This week we have read the story ‘Bears don’t eat egg sandwiches’, which is a hilarious story about a little boy who wants to give the bear his egg sandwiches but all the bear wants to eat is the little boy. We have learnt the signs for ‘eat’, ‘spring’ and ‘hungry’. To help make our vocabulary grow, we have been learning other words that we can say instead of eat. These are: chew, munch, devour, ingest and consume.

For our understanding the world session, we looked at the true story of the explorer Ernest Shackleton. We talked about how they would have travelled years ago and the discovery of new lands. We then learnt a song all about the different ways people might travel around.

We learnt all about personal hygiene and what we need to do to ensure we look after our bodies. The children had many ideas such as, have a bath, brush our teeth and wash our hair.

Please have a look at the Home Learning that has been attached to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

A few notes:

• Every Tuesday we will be having our PE sessions. Therefore, can all children come into school wearing their PE kit and they will remain in it throughout the day.
• We would love to receive any recyclable material for our junk modelling station. These can include cardboard boxes, cleaned out yoghurt pots or plastic containers. Please can we ask that anything that contained nuts does not come in due to allergies, thank you.

Our focus text this week has been ‘Rosie’s Walk’ by Pat Hutchins. The story is about Rosie the hen who goes for a walk around her farmyard. She has to avoid many obstacles on her way all whilst a sly fox is following behind her in hope of a tasty meal! The fox does not succeed and eventually is chased away by a swarm of bees, as Rosie makes it home safely in time for her dinner.

This story is always a popular one with the children and they found all the mishaps of the fox entertaining. It has been a great opportunity for the children to continue learning positional language. We used words such as; over, under, around, and through to describe Rosie’s position in relation to objects.

We made an obstacle course in our hall to practise using our positional language, as we had to climb over, under and around different obstacles; we even went through some nets as we tried not to get tangled!

‘Stranger danger’ has been a focus during some of our carpet times this week. We thought about the wolf in the traditional tale of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and how he was an unkind stranger who tried to trick the little girl and her granny. We learnt that strangers are anybody that we don’t know. There is no way of telling if a stranger is kind or not and we thought about what to do if we ever get lost. We learnt how to find what we call a ‘safer stranger’ such as somebody who works in a shop and has an ID badge or perhaps somebody wearing a uniform such as a police officer or a doctor.

Our Makaton signs linking to our story this week have been ‘hen/chicken’, ‘over’, ‘under’ and ‘spring’. We have used synonyms for ‘eat’ to extend our vocabulary this week. We explored using ‘munch’, ‘scoff’, ‘consume’ and ‘devour’.

Finally, we have been looking for signs of spring for some of our group times this week. We have talked about blossom on the trees, the sound of birds cheeping, new plant life and the birth of baby animals in the spring. Please have a look at the attached home learning to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk.

This week the children have enjoyed listening to different stories about families, especially ‘Monkey Puzzle’. We have talked at great length about why the poor butterfly cannot seem to find the monkey’s mum. We have also learnt the signs for ‘when’, ‘dad’ and ‘mum’.  

For our understanding the world session, we have talked about our families and how they are all different. The children enjoyed paired work where they asked each other the questions: “who is in your family?” and “what does your family like to do?”

There has been a delicious smell coming from our kitchen, as the chefs have been busy cooking up some delicious cheese scones.

For PE we are continuing the unit on gymnastics. This week, we have been exploring how to control our bodies by changing directions and following different pathways. For example, walking around a triangle and a square.

Please have a look at the Home Learning that has been attached to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

A few notes:

• Every Tuesday we will be having our PE sessions. Therefore, can all children come into school wearing their PE kit and they will remain in it throughout the day.
• We would love to receive any recyclable material for our junk modelling station. These can include cardboard boxes, cleaned out yoghurt pots or plastic containers. Please can we ask that anything that contained nuts does not come in due to allergies, thank you.

‘My Mum and Dad make me laugh’ has been our focus text this week, written by the well-known children’s author Nick Sharratt. The story was a popular one this week, the children really enjoyed talking all about the quirks of the mum and dad in the story and all the strange things they do.

Our narrative focus of ‘when’ linked nicely with the story and the children were brilliant at recalling ‘when’ things happened. We talked lots about our own families too, especially thinking why our family is special. We even decided to make a card for our ‘special person’ in our family, as many will be celebrating Mothering Sunday this weekend.

Our focus for some of our group sessions has been prepositions; in particular, we used the positional language ‘over/under’. It was lots of fun to explore this using our gross motor skills in the hall as we did lots of balancing and climbing over, under and through many different obstacles on our obstacle course we built.

For our personal, social and emotional sessions this week we have been thinking about personal hygiene. We practised our hand washing skills (which we are already very good at) this week and talked about germs and how we can stop them from making us poorly. We talked about the importance of keeping ourselves clean, another way of staying healthy.

Makaton signs this week have been ‘mum’, ‘dad’ and ‘laugh’. Perhaps your child could show you them? Our grow word to extend our vocabulary has been ‘funny’, some of the synonyms we used were ‘hilarious’, ‘amusing’ and ‘comical’. Please have a look at the attached home learning to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

‘Dinosaur Roar’ and ‘Ten Terrible Dinosaurs’ have been our focus texts this week, both written by the author Paul Stickland. The children have had a brilliant time exploring prehistoric creatures and the time of the dinosaurs.

We found out so much about dinosaurs this week, including the different types of dinosaurs that existed and their names, the things they ate, what they looked like and how they used some of their features such as their long necks, sharp teeth, horns or tails to name a few. Did you know that the word dinosaur means ‘terrible lizard?’

Our narrative theme of ‘when’ continued once again this week as we talked about the time of the dinosaurs and how there are no dinosaurs in our world now, we found out that they existed millions of years ago. We learnt how the people of today know about dinosaurs and the work of palaeontologists when they discover things such as fossils and bones to make skeletons. It was very fun using brushes just like the palaeontologists to search for the dinosaur bones and skeletons in the sand!

We used some of the 2D shapes we have been learning about in our maths work to make dinosaurs pictures. We had lots of fun and showed our creative ability by arranging the paper shapes and sticking them down with glue.

Our Makaton signs this week have been ‘when’ and ‘dinosaur’, perhaps your child can show you how to sign them? Our ‘grow’ word to extend our vocabulary has been ‘hungry’ this week. The words we used as synonyms were ‘ravenous’ and ‘famished’. We decided that we could use these words when it was coming up to lunchtime and lots of us had rumbly tummies! Please have a look at the attached home learning to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

This week the children have enjoyed listening to different stories about dinosaurs, especially ‘Dinosaurs love Underpants’. This book tries to solve the mystery of why dinosaurs were ‘wiped out!’ We have also learnt the signs for ‘when’ and ‘dinosaur’.  

For our understanding the world session, we have looked at the different environments dinosaurs lived in such as swamps and deserts as well as what food they liked to eat.

Talking of food, we have learnt about food that is good for us and food that is not so healthy. The children enjoyed sharing with the class all the healthy things that they enjoy eating. We have also made sure we stay nice and fit during PE sessions. The children are really enjoying the gymnastics that we have been doing!

Please have a look at the Home Learning that has been attached to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

A few notes:

• Every Tuesday we will be having our PE sessions. Therefore, can all children come into school wearing their PE kit and they will remain in it throughout the day.
• We would love to receive any recyclable material for our junk modelling station. These can include cardboard boxes, cleaned out yoghurt pots or plastic containers. Please can we ask that anything that contained nuts does not come in due to allergies, thank you.

This week the children have enjoyed the story ‘Peace at Last’, especially the parts where they get to make the different noises such as ‘TICK TOCK’ for the clock and ‘NYAAOW’ for the aeroplane. They have also enjoyed shouting the repeating refrain from Mr Bear – “Oh NO, I can’t stand this!” Our new signs this week were night, bed, and sleep.

We also have been learning how to make our vocabulary grow by using different words for ‘tired’. We have used sleepy, shattered, drowsy, exhausted and weary.

During independent learning, the children have enjoyed colour mixing, exploring our musical instruments and getting creative in our junk modelling station, which is a firm favourite. Thank you again to all of you who have given us your recyclables, keep them coming!

Please have a look at the Home Learning that has been attached to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

A few notes:

• Every Tuesday we will be having our PE sessions. Therefore, can all children come into school wearing their PE kit and they will remain in it throughout the day.
• We would love to receive any recyclable material for our junk modelling station. These can include cardboard boxes, cleaned out yoghurt pots or plastic containers. Please can we ask that anything that contained nuts does not come in due to allergies, thank you.

This week in the nursery, our focus text has been ‘One Ted Falls out of Bed’ by Julia Donaldson. We also thoroughly enjoyed listening to other stories with a night theme, such as ‘Can’t you Sleep Little Bear?’

We have been thinking about our own bedtime routines and their importance this week, many of us have a cuddly toy that we take to bed with us just like Ted in the story. We also talked about bedtime stories and how wonderful they are as part of the bedtime routine. Lots of us have bedtime stories and we talked about our favourites that help us fall asleep.

For our group times we have continued our new narrative theme ‘when’. We talked lots about day/night and the things we do during these times of the day. We read a story about teddy’s first day at school and did a great job at sequencing the pictures, thinking about ‘when’ each event happened.

We also have been using the hall for our yoga once again, this week we acted out the story of ‘Tommy the bedtime turtle’ and we have been playing some invasion games where we had to safely negotiate space avoiding obstacles as well as our peers!

Our Makaton signs this week have been ‘when’, ‘night’, ‘day’, ‘bed’ and ‘sleep’. We used these as well as many others we already know when sharing our stories this week. Our ‘grow’ word to expand our vocabulary has been ‘tired’ this week. Many of us decided we were feeling tired towards the end of a busy week and we used the synonyms ‘sleepy’, ‘weary’ and ‘exhausted’ to describe how the characters were feeling in our stories! Please have a look at the attached home learning to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

Welcome back after the half-term break, we hope you were able to enjoy the holiday period!
This week has been a particularly exciting one with many events and activities happening throughout the week. Our story was ‘The Runaway Pancake’ by Mairi McKinnon – it follows a similar structure as the traditional story ‘The Gingerbread Man’ where a pancake is cooked but then comes to life and a chase ensues as the pancake runs away teasing the characters chasing it! Eventually a sly and clever pig tricks the pancake and eats it before any of the other animals are able to catch it!
Tuesday was ‘Pancake Day’, to celebrate we cooked our pancakes with help from the adults before topping and tasting them, they were delicious, lemon and sugar was a rather popular topping. We learnt about the tradition behind ‘Pancake Day’ as well as the ‘Mardi Gras’ festival that some cultures take part in.

It was World Book Day on Thursday this week. We had such a fun-filled day dressing up as book characters, sharing many different stories and comparing our favourites, a great day was had by all!

Our Makaton signs this week have been ‘pancake’, ‘egg’ and ‘milk’. These came in very handy when signing the song we learnt this week about a pancakes landing in all sorts of places including the ceiling, the window and even in the fish tank! Perhaps your child can remember the song and the actions?!

Next week linking with our new narrative focus ‘when’, we will be sharing the story ‘One ted falls out of bed’ by Julia Donaldson. Please have a look at the attached home learning to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

Welcome back! We hope you all had a wonderful half term break!

Our story this week was Mr Wolf’s Pancakes. This has been a firm favourite with the children and there is a twist at the end as the pancakes weren’t the only things that were eaten! Our new signs this week were pancake, milk, egg and wolf.

On Tuesday we learnt about the tradition behind ‘Pancake Day’ as well as the ‘Mardi Gras’ festival that some cultures take part in. Each child got to taste a freshly cooked pancake made by our wonderful chef in the nursery and the children described them as delicious!

The children have had great fun flipping rubber pancakes outside and creating colourful, sparkly ‘Mardi Gras’ themed face masks, bracelets and crowns!  

It was World Book Day on Thursday this week. The children were very excited arriving to school dressed up as their favourite story characters and enjoyed sharing their much-loved stories with their friends. Thank you to everyone who took part!

Please have a look at the Home Learning that has been attached to find some fun activities that link to each area of your child’s learning. We would love to hear from you about your child’s home learning. Please could you email these to us at: fshomelearning@exwickheights.devon.sch.uk

A few notes:

• We would love to receive any recyclable material for our junk modelling station. These can include cardboard boxes, cleaned out yoghurt pots or plastic containers. Please can we ask that anything that contained nuts does not come in due to allergies, thank you.
• If you have any uniform that has become too small for your children, then we would greatly appreciate any donations for our spare clothes boxes.
• Every Tuesday we will be having our PE sessions. Therefore, can all children come into school wearing their PE kit and they will remain in it throughout the day.