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Woodside Primary School

Believe, Achieve, Succeed

Nursery

This half term our topic is Growing

Our themes will include babies, frogs and life cycles, seeds, plants, Jack and the Beanstalk and farms, including ‘The Billy Goats Gruff’. At home, you could follow up our topic work by:

Reading stories about growth/size – such as ‘The Enormous Turnip’, ‘Daisy and the Egg’ by Jane Simmons, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’.

Looking at family photos with your child and talking about how they/their siblings have changed or grown. Talk about celebrations that you have enjoyed together e.g. birthdays, naming ceremonies.
Measuring your child’s growth on a height chart, comparing their height to that of other family members.
Helping your child to plant seeds or seedlings at home and observing how they grow.
Visiting a farm and looking for baby animals or finding a pond with some frogspawn.
Visiting a local garden centre and looking at what is growing (plants and animals!)

Special requests

In the first week back, we will be talking about how your children have changed since they were babies. If possible, please could you upload a baby/toddler photo of your child to Tapestry so that we can use it as a stimulus for our discussions. Also, if you have photos or short videos of naming ceremonies e.g. Christenings which you would be willing to share on Tapestry, that would be wonderful.
If you have any spare seeds/beans (even if out of date) for the children to use in our garden centre role play or use for collage, please send them in. Thanks.
We will be planting sunflowers for the children to bring home. Please take photos of how they grow once we have sent them home and put them on Tapestry for us to admire.
From 10^th May, we will be talking about food from around the world. Please could you send in clean food labels which have come from different parts of the world? Please note that we have nut allergies in nursery and therefore cannot have packaging that has contained any type of nut. Thanks.

If your child has any particular interests related to our growing topic, please share them on Tapestry so that we can celebrate their enthusiasms with the class. Also, do upload photos of any plants that your child grows at home.

School/Nursery Dates

12^th April – Back to school

3^rd May – Bank Holiday

13^th May – Class and individual photographs

31^st May-4^th June – Half Term break

7^th June – Inset day – school closed for children

11^th July – Summer Fair

22^nd July – End of Term

What is nursery doing this half term? Topic: Growing

Date	Theme	Small Group work			Other
Date	Theme	Communication, Language and Literacy	Mathematics	Understanding the World, Physical Development and Expressive Arts & Design
12.4	Babies	Look at baby photos and talk about how they’ve changed	Order ‘mini-me’ figures by size and measure them	Paint self portraits	Welcome new children. Naming ceremonies, lullabies, senses scavenger hunt, height chart, baby clinic role play.
19.4	Frogs	Frog life cycle book	5 little speckled frogs	Frog beanbags and hoop ponds	St George’s Day, dragon stories, tree growth, plant apple pips, observe tadpoles, frog collages.
26.4	Seeds	‘The Tiny Seed’ book	10 seeds book - counting	Seeds collage	Garden centre & flower stall role play. Plant cress. Perfume from flowers, sorting seeds, alphabet beans.
4.5	Flower	Match flower and petal phonics	Order flower numbers and play flower dice bingo	Plant a sunflower seed & make a mini garden	Cress sandwiches, Van Gogh, print with daisies, chalk flowers, ‘How does your garden grow?’ game, identify flowers.
10.5	Enormous Turnip	Enormous Turnip - Act out story and make own book.	Weighing vegetables	Push and pull obstacle race	Investigate push and pull toys, make vegetable soup, food from other countries, threading vegetables.
17.5	Jack and the beanstalk	Jack and the beanstalk role play	Draw and measure giant footprints outside.	Grow beans and beanstalk collages	Ribbon weaving, make a beanstalk in the woods, climbing, measure beanstalks, Fee Fi Fo Fum alliteration. Cut leaves.
24.5	Farms	Act Billy Goat’s Gruff outside	Dividing up animal problems.	Build strong bridges	Celebrate Wesak, match animals and their young, ‘Farmer Duck’ story, animal stencils, sounds and dominoes.

Guidance on adding Tapestry Observations

How-to-create-Observations-for-relatives.pdf

Activities to support your children's learning...

Small Talk Here are ideas, games and activities for encouraging communication with 3-5 year olds.

Bedtime Stories Here's a link which lists lots of great bedtime stories. Goffs Oak library have a fantastic selection of children's books to borrow.

Hungry Little Minds Here is a link to Government advice for developing speaking and listening skills with your child. It has great ideas for 0-5 year olds.