Ohayo gozaimusu!
**Please join us for a whole school assembly at 2pm today if you can. Link on Teams**
Today is Friday; the last day of our nursery week. We do hope the blog posts and Teams videos and comments have helped you continue to feel part of our nursery community and have inspired play and learning at home. We have really enjoyed welcoming some new children to our nursery this week and look forward to meeting you properly soon.
The team has ‘met’ to evaluate this week and is already planning experiences for next week. If there is anything specific we can support you with, please remember to get in touch by phoning the school office or e-mailing and one of us will be in touch. You should receive our newsletter reminding you of these details and providing further information on planned phone calls and live ‘blethers’ on our Team.
To end the week, and mindful of a weekend to be spent mainly indoors at home, we propose a look at routine, chores and household appliances.
A.
Practise maths concepts of sorting, grouping and organising by sorting the laundry, going through a mixed up box of toys or by clearing out the cutlery tray and returning everything to its place. Perhaps you could count how many items are in each group. Maybe you could count back as you return each one to its place, reaching zero as you finish.
B. 
Help to prepare a simple meal or snack. Develop fine motor control by spreading, cutting, slicing or mixing. Can you cut some things into two equal parts? Cut them in half?
C. 
Do you help grown-ups do the chores? Chores are when you do helpful things like, set the table for dinner, make your bed, tidy all your toys away, help hang up the washing on a clothes dryer/empty the machine. Maybe some of you like to dust or use the hoover. These are just some of the things you could try to do if you aren’t already helping. Go on give it a try!
Sorting the clean laundry from the dryer is fun…. you could match socks into pairs … how many is in a pair again…? I wonder if you can recognise whose clothes are coming out… are the adult’s things a lot bigger? Can you spot your own things? Could you sort them into piles for each person in your family? Maybe there is a laundry basket you could help fill. You could be a delivery driver and deliver each person’s clothes to their bedroom!
This link takes you to a 5 minute clean up song. There is a timer so you can see how many things you can pick up before the song finishes. You can tidy up a LOT in 5 minutes! See if you can tidy a whole room before the timer goes at the end.. Then WOW look around and see what a difference you have made.
D. Which household appliances can you name? What jobs to they do to make life a bit easier?
How many can you identify in this clip? Can you match the object with the household appliance? You may need to pause for thinking time as the video is quite fast.
Why don’t you find some of these around your house? Which room are they in? Which ones make a noise? Or light up?
E. Have you ever helped an adult use your washing machine? Do you know what it does? Or how it works?
It is big and noisy and has lots of different buttons and has to be used safely.
The next time your laundry basket is full of dirty washing ask a grown up if you can help put the washing on. Look! Listen! Think!
Do the clothes need to be sorted first? Where do you put them in the machine? How do the buttons work? Are there any letters, numbers or symbols on the machine? What is the water doing? How long does it take? What happens next?!
F. 
What makes these appliances work or powers them? Do you know? It is something called electricity! You must always keep yourself safe when using them never use them yourselves, always have your Mummy/Daddy or an adult to help (supervise) you.
Maybe you could see if you can use some equipment to make something this weekend, some nice fruit smoothies, homemade bread or just a nice cup of coffee for you mummy or daddy…I’m sure they would like that! Mrs Miller likes making smoothies at home and Miss Gaff too. These are nice recipes you could try:
https://kristineskitchenblog.com/21-healthy-breakfast-smoothie-recipes/
G. This is a listening, thinking and guessing game. The adults shares the clues and you have to guess which item they are describing. Maybe you could ask questions to find out more information. Look at the pictures to check if your guess was correct!
H. Do you have any pets at home? What do they need humans to do to look after them? Can you help with some of those jobs today? Maybe you could look online or in a book to find out more about your animal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/my-pet-and-me
I. 
Parents are often very busy working and looking after you. They can be very tired but they also need time to do things they like. Your parents might not play the same games as you but they will have their favourite things to do. Why don’t you find out something that your parent really likes to do and try it together? Maybe they know about cars and can show you under the bonnet, or perhaps there is a special place they have visited that they can show you in photos or a video. Maybe they are really good at drawing and could show you or perhaps you could go on a short run with them if that is something they like doing. Why don’t you draw a picture of your adult doing their special thing or share a photo of you doing it together?
J. Being busy and active helps us to feel good about ourselves. Having some things that we do every day – a routine – also helps most of us. Recently we have had to change or routines or maybe we have lost them altogether. Why don’t you take some time to agree a plan for things your child will do each day, either independently or with your help. This will help now but also for their return to nursery.
https://www.freeprintablebehaviorcharts.com/chore%20charts%204-10%20pdf/Things%20To%20do%20without%20list.pdf
K. 
This amazing pot is on Mrs Nugent’s wish list! She is researching at the moment to find out if it’s a good thing to buy .
When you research you find out all the facts about something and if your research is on an item you can find out if it’s right for you .
Here are some of the things Mrs Nugent found out that this pot can do:
1. It can cook food really slowly only using a small amount of heat
2. It can cook food really fast using steam to make it cook faster
3. It can make yogurt
Did you know that you can make yogurt at home ?
Can you think about why you would need to cook food really slowly?
Do you think it’s a good idea to have a pot that can do so many different things?
Maybe you can do some research ( find out different facts ) about an appliance at home or design one of your own!
