Our New Nursery Year Begins......

Dear Parents and Caregivers

Welcome to a new school year and a new beginning for your children in our Nursery Class. Our class name is the

‘Monkeys’. Your children will be experiencing a wide range of instruction and activities to enhance their growth and learning this year.

Throughout our school year we have overarching Unit of Inquiry studies that help the children to understand themselves and the world around them. Each half term there will be a focus as shown below.

These units encompass many facets of science, geography and general knowledge. Your children will have the chance to make observations and inquiries into how the world works. During some of the units we take the children on field trips to enhance their learning.

	Unit of Study	Field Trip with Class
1	Mini Beasts
2	Our Five Senses	We visit Suphatraland in Rayong
3	Wild Animals	We visit the Rayong Aquarium
4	People Who Help Us
5	Light in Our Lives
6	Transport	We visit the vehicle exhibition at the Old Siam Country club

As well as these units we will be supporting the children in their learning and interests by spending time with them focused on their particular interests and passions. This is called Passion Learning and we will be telling you more about this as the term progresses.

Literacy activities in our class will begin with reading times together every day and with the children going to the library every Friday to choose a book to bring home. We will be working on Phase 1 of the Letters and Sounds literacy program that teaches the children to learn to listen and differentiate the attributes of sound, things such as environmental and musical sounds and loud and quiet. Information about the Letters and Sounds program can be found at 

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com

Mathematics in Nursery and throughout Primary is based on Singapore Math which is the most successful way of teaching mathematics to children in the world today. We will be starting by trying to give your children a deep understanding of the basic numbers zero to five and how they work and relate to each other. The activities the children take part in will be through solid 3 dimensional hands on activities that they then learn to create pictorial and numerical representations of later.

In Nursery we are looking at the health and development of the whole child. This of course means including their physical health and development. PE is part of our program twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when the children take part in a program to help them develop age appropriate coordination both as individuals and in a group with a specialist teacher Khun Kik.

 Every day at school the students take part in singing, dancing and exercises that also enhance this development. Every Monday our music teacher Ms Michelle takes the children for more focused music classes that take place in our Foundation Hall.

Then on Wednesdays our students have water play activities in our top playground to build their confidence and safety awareness with water.This is an opportunity for the children to also take part in another great socialization activity which helps them relate well to others.

We are looking forward to a great year of learning with your children. You will be able to access ongoing information about your child’s experiences and the program on our class blog at http://nursery.gardenrayong.com

Many Thanks, Ms Jane

Our first two days of Nursery Class...

More photos to come...