many did each person get right - keep a tally.

Make pretend shape candles and use them to play with in dough and for role play with teddies, dolls and other toys.  See the simple dough recipe above (in the make meaningful marks section).

Ask questions: How many candles are there?  Which is the tallest?  Which is the smallest?  How many are the same size?  What kind of pattern can you create?

Being creative with shapes

Exploring everyday shapes around the home, matching shapes which are the same, a different size but the same shape and different shapes, supports children's mathematical knowledge and understanding.

Play "I'm thinking of a shape..." game where each person gives clues to others about the shape they are thinking of.  Having a collection of shapes (EG. rectangular book, square box, round plates of differing sizes...) helps to make this game easier.  Encourage descriptive vocabulary such as: number of sides, curved side, straight side, big, small, tall, thin, thick, the same shapes as...

2 dimensional shapes children in nursery are taught to develop their awareness of: circle, square, triangle, rectangle, star, oval, heart, diamond.

If your child recognises these shapes why not try: moon/crescent, semi-circle and begin to explore 3 dimensional shapes such as a cylinder, cube, sphere and cuboid.

Physically Active Learning

Go on an animal hunt!  Your grown up could hide animal toys around your house for you to find, or you could go on a walk to see if you can see any animals.  If you go outside can you find:  a dog, a cat, garden birds, ducks, a squirrel, a sheep, a cow, a horse...?

If you play the game inside, I wonder which animals you will use.  Remember to share your learning on Tapestry so we can talk to you about your learning adventures.

Challenges which involve 'fiddly fingers' (moving small objects carefully) help to support children's fine motor control. This helps the development of early writing skills.