Welcome to Nursery M

Please scroll down to see our latest news in Nursery M.

Autumn 1

During Autumn 1, we were settling into life at St Thomas of Canterbury. Everybody has made new friends, got to know the staff and routines. The adults have been very proud of the children's progress in the first 8 weeks.

We had fun learning lots of new and old Nursery Rhymes, our favourites being 'I had a tiny turtle,' and 'Five Cheeky Monkeys.' 

Our favourite video clips were the Gigglebellies songs. You can watch them at home here:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gigglebellies&sm=12

Autumn 2

This half term we have been developing our vocabulary in familiar things in 'Our World.' For two weeks, we learnt all about our favourite food and places that we go to eat. In our classroom, we built a Costa Coffee shop and used it to act in role as waitresses, customers and chefs. We even watched a video of the teachers going to Costa for their lunch!

We then thought about yummy pizzas. Everyone designed their own pizza, made a real pizza and took it home to enjoy for our tea! Have a look at our pizzas, which one would you choose?

More recently, we have been extending our knowledge of vehicles and their uses. Our favourite books have been information books about Racing Cars and the story of 'The Little Tractor.' Have you heard of the Wheels on the Bus? Well we have changed the lyrics and made our own song about vehicles. Have a look and see what you think!

We have also watched the clip 'hoverbike' and acting out the story of the little alien that gets into bother with his new hoverbike. The children loved this clip and will enjoy watching it at home as well.

Christmas!

For the last two weeks of term, the children in Nursery have been busy learning all about Christmas. We have read the Nativity story and thought about how we prepare to remember the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas Day. Our classroom was transformed into a winter wonderland with snowmen, icicles and a Santa's workshop!

We have also been very busy little elves, making and creating lots of wonderful Christmas crafts to take home at Christmas and share with our families.

On Wednesday 18th December, the children performed their Christmas show for the parents, with singing, the Nativity story and wonderful dancing. We hope the parents enjoyed the show. If you have any fantastic pictures, please share them with the teachers.

Here are a few of our photographs from the last two weeks of term...

Spring 1

To begin our half term we have been getting to know our new teacher Miss Greene. We have continued to look at 'Our World' as a topic where we have been interested in clothes. This has helped us to extend our language through naming different items of clothing and describing the size, shape and colours on the clothes.

Our role play area turned into a launderette, it was hard work doing all the washing and ironing and children recognised that this is what our parents do at home to look after us. All children were keen to get involved, filling the washing machines, pegging clothes out to dry and ironing them ready to wear. The children are certainly ready to help at home. It would be a great idea for children to name their clothes as they get ready for school, they can also help by matching socks up once they have been washed and counting items of clothing as they peg them on the washing line. 

In Nursery we love to sing and one of our favourite songs is called 'Down in the Jungle'. I am sure the children would love to share this at home using the following video (just click play). 

Our clothes topic was great fun and led nicely onto a new topic all about the WEATHER!

We enjoyed daily singing:

What's the weather?

What's the weather?

What's the weather everyone?

Is it windy? Is it cloudy?

Is there rain or is there sun?

(to the tune of 'oh my darling clementine')

Other favourite songs were: 'The sun has got his hat on,' 'I can sing a rainbow' and 'I hear thunder.' 

Children enjoyed identifying the different weather we had each day and we were very fortunate to experience lots of different weather this half term. 

​Unfortunately the snow managed to miss us and we didn't get to experience this! As much as we would have loved to we did enjoy watching Kipper in the Snow. 

​

We have also been interested in the lives of others where we have explored China through looking at maps and discovering what kind of food Chinese people eat.

To begin we looked at pictures of the Great Wall of China! WOW, it's massive! We discovered as we attempted to build our own wall in the outdoor area. This took forever and was no way near as big as the real one!

We also discovered that we need to get on an aeroplane to get to China and we even looked at the different types of building we would see when we arrived. They are nothing like the buildings we have in Salford. They have lots of different colours just like the Chinese dragons which we found really interesting as we watched a dragon dance on the board.

We have been very creative making Chinese lanterns and dragons in school but our favourite information about China was...... food!

We got to try lots of different Chinese food....... it was yummy!

We tried noodles, prawn crackers, egg fried rice and prawn toast. Some of the food we didn't like so much, but that was OK at least we tried!

Luck was also on our side as we were very fortunate to have a parent come into school to show the children how dumplings are made. 

Not only did we get to see how they were made, once they were cooked we got to try them as well. 

"Miss Greene, please can I have another one?" Lots of children asked, others were not so sure!

Thank you Mrs Chen!

It has been a busy half term but we will never forget to tell our nearest and dearest how much we love them! A lovely end to the half term celebrating Valentines day! We hope you liked your cards!

Next half term we will be talking about toys, pets and our homes.

We are also promoting independent skills and would appreciate if you could encourage this at home by allowing children to put on their own coats, shoes, wellies, hats etc. 

Thank you for your continued support!

Miss Greene and all the staff in Nursery M. 

Spring 2

We have been really busy this half term and our favourite topic has been all about houses and homes. We throughly enjoyed reading 'The Three Little Pigs' and the children have enjoyed taking on the role of the different characters through acting out the story.

"Little pig, little pig, let me in" said the big bad wolf.

"No not by the hairs on my chinny, chin, chin" cried the first little pig.

We had lots of fun building little pig houses in the outdoor area using the crates and large wooden blocks. Although the best bit was pushing the crates and blocks down, pretending the big bad wolf had blown them down.

"I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house down" roared the big bad wolf.

We also aim to show children different versions of the same story where we can compare them and discuss similarities and differences.

The children absolutely loved the following version of 'The Three Little Pigs.' We wish we would have got video evidence showing their facial expressions and enjoyment of this. It is a MUST watch at home. Enjoy!

A school trip full of fun and exploration!

Our topic lead nicely onto our school trip! We went to visit Natures Den in Worsley Woods, where we found lots of woodland creatures and helped them build new homes.

It was such an exciting adventure and we loved playing hide and seek.

"1,2,3 where are you?" we called to find the other children.

"We're here" they called back and off we went following the direction we could hear their voices!

Not only did we play hide and seek and find woodland creatures, our favourite part was toasting bread and marshmallows on the campfire. Remember not to touch as the fire is hot, hot, hot!

Take a look at our pictures and you will see how much fun we had.

Learning and Development in Nursery

These information pages show you the expectations of children of Nursery age in each of the seven areas of learning in the Early Years Curriculum. Please have a look and use some of the objectives to support your child's learning at home. Remember, learning at this age should be play-based and fun.