This week’s bible story
Perseverance despite circumstances: Daniel 6:1-28 (omit verse 24)
Read the story of Daniel (omit verse 24 for younger or sensitive children)
Daniel was captured, along with many more of God’s people, and taken to live in a foreign country. In this country, they had different traditions and customs and it was not acceptable to worship God. But Daniel chose to continue serving God. Even though it meant that he was risking death, Daniel knelt down and honoured God by praying three times a day.
When the king discovered that Daniel was breaking the law by praying to God, he had Daniel thrown into a den of hungry lions. God stood by Daniel and rewarded his unwavering commitment to righteousness by protecting him from being eaten by the lions.
Reflection:
Do you think Daniel was lazy, or a hard worker?
When Daniel found out that he would be thrown into a lion’s den if he continued to pray, what did he do?
Why do you think Daniel continued to kneel down to pray instead of praying quietly in his head so that others could not see that he was praying?
How did God reward Daniel’s perseverance?
Prayer:
Dear God,
We can often end up in situations when life feels hard or difficult or when we feel we are out on a limb compared to everyone else.
Help us to persevere when times are tough.
Amen
Wonderful stars!
What a starry week it has been here at Nursery! We’ve had lots of fun learning as we look forward to the Christmas holiday. At the beginning of the week, we had a dress rehearsal for our Christmas production in front of the rest of the school and the children were fantastic. The filming took place on Wednesday and it was a super performance. Congratulations to everyone involved.
We’ve been exercising our fine and gross motor skills this week in a variety of different ways: The children have really enjoyed wrapping parcels, making printing blocks and decorating trees. This afternoon, we started to make a sleigh for Santa which involved a lot of group work. First, we looked at some images of sleighs and then the children made a list of jobs they would have to do to make the sleigh. They were very organised and worked really well as a team – I think Santa will be incredibly impressed with his new vehicle. We’ve also looked again at creating repeating patterns, noticed 2D shapes in the environment around us and found lots of rhyming words. Next week is the final week of our first term together – hasn’t the time flown!
Wishing everyone a happy and safe week ahead.
Dates for your diary:
Wednesday, 15th Dec – Christmas dinner and Nursery Christmas party (pm).
Christmas Production 2021
Our Christmas Production 2021
Hump the camel
We are so proud of all the children for their FANTASTIC singing, acting and dancing. We hope you enjoy the Christmas production as much as we do!
This week’s bible story
The persistent widow: Luke 18:1-8
Have you ever used pester power to get what you want? When you keep on asking and asking and asking until the person relents and gives in? Jesus once told a story about pester power, but it didn’t feature a parent and a child. The two people in Jesus’ story were a judge and a widow. Read the story to find out what happened.
Reflection:
Have you ever pestered God? reflect on your own experiences of prayer. Were their prayers denied because of any of the reasons like in the story?
Even though some prayers appear not to work, Christians believe that God is always at work in their lives, although this may be hard to see.
Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you for being a God who listens to our prayers.
Help us to keep praying to you even when it seems that our prayers are not being answered.
May we never forget that, like a loving parent, you only want what is best for us.
Amen
A chilly start to December
It’s been a really cold start to December but we’re beginning to look forward to Christmas at Nursery. Our Advent calendar is up and we’ve decorated the class Christmas tree with lights and baubles. Our focus book for this week has been ‘The Christmas Story’ and the children have enjoyed hearing about Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. We’ve been very busy doing lots of learning and have made some repeating patterns using pom-pom baubles. We’ve also been writing Christmas cards, decorating stars and printing ‘fairy lights’ with corks. Our Home Corner is looking very festive with stockings hanging above the fireplace and the children have been serving Christmas lunch to each other. Santa has sent ‘Elvis the elf’ to keep an eye on things in the run-up to Christmas; unfortunately, he’s a bit naughty and he has been hiding things (including himself) in the classroom! Every day, the children have been solving clues to find where he is and to spot what has moved in our room. We’re all looking forward to being detectives again next week.
Dates for your diary:
Wednesday 08.12.21 Nativity performance recording. We will let you know when this will be available on the website for you to enjoy.
Wednesday 15.12.21 Christmas dinner for the whole school.
Wednesday 15.12.21 (pm) Christmas party (the children can wear non-uniform).
PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THE LAST DATE FOR APPLYING FOR A SCHOOL PLACE FOR YOUR CHILD IS: 15.01.22
This week’s bible story
Today, we are thinking about Hanukah which is a Jewish festival. Have you ever been made to do something you didn’t want to do? In fact, you hated doing it?
How do you think David Beckham would feel if he had to do ballet? Or your headteacher if he or she had to dress up as a banana?
How do you think a Christian would feel if someone said to them at a Christmas nativity service, ‘You can’t worship Jesus, you’ve got to pray to the donkey?’
This is a story about when a whole country had to do things they didn’t want to, and how they reacted to it.
Reflection:
Quiet thought: How can you bring light to people today?
Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you that your light burns even longer than we hope for.
Help us to be light to others.
Amen.
A magical week!
Our two focus books for this week have been: ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘The Magic Porridge Pot’. The children have really enjoyed listening to these stories and we have used them as inspiration for our learning. Today, we took a ‘magic carpet ride’ with our wands and pretended to fly over the tops of the houses in Wetherby. We took an imaginary trip to the seaside, talked about what we would see if we visited some penguins and listed all of the animals we could visit on a farm. The children are becoming incredibly good storytellers and they all enjoyed suggesting places we could fly to on our imaginary journey. Earlier in the week, we used the lightbox to create different colours by overlapping transparent shapes and we made paperclips dance using magnets. We’ve also done some magical maths where we compared the height and size of different objects. We hope that the magic beans we planted will grow into a beanstalk but, just in case, we have created some of our own!
Next week, we will start celebrating Advent and we will begin thinking about the Christmas story.
This week’s bible story
Keep Going! Nehemiah 1: 1-7
Perseverance means keeping on trying and not giving up even when it is difficult.
If you’ve got some blocks, have a go at building a tower of twelve blocks. Was it easy? Now blindfold yourself and try again. Was it easier to do it when you were blindfolded or did it take more perseverance? Although the game was only a bit of fun, in life, it can sometimes be hard to keep going when things seem difficult or we feel discouraged. Our story today comes from the Old Testament part of the Bible. The Jewish people had not been listening to God, and they had been living in exile, away from their own homes. As the story starts, this situation is about to change. Read it carefully and see if you can work out why the people needed to have lots of perseverance and what helped them to keep going.
Reflection:
– In the story, what three things needed rebuilding?
– What kind of things discouraged the people from getting the building work done?
– What helped them to keep going?
None of us have to rebuild the walls around our towns and cities this week, but there might be some things that we are finding difficult or occasions when we feel like we want to give up.
Have a moment of silence as we think about the things that we are finding difficult or that we are worried about.
Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you that you always listen when we pray to you.
Thank you that you are always there.
Please help us to keep going when we find things hard.
Please help us to encourage others.
Amen.
Fun, fun, fun!
The Reception and Nursery children have had a fantastic day celebrating Nursery Rhyme Week and Children in Need.
We love Nursery Rhymes!
We’ve been using lots of nursery rhymes to help us with our learning this week. We’ve been selling currant buns in our baker’s shop, jumping in and out of pools like little frogs, printing beautiful twinkling stars and following a recipe to make our own currant bun playdough. The children have really enjoyed learning new rhymes and singing (and acting out) old favourites, too. Today, we experimented with some wibbly-wobbly jelly on a plate and talked about its properties. We also went on a hunt to discover which parts of our school are magnetic and which are not! The children had great fun placing their magnets against a variety of surfaces and materials and they came to the conclusion that wood and plastic are not magnetic but lots of metals are.
Dates for your diary:
Please may we have all star costumes for the Christmas production in Nursery by Friday, 26th November. All items should be clearly named.
Many thanks and have a lovely weekend.
