Margaret Wix Primary School
Excellence, Creativity, Individuality!
Skippers (Nursery)
Welcome to Nursery
Our class is called Skippers and we are taught by Miss Banes.
Things to remember:
Wellington boots
Waterproof coat
Water bottle
Book bag
Library books to be returned on Mondays
Key dates:
Home Learning
13/7/20
Dear Parents and Carers,
Well, the last week of the school year has arrived! Thank you to everyone for all their hard work, particularly when things have not been 'normal'.
I hope the children are very proud of their reports and I urge you to work on the targets over the Summer, along with lots of reading.
It is time for me to say goodbye and good luck for September.
Check out Tapestry for a message from myself and the Learning Lion!
Take care.
Miss Banes
Summer Term Second Half Term
1/6/10
Tadpole Update
Well, what a change!
Many of the tadpoles have developed into froglets, with both back and front legs. They still have their tails, but they are getting shorter. The froglets have been exploring the pond and are now getting ready to leave. We have made a wooden bridge for them to make things easier but they seem to be quite happy with crawling up the side and jumping out!
Where are they going?
Goodbye little froglets, take care.
We hope you find a safe new home.
While the School is Closed
Just before the school closed a kind teaching assistant, with a keen interest in nature, brought in some frog spawn. The eggs hatched over the next few days and the children were amazed at the sight of the tiny tadpoles wriggling about.
When the school closed the little tadpoles made the journey to my house. They are now happily swimming about in their new mini-pond.
You could find out some tadpole and frog facts.
What do tadpoles eat?
Do they have teeth?
How long does it take for them to change into a frog?
What are baby frogs called?
What do frogs eat?
What do tadpoles and frogs drink?
Do they sleep?
Let's wish the little creatures the best of luck!
Monday 6th April
The tadpoles are loving it in the sunny weather. They seem to be eating all the time and they are certainly growing.
I noticed some birds, particularly a blackbird, taking an interest in the tadpoles so I've covered the pond with a net to keep them safe.
Can you find out -
What are the natural predators of the tadpole?
What does the word, predator, mean?
Meet the frog family!
Make up a story about their adventures.
Monday 20th April
The tadpoles are doing well. They have now got much bigger and have mottled heads. They seem to be eating non-stop and my pond is the cleanest it's been in a long time.
I have been observing them closely, but no legs yet.
Today, a magpie landed on the edge of the pond. Was he thirsty or looking for some food?
Monday 18th May
It has taken a while, but now I have seen some of the bigger tadpoles with short back legs. They are not using the legs yet, but continue to use their tails. Recently, they have been feeding furiously and I hope you can tell that they have grown.
I have had to keep a close eye on the pond because a neighbourhood cat has been visiting and peering in. So far, the tadpoles have stayed safe.
Spring Term Second Half
Continuing on from our work on shape the children have been busy model making. They chose from a range of materials of varying shapes and sizes. Some children chose glue to join their materials and other used masking tape. It was not always easy but the children did not give up.
The Skippers have been working hard building up the muscles in their fingers, hands, arms and shoulders. This will help develop pencil control and writing skills in the future.
World Book Day was a great success with the Skippers. Look at all the lovely costumes. Can you guess what character they are and which book they come from?
We chose the book Handa's Surprise to work on in class. The children tasted different fruits, acted out the story with puppets and printed with fruits. I can highly recommend this book.
We were also very fortunate to have a story teller come in. The children were very enthusiastic and responded well to her obvious love of books. Thank you very much.
Spring Term First Half
The Skippers have been getting excited about Numbers. They really enjoyed Number Day. Look how smart they look in their number clothes.
We learnt a new number song, played number games with students from Townsend School and made number biscuits.
See if you can spot numbers with your children when out and about.
Which is the biggest number?
The Skippers have been learning the alphabet and some of the children have been keen to try to write some letters. They have been focussing hard on holding pens and pencils correctly and using their other hand to hold the paper steady.
The Skippers are focussing on Traditional Tales this half term. We read the story of The Three Little Pigs and the children built houses using bricks, sticks and straw. We then matched the pigs to their houses and discussed how they might have felt with the wolf after them.
To complement our story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the children invited their own teddies in for the morning. All the teddies worked very hard and they had fun meeting 'Old Bear'.
Can you spot any differences between the old and the new teddies?
Happy New Year to all the Skippers.
This week we started exploring shapes. The children found circles, rectangles, triangles and squares in different parts of the Nursery. When you next pop in, look up at all the triangles on the girders. You can hunt for shapes with your children at home and name them. We then had fun printing with different shapes and got all messy!
The garage in the Home Corner is very popular with the children. There are lots of opportunities for speaking, listening and writing in the office area and children are 'building' their own cars using our Simple City program.
Autumn Term Second Half
Welcome back to the Skippers
The Skippers are working hard on their maths. This week we have been threading numeral cards and playing snap on the interactive white board. Snap is a great game to play at home. We worked with the numbers 1-5 but you could go higher if your child is confident.
The children had fun this week mark making on the chalk boards. We also have chalk boards outside and the children can chalk on the floor in the garden too.
Finally, look at our tree! The Skippers were very excited to have a real tree in class. We talked about what it was growing in and how we had to take care of it. The children noticed that the leaves were changing colour and we are going to link the changes to what we observe in Forest School later this month.
The Skippers are becoming confident to mark make during independent learning. They particularly enjoy using the clipboards. We have had an Autumn focus over the past few weeks and the children have written words on leaves. Look at our display.
The class enjoyed a number story together this week - Down in the Meadow. Then they spent time playing with the props and counting all the baby animals.
The Skippers had 100% turn out for our Share and Learn morning today. Thank you very much to all the parents and families who came to join in with their children's learning. We had a fun morning including a physical development session, model making, reading, computing and a shared snack.
Forest School
The Skippers had a great morning at Forest School. The children explored many areas of the school grounds and they observed the signs of Winter. We enjoyed a very noisy story in the story hut and had fun in the fallen leaves. To finish off, we had a 'traditional' hot chocolate in the Forest School area.
A big thank you to all our helpers.
Happy Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.
Autumn Term First Half
A warm welcome to all the new Skippers who started this week. They are all settling in well and they are enjoying learning both inside and outside. The climbing frame is very popular with all the children and they are improving their gross motor skills by climbing, balancing and sliding. You can support this by lots of visits to the park.
Last week I visited all the children at home and I would like to thank the parents for being so welcoming and for helping me get to know their children.
We have started our 'Busy Fingers' activities this week. Thank you to all the parents who have supported their children with this, please continue to do. It will take time to learn the new routines but I am confident all the children will soon get the hang of it.
The Skippers are exploring 3D shapes.
The Skippers are encouraged a mark make with a range of different resources. Here they are using clipboards and thick pencils.
We have been talking about eating healthy snacks. The children love bananas, apples, cucumber, pears, breadsticks and pitta bread.
The Skippers are learning to count in sequence. We are enjoying number songs and one of our favourites is '12345 Once I caught a Fish Alive'. We have made a 1-10 number line using big numbers. Do you recognise any numbers? Which number is missing? Which number comes next?
On Wednesday 16th we joined the Firetips for a 'Share A Story Morning'. Parents were invited and we had an excellent turn out. We read the books - Dear Zoo, Room on the Broom and We're Going on the Bear Hunt. In the Nursery we set up for Dear Zoo and children and their parents took part in a range of follow up activities: writing their own letters to the zoo, wrapping up zoo animals, making animal footprints in the play dough and acting out the story with the story props.