Dear Parents and Guardians

I hope you have had a safe and healthy week as we move slowly towards the ‘half term’ break next Friday.

Dear Parents and guardians,

I hope you are well and a huge thank you to all of you who have contacted me this week with feedback on your experiences of becoming a temporary support teacher while juggling so many other plates at the same time. Feedback is how we can continue to improve and develop our academic and wellbeing programme.

I have just read my words from last year and I wish with all my heart that I could copy and paste them for the week that has just passed! Never in my wildest dreams did I foresee distance learning would feature in my weekly words. I often say to children that no matter how old we are it’s great to learn something new every day and that has certainly happened for all of us this week. For me, and my staff, it has all been technology based learning. We are spending the first hour or more of our working days at Google Hangouts meetings to redo the planning we had written for next term and generally catch up on things. None of us had done anything like this before and having delivered Chrome Books to all my ladies on Monday, Tuesday morning was spent getting used to these and learning how to 'hangout'! I move on to many more such meetings during the day whilst the Nursery staff research, read, create videos and try to work around their own children at home. A special well done goes to Miss Green and Mrs Freeman for their videos this week.   

As part of this week’s recycling topic we had a super visit on Tuesday from Mrs Williams, Arthur’s mummy, who talked to us about the importance of the three Rs of 'reduce', 'reuse' and 'recycle'. She showed us some environmental pictures and videos, encouraging the children to participate in the discussion which they did well. She runs a community shop 'Filling Good – Zero Waste Shop' in the Craft Coop in Nicholsons Walk, Maidenhead, where we can refill our own containers which is a wonderful way of helping to save our planet. Thank you Mrs Williams.

The Nursery children have enjoyed the topic about recycling and have used items such as bottle lids, newspaper and other scrap pieces to make pictures and have spent time sorting items by type of material.  

Transition children have been learning about the adverse effect of plastic on the oceans and set up a representative tray to sort underwater sea creatures from environmentally unfriendly items. The children celebrated Holi and experimented with powder paints.

The frog spawn collected by the Honeycomb class has now developed into tadpoles which the children are amazed by.

During the week commencing Monday 16 March the Nursery children will be learning about 'Easter', the colour yellow and the number 9. Any small toys incorporating these would be ideal as their 'show and tell' item this week. Transition children will be learning about 'Climate change' and the letters v,w.  

Spring is on the way so imagine our joy when we discovered frogspawn in the pond. The honeycomb children have already collected a small amount and have transferred it to a tank in their room with some pond water and weed. We are looking forward to watching and learning about the life cycle of frogs close up. The newts and pond skaters were also dashing about the pond which further adds to our exploration and learning. Would you believe it we found six newts which is the number of the week!

The Nursery classes have been learning about 'my planet Earth' and, referencing the colour of the week, have created pictures of our 'blue' planet. They made pancakes on Tuesday, learning about the ingredients, quantities and the mixing process. We hope that the Welsh families in our community have a lovely St David’s Day on Sunday and enjoy the daffodil pictures some of the children have made.

This week Transition children have been talking about looking after our planet and what we can recycle and where we can recycle items. They had a lovely tasting session on Tuesday sampling pancakes with lemon and sugar or honey; learning about the ingredients needed to make these and why we eat them on Shrove Tuesday.

Polite notice - please close and bolt the Nursery gate at all times for the safety of yours and other children.

It has been another busy week in the Nursery Department with all the younger children talking about their homes. Models of houses using recycled materials have been created, house numbers and names have been discussed and some children have been able to give their address. The older children have used shapes appropriately to make pictures of houses and have talked about detached, semi-detached, terraces and flats.

During the week commencing Monday 10 February the Nursery children will be learning about 'my school', the colour purple, the number 5 and the letter g. Any small toys incorporating these would be ideal as their show and tell item this week. Transition children will be learning about 'my street' and the letter b.

The cold cookery activity on Wednesday afternoon will be making pitta bread pizzas and the following ingredients will be used: pitta breads, tomato puree, mushrooms and grated cheese.