Hello!
Please follow the Sway presentation (below) which will detail how we aim to support you at home in the coming weeks via remote learning experiences.
Once you’ve done that we invite you to look at today’s suggested play and learning, all about holidays and celebrations.
|
Holidays and Celebrations
A. In this clip Olaf wants to find out about family traditions at “That time of year”.
What is a tradition? What traditions do you have in your family? When do you follow them? Birthdays? Christmas? Eid?
Maybe eating special foods, wearing fancy clothes or travelling to a certain place is one of your family traditions. Maybe there is something that you watch or sing together. Perhaps you did some of these things recently if you celebrated Christmas.
Talk about some cherished family times, maybe looking at photos or draw a picture of special times and traditions.
There are, no doubt, traditions you have missed this year. Why not write down special things you hope to do with friends and family this year? Write each one on a small piece of paper and keep in a jar. As restrictions hopefully ease, you can dip into the jar and choose something nice to do with loved ones.
B. What foods did you eat over the holidays, did you try anything new? Brussels’s Sprouts or cabbage? 🙂 Did you cook anything new with a grown-up?
- Make a list of things you and your siblings liked/didn’t like
- Maybe you can plan a few meals for next week or look for new recipes, using ingredients you like
- Sort foods into categories i.e. fruit/veg/cakes/drinks/treats. How many can you come up with in each group?
- Help to prepare lunch today
The BBC GoodFood website generates lots of recipe ideas if you enter a single ingredient:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/
C. 
We will be making soup in the hub on Friday 15th January. We are going to enjoy it as part of our lunch .
D. Favourite holiday songs
Put on or sing your favourite holiday or celebration songs . Move your body to the music . Add in instruments ( this can be anything at home that makes a sound ) and encourage your child to express themselves.
Here is one of our nursery favourites:
E.
Holidays are about coming together and appreciating what we have! We all celebrate different holidays/festivals depending on our religion or where we live!
- Diwali
- Hanukkah
- Eid
- Chinese New Year
F.
On New Year’s Eve lots of people set off fireworks at midnight ( Maybe you were all in bed. It was very late!) The fireworks were very noisy but the colours were beautiful. Did you and your family celebrate? Can you have a talk with a grown up about the fun you had that night. Did you see any fireworks?
Look and listen. Describe what you see and hear using as many interesting words as you can.
G.
December was the last month of the year 2020. We are now in a new year – 2021 – with January the first month of the year. Many adults make plans or set goals in January. A goal is something you can’t do yet but you would like to practise and learn and be able to do in the future. Why don’t you draw or write down a few goals with your adult? What would you like to learn to do this year?
- Ride a bike?
- Write your name?
- Get dressed in the morning by yourself?
- Count to 20?
- Learn the names of some garden birds or plants?
- Make a new friend?
Keep your list on the fridge or somewhere visible and celebrate when you achieve one of your goals! We would love to see your progress.
H. Did you play in the snow and ice during the holidays? The weather may have changed for now but here is an idea for an indoor snowman that can help with number recognition and counting.
I. 
Some marks appeared in the frost and snow today. Can you make some marks in ‘snow’?
In a tray, have a layer of flour (or salt/sugar/oats etc) and then use your fingers or simple kitchen utensils to make some marks. Can you draw specific shapes? Or maybe you can write some letters or numbers?
J. Sadly we won’t be together at nursery for some time but it always helps to remember the good times together. Can you remember some of the special things we did and visitors we had just before the holidays?
Some of you wore fancy clothes to nursery then. Can you draw a Christmas jumper ? What makes it different to a jumper we wear every day ? Do you have one? Can you describe it ? What colours are in yours ? Is there a pattern?
Why don’t you pick some special clothes to wear for the rest of the week? Maybe you could choose an adult’s clothes too and send us some photos on our Team. I’m sure that would make us all smile 🙂
Tomorrow’s post will focus a little more on feelings and mental and physical wellbeing. In the meantime, we hope to see you over on our Team where stories and other videos await!
