Nursery 2024-2025

Apple - 30 Hour Class

Olive - AM Class

Pine - PM Class

Key Staff:

Mrs Phillips, Mrs Hawkhead, Mrs Challinor, Mrs Rooney, Miss Corness and Miss Stinson

Welcome to Nursery 2024/2025

Welcome to a new year in Nursery! The children have settled in well and have been having lots of fun. Our first key text is ‘So Much.’ As we explore nursery, we’re learning to share, take turns and follow simple instructions. 

Spring 2

Trip to the farm

We had a fantastic two days at the farm. We loved learning about all of the different farm animals and how the farmers look after them. We helped groom the ponies and met lots of baby animals. A great two days!

Visit from the ducklings

One of our key texts this half term was 'The Ugly Duckling'. We learnt all about the life cycle of ducks and swans. We had a very special visit from some real baby ducklings. We watched them hatch out of their eggs and grow bigger each day!

World book day

We celebrated world book day by dressing up as our favourite characters from a book. We enjoyed sharing stories in class and welcomed parents in for stay and read.

Spring 1

Valentines Stay and Craft

Thank you to all of the parents and carers who joined us for our Valentines Stay and Craft. The two sessions were enjoyed by all and the children had lots of fun!

We had so much fun exploring the ice and snow when the weather was very cold!

We were very lucky to have a visit from Pippa's big sister who was our first surprise reader of the year. We loved listening to 'A squash and a squeeze'! Thank you so much!

Whatever next!

Our first book of the year is 'Whatever next' by Jill Murphy. We have enjoyed re-enacting the story in our space role play area. We made rockets to blast off into space. We also made some delicious jam sandwiches and had a picnic like baby bear does in the story.

Autumn 2

Christmas Stay and Play

We loved our Nursery Christmas stay and play. We enjoyed lots of lovely Christmas activities including making reindeer food, decorating snowman biscuits and making our own decorations. Thank you to all of the parents who came and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

We had lots of fun at our Christmas party! We danced and played musical bumps!

The Nativity

The children enjoyed listening to the Nativity story and exploring the key events through role play.

Stickman

Our key text at the moment is ‘Stickman’ by Julia Donaldson. We have loved listening to and joining in with the story. We have painted Stickman, made our own story maps and made our own Stickman in our outdoor area.

The Colour Monster 

This week our key text is 'The Colour Monster.' We have talked about how the colour monster feels in the story and shared our own feelings during circle time. We enjoyed making our own colour monsters in the creative area and exploring colour by sorting objects.

Snow Day 

We loved exploring the snow - and a first snow for some children! We watched and observed how the snow melted and made marks. A great opportunity to refine our throw and catch skills with a snowball battle…SNOW much fun!

Nursery Rhyme Week 

We LOVED seeing how you dressed as your favourite nursery rhyme! If a child can sing 8 rhymes independently by age 4, they are amongst the most confident readers and spellers by age 8. Our curriculum has a golden thread of key texts and rhymes that creates a language rich, early reading pathway for school readiness. 

Remembrance Day

It’s important our children recognise and develop their understanding and knowledge of Remembrance Day. We discussed the significance of poppies and spoke about soldiers. We listened to stories and made our own poppy to wear.

Surprise Reader

Thank you to our first surprise reader of this half term! The children loved listening to ‘There’s an alien in my book’

To volunteer, please sign up via your child's entrance/exit to Nursery and remember, shh...it's a surprise!

Welcome back! This half term we will enjoy learning about lots of new things - Diwali, Nursery Rhyme week and much more.

Our key texts are:

Binny’s Diwali 

Colour Monster

Three Billy Goats Gruff 

Leaf Thief 

Stick Man 

The Jolly Christmas Postman 

We also have meet the Teacher sessions - these must be booked via Arbor. If you cannot make your scheduled session, please cancel it as soon as possible.

Autumn 1

Harvest Soup

We enjoyed making our very own Autumn soup. The children worked hard to carefully slice and chop. We’re so proud of everyone for trying something new! We’ll post the recipe on seesaw for you to try at home.

Autumn 

As we’ve read our key text this week, The Gruffalo, we have discussed and explored habitats as part of the season. In our own outdoor area, we have collected leaves and decided what tree they have fallen from. We also investigated pumpkins and practised our fine motor skills by scooping out the seeds. Thank you for all the lovely things you found on home learning walks! 

Baby Visit 

As part of our RE curriculum, Mrs Phillips joined us with Amelie for a visit! We discussed names, looked at our own family photos and recalled our own journey with God.

Draw a Person 

As we continue to develop fine motor and mark making skills, we're working on 'Draw a Person.' Some children mark make demonstrating uncontrolled marks, some children use somewhat controlled lines and other form that represent figures. Before working on gross detail and attachments, we're focusing on head detail - eyes present, nose, two lips shown and hair. Look at the progress we're making already!

Surprise Reader

Roll up, roll up! This is our first week of 'Surprise Reader.' 

Reading is vital for children's development and learning. Children in our school love to listen to stories in class and discuss their favourite parts and characters. We are inviting parents and carers to join us for 'Surprise Reader'. You are welcome to come into your child's class and share a story just before home time. Children absolutely love having new faces in class to share a story especially when it is one of their loved ones. You are welcome to bring along one of your child's story books from home or we have plenty to choose from in school. Remember, it’s a surprise for your child if you can come along, shh!

Rainy Days and Powder Paints

The rain presents so many learning opportunities for children. This week, we’ve made the most of the rain by colour mixing using powder paint. As the children explore powder paint to create and describe shades of colour, they are developing confidence, making connections, developing sustained shared thinking and organising resources, ideas and actions.

Kingsley & Co

Today we have had the wonderful Jake from Kingsley and Co visit us at Nursery. The purpose of this visit is to bring stories alive and it has been a cave of curiosity in which children have been able to deepen their thoughts, develop teamwork and immerse in rich and purposeful language. 

A book shop emporium not to be missed - https://www.kingsleyandco.org/

Please remember to encourage your child to take a text from our book lending library at the end of each school day! We're always looking out for a 'Surprise Reader' so if you're interested, sign up via the Nursery cloakroom and remember, shh...it's a surprise!

Listening Walk 

As part of our Phonics activities, children have enjoyed indoor and outdoor learning walks at school. On a listening walk, your child is able to focus on the sounds they hear around them. When your child really listens to background sounds, they’ll realise how much they can notice and begin to not only make links between sounds, but discriminate too. This is a foundational skill for reading!

Fine Motor Skills

Developing fine motor skills is really important; we begin by securing tripod grip and fingers working together - this is so children can use one handed tools such as scissors, show preference for a dominant hand and demonstrate good control when using pencils, brushes and pens. We’ve added activities to seesaw for you to work on at home! 

Home/School Links

Thank you for sharing your wonderful family photographs, keep them coming! After looking at them, we decided to design and build our own plane. We had so much fun singing, sharing ideas, counting and designing. Not to mention the places we visited! 

NURSERY 2023-2024

Summer 1

Careers Day 

Smiley Shark

Pirates Love Underpants

The Holy Spirit

Jack and the Flum Flum Tree

3D Shapes

How to Catch a Mermaid

The Snail and the Whale

Sharing a Shell

Spring 2

Floating and Sinking 

The Ugly Duckling

The Scarecrow’s Wedding 

Maths - Height 

PE

The Very Hungry Caterpillar 

World Book Day 

Massage Session

Outdoor Play

Mother’s Day Card Craft

What the Ladybird Heard

Spring 1

Valentines Stay and Play

We had great fun making memories by welcoming so many parents and relatives to our Valentines themed Stay and Play. It was lovely to see the children making a Valentines card for someone special.

NSPCC Wacky Hair Day

It was great to see so many wacky hairstyles in school today! Nursery pulled out the glitter, pipe cleaners, feathers and ribbon! Thank you to everyone for your kind donations - our Y2 Mathematicians had great fun counting the total!

Chinese Food Tasting

Awaiting Content.

Year of the Dragon 

Awaiting Content.

Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs

Awaiting Content.

The Way Back Home/Aliens Love Underpants

Check out what was caught on our school camera over the weekend! We think it was the aliens from our story coming to check out if we had any underpants on a washing line! Remember - check your pants before coming to school, we don’t want any aliens sneaking in! 

Whatever Next

Awaiting Content.

Autumn 2

The Jolly Christmas Postman

We wrote our own letters to send to Father Christmas to share ever so politely what we wished for. We then posted our letters in our special Christmas postbox - it was an ever so special occasion! Our letters are now being fast tracked on there way to the North Pole - how exciting!

Christmas Party Day! 

Awaiting Content.

Christmas Craft Day

Thank you to all that made our Craft Day a huge success. It was wonderful to see happy faces all around Nursery. We hope you all enjoyed taking part in lots of different festive activities! We look forward to welcoming parent and careers back into school next term. 

Preparing for Advent

Awaiting Content. 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

We enjoyed reading the Traditional Tale - The Three Billy Goat Gruff, and had even more fun acting out the story! We use props, masks and ensured we used repeated language. We made our own bridges for the goats to cross and outside we had a go at making larger bridges to see if we could balance across!

The Colour Monster

To aid the introduction of our Zones of Regulation, we read The Colour Monster. We talked about what makes us feel each emotion and that it is ok to feel each emotion. Sometimes we might feel several emotions jumbled together!  We have been able to talk about our feeling in more elaborate ways came up with different strategies we can use to support our emotions. We explored how to help ourselves, and each other, feel better by finding out how we feel - whether we are sad, angry or worried. Once we know how we are feeling we can help each other to feel better. 

We made colour monster jars filled with various materials such as pom poms and feathers. Each jar represents a different emotion. The jars are kept by our zones of regulation display, where children can check in throughout the day. 

Time for lunch in the Dinner Hall!

Children in Need - Pudsey day

We supported Children in Need this year with various activities such as decorating biscuits, making Pudsey masks and completing fitness games. Thank you to everyone for your kind donations. 

Nursery Rhyme Week

Each day we learnt a new nursery rhyme. We also acted out different nursery rhymes using props and costumes. To support our immersion with Nursery Rhyme Week we welcomed Insy Winsy Rhymers into school from The Story Barn.

Nursery rhymes are extremely valuable to support language and communication skills, build confidence and prepare children for reading and writing as they get older.  

Bonfire Night and Diwali Celebrations

 It was lovely to welcome the children back to school this week to start our exciting new focus. We have been learning all about Bonfire Night by getting creative using a range of materials to make their own fireworks. We also used chalk on black paper to make our own night skies lit up by fireworks!  Also this week, the children have been learning about Diwali. We made some Rangoli patterns using colourful loose part. We listened to some Diwali music and danced along. To end our week, we made tasty breadstick sparklers with chocolate and sprinkles! 

Autumn 1

The Gruffalo 

"A Gruffalo? What's a Gruffalo?"
"A Gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?"

 We really enjoyed joining in with the story this week. We went on our own walk in our outside area to find the Gruffalo! We came up with the ingredients we needed to make a Gruffalo Crumble - sweets, chocolate, crisps, biscuits and jelly! We had so much fun crunching, squishing and mixing our crumble together! We decided that this crumble was not very healthy so we needed to make a healthier crumble. we decided to make an apple crumble - this was delicious! 
 

A New Baby on The Way 

We welcomed Dolly’s Mum into school to share her Good News of a new baby on the way. Dolly was so proud and excited to talk about the arrival of her new baby brother. We were all in awe and amazement as Dolly and her Mum talked about her bump and shared some of the special items they need for the arrival. We all found it so fascinating how we start off in the world so small!

Traditional Tale Workshop

We have been very lucky to welcome Kingsley & Co Bookshop in to do a Traditional Tale Workshop with us to share ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and ‘The Three Little Pigs’. The workshop involved listening to stories being retold with various drama activities. We created our own vocal effects to set the scene and used puppets and other props! Between each traditional tale we worked together to complete activities such as building a new house for the Three Little Pigs. We all got to take a wonderful story book home with us to share and keep. 

Outdoors

Rain or shine we make sure we get outside in Nursery. It is all part of our learning through play! Check out what we have been up to so far!

Phonics 

During this term we have been very busy developing our awareness of sounds and rhythms. We have been talking about the sounds we can make with our bodies as well as developing an awareness of the different sounds made my musical instruments. 

5 Currant Buns 

One of our ‘Rhymes of the Week’ was 5 Currant Buns. We enjoyed signing this rhyme so much that we made our own currant buns. We had great fun baking and look forward to following a lot more recipes in the future! The best part had to be tasting them - the currant buns were so yummy we wanted more!

Maths in Action

PE sessions

The children have been having lots of fun going into the hall for PE. We have been engaging in structured movement through the topic of 'fantasy and adventure'. We have been spending time learning how to find a space, freezing on command and working individually, with a partner and in a group. We have developed our movement skills such as running, jumping and skipping. So far, we have pretended to be Dragons, Unicorns, Fairies, Pirates, Wizards and Monsters!

All Are Welcome - What I like About Me

After reading our key texts, we used mirrors to look at what we look like. We talked about our eyes, hair, skin colour and other features. We compared how we can sometimes have the same or different features to someone else. We then used paint to create our own self portraits to display in class. We created a body outline to identify the different parts of our body and where they are located.

So Much! - Something Special 

We brought in photographs of our family to share during circle time. We talked about who lives in our home, and who is in our family. We talked about how everyone’s family is different and special to them. We have been practising passing around photos to look at in a circle, and taking special care of them.

Spot Goes to School - Things I Like

After reading ‘Spot Goes to School’ we shared all of the activities that we have liked doing in school so far. The construction area, play dough are, and of course outside were some of our favourites! We then read ‘Things I like’ to share our interests outside of school. We enjoyed bringing in and sharing our ‘All About Me’ bags. These contained 3 special items all about us. It was wonderful getting to know more about each and everyone of you!

Our First Week

We have had so much fun during our first week in Nursery. We have been exploring all of the different areas within our classroom. We have also enjoyed exploring our outside area. We have started to make new friends and have been getting to know all of our new teachers.