Summer Term

We are looking forward to making the transition from Nursery to Reception and will be focusing on becoming more independent in our self care and our learning. 

We will be investigating;

• Pets
• People Who Help Us
• Superheroes 
• Houses and Homes

It is important that our listening and attention skills are developing in order for us to focus and concentrate for longer periods of time. You can help us at home with this by reading stories, playing turn taking games and enjoying a conversation! 

We are expected to be a lot more independent in Reception and we often lead our own learning! You can help us develop these skills by giving me clear instructions and by encouraging me to keep on trying at a task. It's really important that we have a go, even if we don't succeed the first time - help me become a "Have a Go Hero" over the next weeks!

Nursery Pets Vets!

We were very lucky to have some special visitors in Nursery this week, the first being Houdini the hamster, who belongs to Mrs Grosvenor's daughter. She was very friendly and loved exploring our classroom, making new friends and enjoying our toast, which she stored in her cheek! We learned that hamsters like to sleep in the day and enjoy exploring at nighttime when we are all in bed. They like to eat seeds, nuts and fresh vegetables to keep them healthy, such as broccoli, apple and cabbage. They love to exercise and can run up to 2 miles per night on their special hamster wheels or when in the wild. Houdini is a Syrian hamster and in the wild lives in a warm, dry climate. We were very pleased to see all of the children using their kind and gentle hands and looking after God's creatures with care and concern. Well done everyone!

Class Mediation

After a week learning all about pets and lovely morning playing in the unexpectedly warm sunshine, we enjoyed 15 minutes of story mediation. We imagined that we were taking a magical journey to a friendly wizards house. The wizard let us borrow his wand and allowed us to create some magic of our own! This helps to develop our listening and attention skills and use our sense of imagination!

Some of us enjoyed the relaxation session so much, we nodded off for a little while! 

There's an ALPACA on the playground?!?!

Yes, there's an alpaca on the playground, along with ducks, goats, sheep, chicken and a farmer!

As part of our farm topic, the animals came to visit. We were lucky enough to be able to hold them, feed them, find out about their babies and even take the alpaca for a walk. Chocolate was quite big but Biscuit was only small. Their coats are very woolly and used to make blankets, scarves and jumpers to keep humans warm. 

We also learned the story of the Little Red Hen - ask me to tell it to you! We loved acting out the roles of the lazy cat, pig and dog. Best of all, we loved making bread and eating it warm with lots of butter and jam!

This is our favourite song from our farm topic.

Spring Term

What a busy term we have had, learning all about how the seasons change. Luckily, the weather kept us on our toes and we were able to experience a rainbow, a snow storm and jump in muddy puddles all on the same day! At the start of the term we enjoyed learning about the weather, what clothes to wear and the different activities we can do when it's snowy, windy or sunny.

The Easter Egg Hunt!

It wouldn't be Easter without a rabbit and the Easter bunny came to visit and played a trick on our teachers! She was hiding outside and had hidden eggs all over the classroom for us to find and count! It helped us to develop our positional language, our counting skills and encouraged us to work as a team. We all got to meet the Easter bunny who gave us some chocolate to take home!

Chick chick chick chick chicken, lay a little egg for me!

We were given the job of looking after the eggs for Farmer Tom - his hen house had blown over in the snow and bad winds and he had no-one to care for the chicks. 

We made sure that the eggs were kept warm in the incubator and after a while, the first chick began to peck it's way out! After a while, some of the other eggs started to hatch and their older brothers and sisters helped them crack out of the hard shells. 

Once all the chicks had hatched, we made sure they had some seed, water, a clean, dry bed and a heater to keep warm. Normally their mummies would keep them warm, but she was stuck on the farm with her other eggs.

We made information booklets to tell the other children how to care for the chicks and made sure we gave them plenty of cuddles in case they missed their mummy.

Once the snow had melted, Farmer Tom came back to collect them and now the chicks are growing bigger each day on the farm.

Chinese New Year

We couldn't believe it when Mr Deane rang down to say a dragon had been spotted in the forest school! We decided to go and hunt for it to keep it safe. We took some boxes with us to rescue it. The children collected red dragon breath from the trees and bushes and made special friendship bracelets for each other to celebrate chinese new year. We hunted high and low, using our bodies to climb and balance. We then used our fine motor skills to weave the bracelets together and tie a knot. We saw a peak of the dragon and his smoky breath as he flew over the tree tops and houses! When we arrived back in class, we enjoyed a traditional chinese banquet and celebrated with chinese lion dancing, fortune cookies and a firework show!

The Easter Story

We had so many visitors in school on the run up to Easter! It's a very special time in school and we learned about the Easter Story; how Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, waving palm leaves; how he enjoyed a special meal with his friends; how he knew that some of friends would disappoint him and make him sad; but how he would forgive them as he loved them.

We understand that Jesus is our friend, that he loves us very much and that he will always forgive us when we do the wrong thing.

Autumn Term

Welcome to Nursery T! We have had a very busy term up to now, exploring our new classrooms, making new friends and learning about school life. Mrs Toher is very proud of how we have settled into our Nursery class and how independent we are becoming. 

Our first topic has been nursery rhymes and we have enjoyed singing and dancing together on the carpet. We love to sing action songs and rhymes and whilst we still enjoy the traditional versions, we have been learning different versions of Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle and Incy Wincy Spider - ask me to sing them to you!

Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar, my dad drives a rusty car!

Turn the engine, pull the choke - off we go in a puff of smoke.

Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar, my dad drives a rusty car.

Baa baa white sheep have you any wool

Yes sir, yes sir, three needles full.

One to mend my trousers and one to mend my top

And one to mend the great big hole in Daddy's stinky sock!

Incy Wincy Spider, climbing up the tree

Along came the snow and made the spider FREEZE (stand still)

Out came the sunshine and melted all the snow,

So Incy Wincy Spider could have another go!

We love to read stories together and join in with our favourite parts. We like to read the same ones sometimes so that we become really familiar with the stories - this will help us later on as we get older and begin to write our own stories. Our favourite stories are The Gingerbread Man, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs and Jack and the Beanstalk. We like to talk about the pictures and explain how the characters might be feeling.

Here is a short film about one of our favourite stories;

We are becoming more and more independent with each day! In the winter months that are coming, it is important that we can find our own coat and wellies and try to put on our wet weather clothes so that we can enjoy the outdoor classroom. You can practise with us at home and encourage us to get undressed ready for bedtime and put on our own uniform and shoes in the morning. The quicker we master this, the more fun we can have outside with our friends!

We love to sing this song together as it reminds us what we need to wear on a cold day in school.

We love to explore all the areas of our classroom and especially like to

• sing and dance
• get messy in the craft area
• investigate the water and sand whilst we practise our maths
• read stories in the library
• enjoy building our muscles on the climbing equipment
• practise our fine motor skills with the play-dough
• make believe and use our imagination in the role play areas 

This half term we will be learning about food and exploring lots of different tastes and textures. This ties in nicely with us now staying for lunch and becoming more independent at meal times, and sharing our likes and dislikes. 

We will be using our favourite stories to help us and these include Handa's Surprise and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We will taste lots of new and interesting foods including mango, pickles, salami and guava, as well as more familiar fruits such as bananas, chocolate cake and pineapple. We love to cook and so will be making fruit smoothies, pizzas, cupcakes and sandwiches. Maybe when we go to the shops together you can let me help with the shopping, recognising the different fruits and vegetables and following your instructions. Remember to talk to me about how heavy and light things are (for example potatoes and grapes), what shapes we can see in different foods (circles in cakes, triangles in sandwiches) and what is healthy and what we should only eat as a treat!