Saplings Class
Please scroll down to see all the learning we have been doing in FS1
2024-5
Welcome to the FS1 blog and information page
hello👋🏻👋🏼👋🏽👋🏾👋🏿
Here you will find key information, dates and photographs of all of the wonderful things FS1 have been up to 🤩
FS1 staff 👩🏻🏫👩🏼🏫
Mrs Hindle is Saplings Class Teacher.
Miss Gill is the HLTA in FS1.
Miss Doyle and Miss Pickering are the TAs in FS1. They are in class everyday.
PE days 🏃🏽♀️
FS1 do not have a formal PE session each week but they are developing their fine and gross motor skills daily, both indoors and outdoors.
Please ensure your child has a pair of wellington boots, a coat and at least one change of clothes in school.
Home Learning 🏡
You can find ideas for home learning on Tapestry. We’d love to see photographs of you learning with your child at home. These can be added directly to Tapestry ☺️
Contact us 📧
If you have any questions or queries you can contact us on this email:
fs1parents@newmoston.manchester.sch.uk
We very much look forward to working together this year! 🙂
🌈 Colour Topic 🌈
This half term, our topic is Colour!
This week, to start our topic, we discussed our favourite colours. We then learnt about what colours make the rainbow. We practised singing the rainbow song to help us.
We then made our own rainbows, using items from around the Nursery.
What colour does it make? 🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵
This week the children have been using the spray bottles to explore colour!
At first they were enjoying mark making with them but soon discovered that when the paint was sprayed together, it mixed and made a new colour!
The children were fascinated watching what happens to the colours!
🐰🐣 Easter in FS1 🐣🐰
We've had a lovely day filled with lots of different Easter activities!
We have:
- Made Easter themed sun catchers.
- Made chocolate nests.
- Tried some hot cross buns.
- Showcased the fantastic creations of the children's Easter bonnets and Hard Boiled Eggs and sang some songs.
- Decorated eggs in the creative area.
We hope you all have a wonderful Easter Break 💚
Cress Heads
Last week, the children planted some cress seeds in some cotton wool.
We pulled some silly faces for the front of the cups so that the cress could grow as our hair!
We now know what plants need to stay alive - water, air, space and light- so have been watering them and keeping them in some sun so that they can grow.
🐣 FS1 Easter Competition 🐣
Mrs Rabbitt came down from LKS2 to judge our Easter competition. It was very hard to choose between them all!
Our winners are as follows -
🐰 Jax
🐰 Teddy
A huge well done and a big thank you to everyone who took part!
Think Equal 💭
Our Think Equal text this week was Sizwe's Smile.
Sizwe didn't realise how he could give his smile away without losing it! He passed it on to lots of people until, eventually, the whole town was smiling.
We discussed the importance of smiling at one another and how it can make us feel inside. We all said that we would try our best to smile more at people to help make them feel happy!
The children really enjoyed this story, and it helped all of the children to leave the carpet with a big smile!
📚 FS1 Reading Event 📚
Thank you to all of the grown ups who came to read with the children this afternoon!
We hope you enjoyed the puppets to support the story retelling too! 📚
Our next parent event is a Stay and Play session on Monday 28th April at 2-3pm.
⭐️🏆 Values Champions 🏆⭐️
Each week we pick 4 children who are our champions for each of our school values.
The values are Standards, Pride, Attitude and Growth.
Our champions this week are…
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Proud ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Our FS1 PROUD superstars this week, huge well done to you all. You’ve made us proud! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Big Spring Clean Up!
It is that time again where we take part in the 'big spring clean up'.
The children enjoyed using the litter pickers this afternoon to go around our EYFS outdoor area to find and pick up all the rubbish that was on the floor. We found sweet wrappers, tissues and bits of paper! The children were very proud of themselves and tried really hard to use the litter pickers eventhough they were a little bit tricky!
Well done Saplings 👏
⭐️🏆 Values Champions 🏆⭐️
Each week we pick 4 children who are our champions for each of our school values.
The values are Standards, Pride, Attitude and Growth.
Our champions this week are…
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Proud ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Our FS1 PROUD superstars this week, huge well done to you all. You’ve made us proud! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌻🌷🌸 Spring Walk 🌸🌷🌻
As part of our learning about spring this week, Saplings went on a spring walk around the school outside area.
We spotted blossom, daffodils, green shoots, buds on the trees and bushes, lots of green flowers, birds, and sunshine.
We even had a lovely whole class photo in the sunshine too! 🌞
🍞🌞 Enjoying our bread in the sunshine! 🌞🍞
We all enjoyed trying our yummy bread together at snack time in the sunshine! 🌞🍞
Hook - Little Red Hen 🍞
This week in literacy we are going to be learning all about the story of The Little Red Hen.
On Monday we got to school and found that we had been left a special delivery of a basket full of ingredients and they’d also left a book for us to read. We looked through the ingredients and worked out that they were for making bread and that it was the story of The Little Red Hen!
We then watched the story of The Little Red Hen and talked about how it’s kind to help others and then others will want to share with you!
During discovery time we then used the ingredients to make our own bread! The children helped to put all the ingredients into the bowl, mix it up and then knead the dough. We then cooked the bread and the children were very excited to see what the finished product looked like and to try it! 🍞
🏠 Home Learning Idea -
Can your child remember which ingredients we used to make the bread?
🐣 Competition Time! 🐣
As we do each year in EYFS, we will be having an Easter bonnet and Easter egg competition.
All our children are invited to take part. Children can decorate a bonnet with any theme they like and a HARDBOILED egg. Children can do the bonnet or the egg or both, if they wish.
The bonnets and eggs will be judged on Friday 4th April. The children can bring the entries into school on Friday 4th April and will bring them home at the end of the day.
There will be 2 prizes per class for the best bonnet and best egg.
Any questions, please get in touch!
Life Cycles
This week, in our topic learning, we learnt about the life cycle of a hen: How it starts off as an egg before hatching into a chick, that then becomes a hen, which will lay eggs and continue the cycle.
We also learnt about and matched baby animals to their mummies. We discussed the names of each of the young animals and learnt the names of them all.
🏡 Home Learning Idea:
Can the children practise and recall the names of the different baby animals?
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Proud ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A big well done to these children for making it to Proud this week!
Think Equal 💭
This week, we read a story about 2 Bears who had the best day together.
One of the bears liked to make lots of noise but as he spent the day with his friend, he realised that there were different times when it was and wasn't appropriate to be noisy.
We talked about the times when it is appropriate for us to be noisy and quiet.
We also read some Tom Percival books:
- Milo's Monster about how Milo was feeling jealous because his best friend had a new friend. We talked about some times when we might have felt jealous.
- Measha Makes Friends was about how Meesha struggled to make some real friends but was great at making herself some crafted friends. Through her crafting, she made some real friends who she helped to craft too!
🏡 Home Learning Idea:
Can the children discuss with their grown up when it's appropriate to be noisy and quiet at home?
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Proud ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Super proud of our little people for being our proud champions this week!⭐️
📖🌎 World Book Day in FS1 🌎📖
The EYFS team all came dressed as a different coloured crayon from the story 'The Day the Crayons Quit' by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers.
We have had so much fun on World Book Day 2025!
- We have all enjoyed being dressed up with our friends.
- We have listened to stories from all of the grown ups in EYFS in unusual places.
- We snuck into Mr Stewart's office to listen to Supertato before Mr Stewart read us a story by Oliver Jeffers!
- We have also enjoyed playing in the sunshine in our costumes.
🥞 Pancake Day 🥞
Some pancake activities we have enjoyed this week include:
- exploring the ingredients of pancakes in the home corner
- flipping play pancakes
- making pancake faces outdoors
- role playing making pancakes in the mud kitchen
- enjoying a pancake at the end of the day for our snack!
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Proud ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Huge well done to all the children who came to PROUD this week.
It was brilliant for Mr Stewart, Mrs Rabbitt and Mrs Rashid to see how our children are living our school values of #growth #standards #attitude and #pride ⭐️
Literacy
This week, in Literacy, we have been reading, and enjoying, a range of texts by our Author of the Half Term, Oliver Jeffers.
We have read the books:
Lost and Found
The Hueys in the New Jumper
The Day the Crayons Quit
Here We Are
How to Catch a Star
Stuck
🏡 Home Learning:
Can you share an Oliver Jeffers story together?
Lost and Found - https://youtu.be/cRAAQ8EWzig?si=ZN1dAmkkOCA5fIl6
How to Catch a Star - https://youtu.be/rpyR6hJPxiw?si=dJs5GmG_rMAlw3PR
The Way Back Home - https://youtu.be/xgGVJmPLNS4?si=H4XP-KHdM6Atixwz
Cbeebies Bedtime Stories - https://youtu.be/6HCPywSATtg?si=WDIJVZUnIOYKiahO
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Our first PROUD event! ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The children made us super PROUD at our first proud event!
📚⭐ EYFS Family Reading Event ⭐📚
This afternoon we invited all the children’s families into the unit to share stories. It was very well attended!
Thank you to all those families that came! 🩷
The next EYFS family reading event is Monday 31st March at 2.30 ⭐️
Reminder - EYFS Family Reading afternoon
Just a reminder, our family reading afternoon is on Monday 10th February at 2.30.
Topic - The Very Hungry Caterpillar 🐛🦋
To link with our Literacy story The Very Hungry Caterpillar this week, we have been learning about the butterfly lifecycle.
We watched a video that showed a real butterfly egg - we couldn't believe how small they are! Out of the egg hatched a tiny caterpillar. It then showed the caterpillar building it's cocoon or chrysalis before pushing itself out as a butterfly. We were a little surprised that the butterfly didn't fly straight away but we discussed how their wings have been folded up in the cocoon and need to stretch out and dry before they can fly away.
Then we learnt about the life cycle in more detail and how it all links into a cycle, before ordering the stages together.
🏡 Home Learning Idea: Can the children draw or explain the butterfly lifecycle to their grown ups at home?
Think Equal 💭
This week in Think Equal, our story was called Helping Hands.
The story talked about all the things that helping hands do. Our favourites were:
- helping hands are kind
- helping hands are caring
- helping hands tidy
- helping hands stop people from bullying and being mean.
During the week, we referred back to the Helping Hands story to remind ourselves about making sure that we had kind and helpful hands.
🏡 Can the children use their Helping Hands in a useful way at home this weekend?
🏮🧧🐍 Chinese New Year 🏮🧧🐍
We have been learning all about Chinese New Year this week.
We learnt all about The Great Race story and how the years have different animals. We found out that some of us were born in the year of the ox and some were born in the year of the rat (who won the race!).
We learnt about how people prepare for Chinese New Year, about how they celebrate with lots of fireworks and a dragon parade through the streets too.
In the provision, we have explored Chinese New Year by:
- playing with noodles in messy play
- playing with coloured rice, chopsticks, Chinese plates and tea set
- making Chinese lanterns
- making snakes in the craft area
- dressing up in traditional Chinese-style clothes in the Home Corner.
- dragon dancing
🏡 Home learning idea -
Can the children discuss The Great Race story with their grown ups at home?
Literacy 🎆🏮🧧🐍
This week in Literacy, we read a range of books to celebrate Chinese New Year in our Key Worker groups.
Through each story, we learnt about and discussed Chinese culture. We also compared how people celebrate Chinese New Year to how we might celebrate some events, such as Christmas, in our families.
🏡 Home learning idea -
Could your child discuss what they have learnt about Chinese New Year at home?
Think Equal 💭
This week in Think Equal, we have read Kitchi's Moccasins. This book was all about the indigenous Cree people who live in Canada. The main character, Kitchi, was given some traditional Moccasins by his father but the other children in his class laughed at him when he wore them.
The children were great at showing empathy for Kitchi, understanding why he felt sad and how the other children could have been kinder to him.
We had a look at what traditional Moccasins look like and had a Google to find out what Cree people live in (tipis).
We also had a look on a map to see where Canada is and how far away it is from where we live in the UK.
Finally, we discussed how important it is to be proud of being unique and of where we come from.
Topic - Senses
This week in Topic, we have been exploring our Senses.
We have been talking about the 5 senses and then we learnt a song to help us remember them!
Then, we explored our senses by:
- tasting sour 🍋 and sweet 🍓 with our tongues
- looking at different pictures and spotting the colours and what we could see with our eyes
- smelling perfume and vinegar to test our noses
- feeling soft, hard, bumpy and heavy objects with our hands
- listening to a 'Guess the Sounds' game with our ears.
The children had lots of fun and some of them really enjoyed eating the sour lemons!
🏡 Home Learning Idea:
Can you help your child explore their 5 senses at home?
🦷 A Visit from the Dentist 🦷
This week we had a visit from the dental nurse.
She showed us how to use our toothbrush using her large teeth model and showed us how much toothpaste to use (a pea sized amount).
She talked to us all about the importance of looking after our teeth through our diet and brushing.
She told us that we needed to:
- brush twice a day
- eat a healthy diet - lots of fruit and veg
- avoid eating sugar outside of mealtimes
- drink water
At the end of the session, we all said together 'Our teeth will be okay, if we brush them twice a day!'. We were also given a toothbrush and some toothpaste to take and practise our brushing at home!
Think Equal - My Voice
This week, we read the story My Voice.
It was all about the different ways that we can use our voices.
We talked about and listed the different ways that we use our voices. We also discussed how some people use sign language instead of using their voices.
Italian Day
The children had great fun dressing in the colours of the Italian flag, eating pasta with meatballs for lunch, making flags, learning some Italian words and numbers, our favourite was Ciao for hello and we had lots of italian themed learning and exploring in our provision areas! The children also really enjoyed the pizza tasting in the afternoon. There were lots of happy faces!
❄️🌨️ Topic Learning ❄️🌨️
This week, our topic learning has been based around Winter.
We started the week off with a Winter Walk, and as soon as we put our coats on, it started to snow! We were all so excited! 🌨️
The children could spot that all of the leaves had fallen off most of the trees. We identified and discussed why some trees still had their leaves (evergreen trees).
We talked about how the air was much colder and how we could see our breath!
We also talked about and explored frost and freezing water in a variety of ways. 🥶
🏡 Home learning:
Can the children have a go at some frozen water play at home?
http://fourcheekymonkeys.com/play-love-learn/frozen-water-play-sensory-play-kids/
🐝🐞🦋 Literacy 🦋🐞🐝
This week, we have been learning about Winter, using our story The Snow Thief.
The children have enjoyed:
- listening to and learning the parts of a book (the title, blurb etc)
- discussing their favourite parts of the story
- answering questions about the story to aid their understanding
- ordering and discussing the wintery aspects from the story.
🏡 Home Learning Idea:
Can the children watch The Snow Thief at home and discuss some of the things that Squirrel was confused about and why? https://youtu.be/l9fMv3Brbxg?feature=shared
This week in our new phonics groups we:
- have enjoyed sharing our news of what we have done over the Christmas break
- have been singing our favourite nursery rhymes, using actions
- have been playing I Spy, focusing on introducing initial sounds
- have been listening carefully and joining in with some familiar stories.
🏡 Home Learning Idea:
Can the children play I Spy with siblings/a grown up at home?
Maths - Number 3
This week, in our new maths groups, we have been learning about number 3!
Some of the activities we have completed this week around number 3 include:
- demonstrating 3 actions such as 3 claps, 3 jumps, 3 spins etc.
- counting up to number 3 on our number line
- counting back from number 3 to 0
- showing number 3 on our fingers
- counting out 3 counters, using 1-1 correspondence to check right amount
- looking at the different ways we can represent the number 3, such as on fingers, with people, with objects, on a 5 frame and writing the number 3
- looking at one more and one less
- singing number songs, focusing on counting forwards
🏡 Home Learning Idea:
Can the children find 3 items around the house?
Can they count them confidently?
Can they identify one more and one less?
Think Equal
This week for Think Equal, we read The Tale of Baby Beetroot.
This story was about a beetroot who left the other beetroots and moved to a bigger garden with different vegetables. At first, the beetroot felt scared because the other vegetables were different but eventually, he realised that the other vegetables were kind and friendly.
We talked about how the beetroot felt throughout the story and about how we would feel if we were the beetroot.
We also discussed how we are all different, like the vegetables, but we still all get along and are kind to one another.
We hope you all have a lovely Christmas break!
🎅🏻 Father Christmas 🎅🏻
Today, we had a VERY exciting visitor!
Santa came to see us because he was SO impressed with our Nativity this week. We sang some songs to him before having our photo taken with him. When we got back to Nursery there were presents from him waiting for us!
🥳 Sapling's Christmas Party Day 🥳
🎄 We've all had a great party day today! 🎄
We ate, we sang, we danced and we played lots of musical games!
Thank you to all our families for generously supporting us with party snacks.
🎄 EYFS Christmas Show 🎄
HUGE thank you to all our families for supplying the children's Christmas jumpers for this years show. The children have been working very hard to remember all the words and actions to the songs.
We think they all looked brilliant 🤩
🌿 Literacy 🌿
This week, Sprinkles the Elf has continued to bring us Christmas stories each day for us to read!
This week, the books we have received so far have been:
- Ten Little Elves
- The Christmas Eve Tree
- The Snowman
- The Great Christmas Pudding Rescue
Home learning idea: Can you read some Christmassy stories at home? There are lots on YouTube if you don't have the books at home! We really enjoyed reading The Snowman: https://youtu.be/m6KD-cVUlpw?feature=shared
🏡 Home Learning 🏡
Apologies for the very early closure of school today!
Here are a couple of home learning ideas:
- Phonics
Can the children practise these Nursery rhymes for their nativity next week:
Baa Baa Black Sheep
Twinkle Twinkle
And any of the other Christmas Nativity songs that you can find on Tapestry?
- Literacy
Read and discuss the story Ten Little Elves: https://youtu.be/-FdOm7xbdZA?feature=shared Can the children help to count down the elves?
- Maths
Can the children find 1 and 2 Christmas items around the house or outdoors? Can they spot the number 1 or 2 at home?
Can children make a tower? Can children find things that are taller than their tower? Can children find something that is shorter than their tower?
🌿 Literacy 🌿
This week, we had an exciting delivery from The North Pole!
Inside the parcel was an elf, a letter and a present. The letter told us that Sprinkles the elf had been sent by Father Christmas to keep an eye on us in the nursery. It said that each night he would be going back to The North Pole to tell Father Christmas all about us. Each morning, he will come back with a Christmas book, wrapped up, for us to read!
Our Christmas books so far have been:
- What the Ladybird Heard at Christmas
- The Christmas Pine
- Dear Santa
- Oh, Christmas Tree!
- Babushka
🏠 Home learning idea -
Can you read any Christmas stories at home? There are lots on YouTube if you don't have the books at home!
🎄 Decorating Nursery for Christmas 🎄
Our Nursery has started to look very festive this week! The children have been helping us to decorate the rooms and have been decorating our Christmas trees with lots of tinsel and baubles. We think you’ll agree they did a very good job! 🎄
British Values Week
This week we have been learning all about British Values and why they are so important.
At the beginning of the week we learnt what Great Britain is and looked at a map and spoke about the countries that are in Great Britain.
On Tuesday we looked at the Rule of Law and used 'What the ladybird heard' to speak about why it's important to have laws and why Hefty Hugh and Lanky Len needed to be stopped and that we can't just do what we want if it's something bad.
On Wednesday we then looked at Individual Liberty and spoke about a few rights that the children have. We asked the children how they would feel if some of their rights were taken away, such as the right to play and the children said that would "make them sad" and that "it wouldn't be fair" if some children had rights but others didn't.
On Thursday we looked at Mutual Respect and Tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We watched two videos about different festivals and compared the ways that different faiths celebrate. We watched one about Christianity - Christmas https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lets-celebrate-christmas and another about Islam - Eid https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lets-celebrate-eid
Today we finished off celebrating British Values week by coming to school dressed in the colours Red, White and Blue and this afternoon we had a cream tea party and each child had a scone and could choose to have a cream and/or jam topping. The scones were enjoyed by all, there were some very happy faces!
🌿 Literacy 🌿
This week we have been extending our learning of The Gingerbread Man.
At the beginning of the week, we re-read the story with the children joining in with the repeated refrains and making up actions, such as running on the spot for “run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man.”
We then acted out the story in our keyworker groups, with each child taking turns to take on the role of one of the characters from the story. We then thought about what other characters the gingerbread man could have met along the way.
At the end of the week we watched the story ‘The Gingerbread Man 2: What Happened Next.’ We had a think about what was the same in two stories, such as the characters that were in the story and then what was different in the two stories, such as the fox baking the gingerbread man and living happily ever after with the old woman and the old man at the end of the story.
🏠 - Home learning idea
Watch The Gingerbread Man 2: What Happened Next https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMVhnxMfsCI Can your child remember what happens in the story?
This week we are continuing to develop our listening and attention skills further through lots of different and fun activities!
We -
• Sang familiar Nursery Rhymes using props and joined in with actions songs.
• Listened to and discussed different environmental sounds by going on an environment walk around the indoor and outdoor setting.
• Used sound button stories to enhance our stories and created our very own sound effects.
• Explored volume and pace with different instruments, such as fast and slow, loud and quiet.
• Shared and acted out the story of We’re going on a bear hunt. We created our own actions for the story and joined in with all the repeated refrains.
🏠 Home learning idea -
Make instruments with everyday household objects such as banging a pan with a wooden spoon. Can you play them loud, quiet, fast and slow?
🌿 Understanding the world 🌿
This week we have been looking at the Artist Wasily Kandinsky. We had a look at some of his pieces of artwork and spoke about what we liked about them and the patterns and shapes that he uses in his pieces. The children particularly liked the ones where he uses lots of circles and we spoke about what colours we could see.
The children then coloured their own pictures in the style of Kandinsky in small groups. In provision time the children have been making their own versions of Kandinsky’s work with paint in our painting area and using circles of tissues paper and coloured paper in our creative area.
We have also been looking at primary and secondary colours. We learnt that we need the primary colours red, yellow and blue to make lots of other colours. We mixed the primary colours together to see which other colours we could make and spoke about light and dark colours. The children particularly enjoyed this activity!
This week we are continuing to develop our listening and attention skills further through lots of different and fun activities!
We -
• Sang familiar Nursery Rhymes and actions songs.
• Listened to and discussed different environmental sounds.
• Used sound button stories to enhance our stories and created our very own sound effects.
• Explored volume and pace with different instruments, such as fast and slow, loud and quiet.
• Shared and acted out the story of The Gruffalo. We then described the different features that The Gruffalo has.
🏠 Home learning idea -
Go on a sound walk to the local park or round the area where you live. Can you remember everything you heard and make a list or draw pictures when you get back home?
🌿 Maths 🌿
This week in Maths we have been exploring size and height.
At the start of the week we focused our learning on size. We worked together to sort some animals into big and small groups. Then in our keyworker groups we then had a variety of objects and the children had to put the objects into the correct hoop, depending on whether they were big or small in size. The children were very good at recognising if objects were big or small. We also thought about other describing words for these. The children came up with tiny and little for small and giant and huge for big.
At the end of the week we focused our learning on height. We sorted our class into height order, tallest all the way to the shortest! Then in our keyworker groups the children all built a tower using different bricks. We had to decide who had made the tallest tower and who had made the shortest tower and we then ordered the towers based on their height.
We finished off the week by signing our favourite number songs, remembering to sing forward and joining in with the actions.
🏠 Home learning idea -
Can you order your family in height order, shortest to tallest?
🌿 Literacy 🌿
This week in Literacy we have been learning all about the story of The Gingerbread Man.
We started off the week by making our own Gingerbread men. In groups we had a look at all the ingredients we needed, such as flour, salt, oil and water and the children had a smell of some ginger. Some of the children really liked the smell of it! The children then had a think about what we might make with all these ingredients and some of the children suggested it could be “Gingerbread men!” We used a Gingerbread man cutter to make the shape of our Gingerbread men and baked them ready for the children to decorate them during provision time!
We then read and watched the story of The Gingerbread Man, discussing the different parts of the story, such as who did the Gingerbread Man meet and what happened to him at the end of the story. We rounded off the week by making our own story map and the children did really well at remembering all the parts of the story and the order of the animals that The Gingerbread Man met.
We think the children particularly enjoyed decorating their Gingerbread Men and we bet they definitely enjoyed eating them! Take a look at some of their busy learning!
🏠 Home learning idea -
Watch the video of The Gingerbread Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U89dkGrsYZY&ab_channel=oxbridgebaby
Can you retell the story of The Gingerbread Man to your family?
EYFS Christmas Events Reminder
Dear families
We hope this message finds you well.
Please follow this link to read the latest newsletter for EYFS families: https://primarysite-prod-sorted.s3.amazonaws.com/new-moston-primary-school/UploadedDocument/07431aa1-47c3-4345-8e93-0cb16358cdfb/christmas-reminder.pdf
Thank you for your continued support.
❤️🧡💛 Children in Need 💚💙💜
Today the children came to school dressed in their pyjamas to raise money for Children in Need.
This morning we watched a video all about what Children in Need does and what the money raised is used for. We then had a think about why people might need our help and also how the children could help to raise money, including wearing their pyjamas.
This afternoon we joined Pudsey in a 'danceathon' which was lots of fun!
🏠 Home learning idea -
Watch the video at home http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9shOpct-1ZU&ab_channel=BBCChildreninNeed
Can you think of any other ways to raise money? Can you do one of the activities?
🌿 Sound of the week 🌿
This half term we have started looking at our sound of the week. Each day we pick out a new picture which has the same initial sound and this week we had ‘s’
The children said the sound correctly each day and enjoyed finding different things that started with the same sound!
We had:
- Sun
- Star
- Spider
- Snake
- Spider-Man
🏠 Home learning idea -
Watch the video together and practice saying the s sound correctly.
Is there anything in your home that starts with s?
🌿 Understanding the world 🌿
This week we have learnt all about light and dark through the story ‘Look Up!’ By Dapo Adeola.
We shared the story together then had some calm time with the lights dimmed and the star lights shining. We talked about what we could see and listened to some calming music. We used torches to explore shadows and created our own shadow puppets using our hands. We then went outside to explore shadows on a larger scale! It was lots of fun! We ended the week travelling to space in our imaginary rockets! 🚀
🏠 Home learning idea -
Go to space! Let your imagination run wild and create your own rocket. You could get crafty with a cardboard box, jump in the bath or grab some sofa cushions. Make sure you buckle in & do a countdown from 10!
🌿 Literacy 🌿
This week we have focused on Friendship and Anti-bullying week 🤍
We started the week by listening to the song ‘Choose Respect’ by Andy and the Odd Socks and we used this to discuss what respect means and how we can show this in school.
We then talked about friendship & discussed what the children like about their friends and how we can be a good friend. We enjoyed the story ‘Duck and Penguin are not friends’.
We rounded the week off by creating the perfect friend. We drew around on of the children and used this to write the things which make a great friend and we then watched 'The Smeds and the Smoos' by Julia Donaldson and discussed the ways that they weren't very kind or respectful to each other in the beginning but at the end they all became good friends 💙
🏠 Home learning idea
- Talk about how you can be kind and respectful at home. Make a card for someone you love and have your grown up write down your words of affirmation for your loved one. Spread the love!
🌿 Think Equal 🌿
This week we continued with our Think Equal learning. It is a reflective time of the day where we share a story together and use it to discuss important aspects of our life.
This week we read the book -
Amazing Daisy!
In the story Daisy really wanted to fly but found it really tricky. She never gave up though and kept trying and trying and at the end of the story she could fly really high!
We talked about how it’s important to always try your best and to never give up even if something is really hard.
🏠 Home learning idea -
Have a think of something you really struggle with, such as fastening the zip on your coat, keep trying and never give up!
This week we celebrated world nursery rhyme week by singing a range of nursery rhymes in our key worker groups. We used puppets and props to enhance our learning 🤍
🏠 Home learning idea -
Sing your favourite nursery rhymes together. Can you teach your family the actions to some of our favourites -
- Twinkle twinkle little star
- Incy wincy spider
- The Grand old Duke of York
This week we have had some really fun activities to recap and reinforce our learning of 0 and 1.
To reinforce the children’s ability to recognise and represent (on their fingers) 0 & 1 we have played -
- Number sorting into hoops
- Number splat with fly swatters
- Number corners with lots of dancing
- Number statues with lots of wobbling!
- Number songs
🏠 Home learning idea
- Number Hunt
Go on a number hunt around your home, the shop or the local area. Look out for 0 and 1 in the environment and see if it can be recognised in various fonts and styles. Each time your child finds a 0 or 1 ask them to represent the number on their hands with their fingers.
Odd Socks Day 🧦
This week is anti-bullying week with the theme of 'Choose respect'. Today the children wore odd socks to school to celebrate their uniqueness. We spoke about how we are all different but that's ok and that everyone deserves to feel safe and respected.
📚 Book Fair 📚
Today we walked to the Junior Hall to have a look at the Book Fair, everyone had the opportunity to look at the books to see what they might like to read.
The Book Fair is open before and after school every day this week so please visit if you can!
🌿 Think equal 🌿
This week we continued with our Think Equal learning. It is a reflective time of the day where we share a story together and use it to discuss important aspects of our life.
This week we read the book -
Is there anyone like me?
We talked about what unique means and what makes us unique. Then we spoke some positive affirmations together. The children said “I am special” “I am important” “I am unique” 🤍
🏠 Home learning idea
Listen to the song ‘Unique’ by Andy and the Odd Socks and celebrate what makes you unique with your family!
🎇💥 Pop, Whizz, Bang 🎉🎆
The children have been celebrating bonfire night and fireworks this week in our learning.
Outside the children have enjoyed making up their own firework dances using the ribbons. Together we have explored different ways to move the with ribbons, such as up and down starting low and building it up like a firework as it shoots up into the sky. We've also been spinning, twisting and twirling as the fireworks explode. As the children danced they have been using words lots of good describing words to describe the sounds from the fireworks.
Reuben said "whizz, pop, bang, crackle"
“Whoosh, sparkles, bang” said Poppy
"it's loud, big bangs, twinkle, sizzling” said Indie
Reign said "Zoom."
🌿 Understanding the world 🌿
This week the children have been learning about Remembrance Day and why we celebrate it by wearing Poppies.
We watched the CBeebies Remembrance animation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv_ub7Be7oA&ab_channel=CBeebies and spoke about what happened to the animals and thought about how it might have made them feel.
In the provision the children all used different media to create their own poppies. We used glitter, tissue paper, paint and pencils to create a variety of poppy pictures. They are all unique and beautiful and we’re looking forward to making a lovely display in the unit with all the poppies!
🏠 - Home learning idea
Watch the CBeebies Remembrance animation at home with your child. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv_ub7Be7oA&ab_channel=CBeebies
Can they tell you what they have learnt about Remembrance Day?
In the play dough area the children had the opportunity to make their own poppy. They used their hands and the rolling pins to flatten out the dough, chose a cutter shape and added a leaf and a button for the centre of the poppy. We think they are beautiful!
Autumn Leaf Threading
To help with the children’s fine motor skill and strengthening their little fingers ready for writing, the children have had fun at the funky fingers table, using the laces to thread around the autumn leaves we have found outside. Although it was a bit tricky at first they all persevered and there were lots of happy, proud faces when they had completed the challenge. Great threading!
🌿 Literacy 🌿
This week we have been learning all about Autumn through the story - The Leaf Thief 🍂
We began the week by going on an autumn walk.
We talked about all the different things we could see and took photos of different aspects of autumn.
We then shared the story of The Leaf Thief together and used this story to discuss some of the key features of autumn.
The children were able to tell us all about how the leaves change colour to golds, oranges, yellows and reds. They could also tell me that the leaves fall down from the trees as the wind blows and in the spring new leaves will grow again.
🏠 Home learning idea
Go on an autumn walk and lookout for signs of autumn and the season changing. Can you discuss what you can see with your family?
This week we have continued to focus on the numbers 0 & 1.
We played number splat to support the children with their number recognition & our new favourite - number statues!
We ended the week singing number songs together. Our favourite this week was 5 little speckled frogs 🐸
🏠 Home learning idea
- Play number statues at home. When the music stops you need to freeze and show the correct number on your hand when your grown up shouts it out.
This week we have been continuing to develop our listening and attention skills through lots of fun activities!
We -
• Used sound button stories to enhance our stories and created our very own sound effects
• Listened to and discussed different environmental sounds
• Explored volume and pace with different instruments
• Shared and acted out the story - Peace at Last
• Sang and joined in with the actions to familiar Nursery Rhymes and actions songs
🏠 Home learning idea
- Peace at Last
Share the story ‘Peace at Last’ either with a paper copy or via the YouTube link below. Join in with the repeated refrain and think of your own sound effects for each thing which keeps Daddy Bear awake.
Book bear 🐻
Every Friday a child from our class will receive a bag, in it there is a:
• book
• teddy
• biscuit
• writing book
It is for you and your child to enjoy a story, cuddle and biscuit together. Inside it there is a book to write or draw your favourite books or books you would recommend for other children to read.
At some point every child will get the opportunity to take this bag home. But please ensure it is looked after so everyone can enjoy.
Please share a picture of you and your child enjoying the book, biscuit and cuddle on Tapestry. We’d love to see them all!! 🥰
🎃 JLT pumpkin competition 🎃
A big thank you to everyone who participated in the JLT pumpkin carving competition. All the designs were unique and looked amazing! As a school we raised £100 towards books for our children to read.
Thank you!
🕷 Playdough spiders 🕷
The children have been enjoying making spiders in our playdough area this week.
The children used the available resources to manipulate the dough into the shape they wanted and then added eyes and legs. Some of the children thought about how many legs spiders have and counted out the correct amount of pipe cleaners.
🥽🦇 Potion Making 🐸🕷
This week in the water area the children have been making potions. There were different sized bottles with different coloured water, glitter, stars and sequins. There was also a cauldron full of spiders, pumpkins, frogs and bats. We spoke about ‘Safety first’ and always putting on your safety goggles when mixing up magic potions! The children had lots of fun as they poured, mixed, stirred and sprinkled things in to make their potion.
The children experimented mixing the different coloured water together to see what colour it would make.
There was lots of great language used about making potions and spells using lots of words such as magic, pour, bubbly, spells, mix it up, sprinkle and stirring.
🌿 Understanding the world 🌿
This week is a busy time for celebrations across the world. We have learnt all about two very special celebrations and festivals this week!
🪔 Diwali
We learnt all about what Diwali is and how it is celebrated by the Hindu community. We made diva lamps, learnt about the festival of light and enjoyed creating our own rangoli patterns outside on the floor!
🎃 Halloween
We learnt about Halloween, how it is celebrated in the UK and what they may be doing at home to enjoy Halloween. We talked about the importance of staying safe in the dark if they choose to go out trick or treating. We also shared some spooky stories about witches and monsters & we explored pumpkins in the provision.
🏠 Home learning idea
Draw a picture of your Halloween celebrations!
🌿 Think Equal 🌿
This week we started our Think Equal learning. It is a reflective time of the day where we share a story together and use it to discuss important aspects of our life.
This week we read the book -
Me, myself and I
We talked about what we love about ourselves, what makes us special and what makes us unique 🤍
🏠 Home learning idea
Talk with your family about what you love about yourself and each other ❤️
🌿 Literacy 🌿
This week, in keeping with Halloween, our story has been Room on the broom 🧹
The children have loved this story!
We shared the book together, watched the animation, sequenced the story and even made our own potions 🧙♀️
🏠 Home learning idea
Watch the animation of Room on the Broom on BBCiPlayer. Encourage your child to share what is happening during the story and discuss the story afterwards.
This week we have focused on the numbers 0 & 1.
We watched the Numberblocks video - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08bzzns/numberblocks-series-1-one 🏠 - why not watch it at home!
Then we played games which enabled us to practice our number recognition & counting.
We played number corners and number statues. In both games the children had to dance & freeze when the music stopped. They then had to either find the correct number shouted or show the correct number with their hands or actions! We ended the week singing number songs together. Our favourite this week was 5 currant buns in a bakers shop 🧑🍳
🏠 Home learning idea
- How many 0 or 1s can you spot in your home? Take a photo of as many 0 or 1s that you can see!
This week we are developing our listening and attention skills through lots of fun activities!
We -
• Played pass the story
• Listened to and discussed different environmental sounds
• Experimented with volume using different instruments
• Shared and acted out the story - We’re going on a bear hunt
🏠 Home learning idea
- We’re going on a bear hunt 🧸
Share the story ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ either with a paper copy or via the YouTube link below. Join in with the repeated refrain and think of your own actions for each part the family have to walk through!
🌿 Sound of the week 🌿
This half term we have started looking at our sound of the week. Each day we pick out a new picture which has the same initial sound and this week we had ‘m’
The children said the sound correctly each day and enjoyed finding different things that started with the same sound!
We had:
- Marshall
- Mermaid
- Moon
- Monkey
- Mouse
NSPCC kindness challenge and Show Racism the Red Card
Today the children came to school dressed in the colours green or red to raise money and awareness for the NSPCC kindness challenge and Show Racism the Red Card.
This afternoon we had a think about different ways that you can be kind to somebody or how we could cheer someone up if they're feeling sad.
The children came up with some fantastic suggestions of what we could do!
Dough Disco
The children have been taking part in dough disco sessions to help us to develop our fine motor skills to get us ready for writing.
During dough disco this afternoon, the children:
- Splat the dough
- Played the piano along the dough
- Poked their fingers into the dough
- Rolled the dough into a sausage
- Rolled the dough into a ball
- Pinched the dough
- Dived their fingers into the dough
- Squeezed the dough
All along to the beat of music 🎶
🍃🍂🍁Autumn crowns🍁🍂🍃
We are starting to exploring the season Autumn and think about the changes that happen at this time of year. The children have been talking about what they can see happening. They have noticed lots of leaves are falling off the trees and that there are lots of different coloured leaves. We've seen red, brown, yellow, green and even spotty ones! We have also been looking at conkers and pinecones.
Over the last few weeks the children have collected lots of these on their nature walks and brought them in to school for us to use for craft activities. Today the children have made their very own Autumn Crowns, choosing the different styles of leaves they would like to use to decorate their crowns.
Making our own bears!
Our story this week has been Goldi Rocks and the Three Bears. The children have been getting creative in our creative area making their own bears. Using a fork and brown paint, the children use this to create the texture of fur and then add ears, nose and eyes using black card. We love how unique each bear turns out to be!
🎶🎸🎷Goldi Rocks and the Three Bears 🥁🎙🎵
This week we have been looking at the alternative story Goldi Rocks and the Three Bears.
Have a listen to the story on the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeUOv_UBFSg
We made our own 'Singer Wanted' poster to help the bears to find a singer for their band. The children told us what a singer might need such as a microphone.
Today we made our own band like the three bears in the book. We explored the different instruments and the children played along to some music. We even managed to find some singers for our bands too! We had lots of fun!
🏡 Home learning idea -
Can you make your own band at home with your family? Can you find things around the house that you could use as instruments? Please share your bands with us, be as creative as you like!
Have a look at our band!
Have a look at our band!
This week we have been singing number songs using puppets in our Key Worker groups. We sang together as a group while the children took it in turns to use the puppets as a visual aid. Our number songs are less traditional and focus on counting forwards rather than backwards.
This week we have also been learning a new forward counting number song.
1 little firefighter -
1 little fighter standing in a row
12345 let's go
Jump on the engine with a shout
Quick as a wink the fire is out!
2 little firefighters...and so on...
We have been using our fingers to represent the numbers as we've been counting forwards and have been using 1-1 correspondence to check the amount and thinking about which number comes next.
🏡 - Home learning idea
Have a sing song at home with our new number song 1 little firefighter.
Can your child tell you what number comes next?
This week we are continuing to work in our key worker groups to develop our communication and language skills as well as our listening and attention skills further through lots of different activities!
We -
• Went on a sound walk to see what we could hear around us
• Played follow the leader with pat and clap patterns
• Had a story time with a group discussion
• Explored different musical instruments
• Used beaters in the environment to explore the different sounds things made
🏠 Home learning idea -
Follow the leader -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=RsQZX7Hhqug
Can you copy Mozi's clapping rhythm in the video above and then create your own rhythm for your family to follow?
Reading afternoon
A big thank you to all the parents and carers who joined us for our first reading afternoon of the year. It was so lovely to see you sharing stories with your children in school 
Our next reading afternoon is on Monday 9th December.
Meet the author ✍🏽
🌿 Understanding the world 🌿
This week we have been learning all about people who help us.
We talked about the different roles people had and how each person was able to help us. We discussed police, firefighters, doctors, dentists, teachers, paramedics, crossing patrol etc. We discussed if we had ever been helped by the different roles.
🐝🦋🐞 Phonics 🐞🦋🐝
This week in our key worker groups we have done lots of fun activities!
We -
• Went on a sound walk to see what we could hear around us
• Played follow the leader with pat and clap patterns
• Had a story time with a group discussion
• Explored different musical instruments
• Used beaters in the environment to explore the different sounds things made
🏠 Home learning idea
- Sound Walk -
Go on a sound walk around your house or local area. Take time to stop and listen, what can you hear?
🌿 Literacy 🌿
Our story this week has been Goldilocks and the Three Bears 🐻
We came into school on Tuesday to discover a crime scene! We discussed what had happened and who could have done such a terrible thing! Once we had read the story on Wednesday we had a talk about the characters and what they were like. We used this discussion on Thursday to help us write a wanted poster for Goldilocks and we put it up in the hope we’d catch her!
🏠 Home learning idea
Can you retell the story of Goldilocks and the three bears? Support your child in remembering what happens next and allow them time to retell in their own words what happened 🐻
🌿 Maths 🌿
This week we learnt all about zero!
It’s a tricky one to learn as zero means nothing but it’s important that the children understand that concept 😊
We played lots of games all around understanding what zero looks like as well as its value of nothing.
🏠 Home learning idea
Watch the numberblocks episode below which is all about zero -https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0blsx34/numberblocks-series-3-zero
Can your child demonstrate their knowledge and show you zero claps, zero stamps etc? What does zero mean? We have nothing!
🌿 Artist of the term 🌿
Our artist of the term is Andy Goldsworthy.
We have had lots of learning opportunities for the children around nature art in our provision. This week we spent some focused time learning all about Andy Goldsworthy and his work.
We looked at some pictures of his work and took time to reflect on how the art made us feel, which we liked, which we didn’t and why.
We then created our own Goldsworthy inspired art with natural objects. We started doing these on a small individual basis and then developed our learning and art on a larger scale. We worked as a key worker group to do a collective piece of art and then did a large whole class piece!
🏠 Home Learning Idea -
Create your own Goldsworthy inspired nature art at home. You could do this in the garden or at the park. Are you going to do a small personal piece or will you work with your family to do a larger collective piece?
Please share photos of your artwork via Tapestry or send them to FS1parents@newmoston.manchester.sch.uk
My family portrait 💚
This week we have been talking about different families in our literacy sessions. Indie worked really hard on drawing her family today. She spotted her family picture on the easel and began to draw. Once she had finished she was able to tell us who everyone was. We were so impressed with her picture we took it to Ms Rashid who was VERY impressed 🤍
Good job Indie!
🌿 Literacy 🌿
This week we have read lots of lovely stories about families. We have read a range of stories representing different family dynamics. As part of our learning we have talked about who is in our family and what family means to us ❤️
🏠 Home Learning Idea -
Can you draw a picture of who is in your family?
We would love to display your artwork in our home corner so please bring in your beautiful creations for us to put up on our display 🤍
This week we have re-read the traditional stories together but this time in our key worker groups. The children listened carefully to each story and joined in with some of the familiar repeated refrains.
After each story we had a discussion about what the children liked about each story. We also discussed what happened at certain points in the book, such as at the beginning, middle and end.
🏠 - Home Learning Idea
Take some time to share the stories below by following the links. Which is your favourite and why?
🐐 The three billy goats gruff - https://www.oundleceprimary.org/numbersquash/wp-content/uploads/The-Billy-Goats-Gruff-Story-Powerpoint-pdf.pdf
🐷 The three little pigs - https://lionwoodinfant.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Yr1-The-Three-LIttle-Pigs-Story-PowerPoint.pdf
🦊 The gingerbread man - https://www.fleet.camden.sch.uk/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Home-Learning/Reception/wb%20050121/The%20Gingerbread%20Man%20Reader.pdf
🌱 Jack and the beanstalk - https://queensgateprimary.co.uk/assets/images/branding/Jack-And-The-Beanstalk-Story-Powerpoint-Comic.pdf
🐺 Little red riding hood - https://lionwoodinfant.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Yr2-Little-Red-Riding-Hood-Story-PowerPoint.pdf
This week we have been singing number songs using puppets in our Key Worker groups.
The children have particularly enjoyed singing ‘one currant bun in a bakers shop’
We sang together as a group while the children took it in turns to use the puppets as a visual aid.
Our number songs are less traditional and focus on counting forwards rather than backwards.
🏠 - Home learning idea
Have a sing song at home with a new number song - One currant bun in a bakers shop 🧁
The lyrics are …
No currant buns in the bakers shop,
No round ones, fat ones or cherries on the top,
Along came the baker with some dough one day,
made a currant bun and put is on display
One currant bun in a bakers shop, round and fat with a cherry on the top.
Along came the baker with some dough one day,
made a currant bun and put it on display … etc.
Can your child show you the correct number on their fingers?
Fruity water 🍋🟩
The children have enjoyed exploring the water kitchen this week. They smelt and felt the grapefruit and limes in the water and squeezed them to make the water fruity. They shared the pots and pans together and gave each other enough space to explore safely. They poured and filled the pots & added fruit to make delicious ‘juice’ 🍋🟩
Dough disco!
This week we introduced Dough Disco to the children and they are absolutely loving it!
Each child has their own pot of play-doh and we use it to strengthen their hands in preparation for writing. We do various movements in time with the music & make sure we use all our fingers and both of our hands. 🙌🏻
🏠 Home learning idea -
Grab some play-doh and have a go at home!
Follow along with the video below and have fun 🤩
🌿 Maths 🌿
This week we have been singing number songs with puppets! This week we have particularly enjoyed singing ‘one little man in a flying saucer’.
We sang together as a class and the children listened and sang beautifully.
Our number songs are less traditional and focus on counting forwards rather than backwards.
🏠 - Home learning idea
Have a sing song at home with our new number song - One little man in a flying saucer 🛸
The lyrics are …
One little man in a flying saucer flew round the world one day,
He looked left and right & he really liked the sight so one more came to play
Whoosh!
Two little men … etc.
Can your child show you the correct number of fingers?
🌿 PSED 🌿
This week in our PSED time we have been learning our school rules. Each day we looked at a different school rule and explained what each one meant, discussed how we might do that and showed good examples.
Our school rules are:
Be Ready - One of our examples was 'sat on the carpet ready to learn!'
Be Safe - One of our examples was 'keeping the environment safe and clean!'
Be Respectful - One of our examples was 'looking after our friends!'
As part of our ‘being safe’ rule we talked about being safe in the toilets and learnt all about Pantosaurus.
Fire breathing dragons 🔥
The children have been getting creative making their own fire breathing dragons using tubes, tissue paper and glue ✨
🌿 Our story of the week 🌿
This week our story has been Zog by Julia Donaldson!
At the beginning of the week we read the story together and then the next day retold the story as a class with actions. On Wednesday we went to dragon school! Watch the video to see us roar, breathe fire & fly!
The children all graduated from Zog’s dragon school with a gold star and a certificate ✨ We ended the week watching the animation of the story.
🏠 Home Learning Idea -
Can you be Madame Dragon and run your own dragon school for your family?
Let’s see if they can -
- Roar
- Fly - Flap their arms and run around
- Breathe fire - Big blows
- Capture a princess - Hide a doll/teddy and see if they can find it
Zog School!
Nature walk 🍂
We are in need of your help please 🍂
Over the next few weeks we will be creating some beautiful nature art using natural resources such as sticks, leaves and pebbles. Please can you grab a bag & explore your local area, collecting treasures along the way!
Bring in your bag of natural treasures over the next few weeks for us to use as our artists materials.
Thank you!
Self portraits 🖌️
Our self portraits
The children have been busy creating their own self portraits!
First they created their background using paint and sponges, then they independently wrote their names & drew themselves.
Each half term we will repeat the activity with the children and stick their new work on top of the last one, creating a beautiful keepsake of their progress throughout the year ✨
The Colour Monster
This week we have been learning all about our feelings through the story of The Colour Monster. We read the book together and have spent the week discussing the different feelings in the story.
The children enjoyed having circle time and taking it in turns to share their ideas and listen to what their friends had to say.
Our first week in nursery ✨
What a first week we’ve had!
The children have settled in brilliantly and have had so much fun!
We have sung songs, read stories, explored our new areas and made new friends.
Roll on next week 🎉
A sneak peek of Nursery!
We have been super busy getting nursery ready for your new adventure to start! We are all ready and raring to go.
Roll on Monday!
As always, any worries or questions please feel free to get in touch at
fs1parents@newmoston.manchester.sch.uk
Meet the team 🤍
We are looking forward to meeting you all on Monday! Here’s a little intro of each of us 😊
2023-4
Mrs Bennett 🩷
Mrs Bennett is leaving us 🥲
She has been a super important part of the EYFS for many years and has been fundamental in making it a happy and safe space for all the 100s of children we have had the privilege of helping start the learning journey in education.
She will be missed immensely.
We wish her all the very best for her next adventure 🩷
Sports Day 🥇
Thank you to all the families who attended Sports Day today, the children love having you in school and thankfully the weather held off for us!
We are super proud of all the children for their efforts, we have some budding sports stars in our midst.
Happy Father’s Day!
Wishing all the Dads, Step-dad’s and father figures a wonderful day 😊
The Singing Mermaid
In literacy this week our story is The Singing Mermaid.
We have been looking at lots of describing words for the characters and thinking about how the mermaid felt when she was locked in the tank and when she was free to go back to Silversands.
The children have also been drawing their own pictures of the character Sam Sly and describing what he looks like and thinking about what he was like as a person.
The children came up with some good suggestions such as:
"Sam is mean because he tricked the mermaid."
"Sam is mean because he locked the mermaid in the fishtank."
"He wears a big hat."
"Sam isn't a kind person because he doesn't tell the truth."
Suncream Art
This week we have been looking at keeping safe outside in the sunshine. We spoke about remembering how to be a sun safe superstar and remembering the 5 S's of sun safety which are:
- SLIP on a t-shirt
- SLAP on a hat
- SLOP on suncream
- Sunglasses
- Shade
We then made some suncream art where the children used their fingers to create pictures on black card. The children will be bringing these home for you to put up in the window to see what happens to the colour of the card when it's in the sun!
Please send us updates on Tapestry with what happens to their pictures when they are in the sunshine so we can share them with the children!
Making our own Trolls
This week in Literacy we have been reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff. In our creative area the children have been making their own troll faces. The children have really enjoyed this activity, using the available resources to create the face of the Troll. During making their Trolls, the children talked about how the troll looked, using excellent describing words.
The Three Billy Goats Gruff 🐐
The children have been looking at the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff in Literacy.
Using the masks and the story hill that they had created we retold the story together with some children acting it out at the front. The children joined in using the key phrases from the story
Tasting honey 🍯
Our story this week in Literacy is The Bumblebear.
In the story, Bumblebear really enjoys eating honey! The children thought the bear might have really liked eating honey because it tastes sweet. The children then all had the opportunity to try tasting some honey. We spoke about where honey comes from and who had tried it before and who hadn’t. They sensibly and carefully spread some honey on bread before trying it.
Creating our own beehives 🐝
The children enjoyed learning all about world bee day. We created our own beehives using our own ‘stamp’. Using pictures that were in the tuff tray the children looked at the different beehives and the colours in them before creating their own.
🐝 World Bee Day 🐝
This week we have been learning all about World Bee Day. The children have been sharing with us all the facts they already know about bees and we have also been learning why bees are so important for the environment. We had a go at following a step by step guide of how to draw a Bee. The children listened to the instructions very carefully and we think you'll agree they all did a fantastic job!
We’re going on a bear hunt 🐻
This week our story in Literacy is We’re going on a bear hunt.
The children went on their own bear hunt in our outdoor learning area. The children remembered the key parts in the story and included actions such as swaying arms through the swishy swashy grass, stomping through the squelchy mud and twirling through the swirling whirling snow storm!
We even found a bear at the end of our bear hunt! It was a very friendly bear who even waved to us! The children thought this was very funny!
We then created our own story map using the key parts from the story along with pictures from our own bear hunt. The children helped to put the story into the correct order whilst matching up their own pictures to the correct part of the story.
Family Reading Event 📕
It was wonderful to welcome so many family members into FS1 today to read with the children. The children love seeing you and it’s lovely to see you all enjoying a story together.
Thank you for your continued support 😊
A reminder that our next reading event is Monday 1st July
A special visitor…✝️
Reverend Pam came to visit us. She told us what the cross means to Christians. She talked about Jesus’s life. She said that although he died he came back to life because he loved all his fellow Christians.
She taught us a hymn and the actions to go with it.
Planting Seeds 🌱
Spring has sprung in EYFS this week! The children have been exploring how plants grow and planting cress seeds.
We’re so excited to watch them grow!
Big School Clean Up
At New Moston Primary, we’re committed to being eco warriors. Recently, we’ve noticed a bit of litter in our EYFS outdoor area so we decided to do something about it. As a class, we went outside with litter pickers and a bin bag, and the children took turns to pick up bits of rubbish.
Chicks 🐣
We have had such an exciting week in EYFS as we had some tiny, fluffy visitors! It was a bit confusing at first because Ms Rashid told us we were getting chicks but we could only see eggs 🤔.
On Wednesday, though, the eggs started to crack and tiny, wet things came out. When they had dried, we realised these were the chicks and were amazed that they had come out of the eggs 🥚.
Holding the chicks was a bit scary but really nice because they were so cute and soft. We made sure to wash our hands properly after we had touched them as well.
EYFS Easter competition
As part of our Spring activities in EYFS we are pleased to inform you that we are having an Easter bonnet competition and a design an egg competition.
All children are welcome to enter!
They need to design and make a bonnet and/or HARD boiled egg at home and bring it into school on Thursday 28th March. The entries will be judged by Miss Maynard.
There will be prizes for ‘best of show’ in both competitions.
Thank you for your continued support
Mrs Rashid
Assistant Headteacher
Break the Rules - World Book Day 📚
Everyone made such a brilliant effort to celebrate world book day and participate in our break the rules day! The children enjoyed listening to a story from a different adult every hour throughout the day.
Well done everyone who took part in the spoon competition. All your creations were fantastic and we can tell you all put a lot of effort in at home. Congratulations to Charlotte and Leighton who won the prize for best spoon as well!
Rainy Day Fun
We love to make the most of all weather in FS1! This week we have been exploring with colours and water. We used dry pigment and watched what happened when it rained on them, then used spray bottles to build hand strength and speed up the experiment!
Ice Experiment
This week, we conducted an experiment to see what happens to ice when it warms up. We were amazed to see it melt under the heat of our hands, a radiator and a hairdryer!
More information on Tapestry.
EYFS Reading Event
It was fabulous to see so many families attend our reading event, the children love having you in and reading is such an important part of their development. Thank you for your continued support 😊
A reminder of future reading dates:
Monday 25th March 2:30
Monday 13th May 2:30
Monday 1st July 2:30
Our week in pictures
This week, we have:
- Explored number 4 in maths and sang counting songs
- Practised writing our names
- Learned about Chinese Lunar New Year
- Experimented in the water area
- Built houses in construction
- Baked cakes in the mud kitchen
- Strengthened our hands in our tuff trays
We’ve had another amazing week in FS1 learning and playing together!
More details and pictures on Tapestry.
Keeping ourselves clean
This week, we have been learning about germs and why it’s so important to clean ourselves.
First, did an experiment to see how germs react to soap using pepper and water. I explained the pepper represents germs. The children took turns putting soap on their fingers and touching the pepper which had been sprinkled on top of water in a dish. They were amazed to see the pepper moving away from the soap, just like germs do when we clean our hands!
We also practised washing our hands whilst signing Happy Birthday twice. This gives us enough time to wash all of those germs off!
Finally, the children watched as I used balloons to demonstrate effectively wiping a bottom.
Step 1: Tear off a strip of toilet paper
Step 2: Fold it instead of scrunching and lie flat on your hand
Step 3: Press the toilet paper against your bottom from behind and wipe from front to back.
Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3 until clean.
Making milkshakes 🥛 🍓🍌🫐
This week we have been reading the Vivian French story Oliver’s Milkshake. After sharing the story, we made our own milkshake by putting fruit and milk in a blender.
Another fantastic week in FS1!
We have had a great time learning and exploring together this week! From practicing writing our names, to exploring the number 3, and developing our social skills in our role-play areas, every day is a great day at New Moston Primary!
The Dentist 🦷 🪥
We had a visit from the dentist this week to teach us how important it is to keep our teeth nice and healthy! We learnt that we need to brush our teeth twice a day, once in the morning and again before bed.
Because we impressed the dentist so much, she gave us our very own toothbrushes to help us take care of our teeth!
More pictures on Tapestry.
Snow Day!
We had super excited children coming into school this week because of the snow! After registration, we all got cosy and warm in our coats, hats, scarves and gloves and went outside!
More pictures on Tapestry.
Party Time! 🎉🎁🎄
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas, however you celebrate.
Reading Morning
It was lovely to welcome so many parents and carers to share a story with the children this morning, all children had a story read to them by an adult and there was lots of discussions about what was happening in the story; what came next and what books the children had read. We look forward to welcoming you into the Nursery again soon.
FS1 Christmas Photographs by Leanne Hindle Photography
Halloween Experiment 🎃
As part of our learning around Halloween we put on our scientist hats to explore what happens to pumpkins after Halloween.
Dariela said that pumpkins, “Go in the bin.” but we decided to keep one and see what happens to it. We took it in turns put a handful of soil into a large jar, pushed the pumpkin inside and sealed the lid with tape. Our pumpkin is now on our windowsill and we’re looking forward to seeing what happens over the next few months.
Saint thinks, “It will grow.” and Ellen thinks, “We will get a new pumpkin.”
Look out for updates throughout the year.
Show Racism the Red Card
Today we wore red to show racism the red card. We explored different skin colours through the story, ‘The Smeds and The Smoos’ by Julia Donaldson and talked about how Janet and Bill wanted to be friends but their families said no. We discussed how Janet and Bill were feeling,
Renesmae - “sad”
Zay - ‘angry’
The children were then asked if it mattered what our friends looked like and we decided it didn’t matter as long as they were kind.
⭐️ Zog ⭐️
This week in Literacy, we have focused our learning around the story, ‘Zog’ by our author of the half term, Julia Donaldson.
Over the week we have read the story, watched the story, taken part in Dragon School like Zog and started sequencing the story by ordering the activities Zog did whilst at Dragon School.
During Dragon School we learnt:-
⭐️ to fly and soar
⭐️ to roar
⭐️ to breathe fire
⭐️ to catch a princess
Everyone then received their very own gold star badge for completing Dragon School (and for our newest members of Nursery, their first full week in school!) ⭐️
Feelings
This week we have been exploring feelings through the book ‘The Colour Monster’ by Anna Llenas. We shared what made us feel happy, what made us feel sad and how we felt today.
Nursery 2023/2024
We look forward to welcoming you all to Nursery on Monday, we have been busy meeting all the new faces and getting the environment ready for a wonderful year together 💚
Archive 2022-2023
Potatoes 🥔
We have potatoes!! 🥔
Today Miss Toshkesi and the children dug up some of our first crop of potatoes; we will be tasting them tomorrow and I’m sure they’ll all let you know what they think!
Sports Day🏅
We had a lovely morning taking part in Sports Day in the Infant Hall 🏃♂️🎽🏅
🌟 ladder relay
🌟 beanbag throw
🌟 dressing obstacle race
Then took part outside when the weather changed
🌟 penalty shootout
🌟 timed jump
Take a look at the photos 📸
EYFS events
We have lots going on in the next couple of weeks so please take note of these dates:
EYFS sports day
Monday 17th July
All children can wear sports clothes, trainers and sensible shoes only please. No heels or sandals please.
FS1 10-11.30 EYFS playground
FS2 1.30-2.45 School field
EYFS Fun day
Wednesday 19th July
Children can wear what they like for the day but must wear sensible shoes-no heels or sandals.
Thank you to everyone who has already paid £10 for their child. If you haven't paid, please do so via Pay 360.
Thursday 20th July
School is out for Summer!
If you have any questions, please speak to a member of the team.
Thank you
Class Photo Day
We will be having our yearly whole class photos taken this week on Thursday 29th June 📸
World Environment Day 🌎
Today we enjoyed learning about our World and how we can help to improve the environment we live in based on the theme was ‘litter’. We explored the story ‘The Odd Fish’ which looked at the amount of litter that is thrown into our oceans and seas every year. We talked about how this impacts the living things in the oceans and discussed how we could make our oceans ‘happy’ again. The children had the opportunity to explore the water tray full of litter which on removal uncovered sea creatures that had become trapped and covered.
We also received a letter from the ‘Litterbug’ who needed our help; she had dropped litter in the outdoor environment and needed our help to sort it for recycling. The children went on a ‘litter’ hunt and then we sorted it into two groups- plastic and cardboard and explained the importance of recycling.
Sun Safety ☀️
This week we are learning all about being safe; keeping ourselves safe; and people who help keep us safe. Today we looked at being safe in the sun; to become ‘Sun Safe Superstars’ we must follow the five ‘S’ rules.
☀️SLIP - on a t-shirt
☀️SLAP - on a hat
☀️SLOP - on some suncream
☀️SUNGLASSES
☀️SHADE
Follow the link below to remember the rules again with George.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ghJsZug60
M is for Melanin
This week we have continued with our learning around Colour, exploring books by our Author of the Half Term, Tiffany Rose. We watched the story, M is for Melanin and learnt that melanin gives us -
Rebeka - skin colour
Grace - hair colour
Raine - eye colour
We then talked about the differences between Mrs Bennett and Ms Khatri and decided it doesn’t matter that we have differences we are all special and important. Our second story by Tiffany Rose took us to the library, where we read Dear Reader: A Love Letter to Libraries we learnt that lots of books have white characters so Tiffany Rose wanted to change that by celebrating people of colour too and making sure there are books for libraries to stock.
Remember that we are all different and it is important that we are all celebrated and represented ❤️
Colours and Feelings
This week we continue with our learning around colour; we talked about how different colours can represent different feelings - blue when you’re feeling sad and red when you’re feeling angry. We watched ‘The Colour Monster’ and had the opportunity to share the colour we were feeling and why. We also explored the story, ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’ and how the crayons were feeling and listened to the Pharell Williams song, ‘Happy’ and shared what makes us feel happy.
Colour Mixing
As part of our colour learning we have explored colour mixing.
We learnt that red ❤️, yellow 💛 and blue 💙 are the primary colours that all other colours are made from.
Today we explored whole class and tomorrow everyone will have the opportunity to explore during discovery time. We used paint on hands to show the primary colours then rubbed hands together to mix the colours up and create a new colour.
We learned:
red and blue make purple
❤️+💙=💜
blue and yellow make green
💙+💛=💚
yellow and red make orange
💛+❤️=🧡
Ordering Numbers
To support our number recognition we have been ordering numbers 0-7. We created human number lines using large number cards; we made it extra tricky by jumbling the numbers up and having different children work out what number came next and identifying out of the group.
🇬🇧King Charles III
Coronation Celebration🇬🇧
We have had a lovely day celebrating the King’s Coronation; we had the opportunity to make crowns, pictures and flags. We ate jelly and had a lovely afternoon tea on the grass this afternoon.
Special shout out to our flag competition winner; Miss Maynard had a very tough time choosing, thank you for all the entries.
Eid Celebration 🎊 🕌
Today we have explored the celebration of Eid. Here is what we have learnt:
Oisìn remembered that the celebration is called Eid
Bobby told us that Muslims celebrate Eid
Ameera shared with us that she had lots of yummy food and wore pretty clothes to celebrate Eid with her family
Grace remembered that Muslims pray in Mosques
During discovery time we had a look at mosques and designed our own; painted moon crests and created our own henna patterns.
We have also tried chapatis, which Raine described as “like wraps”. As well as dates which were a bit like raisins and are what lots of Muslims eat to break the fast following Ramadan.
Eid Mubarak 💚
Happy Eid to all those celebrating today, enjoy the delicious food and have the best day.
We look forward to celebrating Eid and learning all about how Muslims celebrate on Monday with our children.
Welcome Back
We have had a wonderful first week back, introducing new learning and exploring the new provision.
St George’s Day
Today we have been learning about St George’s Day; we learnt that people celebrate this day to honour St. George and the sacrifices he made for his beliefs, and the many heroic deeds he took part in.
We watched a video which explained how people celebrate St George’s Day then shared what we had learnt:
Easter Parade 🐣
We had a lovely time at the Easter Parade this morning, the eggs and bonnets were all decorated so beautifully; Miss Maynard had a very hard time judging!
We hope the well-deserved winners enjoy their Easter books and Miss Maynard kindly bought EVERY child a chocolate bunny too!
Have a wonderful Easter and we look forward to seeing you all in the Summer term ☀️
Eco-Warrior Cake Sale 🧁
This week the Eco-Warriors came down to nursery with a selection of cupcakes for sale to raise money for ‘The Marine Conservative Society’ to help protect our oceans and seas.
The children went up to the cake stall to give their donation and choose a cupcake to eat.
Thank you for your kind donations 🌊
The school book fair.📚
This week the children had a look around the book fair. The year six students helped the nursery children read titles and pick out their favourite books.
The children were all very polite and thanked their lovely helpers.
A big thank you to all of the families who came and purchased a book from the schools book fair. 📚
Name writing.✍️
The children in nursery have started to practice name writing every morning as they come into school. Practicing once a day has helped the children with the process and sets them up for the day ahead.
All of the nursery team are very proud of the progress that the children have made. Well done everyone, keep up the hard work.😁✏️
A visit from the dentist.🦷🪥
This week the dentist visited our school to tell us all about our oral health and how to brush our teeth properly.
All of the children were given a new toothbrush from the dentist, so they can practice brushing their teeth properly at home.😁
Let it snow.☃️❄️
The children were very excited to see that it had snowed this week. They had lots of fun making snow angels and snow men in our outdoor provision area.
Saying goodbye to the ducklings.🦆
This week the children had the opportunity to hold one of the ducklings before we said our goodbyes.
They handled the ducklings safely and with care.
World book day!📚✨
To celebrate world book day this year the children came dressed as their favourite book characters. Throughout the day all of the adults in FS1 have each read their favourite stories to the children.
Thank you to the children for all getting involved and a big thank you to all our families for their efforts. The children all looked fantastic!📖✨
We finished off the day by doing a class book swap and parents came into nursery to read to the children. Thank you to everyone who came along! 📖📚
The ducklings visited nursery.🦆🦆🦆
The children were able to watch the ducklings paddle in the water tray this week. The children were very excited to finally meet our special visitors. They all laughed along as the ducklings splashed around in the water.🐥
They’ve arrived 🦆
Farmer Jodie from Incredible Eggs delivered our 5 duck eggs!!
They are ready to hatch and Farmer Jodie has said if we are really quiet, we might hear them churp/tweet inside the shells!
The children have visited in small groups, they were very quiet 🤫
Mental health and wellbeing day.
Mental health and wellbeing day at New Moston Primary School was our version of the #HelloYellowDay from the mental health charity for young people, Young Minds.
To raise money for Young Minds the children wore yellow in support of mental health and wellbeing.
As a part of our MHWB dat all the children took part in a yoga session and completed some mindfulness activities. This included learning how to self sooth through breathing techniques and making a 'helping hand' of strategies to help us learn how to manage our own MHWB.
How to care for our teeth.
Recently the children have been learning about how to take care of our teeth. We have learnt about the role of dentists and what they do. The children have also watched clips on how to brush our teeth properly so they have strong and healthy teeth. We then looked at how different kinds of food and drinks can affect the health of our teeth.
Little Red Riding Hood.
In Nursery we have been reading 'Little Red Riding Hood' and had class discussion about the big bad wolf.
During our literacy lessons the children have been able to sequence and recall the whole story.
We went onto create a class wanted poster that was filled with some amazing adjectives that the children had generated.
The Colour Monster
Every morning after registration, the children have the opportunity have some self-care time and reflect on how they are feeling. In Nursery we do this by relating our feeling to the monsters in the book 'The Colour Monster'. The children walk up to the class feelings board and identify how they feel at the beginning of each day. We then take some time to talk about why we might feel this way and suggest things that we could do to help us manage our own emotions.
Chinese New Year!
The children have enjoyed learning about different celebrations from around the world in our topic lessons. To celebrate Chinese New Year we set up different activities in the provision for the children to enjoy.
The children have loved dressing up in traditional Chinese clothing, having a go at writing numbers in Chinese and also making their own lantern decorations for the New Year.
Free delicious bagels.
From Monday (16th January) FREE bagels will be available to all children daily as soon as they start school in the mornings. If you would like any further information is provided on our school website.
hhtps://www.newmoston.manchester.sch.uk/bagel-breakfast/
Meeting with class teachers.
Miss Webster and Miss Bennet will be delivering presentations about how to support your child at home for Phonics and Maths via zoom.
The phonics meeting will be at 12pm on 24th January with Miss Bennet.
The Maths meeting will be at 12pm on Wednesday 25th January.
The zoom links will both be posted on Tapestry and we look forward to speaking to you all soon.
A visit from Santa!
Nursery had a visit from the one and only Santa Claus! We all had the opportunity to meet Santa one to one and to tell him what we have all wrote on our Christmas list.
Merry Christmas everyone and have a lovely Christmas break. We cannot wait to see you all in the New Year!
Nursery Christmas Party!
The children had lots of fun at the EYFs Christmas party. They took turns playing a lots of fun party games such as pass the parcel, musical bumps and musical chairs. We even shown off our best dance moves during our Christmas disco before getting cosy with some treats and a Christmas film!
A visit from Pastor Bob.
The nursery was visited by Pastor Bob today, who kindly read the Christmas Story to the children.
We learnt about how Christians around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. We spoke about how people celebrate Jesus's birthday by having Christmas cake, gifting presents and having a special Christmas meal.
The children were well behaved and very respectful for our special visitor.
Christmas provision!
The children have enjoyed accessing the different kinds of Christmas related provision around nursery this week. They have been showing off their fine motor skills by decorating snow flakes with small beads.
Christmas Dress rehearsal
Today we had our first dress rehearsal for our Christmas show. The children did extremely well and looked amazing!
Just a friendly reminder that Seedlings Christmas show is on Monday 12th December and Saplings Christmas show is on Tuesday 13th December. We look forward to seeing you all.
EYFS Christmas party 🎄
The EYFS Christmas party is on Thursday 15th December. We are asking for your help in catering the party, as we do each year.
Please send enough for 10 children please 💗
Requests are as follows:
Drinks; Cherry
Crisps; Saplings
Biscuits; Seedlings
Cake; Honeysuckle
Sweets; Blossom
Thank you in advance 🥰
EYFS Christmas sing-a-long 🎄🎅🏽
Christmas has come to the EYFS at NMPS! Rehearsals are in full swing for our Christmas Sing-a-long!
PLEASE send in your child’s costume or Christmas jumper ASAP. If you need any help with this please talk to any member of the team 💗
Each class will be performing for their own parents. Dates and times are as follows:
We will take a picture of every child in their Christmas jumper/costume and class photos. These will be posted onto tapestry.
During the shows, IF YOU HAVE SAID YOU DON’T WANT PICTURES OF YOUR CHILD ON SOCIAL MEDIA, YOUR CHILD WILL BE TAKEN OFF STAGE BEFORE OUR FAMILIES WILL BE GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE PICTURES OF THEIR CHILD.
Welcome to FS1!
Our Christmas Nativity.
Nursery have been working very hard by practicing the Christmas Nativity. They are currently working on singing Christmas songs and joining in with actions. Please encourage your children to practice and show off their singing skills at home.
We look forward to seeing you all on show day!
Name writing.
The majority of our children are making great progress in their writing and are beginning to show recognisable letters when writing their names. The children are increasingly given opportunities to write/mark make independently in our provision areas.
Friendship!
In our topic lessons we have been looking at friendships and having discussions around what makes a kind friend and a unkind friend. The children have been able to look at images and categorise them into kind and unkind.
The children have also made a friendship potion full of everything that makes a kind friend such as kindness, sharing, taking turns and using kind hands in school.
Outdoor fun for the EYFS staff 🍃
New Moston Primary School is delighted to announce that we have been awarded a Local School Nature Grant, thanks to players of the People's Postcode Lottery.
Our pupils will be benefitting from Log Seats in the Early Years playground, a Wildlife Kit to be used in Gardening Club and a Woodland Activity Kit which will be used at Forest School.
In addition to this our Early Years Team received training to increase the outdoor provision available to our pupils.
The EYFS staff used natural resources to make fly away art as part of their training
Pupils played an important role in applying for the grant and selected equipment that would benefit their peers.
The project is run by Learning Through Landscapes and is funded by People's Postcode Lottery, Postcode Neighbourhood Trust, Postcode Places Trust, Postcode Society Trust, Postcode Local Trust or Postcode Community Trust.
Fiona Macnab from Learning Through Landscapes
The World Cup.
The children had lots of fun celebrating England in the World Cup today. After cheering along to the football match, some of the children were inspired to play their own game of football in our outdoor provision area.
Children in Need Day.
All of the children dressed up for children in need day. They were head to toe in polka dots and had lots of fun showing off their amazing outfits! Thank you to all of the parents, carers and children for getting into the Children in Need spirit.
Crash landing!
We were in for a big surprise when we went to the carpet for our literacy lesson this week, the carpet was covered in glitter! There was also a teddy, wellies and a box left behind. We wondered where they had all come from and stumbled across the book 'Whatever Next'. We then realised that baby bear must have crash landed in our classroom. The children had lots of questions that needed to be answered. So we read the book and looked out for any clues.
Remembrance Day.
Nursery remembered those who have fought and died for our country by making poppies. We also participated in a two minute silence at 11am on the 11th November to show our respects.
We are so proud of all the children for being so quiet and respectful whilst we took a moment to reflect.
Friday yoga.
Every Friday the nursery children take part in a weekly yoga session. This provides the children with an opportunity to reflect on the week, be mindful and to relax their bodies and minds.
Aliens at New Moston primary school?
We were in for a surprise today…we returned to the carpet to find it covered in underpants! 🩲
We didn’t know where they had come from or who they belonged to. Then the phone rang and it was someone from a Space Agency to tell us that aliens had been spotted in the sky over New Moston. They said a trail of underpants had been left and we had to read a story called ‘Aliens Love Underpants’ to learn all about them!
We made sure to check the underpants in our classroom to check there were no aliens left behind!!
Outdoor learning
The Nursery children have lot of fun learning outdoors from playing in the mud kitchen to getting creative by making wands out of sticks a leaves. Some children have even used the different outdoor areas to develop their own writing by making marks in the mud, sand pits and glitter trays.
All about Space!
This half term the children are learning about space. We introduced the topic by reading Whatever Next! by Jill Murphy. The children have been very creative and had a picnic on the moon just like baby bear in the book.
Mark making!
In nursery the children have been mark making and telling adults around the school what they have wrote. We have used different kinds of resources to help the children start to write such as sand, paint brushes, mud, sticks, whiteboards and white board pens to name a few.
Weekly mile walk!
Every week we complete a weekly mile as a part of our schools health and well-being project.
The weekly mile is split into two sessions so the children don’t get too tired. The children had lots of fun getting fit and healthy. I am so proud of you all, keep up the hard work.
Autumn fun.
To welcome the Autumn season we have created an Autumn themed tuff tray. This includes different colour leaves, conkers, pinecones and pumpkins of different shapes and colours. The children have enjoyed exploring in the autumn tray and have had a lot of discussion around the different shapes and sizes of our funny looking pumpkins!
Forces - Push!
Black History Month - Rosa Parks
Tug of war
This week during topic we have been looking at forces. The children all had lots of fun participating in a friendly tug of war so they could look at the two forces pull and push.
Nature walk
During phonics we have gone on a nature walk to listen to all of the different sounds that we could hear around us! The children had lots of fun getting involved in outdoor learning.
Black History Month
To introduce our learning around Black History Month we watched and talked about the following episode of JoJo and Gran Gran.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001crtf/jojo-gran-gran-specials-1-its-time-to-go-on-a-voyage
We then looked at the differences between JoJo and Gran Gran in comparison to Goldilocks and discussed how our differences make us special.
Re-enacting
The Three Billy Goats Gruff 🐐
The children decided to lie underneath the slide and shout, “Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?” as others were sliding down. This initiated a game in which the children took turns banging their feet on the slide as the ‘troll’ shouted. They were engaged for a prolonged period of time, showed excellent turn-taking and extended their play by becoming the different goats.
Fantastic imagination everyone, you all looked like you were having so much fun!
Autumn time!
The children have been working very hard this week. They have been creating trees and hedgehogs linking with our topic Autumn. During our carpet time we have been discussing the changes we can see.
Below you will find our tree and hedgehog paintings.
Thank you Ma’am
In honour of Queen Elizabeth, the children have created a piece of collective art; it has been proudly displayed for all the parents and children to see on their way into school.
We have briefly discussed the Queen’s passing as it has been brought up by the children; we have read stories including The Queen’s Handbag and have watched age appropriate videos from the recent Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
A big welcome to our new starters 💚
We have had a wonderful first week, exploring the environment, listening to stories and developing new friendships. We are super proud of how resilient the children have been taking this big step as they start their journey with us at New Moston.
Hello and welcome to the
FS1 Blog for 2022-23!
Archive 2021-2022
⬇️⬇️⬇️ Please check our blog below regularly to see what we get up to each week! ⬇️⬇️⬇️
🪩 End of Year Disco 🪩
The children had a wonderful time at our end of year disco.
We had a dance outside under the trees with FS2 before moving inside where we sang some songs and took part in action rhymes.
The children then all had a hotdog and drink before tucking in to treats from the tuck shop!
We finished off with more dancing before home time.
Science
As part of our Science enquiry learning, the children took part in a range of experiments which linked previous learning taught throughout the year.
We looked at the story of the Gingerbread Man and discussed helping him cross the river in a boat; we made boats of paper and foil and used a plastic toy boat before sending the gingerbread men off on their journeys across the water tray. We predicted the toy boat would be best for helping the Gingerbread men; the children were very excited to see the paper boat take on water and cheered when both our foil boat and the plastic boat ensured the gingerbread men were safe!
We then reviewed our learning of the parts of a plant and discussed how we thought a plant absorbed water and where it went to help keep the plant alive and to help it grow. The children were given a celery stick to look at and as a class we discussed where the water entered the plant and how it travels around the plant. We added some food colouring to the glass of water and observed what happened after a few minutes. We discovered that the plant absorbed the water from the roots and it then travelled up ‘little veins’ within the plant. During discovery time the children independently had a go at doing an observational drawing to show how the plant absorbed the water.
Children’s Mental Health Week
Thoughtful Thursday
Today we learnt all about being thoughtful. We talked about our feelings and how we can make other people feel happy through our actions.
We discussed different ways in which we can be thoughtful in school and shared ideas.
During discovery time, the children were challenged to perform a thoughtful act; it was lovely to see cuddles shared between friends, pictures gifted & some beautiful turn-taking.
Children’s Mental Health Week
Teamwork Tuesday
Continuing with Children’s Mental Health week, we celebrated Teamwork Tuesday with a balloon game.
The aim of the game was to keep the balloon up in the air and not let it touch the ground. We worked in small groups with the rest of the class in supporting roles, cheering for their friends then sat down for a whole class game.
The children had lots of fun and although they were very excited they were still aware of others around them and made sure everyone was safe.
Well done! 💫
Children’s Mental Health Week Mindful Monday
This week we are celebrating children’s mental health week, each day has a different theme and the children will be learning a variety of techniques and activities to help promote and support positive mental health.
For Mindful Monday we concentrated on our bodies and using breathing techniques. We listened to the meditation pirate and followed their instructions to relax our bodies.
We then focused on our breathing, breathing in through our nose to ‘smell the flower’ and breathing out through our mouth to ‘blow out the candle’.
We also learnt candle blowing using our fingers for when we are feeling angry and frustrated. The children held up five finger, took five deep breaths and ‘blew out’ a finger on each outward breath.
The children were all engaged and focused really well on their breathing. 💗
🌳 Outdoor Learning 🌳
🌳 in the Forest School Area 🌳
Today the nursery children went to the Forest School area on the school field to take part in some outdoor learning.
The children have shown great interest in bugs in the playground so to further that knowledge we read the story ‘Mad About Mini beasts’ then split into small groups to hunt for bugs with special magnifying tubs. Throughout the day we found a whole range of things; spiders, cobwebs, bees, flies, slugs, snails, caterpillar holes in leaves, beetles, ants, butterflies and a bug we couldn’t identify!
The children then chose their favourite mini beast and modelled their movements on the way back to class.
It was lovely to see the children explore in an unfamiliar area of school and we will definitely be back to take part in more outdoor learning soon!
Rainbow Day ❤️🧡💛💚🌈
Today we celebrated International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia with Rainbow Day 🌈 The children came to school dressed in an array of beautiful colourful outfits to celebrate Rainbow Day 🌈 The children have enjoyed sharing some new stories. We have used stories to talk about how different families can be. We have also drawn our own family portraits for a display across school!
Goodbye chicks 🐥
After a wonderful two weeks, we have said goodbye to the chicks 🐥. The children had a fantastic experience watching them change and grow; learning to handle them carefully; and discussing the life cycle of the chick which raised the age old question, what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
🏠Home Learning Challenge🏠
Can the children remember the lifecycle of the chicken?
Handling the chicks 🐥
This afternoon the chicks came over to Nursery to visit us ready for going home with Mrs Bennett for the weekend. The children were very excited to welcome the chicks into Nursery and even got to hold them, being very gentle! 🐥
A visit to see the chicks 🐥
Today we got to meet the chicks - they’ve all hatched!
We were all very gentle & calm with them. Although some of the children were a little nervous at first, they all had a little stroke 🥰
🥚A Special Arrival🐣
Yesterday we got a special delivery to school 🥚 ready to show the children this morning. Much to our surprise there were already four little chicks that had hatched overnight before we even got chance to see the eggs and guess what might be inside!!
Everyone got the chance to visit the little chicks, our current count is 7, with some eggs still to hatch. Once they have dried out and fluffed up we will move them out of the incubator and will get the chance to see them again; hold them; learn about how to care for them and clean them out!
Keep an eye out for chick updates 🐣
🪩 International Dance Day 🪩
To celebrate International Dance Day 2022 we took part in a whole nursery boogie outside in the sunshine. It was great to see everyone showing off their moves, our favourite songs were “I like to move it, move it” and the “Party Freeze Song”.
Easter Parade 🐣
Easter with Bob
As part of our learning around the Christian celebration of Easter, we had a visit by Bob the Pastor (who is also Mrs Studholme’s daddy).
Bob talked about different ways Easter is celebrated:
🐣receiving and eating chocolate eggs
🐣making Easter cards
🐣eating hot cross buns
🐣making Easter bonnets
🐣going to church ⛪️
Bob also explained why Easter is so important to Christians. He said that Jesus died but then came back to life. Jesus came back to life because he loves us.
The children really enjoyed meeting Bob and they learnt the sign language for ‘Easter egg’ and ‘god loves you’ too.
Reading morning 📖💙
It was wonderful to finally welcome parents into class this morning.
The children really enjoyed reading with you all, thank you for coming and we look forward to seeing you all again soon. 📖 💙
World Book Day 🌍 📚
We have had a wonderful day together celebrating our love of books!
The children looked fantastic & enjoyed some brilliant stories together.
We …
- had class story time throughout the day
- held a book swap
- had special visitors share their favourite book - and we got a new book to take home which we read along together at home time because we just couldn’t wait!
Filling and planting 🌱🌼
We have been very lucky to get some new planters in the FS playground. We spent some time this morning finding the right place for them, then the children had the opportunity to get their hands dirty and we filled them up with compost ready for planting. When asked what we should plant, flowers was the most popular answer but some children asked for trees, grass and strawberries!
Once all the compost was used up, we found some bulbs which we planted in the three planters near the nursery, keep a look out for any sign of growth! 🌼
As part of our learning around internet safety, we shared the story, ‘The Adventures of Smartie the Penguin’.
We learnt how important it is to stay safe online; what to do if we see something we don’t like or aren’t sure of; and not to speak back to strangers when playing online.
Smarties’ Mum taught us a song the help keep us safe:
🎶 Before you tap and click…
You need to stop and think…
And TELL someone!🎶
We thought about who we could tell and the children came up with the answers; Mummy, Dad and teachers.
Well done everyone, it’s important to remember these rules to help us stay safe on the internet.
Exploring our New Provision!
The children have enjoyed discovering and exploring the new areas set up in our provision. Take a look at what we've been up to!
The Dentist Came to Visit! 🦷
This afternoon the dental team nurse came to visit us in Nursery! She talked to us about the importance of looking after our teeth. She was very impressed that the children could tell her ways that we can look after our teeth and gums and to keep our mouths healthy! She talked to us about brushing our teeth twice a day, using a pea sized blob of toothpaste does the job, showed us a 2 minute timer and how to brush for 2 minutes in circles on our teeth and gums. She talked through different kinds of foods that are healthy and unhealthy for your teeth. She told us the importance of visiting the dentist to make sure our teeth stay healthy.
Every child even got to take home a toothbrush and toothpaste with them too!
Pen Disco!
The children have enjoyed exploring in our new Pen Disco area during our discovery time. They have been creating marks on paper to music.
17.01.2022 - Another Day Another Half a Mile 🚶🏻♀️🚶🏽🚶🏼♂️
Our lunchtime organisers joined us today for our half mile walk! We chatted about our weekends, had races and sang songs 🤩
Same again on Friday 🚶🏻♀️🚶🏽
African Animals 🐘
Today the children learnt all about African animals and how they have adapted to their habitats. The children loved learning all about the animals camouflage, their diets and how fast or big they are!
14.01.2022 - Another Weekly Half Mile 🚶🏻♀️🚶🏽🚶🏼♂️
This afternoon we went on our second half mile walk! The children loved walking in the sunshine and were very good at avoiding using our new bikes until we were all done. It was very tempting but they showed brilliant patience and self-restraint ⭐️
10.01.2022 - Our Weekly Half Mile
We have started a whole school health and well-being project of walking a weekly mile. Because our children have very little legs we have split our weekly mile into two sessions & today we did our first half mile walk around the playground!
The children powered through and were very tired at the end! As we get used to the distance we will try and do a mile in one go!
We’re so proud of them, well done children, you’ll sleep well tonight 🚶🏽🚶🏻♀️🚶🏼♂️
Christmas Party Day 🎄🎅
The children had a very busy day for our Christmas Party and looked lovely in their Party/Christmas outfits!
We played lots of party games, such as Musical Statues and Pass The Parcel, we ate lots of party food (Thank you to parents for providing this!) we danced away with our friends and the children had a very special visitor pay them a visit at the end of the day!
We hope you all have a lovely Christmas break and we'll see you all in the New Year ❤
Christmas is coming 🎅🏼
The children have had a very Christmassy day, we did our performance for the Honeysuckle parents this morning and have spent the rest of the day exploring the Christmas provision and making Christmas crafts to bring home in Friday; we can’t wait for you to see them! 🎄⛄️
EYFS Chocolate Raffle!
We are selling raffle tickets for a chocolate raffle. It’s £1 a strip. We will be using the money raised to buy plants and flowers for the EYFS outdoors. Tickets can be bought in the morning or at home time There are 3 prizes! Thank you!
Pantosaurus!
Today we have been watching Pantosaurus and learning how to keep our bodies safe. The children have learnt that their bodies belong only to them, their private parts are covered by pants and if someone asks to see or touch under your pants we say ‘No!’ and tell a safe adult.
You can find the video here on YouTube at the following link:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-lL07JOGU5o
Winter Tree 🌲⛄️❄️
The children in Nursery have been busy completing winter crafts to decorate our season tree in our cloakroom area. The children have enjoyed making melted snowmen, fingerprint snow trees and Christmas tree handprints. We think it looks lovely ❄️
Decorating Our Christmas Tree 🎄
On Friday the children really enjoyed helping Miss Honeyford to put up our main tree in Nursery. The children helped to spread out the branches of the tree and then enjoyed placing the decorations and tinsel onto the tree. We all think it looks fantastic! 😊
🌟 Above and Beyond 🌟
A big well done for going above and beyond in Nursery this week and making the Nursery staff proud! Miss Maynard wrote her name in her proud book, gave her a gold sticker and a squishy unicorn prize!!
Fun in the snow ❄️
Today the children had lots of fun exploring the snow outside!
Children in Need 💛
The children came to school in their PJs and gave donations to show support to the charity Children in Need. Throughout the day we learnt about what the charity does with the money raised and the children made their own Pudsey hats 💛
Remembrance Day 
Remembrance Poppies
The children decorated some poppies today to remember those that fought to keep us safe
🌟 Above and Beyond 🌟
These children have gone above and beyond in Nursery this week. They paid a special visit to Miss Maynard, our headteacher to have their name put in her special book, get a prize and visit Pippa, Our school dog as a special treat
Our Week In Pictures
Firework Art 🎆
Today we talked about Bonfire Night and how we remember Guy Fawkes, we also talked about keeping safe around bonfires and fireworks and listening to our adults. Lots of children told us they were going to see fireworks over the weekend so we decided to make our own firework pictures.
Happy Half Term 
We hope all the children in nursery have a lovely half term and we can't wait to see you all back ready to learn next week!
We are so proud of you!
Today to mark the end of the children's first half term in our Nursery we had a little celebration afternoon. We are so proud of all the children who have settled into our Nursery routines amazingly these last few weeks. To celebrate the children's hard work we played some party games this afternoon, including musical statues and had a dance off. We then had a special treat off Mrs Bennett to end the day perfectly. Here are some of the pictures of us playing our party games and enjoying our treat
Wear Red Day!
Today we wore red to show racism the red card!
Conversation Starters
We love to spark the children's conversation skills here in Nursery so we asked parents if they would send some family pictures in to us so we can use these throughout our learning. We've also used some of the pictures to create a family photo wall in our home corner. We can't wait to hear the children talking about these with each other
New areas in our Provision!
The staff have been very busy in Nursery creating some more new areas for our children to explore when they come back after half term!
Halloween Provision
The children have really enjoyed our halloween inspired areas in the provision this week.
🌟 Above and Beyond 🌟
These children have gone above and beyond this week. We are so proud of them! 🌟
Our Week in Pictures 
Meet the Staff!
The children have painted some fantastic portraits of the staff working in Nursery, we are very pleased with them!
Twit Twoo 🦉🍂
The autumn crafts continue! The children used felt and card to make their very own owls 🦉
We are family!
Number Songs!
This week we have been using puppets to enhance our number songs. The children have been singing number songs up to 5!
We would love you to sing along at home too. We have been singing -
🐒 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed
🧁 5 currant buns in a bakers shop
🐸 5 little speckled frogs
🐣 5 little ducks
If you aren’t familiar with the songs, YouTube is a great place to start.
Encourage your child to show the correct number on their fingers.
In Nursery we...
Our Week in Pictures 
We have had a busy week this week in nursery, lots of autumn crafts, using our senses to explore our surroundings, using our imagination in our play, learning to put our coats on independently, trying new things and our first week getting into our keyworker groups to do some learning!
Our Autumn Displays 🍂
The children have been working really hard this week doing lots of different crafts to create our autumn displays around our nursery. We can't wait to see what else we can add to them in the coming weeks!
Leaf Printing 🍂
Today the children have been doing some leaf prints to add to our Autumn display. The children enjoyed choosing the colours for their leaves and we talked about how leaves change from green to lots of other colours during this time of year.
Enjoying our New Kitchen 🧑🍳
The children have been enjoying playing with our new kitchen equipment. We are really lucky that Ms Rashid ordered us a new kitchen so now we have one inside and outside! They were taking it in turn to cook, eat the food and explore all the new equipment.
Exploring the Provision!
The children have been enjoying exploring our new and enhanced areas in the provision this week! Take a look at some of them above!
We are also very lucky that we have been able to add a disco light to our indoor music area too! The children have been enjoying making their own music with the instruments and dancing along under the lights!
Our First Big Question!
This morning we had our first big question in Nursery! We all sat in a big circle on the carpet and we used Fred the frog to help us to take it in turns to share our answer with the rest of the class. In our big question sessions, known as P4C (philosophy for children) there are no right or wrong answers, we love to hear the children’s opinions and get them thinking about different topics! As the children have been with us in nursery for some weeks now our first big question was “What is your favourite thing about nursery?” as we discussed about settling in and the children’s interests. All the children participated in the session and sat beautifully on the carpet waiting for their turn to hold Fred the frog and listen to the rest of the class’ answers. Here are some of the children's answers above!
Splashing in puddles 💦💦
The children made the most of the rainy weather this week and have enjoyed jumping and splashing around in the puddles with their wellies on!
Snack Time Superstars ⭐️
Nursery have started to settle into nursery routines brilliantly. We have all been enjoying eating our snack together before provision time.
Meet Our Nursery Classes!
Look at our fabulous display contributed to by all the children in Nursery!
We have looked at our facial features in the mirror, talked about our skin, hair and eye colours, how many eyes we have and what our hair is like. We then had a go at writing our name independently.
We will complete this task again at the end of the year to show a comparison in our learning.
Well done everyone, we are so proud of you all!
Role Play Area - We Need Your Help!
Our new role play area for the next few weeks is going to be a baby clinic. The children will be able to feed, dress, weigh and check over the babies 😊
We would love to spark a conversation with the children about them as babies. If you have any baby pictures of your little ones that you’d be happy for us to display in the classroom please share them with us!
You can do this via Tapestry, email fs1parents@newmoston.manchester.sch.uk or you can airdrop them to our iPads - whichever is easiest for you ⭐️
Exploring Our Feelings!
This week we have been reading the story The Colour Monster to help us to understand the different feelings that we might have. Each morning after the register we will be asking the children how they are feeling and discuss the reasons why they might be feeling that way and how we can express these feelings. We have also included a 'How do you feel?' station in our provision so the children can discuss and explore their feelings with their peers throughout the day 
Learning Can Be Messy!
In Nursery we like to get messy with our learning! We have sand, water, paint, gloop, playdough, an outdoor mud kitchen and much more. Messy learning is fun!
Pippa - Our School Dog 🐶
We were very lucky that our school dog Pippa came down to Nursery to meet the new children! They were very excited and were so gentle with her
A New School Year ❤️
We have had a lovely first week welcoming our new children for this year into nursery! Here are some of the areas in our indoor provision that the children have been enjoying exploring.