Welcome!

Welcome to the Nursery T class page. We hope that you visit it regularly as it will include photographs, videos and examples of the work that we have produced. It will also provide ideas for activities and experiences that you can share at home that will link with our learning challenges and topics. This year's topics include food and festivals, the weather and the changing seasons, clothes, transport, pirates and princesses, houses and homes, pets and life on the farm. If there is anything that your child is particularly interested in please let us know as we can incorporate their individual interests and fascinations into the curriculum!

Autumn Term 1

Wow - what a fantastic start to our new school life! We've been very busy making new friends, learning new routines, exploring our classroom and the different resources and becoming more independent each day.

Our learning is primarily focused on the PRIME AREAS of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and these areas of learning will be at the heart of all the experiences and activities that we share together over the coming year. Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language and Physical Development forms the foundation of all our learning with Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding of the World and Expressive Art & Design being interwoven throughout the curriculum.

It is important that we build a solid foundation on which to develop our key skills and knowledge and we have spent the past few weeks learning about the Nursery Golden Rules;

• Be kind and gentle
• Look after toys and books
• Tell the truth
• Listen to the grown ups

Nursery Rhymes

We've really enjoyed sharing songs and stories together to increase our confidence and develop our speaking and listening skills. Whilst we already knew some of the more traditional songs, we've changed the words and learned new versions of Incy Wincy Spider, Baa Baa Black Sheep and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Ask us to sing and perform for you at home!

We've also learned some new songs and enjoy using our bodies and moving in time to the music to support or physical development. Here are some links to our favourite action songs;

We will continue to learn about the Golden Rules and practise our self help skills including putting on our own coats and wellies, going to the toilet and washing our hands and trying new foods. We really enjoy snack time - our favourite things have been cheese and crackers and toasted waffles. It would really help me at school if you would practise using a knife and spoon.

Autumn Term 2

This term we will be celebrating festivals including Diwali, Bonfire Night and Christmas. We will be linking these celebrations to food and the special meals that we eat with our families.

We will be reading some stories to help develop our knowledge of food and learning about the importance of a healthy diet! By the end of the learning challenge we should be able to identify some of the fruits in the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Handa's Surprise.

We will be enjoying some food tasting sessions and making our own pizzas.

We will be exploring different textures in messy play and using language to describe what we are feeling and tasting. We will be talking about amounts and quantities and using our mathematical skills to discuss more, less, big and small, heavy and light, full and empty.

We will be practising our speaking and listening skills in our new role play area - the Pizza Shop. You can help me practise at home by letting me set the table for tea, taking orders on the telephone and writing menus.

Remember to visit the webpage soon so you can see the work that we have been doing!

Spring Term

The Nursery classes came back in January full of enthusiasm and ready to learn! Our first learning topic for the term was based on the weather and we were lucky enough to experience four seasons in one day – hail, rain, snow, sun and finally a rainbow! We’ve been practising dressing for the weather and thinking about the types of activities we can do depending on the weather. We can’t wait for the warm, sunny days to arrive so we can eat ice lollies and play in the park!

We’ve also been learning about transport and explored lots of new vehicles; making hot air balloons, building buses and exploring things that float and sink. We have enjoyed the story “And we all go travelling by” and are able to do a different movement for each of the vehicles in the song.

We celebrated Chinese New Year with a bang! Oscar’s mummy brought in a traditional Chinese suit, a lion headed dragon and we all had a turn playing the drum. We enjoyed traditional Chinese food and as a special treat had lucky red envelopes and fortune cookies. Thank you very much to Oscar’s mummy for her generous gifts.

World Book Day

We enjoyed a fantastic celebration of our favourite stories and characters and everyone went to town, creating costumes and joining in with the parade! We spent the afternoon sharing our favourite books and re-enacted some of the stories that our characters came from including Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and What the Ladybird Heard!

Chick Chick Chick Chick Chicken!

We were lucky enough to be able to 'borrow' some eggs as the farm was so busy with all the new arrivals. Our job was to look after the eggs until they hatched and than make sure the children did a good job of feeding the chicks and keeping them happy until the farmer came to pick them up and take them back to their mummy. They were kept warm in a special incubator and we actually watched them use their beaks to break the shells and hatch right in front of our very eyes! As you can imaging, this prompted a lot of questions and discussions about new life, growing up, how to look after animals and babies and the natural world around us. We developed our vocabulary, our understanding of the world and allowed us to put our personal, social and emotional skills to good use. We all took turns cuddling, feeding and caring for our little pets and soon it was time for them to return back to the farm and grow big and strong.