One birthday in Nursery this week on Sunday

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Ayomide,

Happy Birthday to you.

As part of our RE topic A Virtuous Life, Florence created this prayer focus for home worship.  She used her sister Lucie's Bible, her great grandmother's really old candles, one of her mum's angels and a small cup of olive oil.  She read and talked about the story of The Good Samaritan with her family and remembered times when she had been a Good Samaritan.  She remembered the time when she helped somebody in the dining hall at school who wasn't sure what to do and she remembered times when she helped her baby cousins when they needed something.

Florence has enjoyed being in a 'bubble' at the school her mum works at.  She has explored space, painting and mixing colours.  She created a piece of work showing who is in her 'bubble' at home.

Great work Alisia.  

One nursery birthday this week:

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Tillie,

Happy birthday to you.

Family History Item from Giuseppe

Giuseppe's family treasure is this Sacred Heart picture.  It is 82 years old and was smuggled through the border when Polish people were displaced from the Polish Eastern lands taken by the Soviet Union after the Second World War, which ended 75 years ago last month.  Our VE celebrations in May were to celebrate the end of the war.  If the Soviet soldiers had found this picture that Giuseppe's family were carrying with them they could have been killed, just for having the picture.  As Giuseppe's mum says, "God saved all of them". 

What a very special treasure.  

Jotham had a splendid birthday

Jotham reported that his birthday "was very fun and a big surprise from my sisters".  He loved the gifts from his family, and his aunt who left his present outside his front door.

This week's Nursery birthdays:

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Florence and Jotham,

Happy Birthday to you.

From Florence's family history:

These rosary beads belonged to Florence's Great Nan and have been blessed by Pope John Paul.  They had belonged to her father (Florence's Great Great Grandad) and he passed them down to his daughter (Florence's Great Nan).  When she died a few years ago, they were given to Florence's family.  This means they have been in the family for at least five generations.  What a very precious thing to have.  

Florence's Shape Picture

What an excellent idea to use shapes to make a caterpillar.  The colours are so lovely and bright and I love the way it goes up and down.

RE Topic: A Virtuous Life

What a wonderful Good Samaritan you make Florence.

What has Isla been up to?

This week's birthdays in Nursery

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Layla, Elijah and Abigail

Happy Birthday to you.

Layla celebrated her birthday  with a wonderful day at home on Monday.  She completed a treasure hunt and found all her presents, had an indoor picnic in the Amazon Rainforest, watched one of her favourite movies, Trolls World Tour, and had a chat on the phone with Mrs Higgins.  Later on she had her favourite dinner followed by this beautiful Princess Aurora cake.  Mum says that Layla is loving being four years old.

Just one nursery birthday this week: 

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Tadhg,

Happy birthday to you.

                Exciting News for EYFS

CBeebies 'Your Mindful Garden' App: Mental Health Week

                https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/go-explore-app-your-mindful-garden

CBeebies has launched an app specifically for EYFS children called 'Your Mindful Garden' - a new app which uses daily simple

games that include breathing techniques, activities to help them relax and helping children develop emotional vocabulary.

Elias and his sister Elliana taking part in family feet washing at home on Holy Thursday, remembering Jesus' example of love and humility, learning the importance of humbly serving those around us.

Layla's mum reports that Layla has enjoyed this week's maths activity.  She had lots of fun hunting for items and has been accurately counting the number of items collected.

Florence has been learning all about Pentecost - the Church's birthday.  She watched a video clip of the story and drew a picture.  She also drew Fr. Gideon in the Church, celebrating Pentecost dressed in red.  

Florence is enjoying phonics work and doing lots of writing practice. 

This week's Nursery birthdays

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Joel and Raphael,

Happy birthday to you.

Isla's picture of The Ascension shows "Jesus floating in the clouds near the sun".  Isla has included a group of people watching and kisses for everybody at Sacred Heart.  She had the idea of writing the word "family" on the picture.

Isla made her own version of the maths matching task.  She used shoes and sorted them into pairs, size and colour.  She very kindly let Elsie join in.  Isla has been teaching her family all about scrimbling and finally, Isla had time to complete her 2.6 challenge which included raising money for FOSH.  

Isla's butterflies have now started to hatch.  So far she has three.  They are being fed with a mixture of water, sugar and fruit.  The fruit is their favourite.  Watch out for a further update about when the butterflies are released.

Giuseppe loves to "do homework" from school and has also been keeping busy making pancakes and making fresh pasta with boiled milk.  He celebrated VE Day with his family by making French puff pastry cookies and spinach cake with mascarpone cream and grapes which is called Forest Moss.  In the garden he has planted carnations, sunflowers and sweet pea seeds.  He cannot wait for them to appear.

Isla and her family had a very busy VE Day 75.  They made bunting, paper planes, had a tea party and listened to music from that time.  On their daily walk they went to look at the artwork hanging outside the school which was made by the children of our key workers with help from Miss Bailey and Mrs Rodney.  Isla heard stories about her great grandads who served in the RAF and the army and looked at old photos, diaries and war medals.

Erin has been busy in the garden.  She planted courgettes a couple of weeks ago and they are growing nicely.  She has also planted parsley, carrots and basil in small pots.  As well as making a rainbow for her home she has made some for friends and family and posted them out to them. 

As well as doing the Home Learning Packs, Isla has also been doing PE with Joe Wicks, Cosmic Yoga, putting on shows for her family via video calls (The Tiger Who Came To Tea is the latest acting one with prps and costume changes!), practising her writing, teaching her family about scrimbling, theme days on space, an early Halloween, experimenting with colour mixing, cooking and baking and being an excellent patient older sister to Elsie.  During the Easter holidays there was an egg hunt, card and bonnet making.

Isla has enjoyed staying up late to clap for the NHS, carers and keyworkers.

Nursery Birthdays This Week

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Adonay,

Happy Birthday to you.

Layla is holding her page of scrimbling from Write Dance and is standing next to the tomb that she made with her sister Anaiya as part of the RE topic.  Lovely work.

Florence's mummy has reported that Florence has taught her how to do the '"Write Dance".  Well done Florence.

Alisia planted tomatoes, potatoes, coriander, lavender and forget me nots at the beginning of April.  They have all started growing except for the lavender.  Alisia is taking great care of them, watering them every day.  Fingers crossed for the lavender.

Alisia has also created a wonderful Tales Toolkit story.

 EXCITING NEWS ON READING

Tutormate are offering a free online service with texts suitable for all levels within EYFS and KS1.  Using this link https://read-and-record.sp.tutormate.org/#/stories?page=1&_k=ggqwcn you select the level on the Home Page ranging from pink (easiest) to purple (most difficult).

Elias has been busy planting in his garden.  I wonder how long it will take for that tree to grow taller than Elias?

Sean can now ride his bike without the stabilisers.  Well done Sean.

Nursery birthdays this week:

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy  Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Mason,

Happy Birthday to you.

EYFS Curriculum Page Link:

Use the link below to take you to our EYFS Curriculum page where you will find useful websites, videos we use in class, resources and home learning ideas to meet all 7 areas of the Early Years Curriculum! You will also find photos of our learning plus lots of tips & guides for parents/carers.

This week's Nursery birthdays

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Joanie and Alisia,

Happy birthday to you.

w/c 20th April 2020

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Adeola, Jesse, Ellis, Amara and Tim,

Happy Birthday to you.

Adeola and Jesse had their birthdays in March after school had closed and Ellis, Amara and Tim have their birthdays this week.

Hello to Sun and Star classes.  I hope you are all keeping well and staying safe and I hope you enjoyed doing your Nursery work packs.  Now it is the Easter holidays you can take a little break from Nursery work but remember, every time you are playing, you are learning something.  

During the holidays I am going to catch up on some jobs at home.  I am going to do some planting in the garden and paint the kitchen.  During the summer term at Nursery we usually do a growing topic so I will keep a diary for the runner beans I plant and let you see how they are growing.  

Oscar is enjoying the sunny weather and always looks for somewhere to sit where the sun is shining on him.

I hope the Easter Bunny is good to you.

Love,

Mrs. O'Mahoney xx

30^th March 2020

Hello to all the children in Sun & Star classes.

I hope you and your families are all keeping well and safe.

Nursery is a very quiet place without you and all the Nursery staff are missing you very much.  We miss your smiley faces and funny stories. 

Are you managing to do some exercise to help you stay fit?  I do hope so.

I thought I would send you a picture so you can see what my little dog has been up to.  Can you remember his name? (The answer is underneath the picture.)  He has a lovely dog bed to sleep in but he has decided he wants to sleep on this pink fluffy bean bag that does not belong to him!  He is very cheeky.

Take care everybody and remember, you can really help your family by trying your best to be: Ready

      Respectful

      Safe

With Love,            

   Mrs. O’Mahoney X

Welcome to Nursery.

It was lovely to welcome the children back after the Christmas holidays and hear all their wonderful Christmas news.

This term the children have started some new learning activities in Nursery:

Every Tuesday morning we go to the hall upstairs where they take part in a session of Write Dance in the Early Years.  This is a movement-based programme designed to develop children’s gross and fine motor co-ordination.  It uses music, rhythm, story, song, rhyme, sensory play and dance to teach the essential skills necessary for handwriting.  These skills include:  co-ordination; rhythm; wrist strength and flexibility; balance between tension and relaxation; flowing, angular, circular movements; control of speed and direction of movements; control of pressure; concentration.  If your child talks about “scrimbling”, this is a word coined for Write Dance and means working on a writing surface using a range of marks and movements.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays the children take part in Class Worship Sessions.  This involves them gathering in a circle and taking responsibility for setting out and clearing away resources used to make a prayer focus in the centre of the circle.  The children listen to the Word of God and then have an opportunity to reflect on the Word and take away a Mission – something for them to carry out after the Class Worship.  Often the Mission involves sharing the story they heard that day with their family so please do ask your child about Class Worship.

We have also started Family Box.   This is an opportunity to celebrate the different cultures and traditions we have in our Nursery.   Each week two children from each class will bring home a large plastic wallet which we would like you to fill with things that are important to your family and your culture.  More details will be given when the children take the wallet home.

Pictures of these activities can be seen on the gallery pages.

This term we will be covering three RE topics: Being a Sacramental People, Buddhism and Lent to Easter.  At the end of the term we will be inviting you to take part with your child in the Nursery Easter Bonnet Workshop.  We have been reading ‘The Snail and the Whale’ by Julia Donaldson and will be creating a range of artwork as we explore the story, which will include creating and erupting a volcano.  We are looking forward to Mr Rodrigo, the Acting Assistant Headteacher visiting Nursery to read to the children during the afternoon storytime. 

Just some reminders:

When you arrive in the morning with your child, this is the best time to change their reading book.  It is also a good opportunity to stay for a short while and share a book with them. A good way for you to be able to share some of the experiences your child has during their day in Nursery is through the photos on the class gallery pages as well as the work displays throughout the Nursery.   

The children really enjoy junk modelling with all sorts of recyclable materials e.g. cereal boxes, kitchen roll tubes, egg cartons, and the children are always keen to bring these in.  There is a large box in the garden where you can drop these items off. (Please avoid any items that have been used to package foods containing nuts.)

Please ensure that your child keeps a change of clothes in Nursery and remember to replace them if your child is changed during the day.  We have a limited supply of clothes that we can use when necessary and are always grateful for donations of underwear, tights, socks and trousers that your child has grown out of.

The children come together at 3pm to share an afternoon snack and we are very grateful for donations of plain biscuits (digestives, rich tea etc) to have at this time.  If everybody brings in one packet, it should only be necessary to do this once per half term.

Finally, the children are always excited for their turn to bring home the class Prayer Bear to keep overnight so it is important that it is returned promptly to ensure everybody gets their turn.