Ballyclare Nursery School News& Rhymes
June 2013
Class Photographs
Samples of class photos should be with us shortly. Please make
sure to order photos as soon as you see the sample to allow them
time to arrive before the end of term.
Sponsored trike ride
Thank you very much to everyone who came to watch the trike
rides or who supported us in any way. The money raised will be
divided equally between the N.I. Cancer Fund For Children and the
school. Well done!
Teddy bears’ picnic
We are having two Teddy Bears’ Picnics this year – one for the
afternoon children on Thursday 27 June and another on Friday 28
June for the morning children (more details will follow). This gives
us a chance to say goodbye in a more personal way. This means
that there will be no afternoon session on Friday 28 June.
Growing things
Thank you very much to one of our mums, Mrs Brannigan, who
very kindly volunteered to come into Nursery to help us plant
vegetables and seeds. The children had a wonderful time planting
the seeds and plants and have been looking after them very well.
P.T.A. BARBECUE
The weather was very much against us but we managed to hold a
very enjoyable barbecue at a sodden Carnfunnock! A particular
thank you to Kathryn Edwards, Sharon Parr and their wonderful
husbands for putting in so much hard work; to Louise Ferris for
her exceptional networking , Rosemary McIlwaine, Heather Carr,
Catherine McVeigh and Sarah Castles-Higgins for all their hard
work behind the scenes. It was incredible to see so many parents
and children battling the rain and wind to attend. Once again
thank you for your support. We very much appreciate it.
Sarah Castles-Higgins, our Secretary, who have devoted so much
valuable time to their jobs. Thank you very much girls for your
support.
ALLTEX COLLECTION
P.T.A. have organised one final Alltex collection on Wednesday 12
June. Please gather up any clothes, bedding, shoes and belts you
want to recycle and leave them into Nursery by Tuesday 11 June.
.
ZOO TRIPS
You should have already received your notes about the zoo trip.
Classroom 1 will go on Tuesday 18 June, Classroom 2 on
Wednesday 19 June and Classroom 3 on Thursday 20 June. Both
morning and afternoon sessions will attend on the same day.
Please remember to return your permission slips as soon as
possible to allow us to finalise arrangements.
I am sure you appreciate from the contents of this newsheet that
June is a very busy month in Nursery and it brings to an end
another very happy and very successful school year. I would like to
congratulate all the children for working so hard this year and we
wish them well as they leave us for Primary 1. It really has been a
privilege to work alongside them, to watch them grow and mature
so creatively and to marvel at how far they have come. I know
that those parents who volunteered for parent help have also
thoroughly enjoyed working in the classrooms and we really
valued their participation.
The success of any school depends totally on the staff team who
work in it and I am very aware of how exceptionally hard my team
have worked this year. I would like to thank each and every one
of them for their dedication and commitment to the school and to
the children in their care. I hope everyone has a wonderfully
restful and refreshing summer break and that the sun finally
shines!
Big bad bass
We had a wonderful session with Ricky, Michelle and Helen. The
children responded particularly well as you can see from the
photos on display in the hall areas and we were very proud of the
children who volunteered to take part.
Rain Forest Adventurers
I know staff have displayed photos of the children with all the
wonderful creatures that visited Nursery that day. The children
thoroughly enjoyed the experience and we will continue to make
this a regular event on our calendar.
PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION
I wanted to take this opportunity to say a very sincere thank you
to those mums and dads who have given so much of their time
this year to P.T.A. I know there has been a small group who have
regularly attended meetings and have put a lot of their time into
organising events. On behalf of the staff and children I wanted to
say a particular thank you to Catherine McVeigh who was our
Chairperson this year, to Deborah Anderson, our Treasurer and
PLEASE TURN OVER
Ballyclare Nursery School News& Rhymes
June 2013
Topics
During June our themes will be Summer, Holidays and the Seaside. We will
also be working on the colour blue. Please feel free to send anything from
home that you feel might add a further dimension to our work with the
children.
Staff will also create a Travel Agents /Airport which will allow the children
to extend and develop their pre-reading and language skills using
brochures as a stimulus. The focus will also be very much on the children
recalling past experience of previous holiday and travel experiences.
FLOOR PLAY
The children’s play continues to flow well between all three classrooms
and our outdoor area. If the weather improves we will move as much of
our play outside as possible.
Work in this area will focus on our holiday theme and the children will be
working on projecting themselves imaginatively into role play situations
and discussing holiday destinations as they work with our train sets and
airport. Staff will also support children working together as a group as they
use our Duplo soft bricks to extend and develop their building and design
skills as they create an airport.
INDEPENDENCE
SMALL IMAGINATIVE PLAY
Open Plan
The children’s independence has grown steadily throughout the year. A
few children continue to need support putting on their coats but staff are
encouraging them to try to do it themselves.
SAND
At the wet sand trays play will be dominated by our seaside and holiday
theme. Staff will work on extending and developing the children’s
vocabulary as they discuss going on holiday. We will also create a beach
scene for the children to experiment with natural materials and to explore
and create patterns as they play with seashells. The children will also be
using ice cream cones and scoops both to extend their fine motor skills
and their vocabulary as they discuss different flavours of ice cream and
where they go to buy it. This will reinforce work done in the ice cream
shop in our role play area.
At the dry sand trays the children will be working on their estimation and
counting skills as they work with scoops, tubs and bottles and on their
comparison and visual discrimination skills as they work with different
sizes of bugs. Buried treasure will also feature heavily this month as staff
work with the children to develop their awareness of the relationship
between size and capacity.
Water
This month the children will be extending their awareness of the local
environment as they work with Town Slots. Staff will use the Below The
Sea Active Mat to further extend the children’s awareness of the
underwater environment. Another major focus of our work in this area
this month will be celebrating the children’s confidence and we will
support and encourage them to recall and talk about past experience and
to engage confidently and comfortable in group imaginative play
situations.
Language and Literacy
This month our holiday theme will stimulate the children to develop their
awareness of the different countries of the world as they examine and
discuss different types of maps. Staff will use postcards to further extend
and develop the children’s awareness of the written word.
MATHS AREA
Staff will be working hard this month both to extend concentration spans
and to enhance the children’s abilities to cooperate within a group using a
variety of apparatus. The children will also work on consolidating their
counting and matching skills and their concepts of size, shape colour and
number. We will also introduce Jonas the gorgeous cuddly whale which
will help the children to hone their communication skills and develop their
awareness of shape.
This month the children will work with natural seaside materials as staff
gradually build a seascape using seaweed, driftwood, pebbles and shells.
The children will also explore travelling on boats and how divers and fish
breathe underwater. We will also extend the children’s Personal, Social
and Emotional Development by encouraging them to take responsibility
for washing some of the toys they have been using during the year in
preparation for our new intake.
Mark Making
CREATIVE AND AESTHETIC AREAS
CONSTRUCTION
We have some fantastic displays of the children‘s work mounted in all
three classrooms and we hope to add to these this month working around
our seaside theme. The children will explore texture, creating pebbly
beach collages using peas and beans. Their awareness of pattern, texture
and shape will also be further developed by engaging in shell and
driftwood rubbings. Staff will encourage the children to use their design
skills as they create fingerprint fish which will be added top our seaside
displays.
The children will concentrate on extending their group planning and
discussion skills as they work together on projects. Staff will also be
challenging the children’s spatial awareness, encouraging them to think
about using all the space available to them. The children will also be using
their shape discrimination skills by positioning equipment of different
shape, size and length into an appropriate space. This month the children
will also use the Woody Click crane to move blocks which will further
enhance their problem solving skills.
PLIABLE MATERIALS
Our seaside theme extends to the dough and pliable materials corner and
the staff will further extend the children’s tactile experience and their
language skills by adding coarse sea salt to blue dough. The children will
also reinforce their awareness of pattern and space as they print with
seashells. Staff will also use transport cutters as a platform for discussing
the different types of transport we use on holiday. This month will see the
children continue to expand their representational and observation skills
as they work on individual and group studies of sea creatures and
seascapes.
Role Play and House Corner
Classroom 1 will be transformed into an ice cream parlour this month as
children project themslves into the roles of customer, shopkeeper, waiter
and waitress. The children will also have the opportunity to use their
measuring skills as they work with dough ice cream and their counting
skills as they give and receive change and match scoops of ice cream to the
number of cones they want to make.
The focus in this area will be on reassuring the children as they begin to
think about transferring to Primary 1. Staff will encourage the children to
open up and air any worries or concerns they may have. Writing holiday
postcards will also provide a link to our holiday theme and staff will focus
on left to right orientation and that print has meaning.
Outdoor
The children will continue to look after the plants they planted in May and
they will be watching closely for any changes. The climbing equipment in
the verandah has been extended to provide maximum challenge. We have
purchased a water butt which we hope will provide a constant supply of
water to be used productively by the children in their play. Staff will
encourage the children to adapt an old water tray into a pirate ship on
which they will search for buried treasure. The children will also be able to
role play picnic situations and we will use a tuff spot, sand and our beach
screen to create a beach scene.