Chinese New Year

This week in Nursery we have been learning all about Chinese New Year.

We watched Chinese Dragon dancing. The children noticed that they were not really dragons but people dressed up. We also listened and danced to Chinese music.

We set up our own Chinese restaurant and explored Chinese food. We enjoyed trying to use Chopsticks, even though it was a bit tricky.

 

We also set up a Chinese Restaurant outside.

Yummy noodles!

Chinese Writing

We wrote good luck messages and learned that red is a special colour in China because it means 'Good Luck'.

                                             

Here are some links to some of the videos we watched whilst learning about Chinese New Year:

Celebrating Chinese New Year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lets-celebrate-chinese1 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lets-celebrate-chinese2

The Story of Chinese New Year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories/lets-celebrate-chinesenewyearperformance

Dragon dances:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h7k-8njwvs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipvjaV9qcJw

Chinese Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EXypmkfhbE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TcVJViSksY

Nursery Family Cafe

The Way Back Home by Oliver Jefferes

Thank you to all the parents and grandparents who came to our recent Family Cafe. We had a great time and here are some photographs of the fun we had!

 Making and decorating Paper Aeroplanes. 

Making spaceships with junk modelling materials.

Making rockets and areoplanes with wooden bricks.

Exploring Space Dust!



We will be having a Christmas themed Family Cafe during the last week of time. Information will be sent home soon. We hope you can come!



Engaging Boys in Reading

All children are different, but typically boys are more naturally drawn to physical play rather than sitting down with books and stories. At nursery we use the boys interests to engage them in stories such as pirates, space or superheroes.

At home your child's interests are the best starting point for engaging them in books. It doesn't just have to be picture books you could always share comics or information books about football or cars, whatever interests your child! 

The main point is that you share the experience with your child in a positive way. Talk with them about the pictures, ask them to tell you what they can see or what they think will happen next in the story. Don't be afraid to be a bit silly! Use silly voices or make animal noises. If your child enjoys the experience they will want to do it again and again.

Reading with Dad

Boys look up to their dads and the male role models in their lives (grandads, uncles, big brothers) and will often want to do what they see you doing. By sharing books with them and showing them that you enjoy reading (whether you read for pleasure or not) they will see reading as a positive thing!

Book suggestions:

Here are some book suggestions that may interest your little boy:

     

Links to websites

Here are some websites with useful information on engaging boys in reading. 

http://www.pbs.org/parents/best-books-for-boys/picture-books-for-boys.html

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/children/how-to-share-books/

http://www.fathersstoryweek.org/page/about

Miss Piper

Autumn Term in Nursery

We have had a great half term in Nursery. Here are some of the exciting things we have been doing!

We explored a jungle theme and pretended to be jungle explorers looking closley for animals.

Jungle Explorers need a Jungle Exploring truck, so we made our own outside!

We looked at the different patterns animals have on their skin. Some have spots and some have strips and some are plain. We painted some fantastic pictures of different animals prints.

We've been busy learning shape names and went on a shape hunt around nursery. We found LOTS of shapes. It would be great if we could practise shape names at home too!



We were very interested in the builders as they began to build the new classrooms. We went to have a look at what they were doing.

This inspired us to build our own new classrooms and pretend to be builders.

We hope you have a lovely half term holiday and we look forward to all the exciting things we've got planned for next term!