Nursery Seahorses Newsletter Autumn 2 2018
Light and Dark
This half term our topic will be Light and Dark. The recent celebrations of Halloween and Bonfire Night give us lots to talk about, including family celebrations and festivals. Any photographs you have can be shared on Tapestry as they are an excellent way of engaging the children and getting them to share news.
Managing Feelings
This topic gives the children to open up about their feelings as lots of children are scared of the dark! Through sharing feelings as a group, the children will learn that it is ok to feel scared and will talk about ways to make themselves feel better. We encourage the children to think about their own feelings as well as the feelings of others. We have an interactive feelings wall and the children can move their photograph to show how they are feeling each day.
Reading
There are lots of lovely stories to read all about Light and Dark including 'Plop, The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark'. There will also be opportunities to share non-fiction books, learning more about what interests the children. We will also be having quiet reading times where the children sit quietly for a short period, looking at books. Through this, the children learn to handle books carefully and can use the pictures to retell familiar stories, key reading skills.
Speaking and Listening
The children use their listening skills constantly and it is vital for them to be able to engage fully in their learning. As confidence grows, the children become more willing to share their answers and ideas. The topic will use some new topic words which will be introduced and explained to help the children fully understand. Here is a word mat for you to share and talk about at home. How many words is your child already familiar with?
The World
In Seahorses we like to explore things that the children are interested in. After reading the story of 'Plop' we will talk about some of the themes in the story and base the learning around the ones the children are most keen to learn about. This could be nocturnal animals, telescopes and what we see through them or the moon and stars. You can keep up to date with all our learning through Tapestry, we will keep you posted.
Maths
We will continue to have Maths as a key area of learning and we have maths learning time for short periods every day. Our main priorities will be number recognition and accurate counting. We cover lots of other learning but these two areas need to be secure to prepare the children for all the other learning they do. Counting out a quantity from a larger group, stopping when the correct number is reached is skill we will also be working on. Why not have try at playing the game with your child, choosing the target number to challenge them! We'd love to see photos or videos of them doing this on Tapestry.
Christmas
It will be here before we know it! As you know, Christmas doesn't just happen! We will be learning our songs, decorating hats and getting ready to perform in the Christmas Play. We look forward to showing off all our hard work.