Home Learning 

Hello all Nursery children and parents! We hope you have all managed to enjoy your Easter break and eaten lots of chocolate! We understand that this is a very confusing time at the moment, especially for young children and know it is hard to explain why they currently cannot attend school to see their friends and teachers. Therefore we have decided to set Nursery Home Learning challenges via video from now on, so children can see their teacher and parents can get an idea of some of the activities they can do at home to benefit child learning.These videos will be added to Tapestry and the school Website for parents to access. There is no expectation for every activity to be completed or uploaded to Tapestry, but a weekly update to Tapestry of some of the activities you have tried or even your own home learning ideas would be lovely to see! Most importantly please remember, children learn through play, so please play and spend time doing the things you and your children love, interacting with them as they do! 

Many thanks, Miss O’Neil and Mrs Coates!

Story Time -

Story time! Let us know your favourite repetitive stories or rhyming books. Please comment the titles and author below.

Read your favourites together and look out for and discuss repetitive phrases and rhyming words and discuss what you see in the pictures too.

Home Learning Activities

Please find below links to further activities to carry out with your Early Years Child to ensure continued development and learning at home. These are great activities to be carried out with all of the family.

Please remember to share progress on Tapestry.

https://abcdoes.com/home-learning/

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/advice-for-prents/fun-ideas-learning-at-home/

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resources/home-early-years/home-early-years-home-learning

Welcome to Richmond Hill Nursery 3&4's

Who are we?

Richmond Hill Nursery 3&4's is open to children from the term after their 3rd birthday until the term after their 4th birthday when they move into Reception.

Places are available for the 15 hrs Funded Education and 30 hr Funded Education as well as for those paying fees who are not eligible for the full 30 hrs.

We operate term time only in line with the school days.

Session times: 9am - 12pm and 12pm-3pm

Session costs: Funded places or £9 per session

Lunches: School lunch can be ordered at £2 per day or parents can provide packed lunches.

For more information regarding Funded Education for 3&4 year old's please follow the link below:

https://www.cumbria.gov.uk/childrensservices/childrenandfamilies/cfis/freeearlyyears.asp

and to see if you are eligible for 30 hours funding please follow the link below.

https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/  scroll down to the 30 hours section. This is where you can apply for the 30 hour code which needs to be given to school admin each term.

Staffing

Class Teacher:                          Miss Megan O'Neil

Senior Teaching Assistants:   Mrs Kyffin

Nursery Apprentices:              Miss Danielle Scott

                                                  Miss Taylor Harden

We work very closely within our Early Years team so you also may see:

Miss Claire Ostle, Miss Kelly Dickinson, Mrs Kerry Scott, Mrs Amanda Coates, Mrs Jill Mossop, Mrs Sarah Little and lunchtime staff Mrs Christine Thompson and Mrs Jane Donnelly

Our routine is very flexible and very much based on the children's needs. However, as we feel it is very important to establish routines we have a very flexible timetable which is as follows...

• Welcome and Self Registration
• Free Choice/In the moment Planning
• Outdoor Play (we make the most of our outdoors at all times)
• Home or Lunch

 Toileting is carried out as and when needed and we understand that these needs will be different for each child.

We will often be outside for most of our session. The benefits of outdoor learning and exploration are huge.

Our Curriculum

In Nursery we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage as our Curriculum.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets standards for the learning, development and care of your child from birth to 5 years old.

All schools and Ofsted-registered early years providers must follow the EYFS, including childminders, preschools, nurseries and school reception classes.

Areas of learning

Your child will be taught through games and play.

The areas of learning at age 3&4 are:

• Communication and Language
• Physical development
• Personal, Social and Emotional development
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the world
• Expressive arts and design

We also are very keen to find out and plan for a child's Characteristics of Learning this describes how they like to play and learn such as what motivates them and how their play allows them to learn and develop.

These are split into 3 areas...

Characteristics of Effective Learning

Playing and exploring – engagement

Finding out and exploring

Playing with what they know

Being willing to ‘have a go’

Active learning – motivation

Being involved and concentrating

Keeping trying

Enjoying achieving what they set out to do

Creating and thinking critically – thinking

Having their own ideas

Making links

Choosing ways to do things

To read more about the Early Years Foundation Stage and the Early Years Outcomes please follow the links below...

https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2017/03/eyfs_statutory_framework_2017.pdf

https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2012/03/Early_Years_Outcomes.pdf

Early Learning Goals

The Early Years is a continuum of learning from birth to the term after their 5th birthday and sets out the Early Years outcomes that children will typically be learning throughout the ages. 

In Nursery 3&4's children will range from working within the 22-36 month age range to the 30-50 month age range and then may enter into the 40-60 month age range where they will move through to reception and continue with this learning to the Early Learning Goals.

Below is a document for parents to have which sets out what you can expect and when if your child is following typical development.

What to expect, when? Guidance to your child’s learning and development in the early years foundation stage

https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2015/03/4Children_ParentsGuide_2015_WEB.pdf

Tapestry Learning Journals

Continuing on from Nursery 2's and through to the end of the Reception Year your child will have an online learning journal. For this we use a provider called Tapestry see https://tapestry.info/ for more information.

Tapestry allows us to capture some of the most precious moments from your child's day which otherwise we may not have been able to share with you. It allows us to record and track your child's learning and assess this against the Early Years Outcomes which then allows us to plan for further progression.

We also find Tapestry is an excellent way for you to be able to share some of the learning that your child has been doing at home and encourage parents to access it and upload information as often as possible.

Parents are a child's first and most important educators and when we work together the possibilities are endless.

Focused activities

Although we work to The Early Years Foundation Stage; and as we do this, are very flexible in the way we teach. We also have tools which we feel supports your child to develop and learn to the be the best they can be. These are detailed below...

Funky Fingers and Dough Gym

Dough Gym is a very effective programme for children who really need to work on their upper body and gross motor development, but there may well be children in our setting who need more focused input on their hands, fingers and grip.

We begin Funky Fingers and Dough Gym when the children first start with us in September as the muscles and fine motor skills require support in their development and strength. Children who have strong muscles and excellent fine motor skills have increased chances in holding a pencil when learning to form letters.

Dough Gym includes using our hands and fingers to manipulate play dough to music using specific movements to strengthen muscles.

Funky Fingers is a series of activities that need the use of controlled fine motor movements such as threading, posting, poking, using tweezers etc...

Read Write Inc.

Read Write Inc. was developed by Ruth Miskin when as a teacher she failed to teach a child to read.

It is a fun and interactive way of teaching Phonics which captures a child's interest.

A large proportion of our staff have received the Read Write Inc. training and are 'Champions' at teaching our children to read and write.

'Read Write Inc. programmes work because we get children’s brain ‘COGS’ working:

Everything CONNECTS: children connect sounds with mnemonic pictures; words with their meanings; and stories with the sounds they know.

Children learn ONE thing at a time and practise it until it becomes second nature. Interactive practice keeps children focused, and their capacity to learn develops exponentially.

Children remember what they learn by SAYING it out loud to a partner. If they can’t explain it, the teacher repeats it until they can.

What’s more, our teachers are trained so they have capacity to show love for what they do. The more they love teaching, the more the children love learning' (abstract from website).

To watch parents information video's on the Read Write Inc. programme please click the link below.

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/

I CAN

I CAN is a children's communication charity who's mission is that 'No child should be left out or left behind because of a difficulty in speaking and understanding'.

In Nursery we us the Early Talkers activities to support children in their communication and language development. From Talking Toddlers in Nursery 2's we move on to Chatting with Children in Nursery 3&4's. We use the ICAN principles throughout our teaching and feel that we have a fantastic environment with Outstanding Staff who enjoy creating opportunities for the children to chat and communicate in a variety of different ways.

For more information and lots of documents to support your children please visit

http://www.talkingpoint.org.uk/

Early Movers

We deliver Healthy Movers sessions to our children through weekly P.E. sessions but also through our day to day activities. We have a member of staff who has attended the Healthy Movers Training which was commissioned through the Youth Sport Trust.

The Department of Health have set Healthy Guidelines for the amount of minutes each child should be active...

'Toddlers

Children who can walk on their own should be physically active every day for at least 180 minutes (3 hours). This should be spread throughout the day, indoors or outside.

The 180 minutes can include light activity such as standing up, moving around, rolling and playing, as well as more energetic activity like skipping, hopping, running and jumping.

Active play, such as using a climbing frame, riding a bike, playing in water, chasing games and ball games, is the best way for this age group to get moving.

Peripatetic Music Teacher

We have Mr Steve Strachan visit our class once every 2 weeks to sing songs, play instruments and play games with the children. Although we do a lot of this during our usual session time this is very exciting for the children and an excellent enhancement to our provision as the children are able to experience different instruments and how they sound and are also encouraged to have a turn.

Muddy Mondays

Each week the children engage in 'Muddy Mondays' where we go into our eco garden and wooded area or onto the field and take part in lots of outdoor focused activities. Please note that we do have a lot of outdoor learning taking place throughout the sessions, however Muddy Monday's are focused amounts of time set aside for outdoor learning.

Healthy Eating / Snack time

Our Children are taught about Healthy choices throughout the year. We always have a fruit and vegetable snack with milk or water during the session. The children are encouraged to try the fruit / vegetables which are on offer and these vary from day to day.

Examples include... Apples, Pears, Banana's, Tomato's, Carrots, Raisins, Satsuma's.

Parents are encouraged to bring a healthy packed lunch to school for their children (if they supply one) and we teach the children then to make healthy choices.

The kitchen follow healthy guidelines and supply our children with nutritious meals including vegetables and there is always a fruit option for dessert.

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