This week saw the start of phonics teaching at the nursery. After morning and afternoon registration, we learned how to say, recognise and write the ‘m’ sound. We asked children to bring in objects that began with the ‘m’ sound, and we were delighted when children brought in a mmmermaid and a mmmonkey. Our phonics focus next week is the ‘a’ sound, so please do encourage your child to bring in something beginning with ‘a’ - an apple, maybe? An anteater? An ambulance? The more objects we get, the richer the learning experience!
It probably didn’t escape your notice that we had a little bit of snow this week (ha ha!). Naturally, the children were delighted and wanted to go out and play in it as much as possible. This helped them to develop their independence and resilience, as they were putting on their own coats, scarves, gloves and hats. However, when it got a little too cold and icy outside, we brought some snow inside for them to play with. This developed into a lovely small-world area, with some children driving toy trucks through the snow, and others bringing toy animals into the snow and building shelters for them. We also did some science experiments using ice. Some children filled different sized containers with water and left them outside - we discussed what might happen to the water overnight, and the children were fascinated to see how the water had frozen into ice by the next day. We also set up an ice excavation experiment, where children needed to find different ways to melt the ice in order to free the animals that were trapped inside it.