Nursery

Welcome to our Nursery!

Our Class Teacher is Mrs Barbara Speer

Our Nursery Nurse is Mrs Clare Hale

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 (2022/23) 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

• Afternoon Nursery 12.15 - 3.15 pm

• Pupils in receipt of 30 hours funding 8.45 am - 2.45 pm

Please ensure you drop off and collect your child on time from the Nursery Classroom.

Extended Provision is also available for an additional cost.

Lunch Club (15 hour places only) – 11:45am – 12:30pm  (Children will need to bring their own packed lunch)

After School Club (30 hour places only) – 2:45pm – 3:15pm

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

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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 Learning Journey 2021 -2022

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. 

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.

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.