It has made us all at Learning Ladder Nurseries JLT feel very festive hearing children rehearse for the winter concert for the past few weeks. The children and their teachers at Learning Ladder Nurseries JLT have enjoyed singing Christmas carols as well as nursery rhymes and are excited to share their songs with their families via a recording on the last day of the term. Look out for our recorded winter concert which we will post on Seesaw later this month.
As the first term comes to a close, Learning Ladder Nurseries JLT thank all our families for following the new health and safety guidelines, especially at drop off and collection times. You have all been exemplary in maintaining safe procedures to help your children learn the importance of arrival and departure policies.
We are happy that we were able to follow the new rigorous health and safety procedures with the help of all our staff. Our Nurse, Miss Anabeth deserves a special thanks for monitoring children’s body temperatures regularly, removing sick children for early collection and following up with their families before their safe return. Thank you to all the parents who have so wonderfully followed our sick child policy ensuring we have had an incident-free first term. We could not have done this without your support.
Learning Ladder Nurseries JLT hope you have all enjoyed our new online learning tool Seesaw. We have seen tremendous results in terms of children’s engagement and their ability to show what they know in a variety of ways. I encourage all families to please set up separate seesaw family accounts for themselves and let your child use the student access on their own on either an ipad of their own or a shared device at home. You can have multiple family members use the application in different ways without upsetting your child’s journal and assignments. The seesaw class app and the seesaw family app are both downloadable from an ap store on your device. We will send the simple procedures related to this again to you to via email.
I would like to make a special mention of our two online students this term, Sanshray and Daniel who started foundation 2 with us online in October. Both of these children have impressed us all with how well they have been able to demonstrate their learning on Seesaw and we must thank their parents for supporting them in doing so.
I hope you enjoy the winter break with your children. We are still able to accommodate more children in the winter camp starting December 20th and ending December 31st. Please show your interest via an email to contact@learningladddernursery.com.
Finally, I would like to make an earnest request to all of you to kindly avoid delays in settling the tuition fee for the next term. The fee is due December 24th.
Important Dates
December 17th, 2020 – Last day of term 1
December 20th, 2020 – start of 2 week winter camp
December 24th – Deadline to pay tuition for Term 2
January 3rd, 2021 – first day of term 3
That is, it from me. I hope you enjoy reading news from your child’s teachers in the following sections. Happy Holidays – Sajida
Foundation 2 (Dolphins) News
The topic of Shapes, Colours and Patterns was introduced through various hands-on activities. Learning shapes and colors teaches children to think about attributes and position of objects and make observations about similarities and differences. This is the basis of early math as they learn to sort and categorize and develop skills needed to cultivate logical thinking for problem solving
Dolphins can now identify and name many 2D shapes. They know the basic characteristics of a circle, square, pentagon, hexagon, etc. They can name common objects through their shapes. Dolphins were adept at predicting AB and ABC patterns. They were excited to identify patterns in nature. Next steps in this topic will be to identify and name 3D shapes
To quench their thirst for scientific discovery, the Dolphins participated in an experiment and made predictions for objects to ‘sink or float’. This simple experiment lays the foundation for observation and prediction and helped the children develop their ideas about the physical properties of matter.
UAE National Day was celebrated with fervor in the dolphin class. The children dressed in the flag colours and created a diorama for the class board. They learnt about the seven Emirates and some famous landmarks of UAE.
Regular phonic drills have helped the Dolphins practice their letter sounds. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and isolate sounds, a skill necessary for emergent readers. They are now proficient in initial and end sound distinction. Children have started blending and segmenting simple CVC words, and it is a delight to watch their attempts at reading. We will be practicing phonic reading in the coming weeks too. Next steps in this topic will be to read tricky words.
December is always a fun time for learning activities.
Dolphins made adorable snowmen, Christmas trees, snowflakes and many more elements of the winter season as they integrated their math and literacy skills with their creative sides.
We discussed similarities and differences in aspects of celebrating festivals and the importance of acceptance and safety in celebrations. The children are practicing well and looking forward to the Winter Concert.
Foundation 1 (Rainbow Fish) News
The Rainbowfish class did numerous activities involving shapes,
colours and patterns. The children used teddy bear counters for a bear pattern activity. They learnt how to continue the patterns shown on each card.
They were also able to make patterns with blocks in the outdoor area using their larger motor skills to demonstrate their colour and pattern recognition skills.
The Rainbowfish class are showing great interest in learning about new 2D shapes. They made Pentagons with popsicle sticks. They also did a threading activity around the 5 sides of the shape and showed excellent hand-eye coordination, weaving the thread inward and outwards.
Investigating and experimenting with mixing colours, the Rainbowfish class has had fun learning about primary colours and produced some beautiful art work in the process.
As the weather starts getting cooler, Rainbowfish children start learning about “Winter Wonderland” for the upcoming weeks. We have planned various activities in making our learning process fun. Rainbowfish are fast at learning new concepts and are making their teachers very proud by accomplishing targets and producing great pieces of work.
Toddler (Starfish) News
Learning Ladder Nurseries JLT News December 2020
We at Learning Ladder Nurseries JLT are now fast approaching the final stretch of our 1st term but we still have a number of exciting and fun activities lined-up for the children. We have our Winter concert before the end of term and we have our Parent – Teacher meetings scheduled over zoom.
Starfish did numerous activities that covered their areas of interest while helping them learn new skills in the prime areas of children’s development. They participated enthusiastically in colour and shape recognition activities while developing hand – eye coordination and practicing hand strength and fine motor skills. They did free painting activities, pretend play and they loved moving to music showing great self-confidence and social skills.
Starfish children are now learning about “Winter Wonderland” for the upcoming 2 weeks. The children will learn about “Winter Wonderland” through art and craft, story time, table top activities, tuff tray exploration, role play activities and singing activities. Art will be created like snowman, Christmas tree, ginger bread man, hand/footprint painting and Christmas wreath.
I wish to express my heartfelt appreciation to all my class parents, families and friends for their continuous support of our program, helping us in following pick and drop times, sending the right snacks and speaking positively about nursery at home. We look forward to seeing you and working with you again in the second term