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F1 Latest News Countess Way

Foundation Christmas performance

By Mrs C Kingsman17th December 2016

This week foundation enjoyed performing their Christmas ‘Singing around the Christmas Tree’. It was lovely to see all the parents and very many grandparents attend this. Siblings in the older year groups were invited to watch too and joined in with the singing beautifully!

Next term (Spring 1) foundation will be working on the project ‘Journeys’. Nursery at Countess Way campus will begin their learning with the book The Train Ride by June Crebbin. If you get a chance to ride on a train in the holidays, take a picture and keep your tickets for school.

Please remember to put one or two photos or mementos of your break in the ‘talking bags’ so your children can talk about what they did in the holidays when they return on the 4th January.

Have a fantastic Christmas break and we look forward to seeing your children rested and ready to continue their learning when they return.

Chris Kingsman

Getting into high learning zones in foundation 1

By Mrs C Kingsman14th October 2016

This week children in nursery have been exploring the creative area in more depth. They have been producing drawings and making pictures from the resources we have in the creative area. Straws, feathers and sparkly jewels have been particular favourites. Children’s role play and involvement levels have also been highly creative. They even set up a restaurant on one day, with one child being the waiter taking the orders and another taking on the role of the ‘cook’. The restaurant had plenty of customers too… 🍔🍟🌮

Next week we will begin our project You and Me. We will be reading the books Goat Goes to Playgroup, Elmer and Titch. We will be talking about families and who is in our family. It would be helpful if you can send your child in with a picture of your family so they can use this to talk about their family in our groups.

We will also talk about how we change from babies to adults. To help children explore how they have changed from when they were babies it would be great if they can bring in a picture of when they were a small baby, one year old and two years old. Please do not send in precious photographs -copies will do fine.

Settling in continues in Foundation 1

By Mrs C Kingsman2nd October 2016

Children attending nursery at Countess Way Campus have nearly all attended their first morning and continue to explore the new environment well together. They have been learning about the sunshine behaviour chart, practising circle time and opening their hearts to each other.

Sickness has struck already and as children mingle they generously share their various bugs! A few children have already picked up coughs and colds with some having high temperatures too. Please inform staff if you have given your child medicine before school or think that your child may be coming down with something so we can keep a close eye on them.

Wet weather clothes – as the weather begins to turn more autumnal please ensure your child has wellies and a coat (named) for outside learning. Foundation 1 will not be kept in if it is raining, as there is much to learn and experience in the rain!, so it is essential they have wellies and a coat.

Staff will continue to share observations on Tapestry. Thank you for your lovely comments so far. I have been asked for examples of what parents can post and will share some ideas for all parents soon.

Looking forward to another great week!

A welcome return to Start the Art!

By 4th July 2016

We are really pleased to announce the return of Start the Art, the early years and community program delivered by MKG and Brooklands arts team.

Hosted by Countess Way site the sessions offer opportunities for creative exploration for pre school members of the community and their parents and the Foundation stage children who attend Countess Way.
The sessions are carefully planned to access all aspects of sensory learning, allowing the children to experience a range high quality and sometimes unusual materials in a friendly child initiated environment.

Sessions for pre schoolers can be booked through Milton Keynes gallery website.
http://www.mkgallery.org/events/2016_07_04/start_the_art_out_and_about/

The sessions for Foundation are included in their usual weekly timetable.

Yo ho ho! Beware of Pirates!

By Mrs C Kingsman21st June 2016

Nursery at Countess Way had a Pirate Dress up Day as part of our project Let’s Imagine.

Children enjoyed hiding and finding treasure, making treasure maps and building a pirate ship out of the giant wooden blocks. They also practiced talking like pirates and listened to our core book Port Side Pirates as a song to begin learning it.

We we will be continuing our learning and role play about pirates for the rest of this week. Hopefully we won’t be asked to walk the plank too often!

Learning about newly hatched chicks and caterpillars

By Mrs C Kingsman6th May 2016

This week, the foundation children at Countess Way have been enjoying learning about the chicks which hatched on Tuesday. They have had several opportunities to hold the chicks, watch them in their Brooder Box and compare their different features. We have also been watching the caterpillars grow and talk about how they are changing each day.

To continue our project journey for Growing and Changing, nursery will be reading Jasper’s Beanstalk next week. We will be planting seeds and thinking about what plants need to grow well.

5 Chicks hatched at Countess Way

By Mrs C Kingsman3rd May 2016

Children in Foundation have had an exciting day looking,and holding, our newly hatched chicks today. So far we have got four chicks that are strong and healthy and now living in the brooder box. We have one more,very weak and tired chick, that needed a little help getting out of its egg shell. This will stay in the incubator till tomorrow. Two eggs have yet to hatch…watch this space for an update on them!

Children have been enjoying holding the chicks and have talked about their similarities and differences in colour, size, etc. We have already had some great questions from the children including “What do they eat?”, ” How big will they get?” and “Can they fly?”.

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The Very Hungry Caterpillars have arrived in Foundation!

By Mrs C Kingsman29th April 2016

As part of our Growing and Changing project nursery have been learning the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar this week by Eric Carle. The children have enjoyed listening to the story, watching the animated story on YouTube and painting caterpillars and butterflies of their own. They have also been creating the story scene such as the sun and the lollies.

To help us understand the life cycle of the caterpillar we now have caterpillars 🐛 in our class and will be watching them grow and begin their metamorphosis to becoming beautiful butterflies.

On the egg front. Tuesday is the expected date for hatching day! 🐣Fingers crossed they will all hatch successfully. The children will be watching the chicks hatch and once they are dry and strong enough can hold them too. We will ask the children to observe them every day and talk about how they grow and change from one day to the next.

To help the children relate human ‘growing and changing’ to themselves please send your child in with photos of themselves as a baby and as a toddler so that we can discuss how they have developed since they were born. You could talk about it at home to help your child share this at school. Food, teeth, speaking, walking, hair growth are all changes you could talk about.

Lastly, enjoy the bank holiday weekend. We look forward to some more excellent learning next week.

The nursery team 😀😃😄

Eggciting news…7 days to hatching!

By Mrs C Kingsman26th April 2016

Foundation one and two have been learning about incubating eggs as part of our Growing and Changing Project. We are already two weeks in to our egg incubation period. We have been using the eggscope to look inside the eggs to see the forming embryo and look for signs of growth and movement. Through this week we will watch closely to see if we can see the eggs wobble and if we can hear the chicks cheeping from inside the egg. Countdown to hatching is now just 7 days away! As soon as hatching begins we will take turns to watch the chicks hatching out off their egg shells.

Incubating eggs for our ‘Growing and Changing’ project

By Mrs C Kingsman15th April 2016

Welcome back to the summer term! The last, but by no means least important, term for learning.

In nursery (at Countess Way) we have begun our learning for our Growing and Changing project by investigating a variety of chicken eggs. The children helped me set the eggs into an incubator and have really enjoyed checking on the eggs through the week. We talked about how we make eggs in different ways e.g. by scrambling or frying them and also foods that they are in such as cakes and pancakes.

Our core book this week and next week is The Little Red Hen. The children in nursery have begun to think about the meaning of the story and why it is important to work together as a team.

Comparing differences in the eggs

Learning about the main parts of the egg.

Feeling the warmth of the incubator

To help your child’s learning at home you could make something which contains egg with your child. Talk about how we all change as we grow. You could look at your child’s baby photos with them and talk about how they have changed. Would be great to share baby pics at school too!

Any questions please come and talk to a member of the team.

Mrs Kingsman