Nursery
Welcome to our Nursery!
Our Class Teacher is Mrs Barbara Speer
Our Nursery Nurse is Mrs Gemma Smallpeice
Our Teaching Assistant is Mrs Lynette Walker
Welcome to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), which is how the Government and Early Years professionals describe the time in your child's life between birth and age 5.
All 3 and 4 year olds are entitled to 15 hours per week free early education from the September following their third birthday.
At Gade Valley, our Nursery is led by an experienced, qualified teacher and as such, we pride ourselves on delivering a high quality education experience that helps to prepare children for school life.
We currently (2023/24) provide 15 hour morning and afternoon Nursery sessions 5 days per week during term times. In addition, we are pleased to offer 30 hour funded and non-funded places during term times.
Nursery Session Times
Morning Nursery 8.45 – 11.45 am
Pupils in receipt of 30 hours funding 8.45 am - 3:15 pm
Please ensure you drop off and collect your child on time from the Nursery Classroom.
We have one intake per year beginning in September, with 30 places available. We would love to show you around, please call or e-mail the school office to make an appointment.
If you have any questions about our Nursery facilities or the application process, please visit the admissions page, or call or e-mail the school office.
The Parents' Guide link below will help answer many of your questions and help you through your child's future learning and successes.
Half-Termly Curriculum Letters
Autumn
Our Learning Journey 2023/24
World Book Day
The children were very excited to come to nursery dressed as their favourite book characters. We joined the rest of the school for Assembly and confidently walked around the hall proudly showing everybody our costumes.
On Friday, we joined Year 3 for some buddy reading and in the afternoon we took part in the Police Community Day, talking to the Police Officers, exploring lots of vehicles and meeting some police dogs.
What a great week!
Book of the week: Jasper's Beanstalk
The children enjoyed listening to the story and joining in with the days of the week. During active learning, some of the children made a beanstalk picture by dipping their wellies in green painted and walking up a long piece of paper. In busy fingers, the children planted their own bean in a bag and now they are waiting to see the begin to grow. We visited the duck eggs each day and were very excited to see them hatch.
Chinese New Year - The Year of the Dragon
The children enjoyed taking part in lots of dragon dancing this week. They worked together to make dragon head and practised dancing under material together. In sharing assembly, the children made dragon masks and Chinese lanterns using collage.
Dragon Dance
National Story Telling Week
This week we listened to the story, 'Mr Dad is a Grizzly Bear' and 'My Mum is a Lioness'. The children were asked to think about which animal their Mum of Dad might be and they shared some very interesting ideas from Flamingos to Dogs.
The children enjoyed being visited by a secret reader each day who came to share a story and loved buddy reading with Year 2 on Friday.
Book of the week: Oliver's Vegetables
We were visited by Mr Masters this week who came to sing some songs and tell us a story from the bible. The children took part in the story by creating sound effects.
We also learned where potatoes and carrots come from and had a go at peeling some carrots to make vegetable soup. The children who wanted to, enjoyed some vegetable soup during snack time and we made a list of all the vegetables we could taste. The children thought the soup was delicious.
Happy Birthday Winnie the Pooh!
This week the children enjoyed celebrating Winnie the Pooh's birthday.
They all brought in their favourite Teddy bears and cuddly toys which they took for a picnic in the woods. We enjoyed tasting some delicious honey, singing Happy birthday and pretending to blow out all the candles. We then played our favourite party game - Hide and Seek.
Book of the week: Happy New Year, Spot!
The children were excited to come back to school and share all their news about Christmas. They each drew a picture of their favourite Christmas present which they shared with the class.
After watching the spectacular New Year fireworks on the interactive whiteboard, the children used chalk to create their own firework pictures on the Nursery playground.
Book of the week: Sleepy Jesus
The children enjoyed performing their song for both the whole school in our dress rehearsal and all their parents and families. During busy fingers, they used their fine motor skills to create Christmas pictures with buttons, create their own Christmas jumpers, make snowflakes using scissors, decorate our class wreath with leaves and played snowball skittles. They were also excited to see Mr West who came and read a story. One Christmas jumper day, the children took part in sharing assembly winning the class reading challenge for the most Golden Tickets and Roman won a Wonka Bar. Well done Nursery!
Book of the week: The Snowman.
The children enjoyed listening to the story and were able to tell us all about snowmen they have made at home when it snows. We also watched the film to make the story come to life.
The children were very excited to find ice in the garden and after spending some time exploring the ice they talked about how if felt such as cold, smooth and slippery. They had great fun finding different tools to smash the ice with and then investigated how the hard ice changed into water when they held it in their hands.
Book of the week: Oh, Christmas Tree!
It’s nearly Christmas! After listening to our story of the week, the children enjoyed putting up the class Christmas Tree. We decorated it with every sparkly decoration in the box and placed the angel on the top. In ‘busy fingers’, we have been making paperchains to decorate the classroom and working hard to learn all the songs for our Christmas performance. We joined the whole school to decorate the school Christmas tree, placing our decorations carefully on the tree with the help of some or our friends in Year 6.
Phonics Phase 1
This term the children has been focusing on their listening skills. This week the children went for a listening walk around the school. When we came back to the Nursery, the children shared all the things they were able to hear, these included: Children playing, bouncing balls, vehicles on the road and leaves rustling in the trees. One group heard an aeroplane in the sky and another group heard pots banging in the school kitchen.
Next time you're out for a walk the children have been asked to listen carefully to what they can hear.
Book of the week: Owl Babies
The children loved hearing and joining in with our story of the week - Owl Babies. Some of the children knew that Owls only wake up at night time and have big eyes to help them see in the dark. During busy fingers, they used their counting skills to match the correct number of feathers to their owls using their fingers, created their own owls using toilet rolls tubes and playdough and practised their pencil control by drawing the outline of an owl. They also painted their own poppy which will be on show in the school hall as part of our annual Remembrance Day display.
Finally, on Friday we had our first 'Buddy Reading' session with Year 5, sharing books and stories.
Book of the week: Don't Hog the Hedge
The children enjoyed listening to our story of the week and finding out that some animals sleep all through the winter like Hatty the Hedgehog and her friends. The children used leaves that had fallen from the trees in the garden to decorate their own hedgehog, threaded leaves onto a piece of wool using a needle and decorated autumn pictures with colourful buttons. After singing our song of the week, the children worked together to sweep all the leaves from the playground and starting making piles for animals to use to make their winter homes.
Book of the week: Room on the Broom
We had so much fun reading our book of the week and pretending to be witches. We enjoyed joining in with the story every morning and knew the story really well by the end of the week. We also dressing up in the nursery garden and pretending to be witches on broomsticks. Our busy finger activities included: wrapping up mummies with wool, creating witches faces, decorating pumpkins and making handprint spiders with googly eyes.
We hope you have a wonderful half term break and look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday, 31st October.
Book of the week: Stanley's Stick
We have been finding sticks in the garden and the woods and using our imagination to decide what our stick will be. Our busy finger activities included: painting with sticks, comparing the size of sticks, making sticky hedgehogs and drawing pictures of our stick creations.
We also carried out a number hunt in the big school, looking for numbers up to 10.
Book of the week: This is our House
Our story of the week taught us about the importance of sharing and being a good friend. During busy fingers we talked about and learnt to recognise emotions. We all made sad faces and happy faces and then we made our own pictures. In maths the children talked about how many people lived in their house, drew and counted them. We also created different 2D shapes using playdough.
Book of the week: What makes me a ME?
This week the children have been thinking about how we are all similar but different. We recognised that we all have two arms and two legs but we are different sizes. We all have hair and eyes but they are different colours.
In P.E. we enjoyed running around the playground and flying our streamers in the wind. Finally, we dug up the carrots planted by last year's class. We washed them and took to show some of the children in school.
Book of the week: Hairy Mclary and Friends
During their first full week in the Nursery, the children have had lots of fun making new friends and exploring many of the activities we have available both inside and in the garden. They have been learning some of our daily songs and routines and had their first trip to the daily mile track where some of them were motivated to run round the track more than once.
Our Learning Journey in 2022 - 23
Book of the week: Starting School
We've had a great last week in the Nursery completing our busy finger activities with excitement.
We gave our vegetables lots of water to help them continue growing through the holidays and are looking forward to next year's nursery children digging them up and showing them in assembly.
The children enjoyed eating their ice lollies in the garden and dancing at our mini-disco.
We have had a wonderful year watching the children's confidence grow. We will miss them all but look forward to hearing about their many achievements in the future.
Thank you for all your kind wishes, cards and gifts, we hope you all have a wonderful summer break.
Book of the week: The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch
This week the children have enjoyed learning about the job of a lighthouse keeper. During active learning, some of the children tried to make to a zipwire to send a basket of fruit from one side of the playground to the other. They also used the gutting and pipes to move water to make a pond in the tuff tray.
Our busy finger activities included making bubble pictures, match quantities of shells to the correct number, catching a fish game and decorating sea creatures and fish using coloured buttons.
In our music session, the children used the shakers they had made to accompany the song 'The Grand Old Duke of York'.
Book of the week: Little Red Riding Hood
This week the children have been listening to our story of the week and learning about the importance of not talking to strangers.
During busy fingers, the children have been developing their fine motor skills by using tweezers to pick up matchsticks and weaving baskets for Little Red Riding hood to carry her treats for Granny in. They have been perfecting their pencil control by tracing the path to Granny's house using lots of different colours and sharing lots of traditional tales with their friends.
In preparation for our Music session next week, the children each made and decorated their own shaker. We are looking forward to some noisy music next week.
Thank you to everyone who came to open evening, it was lovely to see the children proudly showing you their classroom and their work.
Book of the week: The Gingerbread Man
The children enjoyed listening to the story and joining in with the repeated refrains. We learnt our song of the week: 5 Little Gingerbread Men, and had fun taking turns to be the Gingerbread Man who ran away. During busy fingers, the children developed their fine motor skills, putting buttons on the pictures, making play-dough gingerbread men and practising their pencil control by colouring pictures. We carried our a science experiment to see whether a gingerbread man would sink quickest in hot water or cold water. Most of the time our predictions were correct.
Some of the afternoon children had a go at making their own gingerbread men using salt dough.
We all managed to catch lots of duck in our Hook-a-duck sponsored challenge, the children showed lots of perseverance and determination.
Finally, we were excited to see our butterflies emerge from their cocoons. After observing them in our butterfly house, we watched them fly away across meadow to find some flowers.
Book of the week: The Large Family Sports Day
We have had lots of fun taking part in a variety of sports events this week. Some of our favourite activities were jumping, throwing and the obstacle race. During busy fingers, we created flags for our House Team and read some books about different sports. We loved taking part in sports day and seeing our mummies, daddies and other family members cheering us on.
On Monday, the children were surprised to see a new climbing frame in the garden and had a great time exploring the climbing wall and netting before sliding down the slide.
On Friday, we were excited to see that one of our caterpillars had emerged from their cocoon and as beautiful butterfly. We hope to the rest of the butterflies next week and look forward to letting them go and watching them fly away.
Book of the week: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The children were very excited to see some caterpillars arrive in the nursery this week. We have been watching them grow and measuring them everyday until on Friday, they had all spun their cocoon's and were hanging from the lid of their little pot. Over the next couple of weeks we will be waiting for them to emerge as butterflies. Our 'Busy Finger' activities included making edible caterpillars using cucumber and tomato which tasted delicious, threading all the different food the hungry caterpillar ate onto a piece of string, painting symmetrical patterns on butterfly wings and creating a butterfly life cycle using different types of pasta.
Book of the week: What the Ladybird Heard
We have been enjoying the sunshine this week and making the most of all the activities in the garden. After reading our book of the week, lots of the children decided to look for bugs. We found spiders, ants, slug and worms but we didn’t see any ladybirds.
During busy fingers, the children used stencils to make bug pictures and matched numbers on ladybirds to the correct number of spots. We used our scissor skills to cut out bug pictures and had our first go at programming the BeeBots. In PE, we practised our running races.
Book of the week: Dear Zoo
The children loved reading our story this week and thinking about the animals they would like to have from the zoo. They each wrote a letter to the zoo asking for their favourite animal. During our music session, the children sang about all the animals included in the story, added a few of their own and making the animal noises.
They also explore animal camouflage by using cotton buds as paint brushes to copy the patterns.
Enterprise Week
Book of the week: Superworm
Continuing our theme of superheroes, this week the children learnt all about Superheroes who don’t wear a mask. We discovered that being kind, caring and helping our friends makes us all superheroes.
For Enterprise Week, the children have been excited to have their pictures taken in our Photobooth choosing funny props to wear and making funny faces. They were also keen to share their photo’s with the rest of the school in sharing assembly.
During busy fingers, the children made pasta worms by threading the tubes onto shoe laces, practised recognising and matching numbers to the correct quantity of worms and were challenged to make worms of different sizes using playdough.
Photobooth
Book of the week: Supertato.
This week the children have really enjoyed being superheroes. During busy fingers they created colourful pictures of superheroes, rescued vegetables that had been taped to the Tuff Tray and used tweezers to remove the evil peas from the jelly. On Friday, the children completed a number hunt looking for Evil Peas showing the numbers 1 - 10 that had been hidden around the classroom. In the afternoon, the children loved running around the track in their superhero costumes.
Book of the week: The Colourful Coronation
This week the children had lots of fun learning about the Coronation of King Charles III. We learnt a special song for the celebration afternoon, made bunting to decorate the classroom and nature crowns using foliage from the woods.
Book of the Week: Duck in a Truck
The children were very excited to see the ducklings on Monday and each child held one of them in their hands. They were very cute and soft.
After reading our book of the week, the children were motivated to find rhyming words in the story and learn our 'Silly Soup' song. During busy fingers, they practised finding rhyming pairs and suggest other words to make a rhyming string. They also used different shapes to make animal pictures, created pictures by painting with mud and used nets to catch the ducks in the water tray.
In PE, the children have been developing their hand/eye co-ordination using hockey sticks to move their ball around the floor.
Finally, Andrew Masters visited the afternoon children and told them a story from the bible and played his guitar.
Book of the week: The Ugly Duckling
The children have had lots of fun this week, sharing their news about the Easter break and comparing Beanstalk pictures to see who's plant has grown the tallest. We have had lots of fun in the Nursery garden, enjoying the sunshine, planting our vegetable plants and seeds in our new growing area and seeing how many laps we could run during Track Time.
The children were excited to see the duck eggs arrive on Tuesday and have been visiting everyday to see how many have hatched and watch them grow. After reading our story of the week, the children have been learning about what makes a good friend and how we can be kind to each other.
During busy fingers, the children made bird feeders which we hung in the woods for the birds and squirrels to share. We also practised writing our names and colouring ducks ponds which we shared with the school during Friday assembly.
Book of the week: We're going on an Egg Hunt
This week, the children have enjoyed learning about Easter and completing lots of Easter themed activities and had great fun dancing at our little disco during PE. They all took their beanstalks home to continue growing and we are excited to find out which one grows the tallest when we return to school after the Easter holidays.
We hope you all have a wonderful Easter break.
Book of the week: The Train Ride
This week the children enjoyed listening to the story and indentifying rhyming words. During active learning, they decided to build their own trains both indoors and in the Nursery garden, using old cardboard boxes. Lots of children used their drawing, writing and scissor skills to create wheels, tickets and flags for the train and then had lots of fun pretending to go to the seaside.
In Busy Fingers, the children practised matching and naming 2D shapes, matching coloured keys, building train tracks and ordering the days of the week. They also planted the beans they have been growing in bags, ready to take home next week and continue growing.
Book of the week: I Love My Mummy
This week we have been thinking about their lovely mummies and all the wonderful things they do to help us. During busy fingers, the children wrote their name in their Mother's Day cards, created butterfly suncatchers to decorate their cards and planted a pretty flower.
We learnt out song of the week about Mothers Day and shared it with the rest of the school during assembly.
In our group time, the children shared why they love their mummies so much.
We wish all our lovely mummies have a wonderful Mother's Day.
Mother's Day Song
Book of the week: Wakey, Wakey!
This week the children have been thinking about spring and the animals that come out of hibernation.
During 'busy fingers', they used their scissor skills to cut up wool to make nests and thread pasta onto string to make wiggly worms. They also used tweezers to rescue bugs from the spiders web and have been working hard to write their names independently.
During active learning, some of the children chose to paint daffodils after seeing lots of them start to bloom in the Nursery garden and had fun using them to learn our rhyme of the week, '5 Little Daffodils'.
World Book Week: The Smeds and the Smoos
What an exciting and busy week we've had. Everyday, we have shared books and stories with a different class from year 6 to year 1. The children loved seeing their brothers, sisters and friends.
In Busy Fingers, we completed lots of activities relating to the book using our fine motor skills and developing our maths skills.
On World Book Day, the children were proud to show their costumes to each other and the whole school, confidently walking around the hall during sharing assembly. On Friday, we joined KS1 and Reception class to explore lots of outdoor activities including painting on the playground and making rockets.
Finally during snack time, we all enjoyed some pink milk just like the Smeds.
Book of the week: Jasper's Beanstalk
This week the children have been learning about growing plants, during busy fingers, they all planted a bean in a bag. We stuck them on the windows and now we are waiting to see our beanstalks grow.
some of the children bought in seeds from home so we planted those as well: Carrots, courgettes, tomatoes and brussel sprouts.
On Shrove Tuesday, the children pretended to make lots of pancakes using play dough and tried flipping them in a pan. In the afternoon, we went over to the big school to make some real pancakes. They were delicious.
Book of the week: Oliver's Vegetable's
We have had so much fun this week learning about vegetables. We used vegetables as our 'Busy Finger' theme, creating repeating patterns, weaving baskets and threading. One of the children brought some carrot seeds in and we planted them in a pot to see how long they take to grow. We practised our scissor skills, cutting along wobbly lines and the afternoon children prepared some carrots by peeling and chopping them before boiling and mashing them. They were delicious.
In PE, the children worked together to keep some balls on top of the parachute and loved lifting the parachute up in the air and running underneath. On Friday, we watched a video about making vegetable soup and then, during snack time, we all tasted some vegetable soup. Most of the children loved it and had a second helping.
We hope you all have a lovely half term holiday.
Book of the week: Oliver's Fruit Salad
The Nursery children have enjoyed learning all about fruit this week. We talked about where fruit came from and how some fruit only grows in hot countries. During 'busy fingers' the children used fruit to print patterns and funny faces. In snack time, the children chopped up lots of different fruits to make their own fruit salad, just like Oliver and they loved trying lots of fruit they had never tasted before. Yummy!
Book of the week: The Chinese New Year
This week we have been learning about Chinese New Year, in PE we worked together to dance like a dragon.
Winnie the Pooh's Birthday
This week the children celebrated Winnie's birthday with a Teddy Bear's Picnic and made our own sandwiches. The children started by deciding whether the were going to make a jam or honey sandwich. After spreading the burring on their bread or cracker, they put on their favourite topping and folding the bread in half. We joined Reception class in the dining room for our picnic and we were joined by Mr Barron. When all the children had finished their sandwiches we sang Happy Birthday to Winnie the Pooh and blew out the candles on his cake. In P.E. the children were challenged to keep their birthday balloons off the ground by tapping them their hands, feet and knees. Some of the children were able to stick their balloon to their head. The afternoon children also enjoyed running round the track with the Teddy Bear's they brought into Nursery.
Book of the week: Happy New Year Spot!
This week the children have been sharing what their did at Christmas and drew pictures of their favourite present. After reading our story of the week, the children thought about what new skill they would like to learn to do this year. During 'busy fingers', the children practised writing their names and recognising the numbers of the new Year 2023.
After watching the firework display on New Years eve, the children used chalk to create their own firework display on the Nursery playground.
It's been a great start to the new term and the children have had lots of fun.
Book of the week: Sleepy Jesus
This week the children have been busy creating lots of Christmas decorations. They enjoyed playing in the snow and carried out an experiment to see what happened to snow when we brought it inside the Nursery. The children discovered that the snow melted inside but when they put some in the freezer it stayed frozen.
The children had a great time watching the KS1 Christmas performance and in our music session had lots of fun playing instruments to accompany their Christmas songs.
On Thursday the children showed their friends their Christmas jumpers and were excited when Father Christmas came to visit them with a bag full of presents. We also had 'Buddy Reading' with year 1. The afternoon children loved watching the Panto 'The Three Bears' and we shared our song of the week during Friday sharing assembly.
Book of the week: The Father Christmas
After lots of rehearsal and singing practise, the children joined Reception class for the Nativity Performance. They showed great confidence when singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' on the stage and enjoyed seeing all their parents and family members in the audience. What a fantastic show!
During Busy Fingers, the children developed their fine motor skills using scissors to cut out Christmas pictures, practised writing their names in their Christmas cards, drew 2D shapes in shaving foam and shared Christmas stories with their friends.
Book of the week: The Snowman
This week the children have been excited to learn about snow. After reading our story of the week, we talked about how the little boy felt at the end of the story when his snowman had melted and how snow is made from frozen water.
The children enjoyed sharing their Christmas decorations with the rest of the school during sharing assembly and were helped by pupils from Year 6 to hang their decorations on the school Christmas tree.
We also shared our special song from the EYFS performance,
In 'Busy Fingers', the children made fluffy snowmen pictures, added the correct number of buttons to a snowman to match the number shown and have been busy creating their Christmas cards.
Our Christmas Song
Book of the Week: Whatever Next!
This week the children had lots of fun finding out about space. After reading our story of the week, the children took turns to role-play the story both inside and outside, using big boxes and items from the Nursery.
During 'Busy Fingers', they created moon pictures by using different materials to stamp patterns and explored reading in the dark tent with torches.
In Maths, we worked in our groups to sort planets and rockets in order of size from the biggest to the smallest. Some of the children could name the planets too.
During 'Active Learning', the children enjoyed dressing up as astronauts and pretending to use computers to work in space. They also worked together to make a back pack out of junk modelling resources.
Outside, the children investigated whether different items would sink or float. They first had to make a prediction before testing the items in the puddles in the mud pit.
In P.E. the children have been learning to use bats to control the movement of their tennis ball. It was very tricky to keep the ball near the bat and move it in different directions but they showed great perseverance and determination.
Book of the week: How do Dinosaurs go to School?
This week the children were surprised to find a dinosaur hiding in the Nursery. They had great fun trying to reach him.
During 'Busy Fingers', they used their fine motor skills to make pictures using dinosaur footprints, colour in pictures of their favourite dinosaurs and practise their Maths skills by counting sets of dinosaurs and copying the numbers.
During 'Active Learning', some of the children decided to make a hedgehog house in the nursery garden. Mrs Walker fund an old box and the children carefully filled it with straw and leaves to make a comfy bed, then they placed it by the fence an covered it with sticks and logs to hide it from hungry foxes. We haven't found a hedgehog living in it yet.
To everyone's delight, we went to the big school to watch Lucas Jet perform lots of circus skills from juggling to riding a unicycle. In the afternoon, some of the children had a go at juggling themselves and walking along the tight-rope.
After sharing assembly, the children did some buddy reading with the children from Year 3, choose and book and sat and listened to the older children read.
On Forest Friday, the children went on a number hunt in the woods. Each children found a dinosaur footprint or dinosaur egg with a number on it and then we worked together to put them into a number line by counting one more.
Book of the week: Owl Babies
On Monday, the children shared their news about the fireworks they had seen over the weekend and the afternoon children created a big firework painting by splattering paint onto black paper.
After reading our book of the week, the children have had lots of fun learning about nocturnal animals. Each child decorated an owl mask to use as a prop in their play and during 'Active Learning', some of the children chose to draw, paint or colour in different owl pictures.
In Maths, we have been learning to match numbers to quantity by sticking the correct number of feathers to match the number shown on each owl. Our Cosmic Yoga session this week followed the story of Tallulah the Owl. The children are becoming really good at listening carefully and following the instructions. In PE, we have been learning to work with a partner to roll a big ball accurately when sitting, kneeling and standing.
For Remembrance Day, the children each created a poppy picture using handprints and shared their hopes for the future by drawing a picture of something they like seeing in outside.
All our wonderful work will be on display in the classroom and school hall during Celebration Evening next Wednesday, 16th November 5pm - 6pm.
Book of the week: Don't Hog the Hedge
This week we have been thinking about animals who hibernate during the winter. After reading our story, the children thought about what it would be like to sleep all winter. In 'busy fingers', the children decorated their hedge hogs using leaves from the Nursery garden to make them look like they were hibernating under a big pile of leaves. We enjoyed showing our hedgehogs and singing our song of the week 'Autumn Leaves are Falling Down', to the rest of the school during sharing assembly. We were very excited to have our first PE session in the big school and use lots of climbing and balancing equipment. The children were very good and taking off and putting on their own shoes and socks.
We have also made a start at creating some decorations for the school Christmas tree and worked really hard to design our own Christmas cards.
Harvest Festival - We performed our song 'Conkers!' with Reception
Book of the Week: Room on the Broom
With Halloween approaching, we have had lots of fun being witches and wizards this week. During busy fingers, the children created scary pumpkin faces using lots of different shapes and big spiders using handprints. We made 3D prints in play-dough using our bugs, caterpillars and spiders and wrapped mummies up in wool. Our fine motor skills have really developing.
During active learning, the children enjoyed dressing up as witches and wizards and flying around the playground on broomsticks. We created our own witches potion to turn someone into a frog adding lots of weird ingredients and stirring the pot carefully. The children also created their own magic potions. Finally, we each decorated a biscuit using bright coloured icing and added two big eyes to make a Halloween treat which we loved eating after snack time.
We have had a great first half-term and the children have really settled in well to the Nursery setting. We hope you all have a wonderful break and we look forward to seeing all the children on Monday, 31st October.
Book of the week: This is Our House
After reading our story of the week, the children talked about how the little boy in the story was not very friendly. We discussed what a good friend is and how we can be good friends. some of the things they suggested were: Using gentle hands, letting everybody play our games and using kind words. During Active Learning, we made our own house out of a large cardboard box and took it in turns to play in the house.
Our busy finger activities included recognising and matching patterns by finding pairs of socks, creating pictures using stensils, making marks with our fingers in shaving foam and screwing nuts onto bolts. In PE, the children have been trying to beat their personal bests by challenging themselves to run one more lap of the track.
Book of the week: Stanley's Stick
After reading our the story about Stanley's stick, the children were challenged to find a stick of their own in the Nursery garden. Once they had found a stick, they children decided what their stick would be. Their ideas included fishing rods, binoculars, flags, dinosaurs and an aeroplane. During group time, the children decorated their sticks and proudly showed them to their friends.
During their Music session with Mrs Hale, the children learnt the names of different instruments that make the same sound. They used egg shakers, maracas and bells to confidently to accompany some familiar nursery rhymes.
In PE this week, the children had a go at some 'Cosmic Yoga', They used their listening skills to follow the instructions and showed great perseverance trying to balance in different positions.
Our 'Busy Finger' activities this each morning included threading small beads onto pipe cleaners, stretching elastic bands to create a picture, making 2D shapes using lollysticks and blowing paint in different directions with a straw to make colourful patterns.
What a busy week!
Book of the week: Chicken Licken
This week we have been looking for signs of Autumn and noticing how the leaves on the trees are beginning to change colour and the acorns and conkers are falling. We have been working hard each morning to sweep the acorns off the playground so that we can ride our bikes and scooters and run around without slipping. We used our mark making skills to create some leaf rubbings of the fallen leaves.
During 'busy fingers', we used large spoons and ladles to scoop up the conkers we collected and sort them into different sized containers. We making and recognising 2D shapes using our play dough and our pincer grip using tweezers to rescue bugs from the spiders webs. Finally, we loved practising our scissor skills by making small snips in different coloured paper.
Book of the week: What Makes Me a ME?
This week we have been talking about how we are all the same but different. We noticed that we all have eyes, hairs, two arms and two legs but our eyes and hair are different colours and we are all different heights.
During 'Busy Fingers', we used tweezers to pick up match sticks, matched the correct number of bears to numerals to 10 and built tall towers using construction blocks. We have also been learning to recognise our names and practise our pencil grip by copying the letters and colouring some autumn leaves.
In 'Child Initiated' worked hard to sweep all the acorns off the playground and collected lots of conkers to used in our learning next week.
As part of a whole school display, we drew pictures of Queen Elizabeth II wearing her golden crown.
Book of the week: The Little Red Hen
After reading our story of the week, the afternoon children had a go at making their own bread. They weighed out the ingredients and took turns to mix them all together before kneading and shaping their loaf, then they took them home to bake.
This week all the children enjoyed their first P.E. session on the big playground. They should great
motivation and perseverance by finding different ways to use their hoop. Pushing, rolling, balancing,
catching and hoola hooping.
Our fabulous first week!
Our Learning Journey 2021 -2022
Open Evening
Book of the week: The Gingerbread Man
This week we have had lots of fun reading and role-playing the story of the Gingerbread Man. During 'Busy Fingers', the children enjoyed making their own gingerbread men using playdough and designing their own gingerbread men. The Maths activity was to use a dice to draw different features on a gingerbread man depending on the number thrown. We also carried out a science experiment to investigate whether cold water or hot water would make a gingerbread man soggy the quickest. Each group predicted that the cold water would be fastest but we discovered that hot water makes a gingerbread man soggy the quickest.
During active learning, the children spent a lot of time creating an obstacle course using different pieces of equipment. Each day they added more and more obstacles to make the course longer.
Book of the week: The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch
After reading the story, the children had lots of fun during our seaside themed week. Our busy finger activities included decorating sea creatures with buttons, blowing and printing bubble pictures, taking turns to catch fish with a magnet, matching objects to numerals and practising our pencil control.
During PE, the children used the Trim Trail to develop their balancing skills. It's amazing to see how confident the children have become. In PSED, after drawing around one of the children in their group, they worked together, sharing their ideas to name different parts of their body. In Maths, the children thought about their favourite sandwich fillings and found out that Jam and Ham were the most popular.
Thank you to all the parents who were able to join us on Wednesday, the children were really excited to share a story with their Mummy's and Daddy's.
Sports Week
Book of the week: The Large Family Sports Day
Wow! what a fantastic week of sports we've had.
One Tuesday, the children we're motivated and perseverant in their races, running as fast as they could in the flat race whilst staying in their lane, and jumping over some small and large hurdles in the relay race. The children have had so much fun trying lots of different sports activities and earning points for their House. They took part in Long jump and running jump, javelin and shot put. The children worked with their house teams to perform some rhythmic gymnastics and completed the long distance race around the track with some children completing 3 laps!
We worked hard to learn our song of the week and were very proud to share our song with the whole school during sharing assembly.
Book of the week: The Ladybird Who Heard
After reading our story of the week, the children enjoyed hunting for ladybirds in the nursery garden. Sadly we only found one but it didn't look like the ladybird in our story, it was black and yellow. Our busy finger activities this week helped us develop our scissor skills, cutting along wavy and zig zag lines. We used our pencil control to draw ladybirds and had great fun printing red circles and stamping black dots to create lots of bright ladybirds. We practised our number recognition skills and matched each number by drawing the correct amount of ladybird dots. Finally, we used our programming skills to make the Beebots move across the carpet.
During active learning, the children took part in the Wateraid Challenge. After watching a video about how some children around the world do not have fresh water in their homes and have to carry water over long distances for their family, the children has to carefully carry cups of precious water from one end of the playground to the other. It was the perfect day for playing with water and the children had lots of fun.
Book of the week: The Train Ride
This week the children have been learning about trains and transport. In the story, little girl goes on a train ride to meet her grandma at the seaside. After reading the story, the children enjoyed sharing their own experiences of going on holiday, travelling by car, plane, boat and train. During 'active learning', the children were inspired to make their own trains using boxes, building blocks and cones for wheels. They loved using their mark making skills to make tickets. Once our trains had been built, the children decided that they wanted to go on a camping holiday. We set up some tents and enjoyed pretending to be on holiday in the woods.
Our 'busy finger' activities included, writing our names on a train, using our counting skills to add small groups of objects and practising our number recognition by writing numbers in shaving foam. They also used their knowledge of rhyming words to create rhyming trains.
Buddy Reading. On Friday we met Year 4 in the hall to share some books and stories. The children loved reading with their siblings and making new friends.
Song of the Week: Down at the station
Song of the week: The Royal Family
Book of the week: Tea with the Queen
During our Platinum Jubilee week, the children have enjoyed learning about the Queen and the Royal Family. During ‘busy fingers’, we created cards for the Queen and practised writing our names inside. Using different buttons, the children decorated crowns and used their maths skills to match the correct number of jewels to given numerals.
After reading our book of the week, many of the children shared their experiences of trips to London where they had seen the real Buckingham Palace and the London Eye. Some of them wanted to make their own crowns during active learning, just like the one Ava had been given by the Queen at the end of the story. They were very proud to show their sparkly crowns during our Friday sharing assembly.
Our noisiest activity this week was creating our own marching band. After a little practise playing our chosen instruments whilst marching, we confidently marched all the way round the school during break time.
We hope you all have a wonderful Jubilee holiday and look forward to another exciting half term.
Book of the Week: Once There Were Giants
This week the children have been looking at their baby photo's and talking about how they have changed. Miss Christie measured all the children on the class height chart to see if they had grown any taller since the autumn term. Some children had grown a lot while some had stayed the same height. The children also thought about what they would like to be when they grow up. There were lots of boys and girls who wanted to be firefighters and police officers but we also some exciting jobs such as bakers, racing drivers and astronauts.
In busy fingers this week, the children have been using mirrors to look at their faces and draw their features. They also learnt a song about drawing their faces. They also enjoyed programming the BeeBots to move around the carpet and cutting out bugs.
All our caterpillars have now spun their cocoons and are waiting to be transferred into their new home where they will emerge as beautiful butterflies. Some of the children found caterpillars in the garden this week which looked very different from the ones we have in the classroom.
Book of the week: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
This week we have been learning to be scientists, exploring, observing and making predictions about some new friends. We were very excited on Monday, to meet 5 tiny caterpillars. They were only 1cm long when they arrived. We have observed them growing each day and now they are nearly 2cm long. After reading our story of the week, we have learnt that once the caterpillars have eaten all their food and have become big, fat caterpillars, they will form a cocoon around their body and stay in their cocoon for more than two weeks. Then they will nibble a hole and cone out of their cocoon as beautiful butterflies. We can’t wait to see them. We think they will have colourful wings.
In our group time, we learnt about the life cycle of a caterpillar and in ‘Busy Fingers’, we used different types of pasta to create the four stages of their life cycle. First the butterfly lays her eggs, then out pops the caterpillar. Once he is big and fat he forms a cocoon, then after two weeks he comes out as a butterfly.
During ‘Active Learning’, the children had an opportunity to paint their own colourful butterflies, creating symmetrical patterns by painting one side of the paper and folding the paper to print on the other side. The children were really pleased to see their butterflies fluttering in the cherry tree.
We also made edible caterpillars using cucumber for the body and tomato for the head, we added two raisins for the eyes and enjoyed eating them at snack time.
In PE this week, we have been practicing for sports day by taking part in running and obstacle races. We had a great time!
Book of the week: The Ugly Ducklings
The children were so excited to see the ducklings this week, they noticed how much they had grown. The children carefully held one of the ducklings and described how they felt. 'Cute', 'fluffy', 'wriggly' and 'noisy'.
during busy fingers, the children used their fine motor skills to paste glue on their duck template and pinch tissue paper to stick on. They practiced writing their names in a duck pond and colouring in the ducks and reeds and used small nets to catch the ducks in the water tray.
During Forest School, the children worked in groups to create a nest for our duckling and her golden egg. They found sticks and logs to make a circle and then filled it with soft flowers and leaves. Some of the children were confident enough to tell a duck story and we sang our song of the week, '5 Little Ducks'.
Finally, the children loved riding the bikes and scooters on the new playground road. They stopped at the crossing to let people cross the road and parked neatly in the parking bays.
Book of the week: Supertato
We had a great week dressing up as superheroes and making superhero masks. During 'busy fingers', we used potatoes to explore mixing colours and making patterns. The children loved picking out the peas from jelly with their tweezers and rescuing the vegetables by picking off the tape with their fingers.
We were very excited to see the ducklings arrive and we are looking forward to holding them next week.
Book of the week: Superworm
It was lovely to welcome the children back to Nursery after the Easter break. After reading Superworm, they enjoyed dressing up as superheroes and running around the garden saving their friends from baddies.
In 'busy fingers', the children practiced their number recognition by completing a worm number puzzle and made long worms by threading pasta onto laces. They placed paperclips on wiggly worms and made worms with repeating patterns using Unifix cubes.
During our Forest School session, the children used their maths skills to represent numbers using natural resources. For example, they were asked to find the 5 leaves, 4 sticks and 1 feather. We noticed how the woods have changed during the holidays, the daffodils have been replaced by beautiful bluebells and whitebells.
We are looking forward to continuing our 'superhero' topic next week.
Book of the week: We're Going on an Egg Hunt
The children have had lots of fun learning about Easter this week, they all joined in with our story of the week and ran around the nursery garden hunting for their own Easter eggs.
We sang our song for the whole school in sharing assembly on Thursday and created a video in the classroom to share.
During busy fingers, the children made colourful eggs for their Easter cards and wrote their names inside, they also used playdough to practise their number recognition and shared stories with their friends in the reading area. On the whiteboard, the children were able to continue a repeating pattern by choosing the next shape and colour in the sequence.
We planted our beans in pots and the children were excited about taking them home to watch them grow. We are looking forward to finding out who's beanstalk has grown the tallest when we come back to school after the holidays.
We have had a busy but enjoyable spring term and hope you all have an amazing Easter break.
Little Flopsy Rabbit
Book of the week: The Shopping Basket.
This week the children enjoyed listening to the story and predicting which animal Steven was going to meet on his way home. We have been learning to recognise and name different coins and set up a shop in the nursery garden.
During group time, the children played an interactive game buying toys from a toy shop. The children had to recognise the number of pennies needed to buy their toy and count out the correct number of pennies. The children have had great fun playing in the sunshine this week, they investigated ways of moving water from one tray to another and filling watering cans to water the plants. We’ve seen lots of butterflies in the meadow this week so Mrs Hale created a game where the children used nets to catch butterflies hanging from the tree.
During Forest School, the children compared their beans to see who had the tallest beanstalk. We noticed that some hadn’t grown very much at all and some already had leaves. The children planted their beans in a pot and will be taking them home to observe them growing during the holidays.
Finally, we made our mummies some lovely cards by creating some observational drawings of the daffodils. We hope all our mummies have a wonderful Mother's Day.
Theme of the week: Oral Hygiene
This week we have been learning about the importance of keeping our teeth clean. We watched a programme about a little girl visiting the dentist for the first time and shared our own experiences of the dentist. We listened to BBC radio and learnt a song about brushing your teeth and joined in with some actions. During busy fingers, the children had fun cleaning dirty teeth with shaving foam and tooth brushes, used laces to thread around large teeth, used their scissor skills to cut new teeth for a crocodile and sorted food items that were healthy and unhealthy.
We set up a dentist surgery in our role play area and the resident dentist was kept very busy checking everyone's teeth.
On 'rainy Wednesday', the children had fun indoors exploring how colours change when mixed together, then used their new colours to create a large painting using tooth brushes and printing with sponges. Some children also investigated who could make and fly the best paper aeroplane.
During the week we read a selection of books about teeth including: Going to the Dentist, Titus' Troublesome Tooth and The Selfish Crocodile.
Book of the week: Wakey, Wakey
Our story this week was all about animals waking up from hibernation after the long winter. We discussed how the seasons are changing and that spring has begun. We have also been thinking about how the birds collect different materials to build nests and some of the children were very creatives and had a go at building their own nest using sticks, branches and lots of leaves and grass. We have noticed lots of daffoldils and crocus' blooming in the nursery garden and in the woodland. Some of the children used the camera to take lots of pictures of the flowers, some children tried to count them all and others looked for the tallest and the shortest daffodil. Our busy finger activities this week included: making the letters of our names using playdough, threading pasta onto laces, cutting pieces of wool, exploring books about the seasons and using tweezers to rescue bugs from a spiders web.
Book Week
During book week we read the story - Sharing a Shell. The story inspired us to think about how we could be good friends and in our groups we created some Friendship Rules. The children agreed that - Helping others, including everyone in our games and having happy faces were some of the things that made us good friends.
We enjoyed 'Buddy Reading' each day with different classes including Year 6, Year 4, Year 3 and Year 1. We listened carefully as our siblings and new friends as they shared stories with us.
We loved dressing up on World Book Day. We took part in the whole school assembly, confidently walking round and showing our costumes.
We have also noticed that some of our beans have started to grow and we are really excited to see how quickly they reach the clouds.
In PE, we developed our hand/eye coordination by keeping our balloons in the air and balancing them on different parts of our body.
Book of the week: Jasper's Beanstalk
This week we have been learning about how plants grow, after reading the story the children thought about what plants need to grow. We agreed that plants need soil, water and sunshine.
Our Forest school activity was to plant a bean in a bag with a wet paper towel. We put them in the nursery window so that they could get lots of sunlight and now, like Jasper, we are waiting for them to start growing.
Our Busy Finger activities included: Threading the correct amount leaves to match the numbers on flowers, counting beans in a basket up to 10 and beyond and matching different sized lids to the circles on our worksheet.
In PE the children have been learning to interpret different types of music. They enjoy making giant steps, dancing like twinkling stars, hopping like bunnies and being very angry and stomping around.
In the garden, the children have been noticing new flowers growing, we've seen daffodils, snowdrops and crocus'. The children also had great fun making a long beanstalk by making green footprints with their wellies and finding long sticks to make the stalk.
Song of the week: Teddy Bear’s Picnic
This week we have been sharing lots of bear stories and learning our song of the week. We decided to have our own teddy bears picnic. During group time, the children thought about their favourite picnic foods and party games. On Friday, we all made our own sandwiches to eat at the picnic and chose a piece of fruit. We walked into the woods singing our song of the week. We played hid the Teddy and took our teddies for a walk around the ‘daily mile’ track.
some of our busy finger activities included making bird feeders for the nursery garden, using tweezers to pick compare bears and matching unifix cubes to the number we rolled on a dice and matching letters to our names.
We have made a fantastic start to the spring term and hope you all have a wonderful half term holiday.
Book of the Week: Handa’s Surprise
The children enjoyed listening to our story and learning our song of the week all about Handa’s journey to see her friend. They experimented mixing paint to create new colours for their sunset pictures, then added a silhouette of one of the animals in the story.
During busy fingers, they sequenced the numbers 1-10 by threading fruit pictures, explored weighing different fruits to find out which was the heaviest and lightest and used fruit to print patterns. The children tried to program the Beebots to move around the carpet and made basket pictures by weaving strips of card in different colours.
They were very excited to see the snow on Friday, going out to see if they could catch a snow flake on their tongues. On our woodland welly walk, some of the children were keen to find horse chestnut shells which they pretended were tiny hedgehogs.
Book of the Week: Oliver’s Fruit Salad
The children have had so much fun this week learning about keeping healthy. After reading our book of the week, the children thought about where fruit and vegetables grow. We sorted different fruit and vegetables into those that grow under ground and those that grow above ground. During ‘Busy Fingers’, the children created funny faces using pictures of different fruits and practised their scissor skills by cutting out fruits and working together to make colourful fruit bowls.
We investigated some of the fruit mentioned in our story of the week by cutting and chopping them to use in our fruit kebabs. The children loved eating their kebabs during snack time. In PE, we are continuing to practise balancing and moving around equipment in different ways.
Book of the Week: Oliver’s Vegetables
This week the children were challenged to think about the food they eat. After reading our book of the week, they were able describe some of the vegetables they had tasted and enjoyed eating.
During ‘Busy Fingers’, the children were able to compare different vegetables and describe which were the biggest, smallest, fattest and thinnest. They practised copying the letters of their names and recognising numbers.
In PE, the children explored different types of equipment. They enjoyed climbing and balancing as they moved around the obstacle course.
They are becoming very independent when taking off and putting on their socks and shoes.
On Forest School Friday, the children planted lots of bulbs which they hope to observe growing during the spring and summer months.
Book of the Week: Elmer
This week the children have been busy investigating colour and patterns. After watching the London New Year firework display, they talked about the special celebrations they shared with family and friends during the Christmas holidays. They created their own firework pictures using chalk, painted their own pictures of Elmer using lots of different colours and, with Mrs Hale, made a 3D Elmer by recycling their milk bottles and using glue and tissue paper.
In PE, the children enjoyed using a small selection of equipment to explore different ways of moving. Balancing, sliding, crawling, jumping and swinging were just some of the ways they travelled around.
The nursery garden was very muddy this week, so we choose to spend some time on the big playground. This gave the children a chance to ride the bikes and scooters faster and further than ever. They also played ball games with their friends.
Congratulations to all the children who have already received their certificates for reading 50 or 100 times at home. Finally, we were pleased to award our first CHAMP of the Week awards to two children who have shown great confidence this week.
Happy New Year!
It was so lovely to welcome the children back for the start of our Spring term and in only two days we have managed to do so much. During 'Busy Fingers', the children enjoyed telling us about their favourite Christmas presents and practised their scissor skills by cutting out different fireworks. Some of the children were brave enough to play outside on Thursday and were excited to find frost on some of the equipment and ice in the tough tray. They thoroughly enjoyed breaking the ice together and were surprised by how cold the water underneath was. We visited the woods on Forest school Friday and enjoyed creating drawings of the different things we could see on our walk around the woods.
Topic: Christmas
During ‘Busy Finger’ activities, the children used their fine motor skills to build Christmas models using Duplo, decorate Christmas trees using ribbon and laces, use their scissor skills to cut out Christmas pictures and practise their number pattern recognition by playing ‘build the snowman’, with Mrs Hale. The children took it in turns to role the dice and win different pieces to create a snowman. They had great fun!
In ‘Active Learning, some of the children chose to build Santa’s sleigh in the construction area and pretended to fly around the world delivering presents.
We have had a brilliant first term, the children have all settled really well and have made great progress. We are really looking forward to another busy but enjoyable Spring term.
Book of the week: The First Christmas
The children have been working very hard in Nursery this week, they enjoyed listening to the Christmas Story and practising our Christmas performance which is based on the story. We went into the big school to rehearse our performance on the stage, which was really exciting. Everyone who walked through the hall said the singing was beautiful. We are really looking forward to all our parents watching in the audience on Friday, 10th December.
During ‘busy fingers’, the children used their fine motor skills to decorate pine cones with elastic bands, threaded beads onto long laces and decorated Christmas pictures using buttons of all shapes, colours and sizes. They practised forming the letters of their name on their Christmas pictures and worked together to complete some large puzzles.
Buddy the elf appeared in our classroom this week. We have been giving him silver coins every day and so far he has been very good. We found him hanging on our interactive whiteboard on Wednesday, sitting in the Christmas tree on Thursday and swinging from some tinsel above the window today.
We hope he doesn’t make a mess over the weekend!!!
Book of the Week: What Makes Me a ME?
We have had a fantastic week learning about ourselves. We investigated how we are all similar but different. We looked at our faces in a mirror and talked about the colours of our eyes, skin and faces. We carefully chose the correct colours to paint our portraits.
During Busy fingers, we created our own family tree. We discussed the different people in our families: Mum, Dad and brothers and sisters. We enjoyed colouring in our family trees.
As a class, we measured ourselves on the class height chart to find out who was the tallest and who was the shortest. We were excited to find that some of us are the same size.
In PSED, we talked about our favourite toys and explained to our friends why we liked them. We noticed that we all like different things.
In PE, we used our balancing skills to balance a beanbag on different parts of our body. Our head, shoulders, knees and toes! We found balancing a beanbag on our knee very tricky as we had to stand on one leg.
Book of the week: We're Going on a Bear Hunt
The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to and joining in with the actions to our story of the week. We listened to lots of different versions of the story including a story song.
For busy fingers, the children explored different textures and by choosing and gluing different fabrics to their bear template. The practised their counting skills by matching the different quantities of bears to the correct numeral and shared lots of bear story books with their friends.
One Forest School Friday, we went on a bear hunt in the woods. We created our own story as we walked through the woods, crunching over the fallen leaves, going round the fire pit that crackled and banged and swishing through the long grass and bushes. The children hunted for pictures of different bears and then we created a tally chart to see which bear we found the most of.
The children took part in their first PE session in the hall. They made a great start at taking off their shoes and socks before working with a partner to pass a large ball from one to the other from different starting positions. Sitting, kneeling and standing.
Book of the week: Don’t Hog the Hedge
This week we have been learning about hedgehogs. After reading our story of the week, we learnt that hedgehogs make a nest using leaves which they snuggle into to keep warm and dry during the winter. During ‘Busy Fingers’, the children decorated their hedgehog pictures using the leaves we collected last week. We sang our song of the week: ‘Autumn Leaves are Falling Down’ and used the brooms to sweep the leaves on the playground into piles. We threaded leaves onto string to represent the autumn leaves falling down. It was very tricky, but we did a great job!
On Thursday, 11th November we talked about why we wear poppies. One of the children told us that the poppies were for soldiers who had died. We all decorated a poppy using finger paints and we didn’t talk for a whole minute at 11 o’clock.
Our phonics focus this half term is environmental sounds. We went for a walk using our listening ears to hear different sounds around the school. We heard children playing in the hall, teachers talking in classrooms, car driving along the road and birds singing in the trees. During our walk we stopped to see the Goldfish in the pond and the rabbit.
On Forest School Friday, after looking for signs of hedgehogs hibernating, we enjoyed using leaves to print patterns. We worked together to create a big autumn picture for the classroom.
Book of the Week: How Do Dinosaurs Go To School?
Last half term, the children loved playing with the small dinosaurs in our small world area. As a class we wrote a letter to the zoo asking if they could send us a dinosaur. The children told us what to write. On Tuesday, the children listened to our story of the week, How Do Dinosaurs Go to School? and agreed that dinosaurs are too big for school. When we opened the blinds, the children were very excited to see two dinosaurs looking through the windows. They had great fun playing with the dinosaurs and worked together to make a house for the dinosaurs in the construction area.
During our busy finger activities, the children used their fine motor skills to thread laces around different sized dinosaurs. They tried hard to squeeze clothes pegs to make legs for dinosaurs and counted how many legs each dinosaur had. They used our toy dinosaurs to make footprint pictures using different colours and explored how the colours changed as they were mixed. The children also enjoyed looking at different story books about dinosaurs and chose some of the stories to read each day. Finally, they practised their pencil grip when colouring in a dinosaur picture.
The children loved dancing at the disco, moving to the music in different ways and singing along to some familiar tunes.
This week we celebrated Diwali by making hand prints out of clay and using a range of tools to create different patterns. Our Friday Forest School activity was to work together to collect leaves of different colours, shapes and sizes. We are already excited about using all the leaves we collected in our busy finger activities next week.
Book of the week: Room on the Broom
This week, the children enjoyed listening to the story 'Room on the Broom'. After hearing the story each day, they were able to join in with the repeated refrains and recall the story in detail. The children could name all the characters in the story and remembered the correct witches belongings that they found. Most of the children enjoyed explaining how the characters scared the dragon at the end of the story and saved the witch.
At the beginning of the week the children were introduced to our song of the week. 'The Ghosts in the House'. As the week progressed, the children suggested new verses for the song. These included zombies in the house, mummies in the house and people in the house.
Our 'active learning' took on the theme of witches and wizards. The children enjoyed finding lots of different items to put in the cauldron. Sticks, leaves, stones, slugs and snails, to name but a few. The children chanted the witches magic spell, iggety, ziggety, zaggety zoom!
Using the dressing up box, the children chose items of clothing and the garden brooms to become witches and wizards flying around the play ground.
Our 'busy finger' activities included using our scissors skills to make a face for the pumpkins, rescuing bugs from the spiders web, wrapping up mummies, making spiders with long legs and googly eyes and exploring the texture, smell and insides of a real pumpkin.
We hope you all have a wonderful half term break and look forward to seeing all the children on Tuesday, 2nd November 2021.
Book of the week: The Three Little Pigs
The children enjoyed listening to the familiar tale and joined in with the repeated refrains. We talked about which was the best material to use to make a house and during our active learning, we tried to make a house for a pig using straw. When we visited the woods on Forest School Friday, we worked together to gather a pile of sticks and then made animal shelters. Sticks are better for making houses but we all agreed that bricks are best because they are stronger.
Our Busy Finger activities included exploring shaving foam. We used our fingers to spread the shaving foam around and described what if felt like - slimy, soft and sticky. We also used playdough to make piggy faces, different 2D shapes to create pictures and practised drawing using stencils. For PE this week, the children were very excited to explore the Trim Trail. They used different ways to travel along, over, under and climb. Some of the equipment was very tricky and we had to be brave to walk along the balance beam and the wobbly bench.
Book of the week: Stanley's Stick by John Hegley
After reading Stanley's Stick, the children were challenged to find a stick in the nursery garden and were asked what their stick might be. They had some very creative ideas. The most popular was to use their stick to catch some fish and to make a flag on a pirate ship. They had great fun finding suitable sticks and building a pirate ship big enough for everyone to play in. We couldn't find a stick big enough for the flag pole so we used a piece of pipe. The children re-made the pirate ship everyday, adding planks, blocks and crates where necessary.
Some children managed to find sticks to make fishing rods and tried catching fish in the buckets but in the end, found it much easier to catch a fish in a net.
Our 'Busy Fingers' activities included using sticks to make a house, using tweezers to pick up match sticks and using straws to blow paint to make sticky shaped paintings. The children also used their fine motor skills to create shapes with elastic bands on the geoboards and join construction pieces together using nuts and bolts of different sizes.
In P.E. this week, the children had great fun throwing bean bags into hoops. They had to concentrate and throw accurately to get their bean bags into hoops placed at different distances.
Our Forest School activity was to make muddy pictures. We made muddy playdough by digging the ground and adding water. Used our hands to shape and mould the mud and then used a stick to add eyes, a nose and a mouth. The children used lots of interesting words to describe how the mud felt including sticky, cold, soft, wet and smelly! We were very proud of our pictures and enjoyed sharing them with our friends.
What a busy week we’ve had!!! The children worked really hard during busy fingers this week practising their scissors skills by cutting along wavy and zigzag lines, using play dough to represent numbers, sorting the compare bears by colours and working together to create a track for the trains.
For PE the children had to make their hoop move in lots of different ways. We tried rolling and catching our hoop, twisting and spinning, hula hooping around our waist and spinning the hoops on our arms. In Forest Schools the children explored some new areas. We walked along the secret path and listened carefully for the special Forest School call. When the children heard the call, they had to run back to the big tree. The children have also been trying to put their shoes on by themselves and are becoming much more independent. Lots more practise at home would be really helpful!
We have ended each session this week with some familiar counting songs that the children might want to sing at home: 5 Little Ducks and 5 Currant Buns.
Just a reminder: Monday, 4th October - INSET DAY (Nursery Closed)
This week we read the story about Jack and Lily starting nursery school. We recognised lots of similarities between their nursery and our nursery. The children are becoming familiar with our daily routines and love singing our morning greeting together.
We started our busy fingers activities and enjoyed completing a different task every day. We have been learning to recognise our names and decorated them using the autumn colours we are beginning to see in the woods. We used our creative skills to make a collage of shapes and colours and our counting skills to match the correct number of bears to represent the digits 1 - 10.
During our visit to the woods on Forest School Friday, we used magnifying glasses to look for lots of different mini-beasts. We had to lift logs and move leaves to find them hiding in the dark. We found slugs, millipedes, beetles and worms to name but a few. We had a great time.
Our morning greeting.
The children were really excited to have their first PE lesson this week. We used a range of different sized balls to practise our rolling, throwing and catching skills.
We also started our Forest Schools sessions. We explored the woods to find a variety of leaves. Once we had filled our basket we looked at each leaf carefully and talked about their shapes, colours and texture. We noticed that the ivy, holly and laurel leaves were very shiny and had beautiful patterns and colours. We left the leaves in a big pile for the animals and creatures in the woods.
During our morning ‘busy fingers’ session, the children used 3D shapes to create colourful 2D shape pictures for our Maths display.
Our first week in the nursery has been fabulous! The children have settled in well and enjoyed exploring all the different resources and activities that we have to offer. The cars, painting and puzzles have been a particular favourite. We have loved playing outside, building in the construction area, catching fish in the water tray and rising on the bikes and scooters. On Friday we took a walk around the Daily Mile track and went to look for dragons in the woods.
As a class, we have been sitting quietly on the carpet to listen some stories and excitedly sing some familiar songs and nursery rhymes.
We are really looking forward to next week!
Take a virtual tour of our Nursery.
Meet the Teacher
Our Learning Journey 2020/2021
Have a wonderful summer.
The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch
This week we have been talking about our favourite holidays. We all agreed that we love being by the seaside and playing in the sand. We also thought about the lovely sandwiches that Mrs Grindling made and shared our favourite sandwich fillings. They included: ham, cheese, peanut butter and jam. During snack time we all made our own sandwiches with strawberry jam. They were delicious!
The Train Ride
This week we have been listening to the rhythm and rhyme in our story. During busy fingers we have been practising our pencil control by colouring pictures of different trains. We had to concentrate and try to keep our marks within the lines. We created colour sequences by putting the engine driver's keys onto key rings and made railway tracks with our friends.
Song of the week: Down at the Station
Sports Week
Hook a Duck Sponsored Challenge.
On Monday, we were visited by WildScience who brought along some very interesting animals and reptiles.
Amber, our expert, introduced us to Terry the Tarantula, Barry the Bearded Dragon, Hetty the Hedgehog, Kelly the Cockroach, Sally the Snake, Freda the Frog and Millie the Millipede. We found out lots of interesting facts about them all and we were able to touch or hold them. We were very brave!!! After the visit, we drew pictures of our favourite creature and explained why we liked them the most.
On Wednesday we were visited by a very hungry tiger. He rang the doorbell and then, when the door was opened, he drank water from the sink, ate all the tea cakes and tried to take some of the children’s lunch boxes. We were very pleased when he left!
During busy fingers, we all created a perfect dinner fo a tiger, thinking carefully about the food he might like to eat.
Finally, we were really excited to see our butterflies emerge from their cocoons. On Tuesday we had 2, on Wednesday another emerged then on Thursday the final 2 butterflies joined their friends. We fed them with fruit and sugary water. We can’t wait to see them fly away. 🦋
Goodbye Butterflies
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Last week children loved watching our caterpillars grow and this week we were surprised to find they have all wrapped themselves up in a cocoon. After reading our book of the week, we decided to count how many days it would take before the beautiful butterflies emerge. So far we have counted 5 days on our number line. In the story we found out that caterpillars stay in their cocoons for more than 14 days.
The children have also been painting and printing to make symmetrical butterfly pictures and using their maths skills to draw the correct number of fruit to match numerals. They also threaded large beads onto a lace to make their own caterpillars and cut out 2D shapes to create a butterfly picture.
During PE with Miss Layman, we have been practising our races for Sports Week. This week we learnt to pass the baton in our relay race.
We have enjoyed being outside in all weathers this week. We cooled ourselves down in the hot weather by dipping our feet in the paddling pool and investigated different flowers in our rain-soaked woodland.
We loved creating caterpillars with our snack time fruit and enjoyed eating the even more!
This week we have been talking about what makes us special and unique. We used our self portraits to identify our features and compare them to our friends. We used our maths skills to match the Ladybird’s numeral the correct number of spots. In ‘Busy Fingers’, we had great fun drawing 2D shapes in shaving foam.
What the Ladybird Heard
Superheroes who help us
We have had so much fun being Superheroes this week. After reading Supertato, we used big tongs and our fine motor skills to rescue the veg, we investigated 2D shapes and patterns by making our potato printing pictures and used tweezers to free the Evil Peas from the strawberry jelly traps. Finally, we practised all the phonics we have been learning by searching for Evil Peas around the Nursery garden.
Supertato
Book of the week: Dear Zoo.
After reading our story of the week we had a visit from a Bearded Dragon. We thought it might be a fire breathing dragon but he was very calm. We were told by Lee, his owner, that Ozzy loved wandering around her house. We thought about different questions we could ask.
What does he eat? Apples, cucumber and insects.
Where does he sleep? On an old T-Shirt to keep him warm.
How old is he? About 9 or 10 years.
We decided that, much as we liked Ozzy the Bearded Dragon, he wasn’t a good pet for the Nursery, so we sent him back!
Please come and see us again soon Ozzy!
We have really enjoyed learning Archery with Miss Layman in P.E. We are really good at hitting the target.
We are also enjoying taking part in outdoor assemblies with our friends in Reception Class and KS1 and sharing some of the exciting work we have been doing in the Nursery.
This week we have been reading ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’. During Busy Fingers, we design a new pair of shoes using lots of colours and patterns. We measured our feet by carefully drawing around them and joining multilink cubes to the same length. We compared our multilink towers to see who has the biggest feet. We also practised lacing some shoe templates.
In the woods we worked together to make a house for the elves. When we returned to the Nursery someone rang the doorbell. It was the elves! They gave Mrs Hale a letter to say thank you for building them a new house.
What busy week we’ve had!
After reading our book of the week - The Three Billy Goats Gruff - we worked together to make bridges with the wooden blocks in the Nursery, different loose parts in the construction area and logs in the woods. We enjoyed acting out the story and pretending to be the billy goats and the ugly troll.
On Earth Day, we planted our sunflower seeds and made grass caterpillars. We are looking forward to seeing the sunflowers and grass grow.
Sharing how we made our cookies with Reception class
This week we have been reading Little Red Riding Hood. The children have enjoyed joining in with the repeated refrains and acting out the story during Child Initiated Learning.
Before going on our Wellie Walk, Mrs Hale showed the children how to make a map to Granny’s house. They excitedly made their own maps to follow in the woods. On Thursday, the children made some cookies for Granny. They each took turns to mix the ingredients before rolling out their cookie dough and choosing their favourite cookie cutter. We are looking forward to telling Reception class how we made our cookies before gobbling them up.
Happy Easter
Book of the week: Jasper’s Beanstalk
We enjoyed listening to our story of the week about growing a beanstalk. We planted our own beans and we can’t wait for them to grow so that we can go looking for giants. We practised writing our letter of the week ‘i’, repeating the rhyme, ‘down the body and a dot for the head’.
During Child Initiated Learning, we decided to make a long beanstalk by painting and printing. We explored mixing the colours to make different shades of green.
On Friday, we meet with Reception class to create a garden of flowers on the playground. We used chalk to draw flowers then added lots of petals. We loved working with our friends in Reception and the flower garden was beautiful.
Wishing all our mums a very Happy Mother’s Day.
After reading our story of the week - The Secret Sky Garden - we worked in small groups to create our own gardens. During child initiated learning, we enjoyed playing in our Garden Centre, filling pots with soil and planting seeds. On our Welly Walk, we noticed there was a lot of rubbish in our beautiful woods so we went litter picking and worked together to tidy it up. Finally, we made our own kites and had great fun sharing our work and (in our own bubbles) flying our kites with Reception class.
We were very excited that Father Christmas came to visit us before our Party. He was very jolly and gave us each a present.
The First Christmas
On Monday the cat came to visit us in the nursery garden. We’ve seen him in the woods many times but today he was happy for us to pet him and we were very excited when he went to explore the play house.
This week we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We went on a bear hunt in the woods looking for paw prints to help us find Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear. We also had a visitor in the Nursery garden.
Our Nursery Assembly
Disco fun!
Thank you Sean at Magnet Kitchens for donating the Perspex, we love our new painting screen.
On our Wednesday Welly Walk, we looked for signs of new growth.
Welly Walk Wednesday - We collected lots of conkers.
Our first week in the Nursery has been great fun. We have enjoyed exploring lots of different activities, racing around the track and investigating the Woods.
Our Learning Journey 2019/2020
We have been celebrating Holi day by creating some very colourful pictures. We had a great time.
We loved dressing up for World Book Day. We chose our favourite book character and showed everyone our costumes in sharing assembly.
World Book Day - Buddy reading with Year 6.
The Big Bird Watch
This half term we have been observing the different birds who visit our school grounds. We made bird feeders to help the birds and placed them around the trees and bushes. We practised our cutting skills by making a collage showing some of the birds we saw. We loved showing our work in assembly.
Food and Nutrition Day - We talked about having our ‘5 A Day’ healthy food. We love fruit and vegetables, especially broccoli!
To celebrate the opening of Mr Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, we made a machine to make scrumptious chocolate.
This week we have been reading ‘Whatever Next’, we had great fun exploring how to make a rocket zoom into the sky.
On Friday we celebrated Winnie the Pooh day. We read stories, investigated honey and went searching for Winnie the Pooh’s friends in the Hundred Acre Wood.
We had great fun exploring muddy puddles after the rain.
The children have been working very hard to make Christmas cards for their families. We used sparkly finger paints and carefully wrote our names inside.
We had great fun in our Christmas performance.
This week we went on a welly walk looking for Jack Frost, it was very cold.
This week we have been thinking about how to be a good friend. We made a list of lovely ideas.
Our decorations for the Christmas tree.
Children in Need -We made some scrumptious spotty cakes for the ‘Bake Off’!
In P.E. we have been learning to control a ball with our golf club. It was very tricky!
Oliver's Fruit Salad - We have been exploring lots of different fruits and making our own fruit salad.
Growth Mindset Day
We can’t put our shoes on YET! But we have made some instructions to help us learn.
First, open your shoe.
Next, lift up the tongue.
Then, push in your toe.
Now, put your finger in the back and push in your foot.
Finally, do up the strap.
We can do it!
Our Year 6 helpers have been teaching us some new games.
Ronald Dahl Day - We made a muddy potion similar to George’s Marvellous Medicine.
We had great fun in our first few days exploring the Nursery.
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