Fitzwaryn/Millbrook Integrated
Nursery Class
6 th January 2014
Dear Parents,
We hope you had a lovely Christmas. Thank you for all the lovely gifts and cards, we appreciated them very much. We are really pleased with the way in which the children have settled back into their routines. We look forward to exploring new skills and activities this term. Our theme for this term will be Nursery Rhymes which provides many opportunities for fun and purposeful activities in all areas of the Foundation Stage Curriculum.
Dressing Up Days
Robert Burns day
On Friday 24 th January we will be dressing up for Robert Burns’ day, (anything Scottish). We will be trying
Haggis, Neeps and Tatties. The children will try to do some highland dancing.
Chinese New Year
During the week of 27 th January, we will have a range of activities to encourage the children to find out about
Chinese New Year. These will include cooking Chinese food and having a pretend New Year celebration in our role play area. Please let us know if your child has any new food allergies or intolerances! If you have any
Chinese objects or resources these would be useful too, thank you!
If the children want to dress up on Friday 31 st January with a ‘Chinese theme’ then they are very welcome too.
Nursery Rhyme day
On Friday 14 th February we will be having a Nursery Rhyme Dressing Up Day. We would like the children to dress up as their favourite Nursery Rhyme character. Costumes do not have to be elaborate, a simple hat or prop will do, so please do not worry.
Letter and sounds
As well as continuing with early phonic activities, such as: listening to sounds in the environment, clapping words and rhyming; we are beginning to introduce the children to the letters of the alphabet. We are also following Phase One of ‘Letter and Sounds’. Phase One falls largely within the Communication, Language and
Literacy area of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage. In particular, it will support linking sounds and letters in the order in which they occur in words, and naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet. It draws on and promotes other areas of learning, particularly Personal, Social and Emotional Development and
Creative Development, where, for example: music pl ays a key part in developing children’s language. Phase
One activities are mainly adult-led, teaching young children important basic elements such as: oral segmenting, blending of familiar words and drawing upon opportunities during free chosen activities that are provided for children.
We are following seven aspects:-
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General sound discrimination-environmental sounds
General sound discrimination-instrumental sounds
General sound discrimination-body percussion
Rhythm and rhyme
Alliteration

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Voice sounds
Oral blending and segmenting
Each aspect is divided into three stands which can overlap
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Tuning into sounds (auditory discrimination)
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Listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing)
Talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension
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The activities are designed to help the children:-
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Listen attentively;
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Enlarge their vocabulary;
Speak confidently to adults and other children;
Discriminate phonemes;
Reproduce audibly the phonemes they hear, in order, all through the word;
Use sounds-talk to segment words into phonemes.
We are focusing on the following over this term
Weeks
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Shapes
Circle
Square
Rectangle
Triangle
Oval
Semi-circle
Colours
Yellow
Blue
Green
Red
Orange
Purple
Letters
S
A
T
P
I
N
We have asked the children to bring in a shape, colour or something that begins with the letter of the week from home to show us or to put on a display for the week. ( Please could you put their name on it, thank you)
Reminders!
F2 Fund
T hank you to all those families who sent in £1.00 towards our F2 fund last term. We would like to repeat this again as it does mean we can provide various, cooking, playdough and gardening activities and this term we will be trying Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, as well as Stir-fry and fortune cookies for Chinese New Year. These activities extend the children’s experiences.
Normal Session Times Morning session 8.30 or 8.50 am to 11.30am
Afternoon session 12.15 or 12.45pm to 3.15pm
Please try to be punctual as we are keen to start our activities as soon as possible.
Children do become anxious if they are the last to be collected so please try to be on time at the end of our sessions too.
Parking
Please remember to use the car park! We have seen some quite dangerous situations when parents have parked on the path outside our gate!
Wellies
Please remember to bring your child’s wellies back if they are at home! I think we will need them a lot this term, with the lovely weather we have been having. Thank you.
Dates to remember : Dressing up dates
Robert Burns Friday 24 th January
Chinese New Year 27 th January
Last day of term - Nursery Rhyme day 14 th February
If you have any further questions or concerns please come and see us.
Yours sincerely
The Nursery staff