Newsletter - 12th July

I cannot believe this is my last weekly letter to you. Although the week has been short, it has been busy!

It has been wonderful to teach your children this year. My team and I have loved getting to know them. It is great to see how far the children have progressed, from the first day they walked into the setting and to where they are now. 

The highlight this week was our special pirate day where everyone dressed up as pirates, even the teachers! We were also joined by some of the Year 6 children in the morning who did some fun pirate activities. The children were all given a pirate name. In the afternoon the children enjoyed selecting other fun pirate activities including making telescopes, role playing in the pirate ship, walking the plank, looking for treasure hidden in the playdough and making treasure maps. They also enjoyed listening to different pirate stories.

In Literacy we went over all the letter sounds and it is amazing to see how well the children have progressed. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

Tapestry has allowed us to send regular updates and videos of what your children have been doing at school and for you to send us pictures of fun things they have done out of school. You will be receiving the final online journal which will be collated into a PDF. Please make sure you download your child’s journal if you wish to keep it. I hope you enjoy sharing with your children all the wonderful things they have achieved and done. This is also something your children will be able to look back on with fond memories when they are older. 

Jewish Studies:

It has been fabulous getting to know all of your wonderful children and I am so looking forward to teaching them next year in Reception. We will be continuing to learn songs, create beautiful and colourful crafts, discover new stories and we’ll also start the exciting alef-bet journey! 

Please do try to keep up with tefillah over the summer weeks. If you don’t manage one day, not to worry. Each day is a fresh start and there is always tomorrow! There are loads of gorgeous short tefillah videos available online that your child may like to sing along with. My favourites are Jewish Prayers Davening and Tefillah for Preschool Kids by Morah Stephanie's Preschool, and  Davening for Toddlers with Morah Ester, by Ester Chein. Do have a look and find one you like!

Each Friday at Kerem we have a beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat with lots of lively Shabbat songs. If you would like to play some Shabbat songs at home, for an Erev Shabbat dance, some of our class favourites can be found online. Have a look for:

I Work Six Days a Week by Rabbi B

Baruch Hashem it’s Shabbos by Yaacov Shwekey

Getting Ready for Shabbat Song by Jkids

It’s Shabbat by The Maccabeats

Shalom Sesame: Aleph Bet Song by Shalom Sesame

We wish your children a wonderful transition as they move on to their next adventure in Reception.

We hope you all have a lovely summer break. 

Kind regards

Miss Cowen, Morah Cassie and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 7th July

We have had another very busy and fun week in Nursery!

The highlight of the week was our end of year show, the children were fantastic and I am sure you will agree. They made us all so very proud with their video and all the songs they sang so confidently. Thank you to Mr Style for teaching the children all the songs and accompanying them on the day of the show.

Today the children had their second transition visit to the Reception classroom. They had a wonderful time with Mrs Ranson, playing various games and spent time getting to know one another. 

In Letters and Sounds we went over the last few letter sounds, q,v,w,x,y and z. The children enjoyed sharing the object they had brought in for their chosen letter sound. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

In Mathematics the children continued practising their counting skills. Some of the children enjoyed ordering numbers, practising writing numbers and others enjoyed finding the answer to some sums.They enjoyed learning about symmetry and that it is the same pattern on either side.They painted their butterfly pattern on one side of their paper, then pressed it together to create their symmetrical pattern. Some very pretty butterflies were created.

In Understanding the World, we continued to discuss what stage the caterpillars are at. They are still in a cocoon but hopefully any day they will become butterflies.

A while ago the children helped to plant seed potatoes in the grow bags. Some of the children enjoyed going into the garden and emptying the grow bags to see how many potatoes had grown. They were very excited as there were plenty of potatoes and enough for everyone to take home for tea. We hope you enjoyed them. Other children enjoyed cutting some of the lavender growing in the garden and took it home for their mummies. 

The children went on a bug hunt. They used magnifying glasses to see what they could find. They were really happy when they found lots of snails. They put them into the bugnoculars to watch them. The bugnoculars are a container and the lid is like a pair of binoculars. The children could see the snails really clearly as when they looked through they were magnified.

In our final  PE lesson this term the children completed a selection of activities:

• The children were split into two teams. There were balls placed on each cone and they had to run, get a ball and put it onto the other team’s cones. 
• They repeated 10 start jumps and 10 squats.
• The children had to balance on one leg for 10 seconds, pose as a plank on all fours for 10 seconds and lie on their backs with their legs raised up in the air.
• They finished the session running on the spot.

In Forest School 

• The children started the session by singing the good morning Forest School song, counting how many people there were and going round saying their names to a chosen action. 

• We went over the Forest School rules including no pick,no lick, the red flags mean stop and 123, come back to me. The children had great fun going on a pirate adventure and discussing what a pirate may use. They went into the pirate ship which was made out of sticks. They practised listening to the instructions on the ship and the actions, moving to the front and back, scrubbing the deck and climbing the rigging.
• The children were then able to choose from a selection of activities including making eye patches, pirate flags, ropes for the pirate ship, making pirate soup and catching insects using large nets.

The children have really enjoyed their introduction to Forest School and are now ready for their weekly Forest School sessions which they will have in Reception.

Jewish Studies:

This week we looked at Parashat Pinchas, in which Moshe knows he is not going to go into Eretz Yisrael. He asks Hashem to appoint a new leader. Hashem chooses Yehoshua because he is a good person and therefore able to lead Beneh Yisrael into Eretz Yisrael, as Hashem wishes. Lots of the Nursery children know people called Joshua/Yehoshua, which is fantastic. We talked about some of the leaders in our lives, from King Charles and Miss Cowen to Dougie in Hey Dougie. A good leader shows us how to behave and what to do. We learned the moves to the song Follow the Leader by DJ Rafi, which can be easily found online if you would like to listen to it at home. Some of the children also chose to colour in some beautiful intricate mindfulness colouring pages based on the name Joshua, and some Yehoshua character masks which turned out really nicely. Our main craft for this topic was a finger painted 3D depiction of Bnei Yisraels footsteps following Yehoshua. 

We also looked into The Three Weeks. The Three Weeks is a sad time when we remember the destruction of the first and second Jewish Temples. We used to have a beautiful Holy Temple in Jerusalem. During the 3 Weeks we try not to do fun things like: have weddings, listen to music, buy nice new clothes have a haircut. The "Three Weeks" happens between the 17th of Tammuz and ends with the fast of the 9th of Av. On 9th of Av both Holy Temples were set on fire.The Temples were destroyed because the Jewish people were not being kind to each other. We listened to an old favourite song of ours called B’Libi - By Uri Davidi, which is all about loving others as ourselves. We also enjoyed a fabulous version of Im Eshcachech Yerushalayim by a band called Derech Achim, both of which can be found online if you want to have a listen. We each made a beautiful burning Temple craft to take home.

On Friday we had our usual but super fun Shabbat party. The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Zac F

Shabbat Ima: Maya

Shabbat Ben: Zac M

Shabbat Bat: Ariella

Important reminders:

• Please remember Pirate Day on Tuesday 11th July.  Please send your child to school dressed up as a pirate. Please make sure the outfits are easy to put on and off for toileting. We ask that no toy weapons are sent in, for example, swords. 
• If you have not yet sent in an empty kitchen roll please can you send one in.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 30th June

We have had another very busy and fun week in Nursery!

I am so proud to see how the children have grown so much in their Personal, Social and Emotional Development during the year. They have become such a close, cohesive group and it is lovely to see them playing so well together, sharing and taking turns and mostly using their words to achieve what they need.

In Literacy the children learnt the letter sounds ‘l’ and ‘j’ this week. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they brought to represent the different sounds with their friends. Some of the children enjoyed making a ladybird for the letter sound ‘l’ by cutting out the body of the ladybird and adding the spots. For the letter sound ‘j’ some of the children enjoyed making a jellyfish using different collage materials. They also practised learning to write both letters using the correct letter formation. This also links to the areas of Expressive Art and Design and Physical Development. 

The children visited the library for the last time this year. Please make sure your child’s library book is returned no later than Wednesday 5th July.

In Mathematics we continued practising our counting skills. The children enjoyed playing maths games on the iPads.

In Understanding the World we continued the topic of ‘Change’ and talked about the life cycle of a lady bird. The children enjoyed listening to the story of ‘The Bad Tempered Ladybird’. During the story it discussed what happened at different times, for example 5 o'clock and so on. The children enjoyed coming up to change the clock to match the times mentioned in the story. Some of the children continued to play with the clock during freeflow, practising moving the hands to 12 'o'clock, 1,oclock and so on.  This also links to the area of Mathematics.

The children were so excited when the chicks were brought into the classroom for the afternoon. It was lovely to see some of the children happily holding the chicks with such care. We discussed how the chicks had grown since last week.

We also had our caterpillars delivered this week. We started discussing the lifecycle of a caterpillar. We have been watching them each day to see any changes. We will continue to discuss the different stages next week.

Some of the children enjoyed going into the garden and pulling out the onions and carrots that were ready. It was so exciting to be able to send home some produce grown in our Kerem garden. We hope you enjoyed eating them! Some of the children were excited to pick the raspberries which were washed and then eaten at snack time. As the raspberries were picked they counted them to make sure there was one for everyone in the class to try. This activity is linked to the area of Mathematics.

In Music this week the children continued to practise for our end of year show. The children are so excited to share with you what they have been practising over the last few weeks.

In PE the children completed a selection of activities:

• The children ran from one cone to another developing their core motor skills.
• Hopping one side to the other side on one leg at a time.
• Working as a team, each team had to collect balls and balance them on the cones on their side.
• This week’s lesson covered side steps, hopping, running and using hand to eye co-ordination skills.

In Forest School this week the children had lots of fun.         

• Emma reminded them of the rules and then they all said their names. As it had been raining the children sat under a tarp (tarpulin).
• The children had to pair up with one friend and make a nest using sticks, leaves and moss found on the ground. They then had to pretend they were birds and fly to Emma to collect food, which were eggs, one at a time and put them in their nests. 
• Then they had a choice of making a bird feeder using a pine cone, playing with the toy birds, naming them by matching them to the picture on the chart or painting with mud on fabric.
• We sang “Two Little Birds Sitting on a Wall” before singing the goodbye song.

Jewish Studies:

This week we read a double parasha, being Chukat and Balak. We started off the week looking at how, in Parashat Chukat, Miriam, saved the life of her baby brother, Moshe, by watching over him when he was placed in the basket and hidden in the bulrushes in the river. As a reward, Hashem made a well of water appear in the midbar for Bnei Yisrael to drink from. When Miriam died, the well of water dried up. Bnei Yisrael then knew that they had the well because of Miriam’s good deeds. Hashem remembers the mitzvot and good deeds we do.

We played with numbered water drops and placed them in the right order, talked about what we use water for and listened to The Water Song (which you can find online if you search for The Water Song, Sesame Street). We created a beautiful batik-style picture of Miriam with the fresh water she provided for Bnei Yisrael with her well, using wax candle rubbing techniques and turquoise paint. They came out beautifully!

Looking at parashat Balak, we touched on the tefillah Ma Tovu, a beautiful blessing which many say every day which comes from the parasha of Balak. They are the words of Hashem, but are spoken by Bilam. King Balak from Moav wanted Bilam to curse Bnei Yisrael,  but when he reached the camp site of Bnei Yisrael, there he saw how wonderful our tents looked, how calm and happy and wonderful our community is. Like Balak and Bilam, the outside world notices us and learns from our actions. When we go into a Jewish home or a shul to daven, we remember how our homes and shuls are holy and beautiful and we are ready to daven to Hashem with great respect for Him. Nursery class made their own Ma Tovu tent picture to take home and cherish.  

On Friday we had our usual but super fun Shabbat party. The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Harry

Shabbat Ima: Carmi

Shabbat Ben:Bobby

Shabbat Bat: Yael

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post any pictures on Tapestry of fun things you have done. The children get really excited to discuss with their friends what they have been doing out of school.
• Please make sure that you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. (sun cream that will last for the whole day) Please make sure you also send your child in with a sun hat.
• Pirate Day is now on Tuesday 11th July.  Please send your child to school dressed up as a pirate. Please make sure the outfits are easy to put on and off for toileting. We ask that no toy weapons are sent in, for example, swords. 
• Please can everyone send in an empty kitchen roll to be used for our pirate activities.
• Our end of the year show will be on Wednesday 5th July in the Nursery classroom. Please make sure your child is at school no later than 8.40am on that day so that we can get all children ready and in position to start promptly at 9.00am.
• On Friday 7th July the Nursery children will be having their second transition session in Reception. On this day please can you bring the children through the gate on Middleway where they will be entering next year. Please arrive at 8.30am.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

.Newsletter - 23rd June

We have had another very busy and fun week in Nursery!

The children enjoyed visiting Reception for their first transition session. They were introduced to their new teachers and then allowed to familiarise themselves with the classroom. They then completed some fun activities which were laid out for them. The second session will take place on Friday 7th July. This covers the area of Personal Social And Emotional Development.

The children did some lovely drawings of their family. These pictures will be given to the new Reception teacher to put up on the wall in their new class. It is lovely to see how their drawings and the writing of their names has developed throughout the year. This activity will be continued next week. This covers the area of Literacy and Physical and Development.

In Literacy the children learnt the letter sounds ‘b’ and ‘f’ this week. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they brought to represent the different sounds with their friends. Some of the children enjoyed making a boat by cutting out different collage materials and drawing fish for the letter sound  ‘f’. They also practised learning to write both letters using the correct letter formation. This also links to the areas of Expressive Art and Design and Physical Development.

The children were excited to select a library book to take home. Please make sure your child’s library book is returned so they are not disappointed when they can’t bring a new book home. 

In Mathematics the children continued practising their counting skills and some of the children practised their number formation and writing different number sentences. Other children enjoyed playing a fishing game where they had to hook a numbered fish. This was extended  to finding a fish numbered one more than or one less than a given number. 

In Understanding the World we continued the topic of ‘Change’ and talked about the life cycle of a chick. The children discussed the different stages that the chicken goes through:

• Egg
• Embryo
• Hatchling
• Chick
• Adult

The children also had the opportunity to visit the Reception class and see the eggs in the incubator and then see the chicks when they had hatched. The children will be able to watch the chicks grow and develop over the next week.

In Music this week the children continued to practise for our end of year show.

In PE this week the children were split into 2 groups. First they had to get the beanbags from the hoops individually. They then worked together taking the beanbags from their opponents hoops. The winning team was the team which had the most beanbags at the end.

In Forest School this week the children had lots of fun. Due to the hot weather they did the activities under the shelter of the trees. They remembered the rules and said their names. The children then played an insect game where they were given clues and they had to guess the insects. The insects were a bumble bee, a ladybird and a snail. The children were then given the option to:

• Use the bow saw with Emma to saw slices of wood and then draw an insect on them.
• Use the slack line, but only one at a time.
• Make insects or bugs out of clay.

Before leaving the woods, they learnt a song about bugs and then said goodbye to Emma and Carrie. 

Jewish Studies:

This week, our puppets Suki the Kangaroo, Ari the Lion and Socky the Cat donned fake beards and  helped me tell the story of Korach from this week’s parasha.  Korach (played by Socky) is jealous that Moshe and Aharon (Suki and Ari respectively) have been chosen to be the leaders of Bnei Yisrael. He feels that he should have been a leader as well. Hashem is angry with Korach and his followers for causing the argument. Hashem punishes Korach and his supporters by making them disappear completely. Then, Moshe puts a staff from each of the 12 tribes in the Mishkan and leaves them there overnight. In the morning Aharon’s staff has blossomed and is covered with flowers and sweet almonds. This is Hashem's way of saying that Aharon is the true Kohen Gadol and that Moshe and Aharon are  the use the leaders chosen by Hashem. Each of us made our own blossoming staffs from lolly sticks, ribbon and blossom coloured tissue paper squares. We also had a chance to enjoy some free play with our toy tree houses on the carpet and hunt around for any blossoms or flowers in Nursery’s beautiful outside space.

Nursery also continued to look into the topic of kosher fish this week and made their own colourful woven/tapestry fish. The weaving of the ribbon to create the scales on the fish was great for the children’s manual dexterity, and they all did so well, each creating really beautiful crafts to be proud of. They also had a chance to develop their hand-eye coordination in the garden with our challenging but fun fishing game. I was so proud watching the children putting plenty of effort and tenacity into playing this game and seeing them catch lots of fish. Well done Nursery!

On Friday we had our usual but super fun Shabbat party. The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Ollie

Shabbat Ima: Arianna

Shabbat Ben: Rafi

Shabbat Bat: Rafaela

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post any pictures on Tapestry of fun things you have done. The children get really excited to discuss with their friends what they have been doing out of school.
• Please make sure that you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. (sun cream that will last for the whole day) Please make sure you also send your child in with a sun hat.
• Apologies but Pirate Day has now changed to Tuesday 11th July. Year 6 will be now coming down to do fun activities with the children.  Please send your child to school dressed up as a pirate. Please make sure the outfits are easy to put on and off for toileting. We ask that no toy weapons are sent in, for example, swords. 
• Please can everyone send in an empty kitchen roll to be used for our pirate activities.
• Our end of the year show will be on Wednesday 5th July in the Nursery classroom. It will start promptly at 9.00 am so please make sure your child is at school on time on that day so they can be ready.
• We are really pleased to invite you to hear about our exciting and innovative computing and coding curriculum. Please join us for an interactive showcase on Monday 26th,Tuesday 27th or Wednesday 28th June, in which Ms Vinokur will show you what the children have been doing in computing classes this year. You will have the opportunity to engage with some of the robots, programs and devices that we use to develop their computational thinking and technology skills. Please sign up using this link

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 16th June

We have had another very busy week in Nursery with the highlight being Sports Day. I want to reiterate how proud all the teachers were of the children. They were amazing at this, their first Kerem sporting event. They showed great teamwork and waited patiently for their turns. It was also lovely to hear them encouraging their friends to do well.The children demonstrated great resilience, especially coping with the heat. 

This links to the areas of  Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language and Physical Development.

In Literacy the children learnt the letter sounds ‘r’ and ‘h’ this week. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing with their classmates the objects they brought to represent the different letters. Some of the children enjoyed drawing a rainbow for the letter sound  ‘r’ and drawing a house for the letter sound ‘h’. They also practised learning to write both letters using the correct letter formation. This also links to the areas of Expressive Art and Design and Physical Development.

The children were excited to visit the library this week and select a book to take home. Please make sure your child’s library book is returned so they are not disappointed when they can’t bring a new book home. 

In Mathematics we carried on practising our counting skills up to 200 with accompanying exercises. Some of the children enjoyed learning to write their numbers. Others enjoyed ordering the numbered frogs, saying the number names as each frog was placed correctly. This links to our topic, ‘the life cycle of a frog’.

In Understanding the World we continued the topic of ‘Change’ and talked about the life cycle of a frog. 

We discussed the following points:

• A frog is an amphibian and spends part of its life living in water and part on land.
• Frogs lay their eggs in water. The eggs stick together and this is called frogspawn. 
• Tadpoles hatch from the eggs.
• After about 7 weeks the tadpole starts to change into a frog.
• The little frogs keep growing and their tails disappear. At this stage they are called froglets.
• We also discussed that frogs hibernate in the winter.

Some of the children also enjoyed painting frog pictures. This also links to the area of Expressive Arts and Design and Communication and Language.

The children also visited the gardening area to see what had grown during the week. We discussed how well the raspberries were growing and that it should not be long before we have a crop. The children helped to pull out all the radishes to see how they had grown and to see if they were ready for eating. Unfortunately they had been eaten by something and were not edible. We talked about which minibeast may have nibbled at them. They thought it may be either a snail or a slug. We also continued planting different flower seeds and some more vegetable seeds. The children helped to water the garden and we talked about how we needed to do extra watering because of the extremely hot weather.

Following on from our topic ‘People who help us’, we were lucky to have Elise’s father come in and talk to the children about being a barrister. It was such a fun session and the children were especially excited about the wig and gown that Mr Newman has to wear when he is in court. Thank you Mr Newman for giving the children a wonderful insight into what a barrister does.

In Music the children continued practising for our end of year show, which we will keep as a surprise until the day of the show.

In PE the children were split into groups and enjoyed a selection of new activities. Before they started they were reminded that they had to listen carefully to the instructions and wait their turn.

• They practised their motor skills by running using side steps. 
• They had to hop to the cone on their left leg and come back hopping on their right leg.
• They practised jumping with both feet together all the way to the cone and back.
• They then played a game of dodgeball. There were two teams and they had to throw the ball to hit someone on the other team. If someone got hit, they were out. This game needs to be played again as some children got upset when they were out.

In Forest School this week the children had lots of fun. Due to the hot weather they did the activities under the shelter of the trees. They remembered the rules and said their names. Then the teachers went through the activities that the children could take part in.

They could:

• Make paint brushes out of natural materials and then paint with them. 
• Hammer sticks into the ground to make homes for the forest friends
• Go and explore the woods independently
• Blow bubbles with the bubble wands.
• Make a bracelet using elder twigs which the children drilled holes into using a palm drill and then threading them onto pipe cleaners. 

The children were very excited to learn how to get into a hammock and they did really well. They then learnt a song about a squirrel before saying goodbye to our Forest School teachers, Emma and Carrie. 

Jewish Studies:

It was another busy and hot week! Nursery kept cool by looking into the parashah Shelach Lecha, where Bnei Yisrael are given the mitzvah of taking a piece of their unbaked dough to the Kohanim as a present. The dough was then baked and eaten by the Kohanim. This makes the bread which Bnei Yisrael eat special. This mitzvah is called ‘taking challah’. We each made a sweet craft with the bracha we say for taking challah to use at home for those of you who like making your own challah. 

We started to look at the topic of Kosher fish this week too. For fish to be kosher they need to have fins and scales. We talked about all sorts of different sea and water creatures from tuna and cod to lobster and jellyfish, each being a unique and beautiful creature created by Hashem. We discussed which ones would be Kosher and which ones would not. We talked about our favourite Kosher fish to eat, which was a hot topic! Some of us like tuna best, whilst others are more keen on cod or salmon. The good thing is that there are so many delicious Kosher fish out there to try. Have a chat at home about your favourites. I look forward to carrying on with this topic next week and making some fabulous fishy crafts. 

On Friday we had our usual super fun Shabat party. The following children were on the Shabbat table:

Shabbat Aba: Léo

Shabbat Ima: Elise

Shabbat Ben: Sam

Shabbat Bat:  Amelie

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post any pictures on Tapestry of fun things you have done. The children get really excited to discuss with their friends what they have been doing out of school.
• Please make sure that you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. (sun cream that will last for the whole day) Please make sure you also send your child in with a sun hat.
• On  Monday 10th July we will be having a pirate day. Please send your child to school dressed up as a pirate. Please make sure the outfits are easy to put on and off for toileting. We ask that no toy weapons are sent in, for example, swords. 
• Please can everyone send in an empty kitchen roll to be used for our pirate activities.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 9th June

We hope you had a great half term and a lovely Shavuot.

It has been another busy week in Nursery. During circle time we reiterated the importance of using kind words and kind hands. We recapped how unkind words can really upset our feelings and that if we use our hands incorrectly, for example pushing or hitting, someone can get hurt. 

This links to the areas of Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language. 

In Literacy the children learnt the letter sounds ‘e’ and ‘u’ this week. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they chose to represent the different letters and sounds learnt with their classmates. Some of the children enjoyed making handprint elephants for the letter sound ‘e’ and drawing an umbrella for the letter sound ‘u’. They also practised learning to write both letters using the correct letter formation. This also links to the areas Expressive Art and Design and Physical Development.

The children were excited to visit the library this week and select a book to take home. Please make sure your child’s library book is returned so they are not disappointed when they can’t bring a new book home. 

In Mathematics we carried on practising our counting skills up to 200 with accompanying exercises.  We had a little maths quiz to test the children’s knowledge. This included them having to work out the answers for one more than and one less than a given number. We also did some mental arithmetic where the children had to work out the answers for some addition sums. We discussed how to work out sums with an answer larger than the number of fingers they have. For example 8+5. For these sums they started with the 8 and then used their fingers to count on 5 more to find the answer.

In Understanding the World some of the children visited the gardening area to see what had grown during the holidays. They were very excited to see that the onions, garlic, potatoes and radishes were growing well.They were also fascinated to see if any raspberries or strawberries had grown yet, but as of now there are none.

We also started the new topic of ‘Change’ and over the next few weeks will be looking at different life cycles. Before the half term the children planted a sunflower seed to take home to grow. We went over the life cycle of a sunflower and discussed each of the stages from seed to flower. The children enjoyed discussing how their sunflowers had grown and the different stages they had seen it go through. The children used their hands to show how tall their sunflowers were now. 

Your child’s sunflower may now be ready to be transferred into a bigger pot or planted straight into the soil. Please post any pictures of your child’s sunflower onto Tapestry so they can share it with the class.

Some of the children also enjoyed painting pictures of sunflowers. This links to the area of Expressive Arts and Design.

In Music:

• The children are really excited for our end of year show. They spent the lesson practising lots of songs which we will keep as a surprise until the day of the show.

In PE:

This was our last practice before Sports Day. 

They carried on with the different carousel of activities which they have been working on.

In Forest School:

• Nursery loved their first experience of Forest School with Emma and Carrie, especially exploring the forest. We met at ‘base camp’ where we learnt the words and signs to a hello song. We went around the circle and said our names.
• Emma explained the first rule of Forest School is “no pick, no lick”, which means that we must leave beautiful flowers for the bees. The second rule is “no lick, you might get sick” and the third rule is “be careful how you carry your stick”. Carrie demonstrated that the correct way to hold a long stick is to point it down and pull it along the ground. 
• She also explained that they were not allowed past the red flags.
• Emma discussed that when they hear ‘1,2,3 where are you?’, they reply ‘1,2,3 here I am’. When they hear 1,2,3 come back to me’, they must go back to her.

The children then had a variety of activities to choose from. They could:

• Make leaf prints using leaves folded in a piece of material which they then hit with a mallet
• Play hide-and-seek in the long grass. 
• Make bubbles with some long plants
• Explore the environment. 
• Use nets to sweep the grass and find creatures. 
• Dip elderflowers in paint and paint logs and large pieces of paper with them.

It was a really fun session enjoyed by everyone.

Jewish Studies:

This week each child had a go at making their own silver trumpets, as we looked at the parasha Beha'alotecha, in which Hashem tells Moshe to make himself two silver trumpets to blow as signals when he wants to gather Beneh Yisrael together. There was also a Column of Cloud and a Column of Fire that served as signals for Beneh Yisrael, for when to travel and when to rest. We talked about different signals in our lives, for example fire alarms, ambulance sirens and the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, which all tell us something important needs our attention. 

We also learned about Havdalah this week. We talked about how Havdalah is Shabbat's 'closing ceremony' when three stars appear on Saturday evening. We talked about the different beautiful sweet spices (besamim) we can use for Havdalah to give the new week a sweet start. We had such a fabulous time creating unique pieces of art with spices - using home made pastes from spices such as cinnamon, ginger , turmeric and cardamom as 'paint' and sprinkilng it like glitter. We also rolled out playdough scented with lots of different spices- exploring the different colours and textures and cutting out beautiful star shapes. 

On Friday we had our usual but super fun Shabat party. The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Noah

Shabbat Ima: Annabelle

Shabbat Ben: Leo G

Shabbat Bat:  Noa

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post any pictures on Tapestry of fun things you did during half term or anything of interest that would be nice for your child to share.The children get really excited to discuss with their friends what they have been doing out of school.
• On a hot day please make sure that you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. (sun cream that will last for the whole day) Please can you also send your child in with a sun hat.
• On Friday the 16th June please drop your child at the main school promptly at 8.30am for our whole school photo.
• On  Monday 10th July we will be having a pirate day. Please send your child to school dressed up as a pirate. Please make sure the outfits are easy to put on and off for toileting. We ask that no toy weapons are sent in, for example, swords. 
• Please can everyone send in an empty kitchen roll to be used for our pirate activities.

Sports Day:

• Sports day will take place on Tuesday 13th June at The Wilf Slack Sport Ground, East End Road, N3 2LE. 
• It will be run by Mr Antony with the support of school staff.
• Parents and children should arrive at the grounds at 9.00am. Please be prompt! Thank you.
• When you arrive, it will be clear where the children should be taken and where parents should wait. 
• During the morning there will be a couple of event viewing areas where parents will be able to go and again, this will all be marked out clearly.
• Children should bring snacks and plenty of water with them as well as a packed lunch. Please make the lunch is a mezonot, nut and sesame free packed lunch. We have staff and children with serious allergies so it is important that this is adhered to. 
• The PTA have arranged Oh Brown Bear to sell cookies and iced coffee. Children should come wearing suncream and have sunhats with them. School staff will bring asthma inhalers as well as epipens.
• When the sporting events have finished, we are inviting the whole school community to join together for a picnic lunch so please feel free to bring picnic blankets and food for yourself too.
• The event will be finished by 1.00pm at the latest.
• At the end of the event we will need parents to transport children back to school. 
• Children who are not coming back to school must be signed out with the class teacher.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 25th May

We have had another great week in Nursery. The children have enjoyed being outdoors in this lovely weather. They continue to develop their sharing and turn taking skills. We reread the book ‘It’s Mine!’ which discusses different scenarios and how best to deal with difficult situations. For example if somebody grabs something which you are playing with or does not share with you. We talked about how to use our words, rather than lashing out with hands or feet. This links to the areas of Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language. 

In Literacy the children learnt the letter sounds ‘c’ and ‘k’ this week. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they had chosen to represent the different letters and sounds learnt with their classmates. Some of the children enjoyed cutting out different collage materials to make a cow for the letter sound ‘c’. For the letter sound ‘k’ they enjoyed making a kite by cutting out different triangular shapes. They also practised learning to write both letters using the correct letter formation. This links to the areas Expressive Art and Design and Physical Development.

Due to half term the children did not visit the library. Library will start again when we return next term. 

In Mathematics we carried on practising our counting skills to 100. We listened to different number songs and the children used their fingers to work out the answers when counting how many were left.

The children enjoyed making cheesecake for Shavuot with Mrs Dagul. They helped to measure out the different ingredients and mix them together.

In Understanding the World we continued with the topic ‘People Who Help Us’. This week we focused on the role of a police officer. We read the non-fiction book, ‘Police Officers’, by Rebecca Hunter. We discussed that a non-fiction book is about true facts and not a story, which is a fiction book. We also read ‘’Topsy and Tim meet the Police'. 

The children enjoyed our new role play area which is a vet surgery. It was lovely seeing them looking after the different animals, using stethoscopes to listen to the animals' hearts.

Jewish Studies:

Nursery class has been buzzing with preparation for Shavuot this week. We have had such fun filling our class Omer Counter with gems, feathers and pom poms each day, counting up to Shavuot. The children made little cheesecakes on Monday and during Jewish Studies class they made beautiful crafts that integrated some of the Shavuot songs we have been learning together  -  well done Nursery, I am so proud of your efforts!

Do have a look at the Shavuot songs at home and see if you can sing some of them together. 

We built Har Sinai out of junk items in the garden and had fun pretending to be Bnei Yisrael and Moshe receiving the Torah. We also looked at some of the 10 Commandments and made a colourful Har Sinai craft which each child took such pride in. 

We have sent home a Shavuot story and activity pack for you and your child to enjoy together over the school break. This is not compulsory, but should be good fun!

In Music:

• The children started the lesson with Head, shoulders, knees and toes in silence and the children followed the actions.
• They sang a selection of known songs and carried on practising the song “The Music Man”.

This week there was no PE lesson.

Important reminders:

• Please post any picture on Tapestry of fun things you do during half term. These are always lovely to see.
• Please make sure all girls are sent in with their hair tied up and wearing only blue accessories.
• On any hot day next half term please make sure that you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. (sun cream that will last for the whole day) Please can you also send your child in with a sun hat.
• Please make sure you read the separate email that has been sent out regarding Forest School. Forest School will be starting the first week we are back.
• On Thursday when the children have Forest School, please can you send in an additional piece of fruit or vegetable for morning snack as we will be having lunch a little bit later.
• After half term we will be learning about change starting with the sunflower. Please can you send in pictures of how your child’s sunflower seed has grown.

Wishing you Chag Sameach. Have a lovely half term.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 19th May

We have had another great week in Nursery and it is lovely to see how the children play together collaboratively, sharing their ideas and taking turns using the different resources. They are such a cohesive group and it is wonderful to see them getting along so well. This links to the areas of Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language. 

In Literacy the children learnt the letter sounds ‘g’ and ‘o’ this week. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they had chosen to represent the different letters and sounds learnt with their classmates. Some of the children enjoyed colour mixing blue and yellow together to make the colour green for the letter sound ‘g’. For the letter sound ‘o’ they enjoyed making an octopus, by cutting out different collage materials. They practised their number formation by writing the number above each of the arms and legs up to 8. They also practised learning to write both letters using the correct letter formation. This links to the areas Expressive Art and Design and Physical Development.

In Mathematics we revised numbers up to 20. We also continued to practise the children’s counting skills using 1-1 correspondence and ‘one more than’. In the outdoor area some of the children enjoyed using the Octons to create flowers to place on Mount Sinai. They also enjoyed the challenge of matching the correct number of flowers and Numicon pieces to the numbered flower pots.

In Understanding the World the children continued to learn about different people who help us.  The children enjoyed hearing about the role of a dentist and discussed their own experiences of visiting the dentist. We read the book ‘Dentist’ by Rebecca Hunter and ‘Topsy and Tim go to the Dentist’.   

The children were lucky to have Suzanne Barnett from Prime Dental to come and tell them all about her job as a dentist. She discussed the following points: 

• What a dentist wears at work, for example, a uniform, including a mask and gloves.
• How many teeth they have in their mouth.
• The importance of people visiting the dentist.
• That their teeth will start to wobble and fall out at some stage!
• Three important things to keep their teeth healthy: Firstly they must brush their teeth in the morning after breakfast and at night before bed, secondly everyone should visit the dentist regularly and finally to allow an adult to help them brush their teeth.
• She also asked the children to sort foods in her bag into foods that are good for teeth,  such as bananas, apples, carrots and water and not so healthy foods for teeth such as sugary foods, coke and sweets.

At the end of the session she gave them fun stickers and a fact sheet to colour in themselves! 

The children also learnt about the role of a vet. We read the book ‘Vet’ by Rebecca Hunter and discussed that as it is a non-fiction book, it includes facts. We also spoke about who in the class has a pet and how they look after them. The children then helped Mrs Dagul set up our own vet role play area.

Jewish Studies:

Nursery is continuing to get ready for Shavuot, counting the Omer on the class Omer Counter. We have also been learning an old favourite tune 'Little Har Sinai' by Rabbi B, which can be found online, and two new favourites 'Hashem Gave Us the Ten Commandments' and 'Little Torah'. The children made some  gorgeous mini Torah scrolls which they decorated so brightly with coloured paper, feathers and other exciting materials! 

Nursery looked at this week's parasha of Bamidbar, and they learnt about how the midbar (desert) is the place where Beneh Yisrael received the Torah. Hashem looked after all of our needs when we were travelling in the desert on the way to Eretz Yisrael. Hashem looks after us wherever we are. Hashem is everywhere. Nursery made some lovely light catcher crafts with an earth motif surrounded by stars in the sky, because Hashem is everywhere , even in space, watching and looking after us. 

This week is Yom Yerushalayim so we looked at a live webcam of the Kottel, the children were absolutely enthralled. We spotted people davening, people chatting, soldiers and families all there together.

The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Leo G

Shabbat Ima: Noa

Shabbat Ben: Noah

Shabbat Bat: Elise

In Music:

• The children started the lesson by being soldiers. They had to stand up in silence and then copy Mr Style's actions and noises he made.
• They sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes with actions.
• Mr Style introduced a variety of different instruments, including a piano, violin, clarinet, saxophone, cello and xylophone.
• He showed them how to play the different instruments and then chose children to pretend to play them whilst singing “I Am the Music Man”

In PE:

• The children continued practising for Sports Day.
• They were split into teams and completed a carousel of activities.
• Activity 1: They practised their jumping skills, jumping with both feet together into hoops.
• Activity 2: They practised running. They worked on getting into position before the race started.
• Activity 3: They had to balance a small hoop on their heads whilst walking.
• Activity 4: They had to scooter to the cone and back again.
• Activity 5: They had to balance the egg on the spoon and walk from one cone to the next without dropping it.

During each activity, they had to wait patiently for the person in front of them to return before they could go.

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post pictures on Tapestry so the children can share with their class fun activities you do out of school.
• Please ensure that when the weather is hot you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. Please also remember to send your child in with a sun hat.
• When sending in your child’s packed lunch can you make sure there are: No nuts, No sesame and No chocolate.
• Please make sure all lunch boxes and containers are named.
• On Thursday 25th May, Nursery will close at 1.30pm. The children will have lunch on that day.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 12th May

We have had another fun week in Nursery. The focus was celebrating Lag Ba’omer and a special First Aid workshop.

First Aid

The children were so lucky to have a mini First Aid course at school. The course gave them an overview of what to do if they or one of their friends or family hurt themselves or are unwell. The session was very interactive with great teddies as the props. The following key points were discussed:

• How to help people if they feel poorly or hurt themselves.
• The importance of informing an adult if they have hurt themselves.
• They were asked what they should do if they graze or cut their knee. The question was asked, what comes out? ‘Blood’. The children were then asked if we needed to keep the blood in or out? The children correctly replied that we need to keep the blood in.
• They discussed wiping the cut with a tissue and then the importance of pushing down on the cut. The children were then asked what they could put on top of the cut. They suggested a plaster. The children then practised this on the teddies.
• They talked about what to do if someone bumps their head. They role played by asking the teddy if he was feeling sick or dizzy. They also applied an ice pack to the bump.
• They helped the teddy after he fell down unconscious and rolled him on his side.
• They learnt about 999 and who to call if they need help.
• The session ended with a story called ‘The Mini Adventures of Freddy”.

It was lovely to see the children sharing and taking turns whilst taking care of the teddies. They shared the different resources. This links to the areas of Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language. It was an amazing introductory session to First Aid for the children.

During the session the children were asked if they knew the number of their house and name of the road they live in. Most of the children did not know this information. Please discuss this with your child just in case they ever need to tell the emergency services this information. It was also stressed to them that they do not give this information out to people in the street or strangers but only if in an emergency.

Following the ELS programmes, the children learnt the letter sounds ‘m’ and ‘d’ this week. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they had chosen to represent the different letters and sounds learnt with their classmates. Some of the children enjoyed making a handprint monkey for the letter sound ‘m’. For the letter sound ‘d’ some children enjoyed making a dinosaur by cutting out different collage materials. They also practiced learning to write both letters using the correct letter formation.

In Mathematics the children continued practising their counting skills. Linked to Lag Ba’omer and our topic 'Firefighters’, some of the children enjoyed matching the numbered flames to the different Numicon pieces. Some children enjoyed making moon sand, measuring out the different ingredients and then mixing them together. They then used the moon sand to make different numbers. Other children enjoyed using fishing rods to see which number fish they could catch.

In Understanding the World we continued learning about different people who help us. This week we focused on the Firefighter. We read the book Firefighters by Rebecca Hunter. We discussed that this is a non fiction book which is an information book and true facts. We talked about the job of the firefighter and the different equipment they use. Some of the children enjoyed roleplaying as firefighters in the outdoor area.We also discussed fire safety.

In Expressive Art and Design the children continued painting pictures of King Charles. It was lovely to see them carefully selecting the correct colours for the king’s different features. The art work the children created is beautiful.

Jewish Studies :

Another busy and lovely week has passed and the children have learnt so much in Jewish Studies. We started off the week with some special activities in celebration of Lag Ba'Omer.  After a joint Tefillah with Reception, Nursery made a beautiful bonfire handprint craft, and decorated their own delicious Lag Ba'Omer themed bonfire biscuits with red, yellow and orange icing.  We continued to play with our firefighter themed puzzles on the carpet and had a bit of a Lag Ba'Omer boogie as well. Nursery class, I am very impressed with your brilliant dance skills! Reception and Nursery had a Lag Ba'Omer picnic all together, which unfortunately had to be enjoyed inside, due to the inclement weather, but a fun time was had by all.

Nursery is continuing to count the Omer in Tefillah every morning, and our Nursery Omer Counter is up on the wall. It looks great with all sorts of coloured sequins, gems, pompoms and feathers, marking off each new day we count. Some of the children are also counting the Omer at home using their Omer counters we made in class before Pesach - well done children! 

We are getting closer to Shavuot and so this week we started to discuss what is special about this chag. We talked quite a bit about cheesecake and our other favourite dairy foods - something that we all feel very passionate about.  It's a good thing that JS is followed by snack time, because we got quite hungry discussing such a yummy topic! We also discussed the fact that Shavuot is a celebration of Bnei Yisrael receiving the Torah on Har Sinai. Each child made their own collage of Moshe receiving the Torah from Hashem.

The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Sam

Shabbat Ima: Amelie

Shabbat Ben: Léo

Shabbat Bat: Annabelle

In Music:

• The children started the lesson with a warm up by shaking their arms and legs.
• They played a game of Simon Says.
• Mr Style played his guitar. He discussed with the children that the guitar is made up of 6 strings which are made up of metal. He discussed the different sounds made when each string is plucked. He also talked about how the frame is made out of wood.
• They then sang different songs alongside the guitar. They sang the song “I Love You, You Love Me”  and then “1,2,3,4,5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive and the “Frog song”.

In PE:

• The children continued practising for Sports Day.
• They were split into teams and completed a carousel of activities.
• Activity 1: They practised their jumping skills, jumping with both feet together.
• Activity 2: They practised running. They worked on getting into position before the race starts.
• Activity 3: They had to balance the bean bags on their heads and also on a bat.
• Activity 4: They had to run with the buggy carrying the teddy to the cone and back.

They had to wait their turn till the person in front of them had come back.

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post pictures on Tapestry of what your child is doing. These are always lovely to see.
• Please can you make sure when the weather is hot that you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. Please can you also send your child in with a sun hat.
• When sending in your child’s packed lunch can you make sure there are: No nuts, No sesame and No chocolate.
• Please make sure all lunch boxes, containers are named.
• Please can you make sure your child’s lunch is of suitable size. Some of the lunch boxes being sent in are too large and there is only so much food they can eat. Thank you!

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 5th May

We have had a very busy and fun-filled week and one of the highlights has been celebrating The King’s Coronation.

We continually discuss using our manners and the importance of saying please and thank you. The aim is for the children to say it naturally without having to be constantly reminded. Please can you re-iterate this at home too. We  regularly talk about how to use our words correctly rather than our emotions, especially when we need something. This links to the area Personal, Social and Emotional Development. 

Following the ELS programmes, the children learnt the letter sounds ‘i’ and ‘n’ this week. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they had chosen to represent the different letters and sounds learnt with their classmates. Some of the children enjoyed making an iguana by cutting out different collage materials for the letter sound ‘i’. For the letter sound ‘n’ some children enjoyed printing different numbers using the number sponges. They also practiced learning to write both letters using the correct letter formation.

In Mathematics the children practiced their counting skills all the way up to 200 whilst  exercising. We also revised all numbers previously taught up to 20.

In Understanding the World we focused on teaching the children about the King’s Coronation. We talked about what will happen on the day the King is having his Coronation. We also talked about the different Royal residences including Buckingham Palace. The children also enjoyed listening to the story 'Colourful Coronation’. The children had fun creating a portrait of King Charles. They selected the different colours to use for his different features. The portraits are amazing and it was great to see the children staying so focused whilst they created their artwork. We will finish these next week.

The children also enjoyed making red, white and blue paper chains which were used to decorate the room for our special coronation party. This was a great activity for practicing their fine motor skills. 

The children also decorated bunting with red, white and blue paint, individually designing them. These were also used as party decorations. All the decorations looked amazing.

The children made special fairy cakes to eat at the party. They helped measure out all the ingredients and then mixed them all together. They were then topped with red, blue and white icing. These were enjoyed at our party. It was also lovely to see the children dressed in red, white and blue clothes.

As part of our celebrations the children also enjoyed a special workshop run by the especially for the King's Coronation. This was led by the drama company Perform.

Also linked to Understanding the World, we were lucky to have Mr Budwig come in to talk to the children on Tuesday. Mr Budwig is a parent whose daughter is in Year 1. 

• We began by discussing what we do in the morning, and how electricity is an essential for lights, brushing teeth and having cold milk in cereal.

• We touched on how electricity comes to our home, and the ways electricity is made.
• We spoke of other things children are and could be doing to help the planet, such as picking up litter, composting food waste, and growing trees.
• The children got to hold a solar panel and describe it.
• We learnt how a solar panel ‘grabs’ the sun with wide arms and holds it tight like a battery conserving energy.

We then moved outside and the children had an opportunity to: 

• Decorate a wind turbine.
• Race Scalextric powered by the sun.
• View a large scale Lego wind turbine.
• Play with solar powered toys.
• Play with solar powered train set.

Although it was quite cloudy we were still able to have some fun. It was an amazing experience for the kids to engage with some of the renewable technologies that are emerging around us.

Jewish Studies :

Another fabulous week has passed so quickly in Jewish Studies. We focussed on the topic of Lag Ba'Omer, which is day 33 of the Omer and a day of celebration and joy. 

We reviewed the teachings of Rabbi Akiva who encouraged his students to show loving kindness to others and we played the song 'Amar Rabbi Akiva', which has the beautiful chorus of 'Ve'Ahavta Lareyacha Kemocha' translated as-  love your neighbour as you love yourself. We discussed Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a student of Rabbi Akiva, who brought a lot of light and happiness into this world with his Torah teachings. We finished a gorgeous craft of a bonfire in a cup, which the children put together so carefully and with such love and attention.

We talked about the fact that lots of people choose to get married on Lag Ba'Omer as it is an especially auspicious time for a wedding. The children had great fun dressing up as brides with dresses from our dressing up selection and a beautiful veil made from soft white fabric, secured with a flowery garland. 

The children  were also given the chance to make paper chains and crowns from bonfire coloured paper - reds, oranges and yellows, to do a Fireman Sam puzzle in pairs, and practise their pen control with some Lag Ba'Omer themed pen control activities.   

The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Rafi

Shabbat Ima: Rafaela

Shabbat Ben: Ollie

Shabbat Bat: Arianna

In Music:

• The children started with the game Simon Says.
• They completed warm up exercises by lying on the floor practicing breathing in and out.
• They sang If Your Happy and You Know It with actions.
• They then learnt the words to the National Anthem, ‘G-d Save Our King, and a discussion on that it will be sang at the King’s Coronation.

In PE:

• The children continued  practicing for Sports Day.
• They were split into teams and completed a carousel of activities.
• Activity 1: They had to run  and jump over the hurdles.
• Activity 2: They had to jump from hoop to hoop.
• Activity 3: They had to crawl through a tunnel.
• Activity 4: They had to balance the bean bags on their heads and also on a bat.
• Activity 5: They had to run with the buggy carrying the teddy to the cone and back.

They had to wait their turn till the person in front of them had come back.

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post pictures on Tapestry of what your child is doing. These are always lovely to see.
• Please can you make sure when the weather is hot that you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. Please can you also send your child in with a sun hat.
• Next week on Tuesday 8th May we will be celebrating Lag Ba’omer. Please send your child wearing something red, orange, yellow or brown.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter - 28th April

We have had a very busy and fun-filled week and one of the highlights was celebrating Yom Ha’atzmaut.

Linked to Personal, Social and Emotional Development, we continued with our circle times reiterating the importance of using kind words, kind hands and kind feet. We recapped how unkind words can really upset our feelings and if we use our hands or feet incorrectly, for example pushing, hitting, kicking, someone can get hurt.  

Following the ELS programmes, the children learnt the letter sounds ‘t’ and ‘p’. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they had chosen to represent the different letters and sounds learnt with their classmates. Some of the children enjoyed making a handprint tiger for the letter sound ‘t’. They painted stripes onto their tiger and we also discussed the pattern on the tiger’s body. They also practised writing the letter ‘t’. For the letter sound ‘p’ some children enjoyed colour mixing red and white to make pink and red and blue to make purple. They used the colour pink and purple to paint a picture and practiced writing the letter ‘p’.

In Mathematics the children practised their counting skills. They also enjoyed singing happy 75th birthday to Israel and counted up to 75. We used the abacus to count and practiced 1-1 correspondence whilst counting.

We also revised all numbers previously taught and then we focused on learning the number of the week, which was 20. We practiced counting a variety of different objects up to 20, using 1-1 correspondence.

In Understanding the World we continued with the topic: ‘People Who Help Us’. This week we focused on learning about the role of a doctor. We read the non-fiction book ‘Doctors’, by Rebecca Hunter. We discussed that a non-fiction book is about true facts and not made up like a fiction book. We discussed what a contents page and a glossary are.

Thank you so much to Dr Phillips for coming into class to talk to the children about her role as a doctor. She show the children all the different pieces of equipment she uses. The children had great fun coming up to the front to try the different pieces of equipment to see how they worked. Thank you also to her special helper Maya. 

Jewish Studies - Another great week has passed! On Monday and Tuesday the children made a Degel Yisrael flag tube decoration with lovely shiny blue ribbons, and some children also chose to decorate some pictures of Jerusalem with colours, gems and pompoms. In the home corner the children visited our very own Kottel and stuck little notes between the bricks just like at the real Kottel in Jerusalem. We talked about how in Israel, people like to dig for interesting things in the ground, like coins, pots, bones and other interesting treasure. We had a treasure hunt in our classroom and found lots of shiny gold and silver gems. 

We have been listening to lots of nice Israeli music, including 'Hope' by Fountainheads and  Erets Yisrael Sheli (Yaakov Farhi version), and Home by the Maccabeats, all of which can be found online. 

On Yom Ha'atzmaut itself we made fresh orange juice, decorated biscuits with blue and white icing and made beautiful flags to wave! The children came dressed in blue and white. Nursery were excited to be joined by Reception for a whole school Tefillah. We ended the day with a lovely Israeli dancing workshop which we also did together with Reception. It was an amazing day celebrating Israel’s birthday.

This week we started to introduce Lag BaOmer, which is day 33 of the Omer and a day of celebration. We learned about Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, and how Lag BaOmer is a day on which we remember them and celebrate the light they brought to the world.  Many people mark this day with bonfire parties.  The children started to make a lovely bonfire craft to bring home and enjoy.

The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Bobby

Shabbat Ima: Yael

Shabbat Ben: Harry

Shabbat Bat: Maya 

In Music:

• The children started warming up by stretching and shaking out their arms and legs.
• They then played Simon Says with different words said to them in Ivrit.
• They focused on saying the words for blue and white in Ivrit and had to hold up the correct coloured paper corresponding to which colour was called out (Cahol and Lavan) when singing along to the Flag song. 

In PE:

• The children started practising for Sports Day.
• They were split into teams and completed a carousel of activities.
• Activity 1: They had to scooter up to the cone and go around it.
• Activity 2: They had to run over the hurdles.
• Activity 3: They had to jump from hoop to hoop.
• Activity 4: They had to crawl through a tunnel.
• Activity 5: They had to balance the bean bags on a bat.
• Activity 6: They had to run with the buggy carrying the teddy to the cone and back.
• They had to wait their turn till the person in front of them had come back.

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post pictures on Tapestry of what your child is doing. These are always lovely to see.
• Please remember to send back your child’s library book so that your child can bring home a new one. 
• Please can you make sure when the weather is hot that you apply sun cream on your child first thing in the morning. Please can you also send your child in with a sun hat.
• Please send your child in with something red, white and blue for them to change into for our Coronation party on Friday 5th May. We will change them in school after the school photos.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Nursery Newsletter - 21st April

We hope you all had a lovely Pesach and a good break. 

Mazeltov to Mr and Mrs Hagai and Rafaela on the birth of their baby son and brother.

Welcome back to Ariella and Yael. It is great to have you back at the EYU!

We have had a very busy and fun first week back. The children settled back into nursery life really quickly. We went over the rules and daily routines. We discussed the importance of being kind to our friends, remembering kind words and kind hands. The children enjoyed chatting and playing with their friends and catching up after the holiday. This is all part of their Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language skills. 

In Literacy we continued to practice oral blending and segmenting. We played ‘Simon Says’. Different words were sounded out, for example, “Simon says get your c-oa-t, coat!”, “Touch your h-ea-d, head!” “Simon says can you touch your b-a-ck, back!”  

The children started to learn the letter sounds following the new phonics scheme, Essential Letters and Sounds. This is the scheme that the whole school is following and they will continue as they go into Reception. They learnt the letter sounds ‘s’ and ‘a’. If you are practising the letter sounds with your child, please make sure you are using the correct pronunciations. Attached is a video of how to pronounce each of the sounds correctly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The children enjoyed sharing the objects they had chosen to represent the different letters and sounds learnt. 

Some children enjoyed making a sun for the letter sound ‘s’ and either wrote the ‘s’ sound or sounded out the word and wrote ‘s-u-n’. Also linked to the letter sound, the children were excited to plant sunflower seeds:

• They watched a video about the life cycle of a sunflower. 
• Then they filled their pots with soil, placed their seed in the middle and then covered it with more soil. 
• They then sprayed the soil with some water. It is important that the children learn to take care of their plants by watering it well, but also to see what can happen if the plant is overwatered.
• After half term we will be learning about changes and looking at different life cycles. Please discuss with your child the different stages, as their sunflowers grow. They can draw pictures of their sunflower at each stage and then bring their pictures in to share with the class. (This is optional)
• Please post pictures onto Tapestry of your child’s sunflower as it progresses through the different stages. 
• Once your plants have reached approx 30cm (12 inches) in height, you can plant them in the garden or move them to a bigger pot. 

This links to the area of Understanding the World.

For the letter sound ‘a’, some of the children enjoyed hand printing an alligator and practiced writing the letter ‘a’. This also links to the area Expressive Art and Design.

Next week the children will learn the letters ‘t’ and ‘p’. 

The children enjoyed their weekly visit to the library to select their chosen book to bring home.

In Mathematics we revised all numbers previously taught and then we focused on learning the number of the week, which was 19. We practiced counting a variety of different objects up to 19, using 1-1 correspondence.

In Understanding the World we continued with the topic: ‘People Who Help Us’. This week we focused on learning about the role of an optician and a postman. We read the book ‘Topsy and Tim Go to the Optician’. The children enjoyed watching a video about children having their eyes tested. Some of the children shared their own experiences of going to the opticians with their classmates. We also discussed the role of a postman and read the non-fiction book ‘Postman’ by Rebecca Hunter. They also enjoyed watching a video about the journey of a letter and what happens to the letter after it is posted. 

In Music:

• They started the lesson with a game of Simon Says and stretching exercises.
• The children enjoyed learning songs to sing on Yom Ha'atzmaut for Israel's birthday. They discussed it will be Israel’s 75th Birthday.
• They then sang the song Wind the Bobbin Up alongside the guitar played by Mr Style and then the Wheels on the Bus with actions.

In PE:

• The children were split into three teams. 
• They bunny hopped to the hurdles and then jumped  over them in their teams.
• Still in their teams they sidestepped to the cones.
• They then practiced playing an Israeli game called dodgeball ready for Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations.

Jewish Studies:

Welcome back, Nursery class, I have missed you all and I am very impressed that you all still remember how to sing the chorus of Dayeinu and Ma Nishtana. Well done! This week we have started to learn some new songs in Jewish Studies including one rather catchy tune called BeLibi by Uri Davidi. We learned about the Parshiot of Tazria-Metzorah and how we must not speak unkindly about others. Words are very powerful so we must be very careful with them. We sang along and made our own actions for BeLibi by Uri Davidi, which talks about loving others. Each child made a craft - a picture of someone sharing kind words. We made friendship bracelets to give to mummy and had a lot of fun practising communication skills using our long bendy telephone tubes.

We have been counting the Omer together during morning tefillah. The children are so excited to count up to Shavuot.

We also started to learn about Yom Ha’atsmaut, Israel's birthday, which is coming up next week. Nursery children each made a fabulous Magen David decoration and we are making our own Nursery Kotel in the Home Corner. We had such a nice time talking about what we love about our beautiful homeland of Israel.

We also enjoyed our lovely weekly Shabbat party.

The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba: Zac M

Shabbat Ima: Ariella

Shabbat Ben: Zac F

Shabbat Bat: Carmi

Important reminders:

Yom HaAtzmaut:

• Next Wednesday 26th April we will be celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut in school. Please make sure you send your child in blue and white. (Girls must wear skirts.)
• Please make sure all fruit is cut according to the guidelines previously sent out. 
• If it is a hot day, please can you apply 12 hour sunscreen before school to your child, so they do not need to reapply it during the day. Also please send a sun hat/cap as the weather is getting warmer and the children spend a lot of time outside. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Nursery Newsletter- 29th March

I cannot believe this is my last newsletter of the spring term, it has been amazing!

It has been a very busy few days. The children enjoyed making matzah with Mrs Dagul and participating in a beautiful Pesach Seder organised by Morah Cassie.

A big thank you goes to Morah Cassie who has spent hours with the team preparing a very special Haggadah with each of your children. We hope you enjoy using it with your child at your Seder, whichever country you may be in. We are very proud of what they have prepared and we are sure you will be too.

We continued with Aspect 7: Oral Blending and Segmenting. It is important that the children have plenty of experience listening to adults modeling oral blending and that they are introduced to grapheme–phoneme correspondences. For example, when giving children instructions or asking questions, the adult can segment the last word into separate phonemes (sounds) and then blend these together to say the word. 

We carried on playing ‘Simon Says.’ We sounded out different words for example, “Simon says get your c-oa-t, coat!”, “Touch your t-oe-s, toes!” “Simon says can you touch your f-ee-t, feet!” 

During carpet time we introduced the children to a puppet that can only speak in ‘sound-talk’. The children saw  the puppet who we named ch-i-p, Chip, whispering in Miss Cowen’s ear. To add to the activity, as Chip whispers, Miss Cowen repeated the sounds, and then said the word straight afterwards. For example: What would Chip like for tea today? Chip spoke silently in Miss Cowen’s ear and repeated ‘ch-ee-se’ and then said ‘cheese!’ We used different scenarios: What does Chip like to do in the playground? (hop,skip,jump,run, etc.) What is Ch-i-p’s favourite colour and Chip answered r-e-d, g-r-ee-n, m-au-ve. We will carry on exploring oral segmentation next term.

If you play any of the above games it is important that you teach your child the correct letter sound, so I have attached the correct pronunciations for you to listen to before you teach your child:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

In our phonics lessons next term, we will begin to learn the letter sounds. We will learn two sounds a week on a Monday and Wednesday and revise the letters on a Tuesday and Thursday. On our first week back we will learn the sounds on Tuesday and Thursday and revise on Wednesday and Friday.

It would be great if the children could bring in an object beginning with the letter sounds they are learning to share with the class. Everyone will get an opportunity to bring an object for the different letter sounds and this will be arranged on a rota basis. This will also replace our weekly Show and Tell sessions.

Please can the following children please bring in an object beginning with the letter sound ‘s’ for the session on Wednesday 19th April:

Carmi

Maya

Bobby

Rafi 

Ollie

Zac F

Ariella

Yael

Leo G

Rafaela

Please can the following children please bring in an object starting with the letter sound ‘a’ for the session on Friday 21st April:

Noah 

Sam

Harry

Amelie

Zac M

Léo 

Noa

Elise

Annabelle

Arianna

Please ensure that all objects for both sounds are handed in on the first Tuesday we are back and each Monday for the weeks after that. (apart from when there is a Bank Holiday).

Please can you make sure that the objects sent in begin with the actual sound for example ‘a’. An apple has the ‘a’ sound but an acorn does not have the ‘a’ sound the children are learning. 

In Mathematics we revised all numbers previously taught and then we focused on learning the number of the week, which was 18. We practiced counting a variety of different objects up to 18, using 1-1 correspondence. 

The children enjoyed making matzah. They measured out the different ingredients and then mixed them together. They rolled out the dough using rolling pins and used forks to create a hole effect.. This links to the areas of Physical Development and Understanding the World.

In Understanding the World some of the children came into the garden area to continue to plant. We planted sunflower seeds.

Please find below some activities that you can during the holiday with your child:

• Continue to read rhyming books and encourage them to say as many rhyming words as they can to create a rhyming string. 
• Continue to explore alliteration and see how many objects/words you can find starting with the same letter sound.
• You can discuss consonant, vowel, consonant (CVC) words, for example, cat, mat, peg, leg. See if your child is able to say the first, middle and last sounds. Let your child “sound talk” each of the words, for example, c-a-t, m-a-t.
• Continue to look around the environment or your house to see what numbers your child can see. This includes looking for objects with numbers for example weighing scales, telephones, buses.
• Carry on with counting by rote with your child. How high can your child count?
• Continue to practice counting objects with your child using one to one correspondence. Make sure they say the number as each object is placed. Your child can practice counting the stairs up to bed and down in the morning. Make sure your child says the number name as they place each foot on the step.
• You can practice “one more than” and “how many altogether?”. This can be done while shopping. For example, if you have three apples, one more is? If you have two pears and 3 apples how many do you have altogether? 
• You can practice one less than. This can be done when your child is eating, for example using raisins. If you have 4 raisins and you eat one, how many have you got left?

In Jewish Studies Nursery had a beautiful Model Seder- every child had a role and did so well! We also made a gorgeous craft of a lion, representing the Makkah of the wild animals. 

Why do we eat matzah on Pesach?

Answer: The Bnei Yisrael left Mitsrayim in such a rush that their bread dough had no time to rise, so they made flat matzah instead. 

Who did Hashem send to ask Paroh to let Bnei Yisrael out of Mitsrayim? 

Answer: Moshe

Why do we eat bitter herbs / marror on Pesach? 

Answer: To remind us of how bitter our lives were in Mitsrayim. 

Why do we dip our vegetables in salty water?

Answer:  To remember the tears Bnei Israel cried when we were slaves in Mitsrayim.

Can you name any of the 10 Makot / Plagues that Hashem sent to the Mitsrim?

Answer: blood, frogs, lice, wild animals....

What season is Pesach in ? 

Answer: Spring

We start to Count the Omer at Pesach. We will count seven weeks up until the next big chag. Do you remember the name of that chag?

Answer: Shavuot.

Important reminders:

• Please continue to post pictures on Tapestry of what your child is doing during the holidays. It is always lovely to see.
• Please make sure you return your child’s clothes bag fully stocked.
• Please ensure all articles of clothing are named.
• Please send back your child’s apron.

We hope that you all have a lovely Pesach and enjoy the break. 

We look forward to seeing you back next term.

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Nursery Newsletter- 24th March

This week the main focus has been Pesach.

We continued to discuss what our hands and feet are used for. We reread the books ‘Hands Are Not for Hitting’ and ‘Feet Are Not for Kicking’. We discussed how it makes us feel if someone pushes us, kicks us or grabs something off us. We also talked about the importance of using our words correctly instead of our emotions. This comes under the area Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

In Literacy we started Aspect 7: Oral Blending and Segmenting. It is important that the children have plenty of experience listening to adults modeling oral blending and that they are introduced to grapheme–phoneme correspondences. For example, when giving children instructions or asking questions, the adult can segment the last word into separate phonemes (sounds) and then blend these together to say the word. ‘Simon Says’ is a fun game that we played in class that you may like to play at home. Different words were sounded out, for example, “Simon says get your c-oa-t, coat!”, “Touch your t-oe-s, toes!” “Simon says can you touch your f-ee-t, feet!” 

The children went and picked their last library book for this term. Please can you make sure this is returned no later than Monday morning.

We were also excited to have Year 6 visit us again. They had written stories which they wanted to share with the children. 

In Mathematics we revised all numbers previously taught and then we focused on learning the number of the week, which was 17.  We practised counting a variety of different objects up to 17, using 1-1 correspondence. 

The children continued exploring different iPad games to continue to develop their number recognition and 1-1 correspondence skills. Again, it was lovely to see the children waiting so patiently for their turn.

We discussed the calendar and how we are now in the new season of spring. We learnt key facts about spring: We talked about how in spring the days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, the spring flowers are growing fast and the animals are having babies. This links to the area of Understanding the World.

Some of the children enjoyed painting pictures of daffodils. They discussed the shape and colour of the flower. This links to the area of Expressive Art and Design.

In Physical Development some of the children had fun playing different games with the parachute. Firstly they played a game called Washing Machine where they washed the toys in the washing machine and then tumble dried them. They practised moving the parachute up and down and got faster, moving around when the tumble drier was spinning. They then played the Popcorn game where they had to toss the balls up and down like popcorn. When all the popcorn (balls) were off the parachute the children had to pick them all up and place them back onto the parachute.

The children also had to listen to when their name was called out and when the parachute was high up they had to run through the parachute. This is a great activity for developing the children’s upper body strength. 

Some of the children continued to help plant seeds in the garden. This included lettuce, tomato, spring onion and radish seeds. They were excited to see that the cress and parsley seeds had started to grow. It was lovely to see the children watering and taking care of the parsley pots placed in our classroom. We talked about the importance of watering and also not overwatering.

In Music this week:

• The children started the lesson with stretching exercises, shaking their arms and legs.
• They then practiced a variety of Pesach songs which they will sing at our Pesach Seder and on Seder night.
• This was the last music lesson for this term.

In PE this week:

• The children were split into groups.
• They had to run one at a time to the hoops and do three star jumps and then run back. 
• They had to hop to the hoops, hop around the hoops and then hop back,
• They had to side step to the hoops, do two squats and then do side steps back.
• Three hoops were set out apart on the blue track. They were filled with bean bags. In their teams they had to try and take the bean bags out of the other teams hoop to see who could get the most.
• This was the last PE lesson for this term.

Jewish Studies:

This week in JS we have focussed on the changes that are happening in the calendar as well as in the weather. We learned the chorus of the sweet Pesach melody 'Simcha Rabba' which celebrates spring and the arrival of Pesach and the wonderful sense of renewal that we feel at this time of the year. The children were enthralled and delighted with a little film made by Tel Aviv University featuring 'Simcha Rabba' showing all sorts of different animals getting ready for Spring. We also practised a tune that we started to learn last week for the 'Order of the Seder' and made a decorative Order of the Seder craft to cherish at home.

This week, Nursery celebrated Rosh Chodesh Nisan and we talked about how we say Hallel to mark the special occasion of a new month. We learned that Hallel is also sung as part of the Seder and we sang Hodu La Hashem Ki Tov with great joy!

On Friday we had our very special Shabbat Party.

The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba:  Zac F

Shabbat Ima:  Elise

Shabbat Ben:  Rafi

Shabbat Bat:  Maya

Important reminders: 

• Our topic for next term is People Who Help Us. I would be most grateful if you are a doctor, dentist, barrister or have another profession that comes under this heading and would be able to come in to talk to the children about what your role involves. It would be very much appreciated. Aunties, uncles and grandparents who also may work in one or another profession are also welcome. If you would like to email me if you are available to come in or speak to me at drop off or pick up that would be great.

Have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter 17th March

Firstly we want to wish Mr and Mrs Lipman and Amelie a huge Mazeltov on the birth of their son and brother.

This week the main focus has been Pesach.

In Literacy in Letters and Sounds we continued Aspect 6: Voice Sounds. Some of the children enjoyed coming up to the front of class. They formed a line. The one at the beginning of the line made a sound, for example ch,ch,ch. The next person repeated the sound and continued as the next one joined in, to form a chain. We then discussed if the sound was the same by the time it got to the end of the line.

We also talked about how we can use our voices to add sounds to stories. For example, a long sound, a loud sound, did it change from high to low, etc.? We read the stories Chicken Licken, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and We are Going on a Bear Hunt. We discussed which voices to use, to depict the different characters in both stories. 

Some of the children continued playing with Metal Mike. Metal Mike is a toy robot computer. The children selected a picture, for example, cat, fan, van. They soundeout and blended each of the sounds (phonemes) together, using a robotic voice and then the object/picture was fed to Metal Mike.

The children enjoyed their weekly visit to the library, selecting a book to take home. Please make sure all library books are sent back before the end of term. We will not be visiting the library next week.

In Mathematics we revised all numbers previously taught and then we focused on learning the number of the week, which was 16. We practiced counting a variety of different objects up to 16, using 1-1 correspondence. 

The children continued exploring different iPad games to continue to develop their number recognition and 1-1 correspondence skills. Again, it was lovely to see the children waiting so patiently for their turn.

In Physical Development some of the children enjoyed making playdough by mixing the ingredients together using their hands and wooden spoons. They then had to find objects hidden in the playdough. This is an excellent activity for strengthening their hand strength. Some children enjoyed developing their cutting skills further by completing different cutting activities and practised cutting on the lines.

Some of the children enjoyed helping to clear the weeds, dig over the soil, add new soil and manure to prepare for planting. They had to put soil into the bags, place the seed potato with the root pointing downwards and then cover the potatoes with another layer of soil. They then  sprayed the soil with water. 

We also discussed what chitting is. Chitting potatoes is also called green sprouting, or pre-sprouting. Chitting, is a way of preparing potatoes for planting by encouraging them to sprout before planting in the ground. This gives the tubers a head start and encourages faster growth and heavier crops once the seed potatoes are planted. We placed some seed potatoes on the windowsill in the light. We will be keeping an eye on them and as soon as they have sprouts on them we will plant them. We also planted cress, carrot, parsley and mint seeds.

In Music this week:

• The children started the music lesson with stretching movements.
• They also worked on using their voices and mouths to make different sounds.
• They sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and Simon Says.
• They practiced a variety of Pesach songs for our model Seder including  Da Yeinu and I like Matza.

In PE:

• The children started the lesson by completing running races. They were split into teams. They had to run to the cone and back.
• They then repeated the same activity using different movements which included hopping, side stepping and bunny hops.
• They ended the lesson by continuing to practise throwing and catching the beanbags.

Jewish Studies:

This week, Nursery has enjoyed preparing some beautiful pictures and crafts for their Haggadot, as well as getting ready for their Sedarim by learning some new songs, including Dayeinu, Hodu LaHashem Ki Tov, and Ma Nishtana. There is a fabulous version of Ma Nishtana by The Maccabeats, which you can find online and can use to help your child practise if you want to, at home. 

We looked at some fascinating pictures of how matzah is made in a factory, and talked about the different types of matzah that people like to eat in different homes and different communities - some eating soft round matzot, and some eating crunchy square matzot. We discussed the different actions we do with matzah during the seder: breaking it, eating it, hiding it and finding it!

Nursery had fun learning about Bedikat Chametz last Friday and going on a chametz hunt round the classroom, armed with a big feather, a spoon and a (toy) candle just like we will do the night before Pesach in our own homes.

On Friday we had our very special Shabbat Party.

The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba:  Ollie

Shabbat Ima:  Carmi

Shabbat Ben: Bobby

Shabbat Bat:  Noa

Important reminders: 

• Please can you let the team know if you are finishing the term early. The children are preparing a beautiful Hagaddah with Morah Cassie and we would like to make sure they have it to use on Seder night.
• It is really important if there are any changes at home, including moving house,  administering your child with medicine or that your child has had a bad night’s sleep that you email me so that I can inform my team. This is really important for us to know. 
• Our topic for next term is People Who Help Us. I would be most grateful if you are a doctor, dentist, barrister or have another profession that comes under this heading and would be able to come in to talk to the children about what your role involves. It would be very much appreciated. If you would like to email me if you are available to come in or speak to me at drop off or pick up that would be great.

Have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter 10th march

We hope you had a lovely Purim.

In Literacy in Letters and Sounds we started Aspect 6: Voice Sounds.The main purpose of this aspect is to distinguish between the differences in vocal sounds, including oral blending and segmenting. The children explored different mouth movements including blowing, sucking, tongue stretching and wiggling. We will be practicing these movements over the next few weeks. 

Some of the children helped to make Metal Mike with Mrs Jungbacke using different junk modeling and collage materials. Metal Mike was then introduced to the class in our phonics lesson. ‘Metal Mike’ is a toy robot computer. Some of the children came to the front and selected a picture, for example, cat, fan, van. We all sounded out and blended each of the sounds (phonemes) together, using a robotic voice and then the object/picture was fed to ‘Metal Mike’. Some of the children continued playing with Metal Mike during freeflow. We will continue with this next week.

The children enjoyed their weekly visit to the library, selecting a book to take home. Please make sure you send your child’s library book back each week so they can take a new one home. They get really disappointed if they can’t choose a new book to take home.

In Mathematics some of the children enjoyed using the number moulds to make different numbers, using the moon sand. We also continued practising our counting skills by rote up to 150 to exercise.

We revised all numbers previously taught and then we focused on learning the number of the week which was 15. We practiced counting a variety of different objects up to 15, using 1-1 correspondence. 

We revised the 2D shapes including a pentagon, hexagon and octagon. The children enjoyed listening to the book Mouse Shapes. This is a fun story about a group of mice trying to get away from a scary cat.  They make shapes to create a way to survive. They build a house out of a square and a triangle and to scare the cat away they build three big, scary mice! Some of the children enjoyed making their own shape pictures by cutting out different shapes and sticking them onto coloured card. Others enjoyed making a picture using the magnetic shapes.

The children enjoyed exploring different iPad games to continue to develop their number recognition and 1-1 correspondence skills. Again, it was lovely to see the children waiting so patiently for their turn.

In Music this week:

• The children started the music lesson copying a variety of different movements that Mr Style’s did. These included clapping and waving their hands.
• They then enjoyed listening to Meditation Monkey where they had to listen to the music and actions and copy them.
• They also enjoyed singing a variety of different songs including ‘1,2,3,4 5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive’ using different actions. They also sang ‘I Love You, You Love Me’ in Portuguese and ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' with actions’. 

In PE:

• The children were split into groups of three.
• They practiced running over the hurdles, jumping over cones and hopping between the cones.
• They worked on waiting for their turn until the person in front of them was back.
• In pairs they continued practicing their catching skills using bean bags.

This week in Jewish Studies, the days were all dedicated to Purim! The children loved making their Hamantaschen with Mrs Dagul. They rolled out the pastry, used the cutters to make a round shape, chose which filling they wanted and then helped to fold it into a triangle shape.

Celebrating Purim was great fun. We started the morning with the children saying Tefillah with the Reception children. They enjoyed hearing the Megillah read by Rabbi Luis Herszaft and made lots of noise when they heard Haman’s name. We had a Purim parade, where all the children and teachers walked down the catwalk showing everyone their different costumes. It was lovely to see the children walking with great confidence and excitement. The children had fun using a variety of collage materials to decorate their boxes to store their mishloach manot. They enjoyed their fruit snack and hamantaschen. We then had our Seudah. The day ended with the children swapping their mishloach manot with each other.

On Purim there are four special mitzvot:

• Hearing Megilat Esther
• Children send gifts called mishloach manot to each other – gifts of two foods to at least one person.  
• Have a Purim Seudah (a special meal).
• Give Tzedakah (Matanot La’evionim) on Purim.

During all the Purim celebrations the children were able to achieve all of the mitzvot of Purim.

This week we introduced Parasha Ki Tisa where Hashem tells Beneh Yisrael to keep Shabbat on the seventh day. We make Shabbat special and different from the other days of the week by saying Kiddush over wine and having three meals at which we make a brachah over two challot and sing zemirot. We played a really beautiful version of Dror Yikra by the Maccabeats. Search for the Maccabeats, Dror Yikra - Cup Song online if you would like to play it at home. Nursery class had fun laying their own table for Shabbat and playing with Shabbat puzzles. We made some fabulous challah crafts with glittery poppy seeds and a white challah cloth to take home. 

We started to look at Pesach this week too and the Nursery talked about matzah and chametz. We made some great matzot of our own by rubbing paper over Lego baseboards with a crayon, which we will keep to go onto their Haggadot.

On Friday we had our very special Shabbat Party.

The following children were on the Shabbat table today:

Shabbat Aba:  Harry

Shabbat Ima:  Arianna

Shabbat Ben:  Rafi

Shabbat Bat:   Amelie

Important reminders: 

• Please can you make sure you arrive no later than 8.40am so that your child is in school ready for the start of the day. Thank you.
• Please can you make sure you return your Child's Home diary.

Have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter 3rd March

It was another fun and busy week in Nursery.

We continued to focus on different nursery rhymes including ‘Incy, Wincy, Spider ‘and ‘Hickory, Dickory, Dock’. 

In Expressive Art and Design the children enjoyed listening to the nursery rhyme ‘Incy Wincy Spider’. Some of the children enjoyed hand printing a spider and then used a q-tip to create a spider's web. 

For the nursery rhyme ‘Hickory,Dickory, Dock some of the children enjoyed making a clock. They cut out a circle and wrote the numbers around the clock face. They then made a small and big hand. We then discussed o’clock and they practiced moving their hands around to make 1 o’clock, 2 o'clock and so on.  This links to Mathematics.

In Literacy we continued with Letters and Sounds with Aspect 5; developing the children’s knowledge of alliteration. We discussed how different sounds are articulated to extend our understanding of alliteration. We did this by playing with mirrors. The children enjoyed making faces and seeing how their lips moved when sounding out different sounds, for example ‘p’ and ‘b’. We talked about how the tongue pokes out for ‘th’ and the teeth and lips touch for ‘f’. The children experimented saying different sounds to see how the position of their tongue changed as each sound was said. It was lovely to see the children working together collaboratively. It made us all so very proud to see the children sharing and taking turns. This also links to Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

We continued to play the game ‘Silly Soup’ where they had to select items to put in the soup. They sat in a circle singing the ‘Silly Soup' song and then someone was chosen to pick different items beginning with the ‘b’ sound to put in our soup. We discussed how all the items began with the same sound and reiterated that this is called alliteration. 

In Mathematics, we completed the calendar. We discussed that in February there are only 28 days and every 4 years there is a leap year and then there are 29 days. We also discussed how we are now in the new month of  March. 

We revised all numbers previously taught and then we focused on learning the number of the week which was 14. We practiced counting a variety of different objects up to 14, using 1-1 correspondence. 

Some of the children enjoyed making moon sand. They discussed the ingredients required. They then measured out the ingredients using cups. They discussed half and full cups. They counted how many cups they had used as they emptied the contents. 

Some children enjoyed playing group games of counting caterpillars where the children had to select a number and then count along the caterpillars' empty spaces to see where the number fitted correctly. Others enjoyed playing Bingo up to 20. It was lovely to see the children sharing and waiting their turn so patiently.

The children also enjoyed exploring different Ipad games to continue to develop their number recognition and 1-1 correspondence skills. Again, it was lovely to see the children waiting so patiently for their turn.

We had another fun Show and Tell session where the children asked questions to the child who had brought in the object. The children’s questioning and answering skills are improving. This activity is great for building both their confidence and their communication and language skills.

The children enjoyed their weekly visit to the library, selecting a book to take home.

In Understanding the World some of the children helped to clear away the leaves in the gardening area. They used their hands, rakes and brooms to sweep up the leaves. This is a great gross motor activity to help strengthen the upper body.

In Music:

• The children were excited to see Mr Style bring in his guitar. He talked to them about it being made of wood and that it has 6 strings.
• He sang different Purim songs with them.
• He finished off the lesson with ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, and the song ‘I Love You and You Love Me’.

In PE:

• The children enjoyed playing the cereal bowl and hat game where they had to turn over the cones. They were split into two teams and at the end they counted who had more hats than cereal bowls.
• The children practiced their throwing and catching skills using bean bags. They worked on trying not to throw too high or too low.
• They finished off the lesson with running races.

Jewish Studies 

In this week's parasha lesson, we discussed the Kohanim who worked in the Mishkan, lighting the Menorah every day and receiving the gifts which Bnei Yisrael brought to the Mishkan. We read all about the eight different items of clothing the Kohen Gadol wore and had a chance to dress up as a Kohen Gadol. The children were fascinated by the beautiful breastplate (Choshen Mishpat) that the Kohen Gadol wore, and all of the children had a turn making their own colourful and textured version to take home. You might enjoy making your own tasty Choshen Mishpat snacks using any square biscuit eg Petit Beurre, and jelly beans and a little bit of jam to hold them in place. 

We continued to get into the Purim spirit this week, ready for next Monday night. We focussed on the four key mitzvot of Purim:  giving mishloach manot משלח מנות; giving charity צדקה; listening to the megillah מגילה;  and having a special Purim meal/ seudah. Each child made their own fabulous Purim character puppets to help them to tell the story of Megillat Esther, so do ask them to show you! We listened to and tried our best to sing along to a sweet version of the song 'Ani Purim' by Savannah Kids TV, which you can find online if you'd like to play it at home.

On Friday we had our very special Shabbat Party.

The following children were on the Shabbat table:

Shabbat Aba: Sam

Shabbat Ima: Annabelle

Shabbat Ben: Zac M

Shabbat Bat : Rafaela

Important reminders: 

Purim:

Tuesday 7th March 2022

We are so excited to celebrate Purim with your child in school on Tuesday 7th March.

• Your child can come to school in fancy dress. Please make sure that the costume your child is wearing is easy for them to take up and down for toileting purposes. Please ensure that any trousers/dresses are not too long. Any props, including hats and glasses, must be named separately. We request that no 'weapons' be included with the costumes (swords, guns etc).
• In keeping with the Purim Mitzvah of giving to two separate charities, please may I ask the following:

The main school has been asked by the Royal Free Hospital Charity to collect the following items.  It would be so wonderful if we could do this on Purim too.  The items are warm socks, adult colouring books and pencils, packs of cards, and hand cream. If you are unable to do this please can your child fulfill one of the mitzvot of Purim by bringing in some Tzedaka.

• The children swap Mishloach Manot with each other. So that everyone has the same, please can you send in 1 small bag of crisps, one carton of drink and a packet of raisins. You do not need to gift wrap these as the children will be decorating special boxes to put their Mishloach Manot into.
• Please make sure all food sent in is on the Kashrut list. Please can this be sent to school in a small named plastic bag. For the children to be able to swap Mishlaoch Manot with each other, we need you to send this in by Friday 3rd of March.
• On Tuesday 7th March (Purim) the children will stay at Nursery until 1.30pm. They will have lunch, which will be our Purim Seuda.      .
• Please send your child in with a fruit snack as normal.

Have a lovely weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter 24th February

We hope you all had a lovely half term.

We have had a very busy and fun week in Nursery.

The topic this week is nursery rhymes, focusing on Humpty Dumpty.

In Literacy we continued with Aspect 5: Alliteration. We went over what alliteration is; when words begin with the same letter sound. While completing the register, we played “I Spy With My Little Eye someone whose name begins with ....”

Some of the children enjoyed making aliens by cutting out different shapes. They enjoyed naming them, trying to use words beginning with the same sound. They also discussed which shapes they used. This also covers the area of Mathematics.

Some of the children enjoyed playing the game ‘Silly Soup’ where they had to select items to put in the soup. They sat in a circle singing the ‘Silly Soup' song and then someone was chosen to pick different items beginning with the ‘b’ sound to put in our soup. We discussed how all the items began with the same sound and reiterated that this is called alliteration. 

In Mathematics the children enjoyed learning about positional language.They learnt the vocabulary above, below, inside, outside, in, on, under, next to, behind, in front of, between and on top of. Some of the children came up to the front of the class and practiced placing ‘Humpty Dumpty’ in a variety of different positions.

In Expressive Arts and Design the children enjoyed listening to different nursery rhymes. Some of the children had fun making their own pictures of Humpty Dumpty. They drew the wall, then cut out an oval shape and drew Humpty’s face on it. It was lovely to see the children working independently to create their own Humpty Dumpty. This also covers the area Mathematics.

The children also completed an experiment with Humpty Dumpty. They drew Humpty Dumpty’s face on an egg (not hard boiled).  They then discussed in their pairs what material they could use to wrap Humpty in to try and protect him from breaking when dropped. The children were excited to see if they had managed to wrap Humpty Dumpty securely enough to stop him breaking. This experiment links to the area of Understanding the World.

We had another fun Show and Tell session where the children asked questions of the child who had brought in the object. The children’s questioning and answering skills are improving.

The children enjoyed their weekly visit to the library, selecting a book to take home.

In Mathematics we revised all numbers previously taught and then we focused on learning  the number of the week which was 13. We practiced counting a variety of different objects up to 13, using 1-1 correspondence. 

In Music:

• The children listened to a variety of different music with different tempos focusing on fast and slow music.
• They also listened to different pitches. If the music was high they had to put their hands in the air and if the music was low put their hands to the ground.
• They sang a variety of songs including Humpty Dumpty, Wind the Bobbin up, Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes. They also played a game of Simon Says.

In PE:

• They started the lesson having to move balls around so they were on different coloured cones. They had to balance the balls on the cones so they didn’t fall off.
• They split up into groups and lined up behind each other and one at a time, in their groups, they had to jump over hurdles. Once they finished they went to the back of the line.
• They finished off the lesson by running to the fence and back again.

Jewish Studies 

This week in Jewish Studies we discussed the Parasha of  Mishpatim, which we read in shul last weekend. In Mishpatim Moshe went up Har Sinai to receive the Torah. Keeping the mitzvot of the Torah brings us closer to Hashem, and one of the mitzvot of the Torah is to keep milk and meat separate. This is one of the ways of keeping Kosher. Nursery class produced some gorgeous little booklets with yummy examples of meaty and milky foods. We also discussed the Parasha for this week, which is Terumah. In it, Hashem told Moshe to tell Bnei Yisrael to build a Mishkan - a holy building like a big Beit Knesset (shul) which Bnei Yisrael could come into, to feel close to Hashem.

The Beit Knesset today reminds us of the Mishkan. The children enjoyed hearing the description of the Mishkan and how it looked, smelt, and what there was to touch. We looked at and felt different fabrics scented with orange and bergamot, a beautiful spicy mix; a bit like the delicious aromas that would have been in the Mishkan as the Kohanim ground and burned all sorts of sweet spices each day. We looked at pictures of how the Mishkan would have looked. Have a chat with your child about how it must have felt to have visited the Mishkan to come closer to Hashem. It must have been very exciting!

We also started to talk about Purim this week and told the story of Megillat Esther. Nursery had such fun making their own graggers to shake when they hear the name of Haman. We also started to learn the song 'Chag Purim' - there is a lovely version of this song online by 'Shaboom', and a really nice Purim song medley online by Micha Gammerman that you might like to listen to to get into the Purim spirit at home.

On Friday we had our very special Shabbat Party.

The following children were on the Shabbat table:

Shabbat Aba:   Léo M

Shabbat Ima:    Maya

Shabbat Ben:   Ollie

Shabbat Bat :   Elise

Important reminders: 

• Please continue to post pictures on Tapestry of what your child has been doing out of school. 
• Please could you check at home to see if you have any uniforms that belong to school. We are particularly missing trousers that we have changed children into when they have not had spare clothes of their own. We no longer have any spare trousers left. Thank you.

Purim:

Tuesday 7th March 2022

We are so excited to celebrate Purim with your child in school on Tuesday 7th March.

• Your child can come to school in fancy dress. Please make sure that the costume your child is wearing is easy for them to take up and down for toileting purposes. Please ensure that any trousers/dresses are not too long. Any props, including hats and glasses, must be named separately. (Please can no swords be sent in).
• So that your child can fulfill one of the mitzvot of Purim, please can you send them in with some Tzedaka.
• The children swap Mishloach Manot with each other. So that everyone has the same, please can you send in 1 small bag of crisps, one carton of drink and a packet of raisins. You do not need to gift wrap these as the children will be decorating special boxes to put their Mishloach Manot into.
• Please make sure all food sent in is on the Kashrut list. Please can this be sent to school in a small named plastic bag. For the children to be able to swap Mishlaoch Manot with each other, we need you to send this in by Friday 3rd of March.
• On Tuesday 7th March (Purim) the children will stay at Nursery until 1.30pm. They will have lunch, which will be our Purim Seuda.      .
• Please send your child in with a fruit snack as normal.

Have a lovely weekend

Shabbat Shalom,

Miss Cowen and the Nursery Team

Newsletter 10th February

We have had a very busy week in Nursery.

A special highlight this week was a zoom call to Ariella and Yael. The children were so excited and all came to say hello and send messages. We look forward to seeing them both back at school very soon.

We started the week off by celebrating Tu B'Shvat, the birthday of the trees. It was lovely that you were able to join us and make it so special. The children loved the workshop run by our Seed partner, Sarah Silkin. They decorated fruit plates, participated in a quiz and also ate pomegranate. We carried on having a really fun day. The children enjoyed our fruit party where they tried all the different fruit that you had kindly sent in.

They then enjoyed a baking session with Mrs Dagul where they made apple crumbles. They helped to measure out all the ingredients and then mixed them altogether to make the crumble.

The children also loved making their grass heads. They filled the soil to the top of their pots. They covered it with grass seeds and then lightly covered the grass seeds with a little bit more soil. They then sprayed the soil.

Please encourage your child to look after their grass head following the instructions displayed on their name label. It is important that your child understands the importance of caring for all living things including plants. Once the grass has grown your child can give their grasshead a hairstyle using bows and clips! Please post on Tapestry any pictures of your child caring for their grass head and also showing any growth. It would be lovely for them to be able to share with the class. This links to the areas of Understanding the World and Mathematics.

This week was Mental Health Awareness Week. We have focused on kindness towards each other and reread the books ‘Hands Are Not For Hitting’, ‘Voices Are Not For Yelling and ‘Words Are Not For Hurting’. We talked about how people's feelings can be hurt if we are not kind towards each other. We reminded the children of the importance of using their words to get what they need rather than their emotions. 

We also reread the book ‘Ruby’s Worry’ to remind them of the importance of sharing any worries so they don’t get bigger. We reminded them that they can write down or draw a picture of their worry and put it inside the Worry Monster’s mouth and in the morning the worry will have disappeared.

We also practiced doing some yoga, sitting quietly breathing slowly in through our noses and out through our mouths. This all links to the area of Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

We had another fun Show and Tell session where the children practiced their questioning skills asking questions to the child who had brought in their Show and Tell. The children really are developing good questioning and answering skills. This links to the area Communication and Language.

In Literacy in our Letters and Sounds lesson we continued with Aspect 4, focusing on rhythm and rhyme. We continued to focus on what a syllable is; it makes up part of a word. We continued to clap out the syllables in all the children’s names and how many syllables there are in a variety of different words.

We also continued with Aspect 5: Alliteration. We discussed what alliteration is; when words begin with the same letter sound. We played ‘I Spy With My Little Eye’, somebody’s name beginning with the letter sound ‘s’,’a’ etc. We discussed whose names begin with the same sounds. The children enjoyed making up different tongue twisters using their names and words beginning with the same sounds.

Over half term:

• Please continue exploring rhyming with your children by reading different rhyming stories and see how many rhyming words they can say to make a rhyming string. These words can be made up.
• Continue to explore clapping out how many syllables in different words.
• Continue to discuss what alliteration is. Have fun making up tongue twisters using words that begin with the same sounds.
• It is very important that you teach your child the correct letter sound. Please listen to the link below which tells you all the correct pronunciations.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

Thank you to all parents who came in to read a story to the class this week. It has been wonderful for the children to listen to such a huge variety of books. We look forward to more parents coming in to read a variety of books to the children after half term. 

There was no Library this week, it will resume after half term.

In Mathematics the number of the week was 12. We practiced counting a variety of different objects up to 12, using 1-1 correspondence. 

In Understanding the World and Expressive Art and Design, the children continued to learn about different artists. They learnt about the artist Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky was known for his concentric circles on squares. Some of the children enjoyed painting a picture in the style of Kandinsky. They created the most amazing pictures, each one being very individual. They carefully selected the colours of their choice and painted with great care and precision. Kandinsky was known for listening to music as he painted. Linked to Mental Health Week the children enjoyed painting, whilst listening to relaxing music playing in the background.

We also learnt about the artist Jackson Pollock who was famous for creating his paintings by splashing and pouring paint onto the canvas. Some of the children enjoyed going outside and freely created their pictures by splashing paint onto their paper. This is a great activity for developing the children’s gross motor skills and they also had a lot of fun.

Over the last few weeks the children have been doing lots of artwork in the style of different artists. In class we have been encouraging the children to talk about their art work. It is important that they feel proud of their achievements. Please look at the posts of their work on Tapestry and you will also be incredibly proud. This links to the areas Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language.

In Music:

• The children enjoyed learning and singing the song,”I Love You, You Love Me”. They learnt actions to go alongside the song.
• They also focused on listening to music and doing meditation along with the music. They had to watch the monkey and copy the actions. They discussed words of how the music made them feel. 

In PE:

• The children continued enjoying a carousel of activities.
• They did squats and star jumps in hoops.
• They hopped in between the cones.
• They practised two footed jumping into the hoops.
• They enjoyed developing their running skills.
• They then paired up and practised their throwing and catching skills using both hands.