As we approach World Book Day we have developed a Storytelling Sway which features some of our staff team sharing their favourite stories for you and your child to enjoy at home. We hope you enjoy it!
Category Archives: Literacy and English
Lucy’s Blue Day
We recently welcomed Chris Duke, the author of Lucy’s Blue Day, to Glenwood. The book is written to help children understand their emotions, and to encourage mental health awareness. Thank you to the parents who were able to join us for the sessions and thank you to Chris for his visit.
Digital learning
We are learning to use a range of digital resources to support our learning in literacy and maths.
Using programming as we learn about direction using the code-a-pillar.
Using the word wands as we explore shapes, numbers and words.
A foggy morning
Today as we came to nursery we were quite excited about the foggy morning.
Some of us read a story about fog.
When we went outdoors we easily spotted the spider webs because of the cold, foggy morning.
We went on a search for some more webs and discovered some spiders on the webs.
“Come and see the spider’s web I found.” Jacob
”I want to see the spiders too.” Azan
The spiders are orange or black.” Jacob
We are having a picnic!
We love to have pretend picnics in the quiet room… so we decided to have a real one! We wrote invitations to invite our friends and we had lots of preparations to do. 
We made bunting to decorate the room.
We planned our menu. 
Once we decided what we wanted to eat we made shopping lists and will be visiting the shops to purchase what we need.
We can’t wait to have our picnic!
Fairtrade
Our Children’s Committee met recently to discuss what we can do for Fairtrade Fortnight. They created a mind map of ideas.
The children decided to use some Fairtrade ingredients to bake banana cup cakes. We followed a recipe and we had lots of measuring and weighing to do.
The cup cakes tasted yummy! We thought it would be a great idea to sell the ingredients in our Family Fun Bags to allow everyone the chance to make Fairtrade banana cup cakes at home.
Come and Join Us
We are starting monthly sessions of Bookbug and Musicality (Literacy through music) for parents and their Glenwood children. Please come along and join us. Let us know if you can manage to allow us to organise the children.
- Monday 18th February 2.00pm- 2.30pm- Musicality
- Thursday 21st February 10.00am- 10.30am- Musicality
- Monday 4th March 2.00pm- 2.30pm- Bookbug
- Thursday 7th March 10.00am- 10.30am- Bookbug
- Monday 18th March 2.00pm- 2.30pm- Musicality
- Thursday 21st March- 10.00am- 10.30am- Musicality
- Monday 15th April 2.00pm- 2.30pm- Bookbug
- Thursday 18th April 10.00am- 10.30am- Bookbug
- Monday 29th April 2.00pm- 2.30pm- Musicality
- Thursday 2nd May 10.00am- 10.30am- Musicality
- Monday 13th May 2.00pm- 2.30pm- Bookbug
- Thursday 16th May 10.00am- 10.30am- Bookbug
Puppets
We are continuing to develop our literacy through puppets. We decided to make our puppet theatre even more inviting and we used the internet to see what traditional puppet theatres look like. We also searched for more ways to make puppets and decided to make sock puppets.
If you would like to make a sock puppet at home, look out for our Family Fun Bags on sale this week and containing all you will need to make a puppet.
Bookbug
As part of our induction to Glenwood programme, we invite children who will be starting soon to join us for Bookbug sessions. Many other children joined in too.
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
We love to hear stories and we have been listening to one of our favourites read to us by the author. Michael Rosen is the author of “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” and we can join in with the actions as he reads this story.
We loved this story so much we decided to make props and puppets to retell it. We made a big bear puppet and some long swishy grass.
I wonder what else we will need to make to tell this story?
Creating stories
This week we have been creating stories with Mrs Kerr from the early literacy team. We used story dice to think about the characters and setting and events of the story. We wrote our stories in our story book and we illustrated them. Today we acted out our stories.
Come to our puppet show!
We have been using puppets to re-tell familiar stories.
We decided to hold a puppet show and made tickets for the audience.
We began to create our own stories and wanted different characters for our puppet shows and so we made our own!
We especially like telling stories using our Transformer puppets!
Construction
We design and create all sorts of models in the construction area. Recently we have been making enclosures for animals and ourselves!
As we play we use measuring skills.
We work with others and develop our problem solving skills.
We develop our mark making skills as we plan what we are going to construct. 
Birdwatch
We are taking part in RSPB’ Big Birdwatch. https://www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/
We made tasty bird cakes to entice birds into our garden. 
We prepared a birdhide to allow us to watch the birds without being seen. We have been reading books to help us identify the birds which visit our garden. We spotted a big magpie from the playroom window.
Creating stories
We have been learning about stories and creating our own. We know that stories have a character, a setting and problem and a solution. We used the book Mixed up Fairy Tales for ideas and then created our own mixed up stories by adding characters, settings, problems and solutions.
Cosmic Kids Yoga
We use the interactive whiteboard for exercise and relaxation. We love to move our bodies, balance and stretch as we follow the instructions. We join in with favourite stories such as We are Going on a Bear Hunt as we take part in the yoga moves.
Maps
We enjoy creating maps and have been using real maps to extend this learning.
We decided to create a 3-d map and we chose to make a model of London. We used the Chrome book to help us find out about some buildings. We added the River Thames to our map and used junk modelling to build some of the well known buildings.
