Miss Cotton & Miss Ward

Miss Clarke, Miss Mesjasz and Miss Bradshaw, Miss Harrison, Mrs Taylor, Miss Gorksi & Miss Carter. 

A warm welcome to family and friends of Nursery. Our class page is frequently updated to share our fantastic learning and exciting experiences in Nursery.

Our Nursery day is always a busy one, filled with lots of exciting activities support to your child's development in all areas of the early years curriculum. 

I have a question!

If you have any curriculum specific questions please does not hesitate to send an email to the following address: 

nurserycotton@hotmail.com

It would also be fantastic to hear all about your home learning experiences, so please share any pictures or videos of your children at home using the email address.

This week in Nursery, we have been writing our own smoothie recipes, trying new fruits and having a go at blending our own recipes.

As part of our weekly knowledge of the world focuses, we have been exploring changes of state through play. We have recently been exploring how cornflour and water changes when we move it in different ways. We discovered 'Miss it is runny', 'it is really wet', but we also discovered 'its really hard' and 'I can't move it'.

Take a look

Now we are in Spring, we have exploring the outdoor environment using our looking eyes to search for signs of Spring. We have also been using natural materials to make our own collages, crafts and explore patterns and textures. 

Take a look at our fantastic Spring work. 

In Nursery, we have started to refine our mark making skills and have been practising retracing lines and anti-clockwise movements. We have been using moons and ladders to practise these movements before we begin our letter formation journey in Reception.

The children have been very busy learning about pancake day. We have been designing our own pancakes, thinking about what toppings we will need and then adding some of these to our own pancakes, delicious! 

We have been learning about Valentine's Day in Nursery. Not only have we been finding out about St Valentine and why Valentine's Day is celebrated, but we have been creating some wonderful Valentine's cards & crafts as well as some tasty biscuits!

This week in Forest School, we have been learning about the different ways we can look after God's wonderful world. We also spoke about all the creatures in God's wonderful world and discussed the different foods they like to eat. We also had a go at making and hanging our very own bird feeders for the birds we saw during our last visit to Forest School.

Recently, we have spent lots of time exploring bodies and senses to develop our understanding of their functions. We have taken part in lots of fun activities which have put our senses to the test. These activities have included; listening walks, smelling stations, sorting activities and baking! Take a look at what we have been up to.

Throughout the Spring term, we will be reading lots of traditional tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Gingerbread Man. These stories will be linked to lots of our learning experiences in the classroom. 

Take a look at all of our the exciting experiences.

In the story of Little Red Riding Hood, we met Grandma, Little Red Riding Hood, the brave woodcutter and the Big Bad Wolf again! We have met the Big Bad Wolf in many stories, so explored the character in depth this week. We have investigated the wolfs huff and puff and used our noses to smell different foods. We have even made sandwiches for Grandma to make her feel better. 

This week, we have been reading the story of the The Three Little Pigs. We have spent lots of time retelling the story, talking about our favourite events in the story and even creating our own houses for the 3 little pigs. We have also had a go at making vegetable soup just like the stew in the brick house.

This story has inspired many of us to use our imagination when playing in different areas of the classroom. This week, some children decided to re-build Baby Bear's chair after Goldilocks broke it! Whilst others, have particularly enjoyed writing letters to the three bears and recreating bear faces with play dough. On Friday, we also tried some porridge just like the three bears.

Click on the stars below to see your child's class performance videos and photographs.

This week in Nursery, we have been reading We're Going on a Bear Hunt. During choosing time, we have been using our senses to explore different materials and textures from the story. We have also been searching around our classroom to collect items for on our very own bear hunt. We have had lots of fantastic ideas this week, for example we found a torch to light up the dark gloomy cave so we could see the bears wet nose ad goggly eyes!

Take a look at what we have been up to and keep an eye out for the bears we found in the dark gloomy cave!

We have loved reading the story of Handa and Akeyo and spent lots of time developing our understanding of unusual tropical fruit. We enjoyed looking out for the cheeky animals in the book and had a go at making simple predictions about what might happen as we turned over the page! Take a look at what we have been up to and don't forget to look out for our tasty fruit kebabs!

In Nursery, we have been busy practising our Autumn leaves song. We have had lots of fun learning the new song & it has also supported our understanding of the autumnal changes we have been observing in the great outdoors. We hope you like our song!

In October, we have been celebrating Black History month. As part of Black History month, Nursery explored in detail the story of Ruby Bridges and discussed ways in which we could welcome Ruby into our school family at St Thomas of Canterbury. The children discussed lots of exciting ways to befriend Ruby Bridges, such as sharing their toys, making her food, reading a book with her and giving her a big hug! 

We have recently been exploring the forest school provision based behind the Year 6 annexe to develop our understanding of seasonal changes. Now the leaves have begun to fall & the weather is becoming colder, the children have been looking for signs of Autumn in forest school. We have been searching for leaves, creating autumn collages and making natural salt dough faces on the forest trees.