December Newsletter 2020
Glenbrook Nursery School December Newsletter 2020
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DECEMBER LEARNING PLANS 2020
Themes: Christmas and Shiny
Colours: Red Silver Gold
Shape: Star
Personal, Social And Emotional Development
Children will have opportunities to:
- Work together as a team – decorating the nursery Christmas tree.
- Develop friendships further by sending Christmas cards to their friends.
- Extend imaginative play through small world and role play – take on the role of a postal worker delivering letters, parcels, re-enacting the Nativity and playing in the Christmas house.
- Experience the pleasure of giving as they make gifts/decorations to take home e.g. Christmas cards and tree decorations.
- Learn the importance of saying thank you for gifts.
- Learn the true meaning of Christmas.
- Perform as a class by singing songs.
Ideas to reinforce your child’s learning at home:
- Encourage children to say thank you.
- Encourage children to sneeze and cough into the crook of their arms and thus minimise the spread of germs.
Language Development
Children will have opportunities to:
- Share information about their Christmas preparations - putting up trees
- Extend vocabulary with respect to Christmas theme.
- Listen to stories relating to the Christmas theme.
- Looking at books relating to Christmas.
- Continue to develop listening skills when visitors are in nursery.
- Discuss hibernation – which animals, why they sleep. Store food up and when they waken.
- Writing letters to Santa.
- Discuss what Santa looks like and where he lives etc.
- Discuss what it feels like to receive post.
- Sing songs and rhymes relating to Christmas:
- When Santa got stuck up the chimney.
- Jingle Bells
- Twinkle Twinkle
- Away In A Manger
- We Wish You A Merry Christmas
- Incy Wincy Spider Climbed Up The Christmas Tree
- Father Christmas
- Christmas Pudding
Ideas to reinforce your child’s learning at home:
- Sing songs and rhymes with your child relating to the theme of Christmas, this can enhance your child’s future reading ability. (These rhymes can be found on the monthly rhyme sheet.)
- Consolidate nursery rhymes from last month by singing them at home.
- Read stories to your child which again can help them when they come to reading for themselves.
Early Mathematical Experiences
Children will have opportunities to:
- Match Christmas pictures.
- Sort Christmas pictures.
- Match Christmas cards to envelopes.
- Wrap Christmas presents looking shapes and sizes of paper.
- 1 to 1 correspondence with respect to giving put cards and presents i.e. 1 present per person, 1 Christmas card per person, 3 Wise Men and 3 gifts.
- Presents of varying sizes and weights and using the language of comparison – heavy, light, big, bigger, biggest etc.
- Develop an awareness of sequencing of events through the Nativity story.
- Counting using the Advent Calendar.
- Guess what is in the present by its shape.
- Play a memory game about what items the postman has delivered.
Ideas to reinforce your child’s learning at home:
- Encourage children to help when wrapping presents.
- Let children match envelopes to their Christmas cards.
Physical Development
Children will have opportunities to:
- Develop fine motor/manipulation skills by cutting, sticking, wrapping presents, using Christmas stampers and cutters, threading and manipulating beads.
- Improve cutting using safety scissors and a range of paper and Christmas magazines.
- Develop the tripod pincer grasp with the use of pencils and pens and writing to Santa.
- Develop more confidence when zipping up their own suits.
Ideas to reinforce your child’s learning at home:
- Encourage your child to practice using safety scissors.
- Encourage your child to dress themselves, put on/take off their sweatshirts and shoes and to zip up their own coats.
The Arts
Children will have opportunities to:
- Listen and join in with songs, rhymes and drama activities relating to the theme of Christmas.
- Continued experiences of sticking activities with both P.V.A. and Pritt glue.
- Have continued use of felt tips, crayons and colouring pencils.
- Have continued use of art activities on the art table and easel.
- Continue to name their pictures using their own name stickers.
- Experience the musical instruments during outside play.
- Produce Christmas cards.
- Paint on the easel with black, white and red paint and pictures of Santa around the room. Discussion re: Santa.
- Decorate Christmas trees –using metallic paint and print items, using fluorescent paint and cotton reels, sticky materials.
- Make sticky picture of ‘What I would like for Christmas.’
- Make Twinkle Twinkle little stars.
- Make clay/dough Christmas tree decorations.
- Make spiral decorations.
- Wrap Christmas presents.
- Sticky materials to include glitter, cards, tinsel, Christmas paper etc.
- Make handprints to decorate a Christmas tree.
Ideas to reinforce your child’s learning at home:
- Encourage your child to recognise their own name by writing it on to their drawings. Remember not to write their name in capital letters i.e. JAMES but instead write James as this will be the way they will be taught in Primary 1.
The World around Us
Children will have opportunities to:
- Discuss the workings of a Post Office, the role of a postal worker and the journey of a letter.
- Look at and discuss the weather outside.
- Continue to examine the change of the seasons i.e. snow, ice, frost, the changes in temperature.
- Look after hyacinth bulbs planted in November.
- Look out for items that are silver or gold in the environment.
- Explore ice placed into the water tray and its properties.
Ideas to reinforce your child’s learning at home:
- Encourage children to build snowmen (if we get some snow) and watch what happens as they melt.
- Discuss the changing weather with your child.