Nursery: Blog items
Date: 7th Feb 2020 @ 7:32pm
This week we have read and enjoyed the story ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.’ We started off the week by exploring instruments to represent the sounds in the story, ‘swish, splash, squelch, and stumble trip!’ We have been retelling the story using our instruments and our sensory story tray, exploring trays of mud, water, sticks and snow! We have continued to focus on our counting, number recognition and matching numeral to quantity by finding the missing bears and putting them back in the correct cave! We have also had our own ‘bear cave’ in Nursery, which has been our special mark making space for the week, with bear hunt story telling paper and pencils. We have even made binoculars in our creative area to take on our own bear hunt! We followed the clues that had been left for us to find the bear in his deep dark cave!
Date: 30th Jan 2020 @ 12:59pm
This week we have celebrated Chinese New Year! We have read the story 'The Dancing Dragon' and talked about how people prepare to celebrate Chinese New Year. We learnt they clean the whole house, bake cakes, sing songs and hang up paper lanterns before all the friends and family join together for the New Years parade. In Nursery we have been painting lanterns hanging from the ceiling, we have been mark making with paint brushes and glitter, and we have even been painting boxes to make a big dragon! A lot of Nursery children have been very interested in our 'Funky Fingers' area this week, where we have been threading beads onto string to make patterns for the dragons body and making red and yellow paper chains to decorate Nursery. We have also looked at measuring noodles with cubes in our maths area, using language to compare the sizes of each string, such as short, medium, long. We have also been listening to music, using drums and learning the 'dragon dance.'
Date: 20th Jan 2020 @ 6:33pm
We have continued to explore Winter this week in Nursery. We have enjoyed the story 'A Little Bit of Winter,' where we learnt about how Hedgehog hibernates during Winter, but asks Rabbit to save him a bit of Winter so that when he wakes up he can see what it is like. Could Rabbit keep his promise? We talked about what Winter feels like and investigated the difference between warm and cold objects. We then started using lots of different materials to make a den for Hedgehog to hibernate in. We found some materials worked better than others as they could keep Hedgehog warm and dry during the cold months. We also had some special scratch paper and pens to write messages to Rabbit and played 'Snowflake Swat' in our outside area, finding numbers and using swatters to identify them!
The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Date: 24th Jan 2020 @ 6:25pm
This week we have enjoyed the story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’ We firstly read and discussed the story, talking about the characters and where the story is set, before getting busy with lots of activities! We have retold the story in our role play area, using different sized spoons, bowls and chairs, whilst also making chairs and beds for different sized bears in our construction area! As usual we have spent lots of time in our outdoors area, finding hidden bears and taking part in a police role-play to investigate Goldilocks! We have investigated with porridge oats, scales and containers to explore capacity and weight, and been exploring shape in the environment! See what shapes you can see whilst you are out and about over the weekend!
Date: 12th Jan 2020 @ 6:50pm
Welcome back to Nursery everyone! We have enjoyed hearing all about how you spent your Christmas and the exciting things you all got up to. This week we have started to explore Winter and the seasonal changes that take place. We have spent time exploring the world around us and introducing our new starters into the Nursery environment! We have explored our investigation station using our senses, discovering crushed ice, glitter and snow, talking about animals who live in the artic regions. Our home corner has been transformed into a winter cafe, serving hot drinks and snacks to keep visitors warm! We have focussed on number in maths, counting objects accurately and recognising numbers. We will also be continuing to improve our pencil grip, pencil control and mark making skills!
Date: 9th Jan 2020 @ 9:40am
Spring 1 Topic Overview 2019/2020
Date: 9th Jan 2020 @ 9:11am
Date: 9th Jan 2020 @ 9:09am
Date: 20th Dec 2019 @ 2:28pm
We took part in our second Forest School session this week, and it was possibly even more enjoyable than our first! Although this time it wasn't raining, the ground was still wet and muddy with the previous days rain! We joined with Reception in the woodland area for both our morning and afternoon sessions. This week we started the session by using 'Fire Steels' to try and make 'sparkles!' This took great deal of motor skill development and perseverance! We each had a turn to try and make 'sparkles,' some of us independently, some of us with a little help! Our Forest School teacher then showed us how to use the tools we had to make sparks to set some cotton wool on fire. We talked about how we need to keep safe around fire. Once the fire was lit in the fire pit, we then each had a turn at cooking a marshmallow! Again, with help from the adults, each of us had the opportunity to poke a marshmallow onto a wooden stick, then move over to the fire to toast it! We then blew on the marshmallow 10 times, to ensure it was cool enough to eat, before we enjoyed them! We then read a story together, about different animals bottoms! Exploring the woodland area, we then matched poems and pictures to the different animals they could belong to. We all enjoyed another successful Forest School session!
Date: 12th Dec 2019 @ 10:25am
Today our grown ups joined us in Nursery for our Christmas Stay & Play. Buddy the elf had left us lots of activities to do with our families! Buddy asked us to make Reindeer food, melted snowmen biscuits and Rudolf decorations! To make the reindeer food we mixed oats and special glitter into a tiny bag with a special message inside! We had to be very careful to use a small scoop so we didn't spill any of the food! After our snack we then made our biscuits. First we made some white icing, which we spread onto our biscuit. We then added a marshmallow for our snowman's head, and used icing pens to create its features. We made our Rudolf decorations at our creative table, we used circles of card, small branches we collected, and red pom poms! Our grown up also played with us in the Play Dough, sand and writing areas. We all had a great time and enjoyed our grown ups joining us in Nursery!
Date: 12th Dec 2019 @ 11:59am
We enjoyed our Christmas Disco this week! We came into Nursery with our party clothes packed into bags, we were very excited! We spent the afternoon in Nursery doing lots of Christmas activities before it was time to get changed into our party clothes! We walked through school and into the hall where our Disco had started! Lights were flashing and music was playing! We had lots of room to eat, dance and play! We enjoyed hotdogs for our tea, played pass the parcel, and had a good old dance!
Nursery Christmas Sing A Long!
Date: 19th Dec 2019 @ 9:01am
This week we invited our grown ups and families in to Nursery to join in with our Christmas Sing A Long! We have been practising our songs in Nursery throughout December and it has been part of our BLT for the past couple of weeks to share these songs with our grown ups at home. It was a cold afternoon but we all wrapped up warm and gathered underneath the tree in our Nursery garden. We had been decorating lanterns to carry whilst we were singing and we all carried them with a LED tea light in to guide us back to Nursery when it got a little bit dark! We were really lucky to have lots of our grown ups and siblings come to join in our Sing A Long, thank you all for coming on the day and for helping us all to learn the words beforehand!
Date: 6th Dec 2019 @ 8:09pm
Nursery enjoyed our first Forest School session this week! We had very different weather for our morning and afternoon sessions, however the sessions were enjoyed equally by all children! Firstly we got ready into our waterproofs, talking about what we thought might be in store for us! We were very excited to leave the Nursery environment and venture into the Forest School area. We started off the session by exploring the environment, ensuring we all followed the rules to keep each other safe! We then searched around the area to find items of interest to start the outdoor Christmas Tree. Being especially careful, we were then taught how to use the hammer and nails, and we all took turns to hammer the items we had found onto the wooden branches. Some of our children were especially interested in a 'well' in the ground, which they decided housed 'poisonous worms!' We are all looking forward to our next Forest School session!
Date: 5th Dec 2019 @ 4:46pm
Buddy the elf arrived in Nursery this week! We could hear his bells jingling on Monday in our special Nursery box, and when we sang our ‘Whats in the box?’ song, Buddy appeared! He has been leaving us notes and letters, and sometimes challenges to do! He has also been getting up to some mischievous things! We started the week writing Christmas lists and letters to Father Christmas, as well as building our gross motor skills in our Christmas themed ‘Funky Fingers’ area! On Wednesday Buddy asked us to make ‘Santa Searchers’ in our creative area, and we also built him a sleigh in the construction area. We have been matching numeral to quantity by adding decorations onto numbered Christmas trees, and exploring patterns using different Christmas objects. Later on in the week our home corner was transformed into an elf wrapping station, where we wrapped presents, wrote tags, and put them in Santas sack ready to be delivered!
Exploring Shape, Space & Measure!
Date: 27th Nov 2019 @ 8:24pm
We started off the week by exploring the question, 'how big is my foot?' We drew around each child's foot and then used cubes to measure each one. We looked at how we could find out who had the biggest foot, and counted the cubes to find out! We have also investigated capacity this week. We used lots of different containers off all shapes and sizes with different amounts of objects in, talking about when they were full, nearly full, half full or empty! During WNRW last week we explored weight, weighing different bags of items and talking about which were heavier or lighter. We have continued to use weighing scales in different areas within Nursery this week, exploring what heavy and light feel like by using a selection of objects. By the end of the week we moved onto exploring shape. We made shape monsters using 2D shapes, and also created a shape obstacle course outside, travelling across and underneath objects to see if we could find a particular named shape at the end.
Date: 22nd Nov 2019 @ 4:11pm
Nursery rhymes play an important part in early childhood development and education, as well as being fun they help children develop social, physical and emotional skills. We have particularly concentrated on 5 nursery rhymes this week, focussing on one song each day. We started the week with 'Baa Baa Black Sheep,' where we looked at weighing different bags of objects, talking about which were heavier and lighter. We then moved on to 'Down in the Jungle,' where children looked at ordering animals by size. On Wednesday we sang 'Row, Row, Row your boat,' and made bottle cap sailing boats, talking about how we could get them to go faster! On Thursday we were lucky enough to have some of our adults join us to celebrate World Nursery Rhyme week, and we showed them everything we have been learning, including our rhyme of the day 'Incy Windy Spider.' Today we have looked at 'Two Little Dicky Birds,' making our own birds in the craft area, and using seeds and lard to make bird feeders to hang on the trees outside! We have put them in the fridge to set over the weekend, and will be hanging them out next week and keeping an eye to see it we can spot any birds eating them! Children have been practising these songs as part of their BLT for the past couple of weeks and it has really shown in their work in Nursery, we have had a jam packed, fun filled week!
Date: 14th Nov 2019 @ 6:26pm
As part of Anti-Bullying week, we took part in Odd Socks Day along with the rest of the school. We started the day reading a story called 'It's Okay to be Different,' which was all about individualities and acceptance. 'It's okay to be missing a tooth, it's okay to be small, it's okay to say no to bad things, it's okay to come from a different place and it's okay to talk about feelings! It would be boring if we were all the same! We then designed our own odd socks, talking about the differences between them and how we knew they weren't a pair!
Date: 17th Nov 2019 @ 6:23pm
We started the day by taking part in the 'Big Morning Move.' We took part in the workout to help support 'Children in Need' and as part of our daily exercise! We then talked about why we were wearing spotty items of clothing, and how we were raising money to help make a difference to children who need support. Pudsey Bear played a big role in lots of our activities for the day, we used different materials to collage Pudsey, made bears in the Play Dough area, and even built a house for Pudsey Bear in the construction area! Alongside the rest of the school we also learnt the dance for the 'Comic Relief Danceathon,' which we all really enjoyed!
Date: 11th Nov 2019 @ 8:32pm
Today the Nursery children joined the whole school for a special Remembrance service. During the week we have been learning about why we wear poppies, and what they symbolise. As well as taking part in the whole school art activity of attaching our poppy art to the silhouette of a soldier, we have painted poppies and created poppies in our Play Dough area. During the Remembrance service we planted poppies together in the school garden, to remember the fallen soldiers.
Date: 13th Nov 2019 @ 8:15pm
Our story for the week has been the 'Stick Man.' We read the story together and learnt all about the 'Stick Mans' journey to return to his home. We went for a walk around the school gardens to search for the perfect sticks to make our own 'Stickmen.' We found lots of different natural materials in the garden, including lots of different sizes of sticks! We took them back into Nursery, where we looked sorted them into length order, talking about the longest and shortest sticks. We have made 'Stick Men' at our Play Dough table, using the different tools and resources available to create individual features on our men. At our Maths table we have been practising creating squares, triangles, and rectangles using sticks, and in our water tray we have been looking at floating and sinking! We also created our very own 'Stick Man' sun catchers, have a look at them next time you come into Nursery! Hopefully the sun will be shining through them!
Date: 8th Nov 2019 @ 4:41pm
This week our grown ups came into Nursery for our 'Stay & Play!' We took them all around Nursery, showing them the work we have been doing and telling them all about our daily routines. Together with our grown ups, we then played phonics bingo! We each had a board with lots of different pictures on, and we had to listen very carefully until we heard one of the sounds on our board. We used a counter to cover up each sound we heard. The person with all the sounds covered up on their board first was the winner!
Date: 6th Nov 2019 @ 7:38pm
This week we have also taken part in Bonfire night activities! Lots of the children in Nursery were very excited about seeing fireworks flying through the night sky and seeing the creative patterns as they explode into the sky with the stars. Some of our children also talked about their own experiences of Bonfire nights and fireworks. We then explored painting and collaging techniques to create firework pictures and the patterns they create when they explode. We have also been practising numbers 1-5. We counted the number of fireworks first and then matched the correct number of fireworks to the numeral. It's been another busy week!
Date: 6th Nov 2019 @ 7:16pm
This week in Nursery we have been learning about Remembrance Day and taking part in lots of Poppy themed activities! We created some particularly special Poppy art ready for our Remembrance Day ceremony next week. We use different techniques to create our painting. First we used our fingerprints and red paint for the Poppy leaves. We then had to add the black spot to the middle of our flower, being very careful not to smudge the flowers leaves! Finally we used a paint brush to add the flowers stem and the grass at the bottom of the Poppy field.
Date: 30th Oct 2019 @ 7:15pm
Welcome back everyone! We have enjoyed hearing about all the exciting things you have done during half term. We have had a spectacularly spooky first week back! We arrived into Nursery to find our home corner had been taken over by a witch, who had turned it into a 'Witches Kitchen.' She has been making potions and leaving us secret messages on ghost paper! We had to use special torches to read the message she had left us! We have also been decorating pumpkins, witches and monsters. We have used different shapes for the different body parts on our 'shape monsters,' looking at the properties and how to recognise the shapes we used. 'Whats in the Witches Kitchen', 'Room on the Broom' and 'Five Little Monsters,' have been our stories this week and we have been looking at rhyming Halloween songs and rhymes. Try singing some of these songs together at home! Happy Halloween!
Date: 28th Oct 2019 @ 1:53pm
