Nursery is all about learning whilst playing and having fun! The children are encouraged to find out new things by exploring the world around them and asking questions. Nursery is a safe, friendly place where children feel happy to take risks and engage in new experiences. All staff strive to build strong relationships with their key children so that they flourish in our setting. Children are supported to become "confident communicators" so that they can express themselves effectively to others. Nursery is a wonderful place to be - please check our page each week to share in our achievements, see what we have been learning about in school and find out ways that you can support learning at home!

The Nursery children have been very interested in making marks and printing with their hands and feet in recent weeks so today we decided to explore some printing and movement play with the powder paint and water outside. It was a fantastic sensory experience and the children loved observing how the colours mixed and changed. They even got involved with some 'bear crawling' and came up with the idea to spray and drip water onto their printing to observe the effects. They did get quite messy but it was all worth it for the talk and thinking that was encouraged through this play!

The children had a great time exploring mark making outdoors using their feet, hands and anything interesting they could find!

What a wonderful time we have had celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee anniversary n Nursery! Thank you so much to all the parents and grandparents who joined us for our Jubilee Crafts Stay and Play - you were all so involved 😃

Then we had a wonderful time with 1st Steps at our Jubilee Tea Party in the afternoon. Bunting, flags, crowns and cakes - simply wonderful! 👑 🧁 🇬🇧 

In Phonics, our older children have been tuning into sounds very carefully to listen out for sounds at the start of words. The children have enjoyed playing ‘Silly Soup’ and finding unusual ingredients that begin with our target sounds s, t and p. This is a great game to play at home; choose one of the letter sounds and collect some objects/draw pictures that do begin with that sound and some that do not then put them in a gift bag or pillow case. Sing the song:

We’re making lots of silly soup,

We’re making soup that’s silly,

We’re going to put it in the fridge, 

To make it nice and chilly! 

Take turns with your child to pull out the objects/pictures and decide if it begins with the target letter sound. it does put it in a big pan and give it a stir with a wooden spoon!

Our younger children have been listening to everyday sounds and trying to identify them, using the sentence stem “I can hear…” Going for a walk together and stopping at different points to listen to the sounds all around you, then talking about what you can hear is great practise in helping children tune into sounds and develop some key skills needed for spelling later on! 😊

This week,  we have been working on our subitising skills in maths. Subitising is when children recognise an amount without needing to count how many there are. They are so good at recognising amounts of 1, 2, or 3 and now we are subitising 4 and 5. Here are some of their brilliant mathematical observations, explaining their thinking:

"It's got a 1 and a 1 and then a 3"

"I can see a 1 in the middle and it's got 1 in 4 corners"

"It's a 3 like a dice and 1 more"

"I can see 2 at the top and 2 at the bottom"

The children have been enjoying playing along with this subitising song. Why not have a go at home together? Just click on the link below:

0-5 Subitising Song

On Friday morning there was even more excitement in the chicken coop as the children discovered 2 eggs had been laid! 

The children that have been fascinated with seeds and planting have set up an experiment to explore what seeds actually need to grow. Watch this space…

There was so much excitement in EYFS this morning as the children discovered the very first egg laid by our new hens! 

We have observed more and more children digging in the mud pit. They are very much enjoying the physical process and watching their holes grow as they dig more and more. This week they have also been spending lots of time ‘finding treasure’ (pebbles and stones) and there has been lots of subitising of amounts going on. 

The children have continued to be very interested in planting and growing so we have been busy planting even more seeds this week! Hopefully we will be seeing lots of beautiful flowers growing in our garden as well as the vegetables we have already planted out 🤞

Many thanks to all the families who donated compost and seeds last term 😊

We foster the ‘Favourite 5’ approach for daily story time, whereby five stories are carefully chosen each half term. These stories are read and re-read frequently, thereby allowing children multiple exposures to new vocabulary and the opportunity to internalise language patterns. Also, ‘on each rereading the children’s familiarity with the story deepens and, with that, comes a greater emotional engagement’ (Reading Framework, 2021).

Thank you to all the parents that have joined us for Reading Café this half term. It has been fantastic to have you all back in Nursery sharing books with us!

Science Week

What a wonderful time we have had being Scientists this week! The children have been so busy planting seeds, thinking of predictions, making careful observations and describing changes. We even had a visit from a very special tortoise called Sheldon! Thank you so much to all the parents who sent in baby photos of their children. The children absolutely loved sharing their photos and talking about how they had grown and changed since they were babies; we had some brilliant discussions.

Have a look at some of our photos to see some of our Science in action.

This afternoon we followed the children’s lead and let them create some very enticing bear treats to see if we could lure the bear back to see us. The children concentrated so hard on threading Cheerios onto pipe cleaners then came up with the idea of dipping them in honey to make them even more delicious for the bear! What bear could resist these gloopy treats? 🐻 🍯 😋

There has been a lot of excitement in Nursery this week after the children discovered large, muddy paw prints in the classroom. We then watched some cctv footage of a bear in our outdoor area! Naturally, we went on a bear hunt and surprisingly discovered some bear poo (according to the children who are now bear experts!) and after some discussion they decided the bear must have come because it could smell the honey on our pancakes last week. Some children decided to create posters of the bear to display round school in case anyone saw it and some children decided to write messages to the bear in the hope he might come back and reply - watch this space…

The children had a great time tasting noodles and prawn crackers this week. We were so impressed by the determination, concentration and persistence demonstrated by the children as they tried to master using chopsticks!

The children have been learning the story of 'The Great Race' and how the Chinese Lunar Calendar was created. Below is the text map we have been using to help learn the story words. We will add a video to show you the actions shortly so you can practise together at home. We will be continuing to learn this story next week too.

Have a look at some of the amazing dragon drawing that the children created this week, inspired by the Chinese New Year dragons. They paid so much attention to detail in the shapes of their bodies, spikes and legs!

The children built their own bus this afternoon and went on a journey to the seaside, the museum, the park and Asda. There was lots of singing on the bus on the way!

One of the current interests driving children’s play in Nursery is ‘bridges’. They have been very busy exploring different ways of making bridges in the indoor and outdoor construction areas! 

This week the children have been learning about some of the common, regular 2D shapes: circle, triangle, square and rectangle. They have been learning their names and some of their properties. We have set a home learning challenge on Tapestry this weekend for you to go on a 'shape hunt' with your child, looking out for these shapes in everyday objects around the house or out and about on a walk. We would love it if you could share some photos and notes of what your child said during the activity by uploading observations to your Tapestry Journal.

We have been exploring rhyme in our Phonics sessions and the children have enjoyed listening to rhyming stories and spotting the deliberate mistakes the adults have made when singing familiar Nursery Rhymes. We have also been playing games such as 'spot the odd one out', showing 3 pictures and trying to work out which doesn't rhyme - this has been quite tricky so we will keep practising!

We have had a lovely time in Nursery in our first week of the New Year! The children all returned with big smiles and full of stories about their Christmas experiences. There has been a lot of interest in the new aqua beads which we added to our messy play tray this week. The children were fascinated by their feel and bouncy properties. Outside it was the cold weather and ice that captured their interest and sparked curiosity. Cracking the ice was something the children were set on doing and they had a great time banging, tapping and smashing through the ice that had formed in the water trays. Some children decided to explore painting the ice that had frozen on the table too. 

Merry Christmas!

We have had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas in Nursery this week. The children had a brilliant time at our Christmas Party, joining in with party games, dancing and an outdoor elf hunt. Thank you to all our families for all the lovely cards and gifts for the children and staff - you are so generous and thoughtful!

We wish all our families a very Happy Christmas and we look forward to hearing all the exciting stories from the children in the New Year. Don’t forget - Nursery reopens on Wednesday 5th January as we are closed for a training day on the 4th. 

Autumn 2

The children had a great time today dressing up in rainbow colours for Children In Need. We  had a lot of fun at our 'Finger Light Disco' dancing to the Children in Need single - there were some fabulous moves!

World Kindness Day 
 

As part of Anti-Bullying Week, we focused on the theme 'One Kind Word' following on from World Kindness Day on Saturday. We have been thinking about what it means to be a good and kind friend to each other in Nursery. We have read stories and spoken in our key worker groups about all of the qualities we like about each other that make us good friends to one another:

"I like playing with Luna... look at that funny face!" - Isabelle

"Cos she likes cuddling me... she's cuddly!" - Daisy H.

"Cos he makes me laugh" - Luna

"She always plays with me and shares" - Trigan

"She always plays with me and being kind" - Nellie

"Thomas is my friend because he is nice" - Yousef

"She plays with me. She shares with me" - Daisy B.

"He plays with me a lot and cuddles me" - Thomas

"Mia-Rose loves me and plays with me" - Rilee

"I like Thomas because you play with me outside and tells me funny jokes" - Oscar 

"I love Daisy. She holds my hand when I go somewhere" - Evony

Our very well-loved outdoor painting easels really needed a good scrub and clean this week. Armed with lots of big buckets of soapy water and plenty of scrubbing brushes and sponges, a group of Nursery children spent all afternoon completely engrossed in cleaning them until they were spotless! They worked so well together as a team and persevered with some very stubborn paint stains. This was a great activity for working on our gross-motor skills and strengthening all of those muscles in our shoulders and upper bodies! Throughout the afternoon, the soapy water play developed into lots of children wanting to splash (and even lay down in) the water trays - we suited up and enjoyed a full afternoon of fantastic water play... even the dinosaurs got involved!

We have had a wonderful time in Nursery this week! The children have been enjoying taking part in Maths Week England #MWE21 and experiencing lots of fun maths activities inside and out. The children particularly enjoyed finding 'treasure bags' hidden by the Gruffalo and counting the treasures inside during our Nature Play session on Wednesday morning. They have also been brilliant at exploring 'the oneness of one' in our Number Study work in which we will be exploring each number in detail. The mathematical mark making they have done in our floor book is so detailed!

We have also had great fun on our new swing in the outdoor area. The children have made huge progress in a short space of time and are now confidently swinging independently - the frowns of determination and concentration on their faces that become smiles of pure joy once they master it are just amazing.

We finished off the week with an impromptu outdoor sing song with hot chocolate (as requested by the children) - what a lovely way to spend the afternoon!

We were so lucky to have a visit from Killingbeck Fire Crew this week! The children absolutely loved seeing the fire engine - exploring inside, trying on some of the kit and even having a go at squirting the hose! What a fabulous experience for them. We hope you all have a safe and enjoyable Bonfire weekend! 

Autumn 1

A HUGE thank you to everyone who brought in pumpkins this week! We have had so much fun exploring them in just about every way possible. The children have been rolling them, racing them, balancing on them, using them as yoga balls, painting them, drawing on them, exploring their insides, toasting the seeds, hammering golf tees into them, sticking push pins in and stretching elastic bands round them, ordering them by size, lifting the heaviest pumpkins they could find and cuddling them! It has been wonderful - thank you 

🎃 Pumpkin Request 🎃 
The children in Nursery have shown a keen interest in pumpkins over the last couple of weeks and we have been painting faces on pumpkins, singing songs about them and selling them in our very own 'Pumpkin Shop'. It would be great to have lots of pumpkins of all different shapes, sizes and colours for the children to explore so we would greatly appreciate it if your child could bring a pumpkin into Nursery next week for a 'Pumpkin Bonanza!' We will be doing all sorts of exciting pumpkin related activities such as investigating the insides, toasting the seeds, and even hammering golf tees into them!

It would be great if as many children as possible could bring a pumpkin in this week.
We look forward to sharing our explorations with you on the school website and Tapestry 🙂

Thank you so much for joining us each Tuesday & Friday for our Nursery Reading Café. We know some children are finding it difficult to say goodbye when Reading Café has finished. We have therefore decided to change the time to 2.30pm. We hope this will also allow more parents and careers to join us too. The change of time will start from Tuesday 12th October. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

Natural Paint Explorations - ‘Sweet, Red Mush!’ 🍓

The children really enjoyed making a strawberry mush paint and splatting it onto the paper with nature paintbrushes made from sticks and leaves. They made some delicious, sweet-smelling artwork which is on display in our school hall.

Thank you to the parents and grandparents that joined us for our Reading Cafe this morning. It was so lovely to be able to welcome you all back into Nursery and see the children snuggling up to share books with you. If you missed the fun this morning, don't worry - we are hosting Reading Cafe sessions every Tuesday and Friday 8.45am to 9.15am throughout October.

Favourite Five

Each half term in Nursery we will be introducing children to our 'Favourite Five' stories. We will read these five stories lots of times throughout the half term (alongside lots of others as well) so that the children become really familiar with the language and pattern of the story. By reading these 5 stories regularly, children are exposed to lots of new vocabulary. Our 'Grandpa Fantastic' collects all of the new vocabulary that we have learnt from each story. We revisit this new vocabulary frequently to support children to absorb the language and explore it in a wider context.

Our 'Favourite Five' for Autumn 1 half term are: