Summer 1

Another fun filled half term was had by all!

We started the term by reading the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. This was definitely a favourite and there was lots of learning done by all the children. We learnt how beans grow and even planted one! We were hoping that they would grow all the way to the clouds, but they didn’t quite grow that big. We learnt a song about this story and performed it to our parents at Stay and Play, we were fantastic! We became really good at retelling the story using the puppets and props to enhance this.

We then spent the rest of the half term learning all about animals.

We started by reading the story ‘Dear Zoo’. We enjoyed doing lots of creative activities; fork lion paintings, puppets and making patterns to name a few. We even made ourselves into a lion using a picture of our face and sticking on a mane! We learnt all about pictograms, choosing our favourite animal from the story. The lion was our favourite.

We then moved on to learning all about ‘Minibeasts’. We first looked at ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, we all really enjoyed this story. We learnt about the lifecycle of a butterfly and we got our own caterpillars. It has been amazing watching how they have changed, they are now in their chrysalis and we are waiting for them to emerge. We are wondering what colour they will be.

We went on a fantastic Minibeast hunt to our local forest and luckily the sun was shining for us. Lots of our mummy and daddy’s came with us. We found so many different insects; worms, woodlouse, slugs, millipedes, spiders and caterpillars.   

We spent the next week reading lots of different books; ‘The Very Busy Spider’, ‘The Bad Tempered Ladybird’, ‘Mad About Minibeasts’, ‘Tadpoles Promise’ and ‘Ahh, Spider!’. We learnt lots of facts as well. Did you know that a spider is not an insect? It’s an arachnid. It also has 8 legs and 8 eyes! We made our own spiders and webs, clay snails and painted butterflies. Did you know that a butterflies wings are symmetrical? This means that they are the same on both sides.

Next we looked at ‘Under the Sea’. We read the story ‘Commotion in the Ocean’, finding out facts about the different animals that live in the water. Did you know that a jellyfish does not have a brain and dolphins do not drink water because it is too salty for them! We made paper plate jellyfish, learnt how to draw a fish and did underwater paintings. We read the story ‘Somebody Swallowed Stanley’ and talked about how it is important to look after our oceans and not to leave litter on the beach as it can be dangerous for the animals.

Our last week was spent looking at farm animals. We read the story ‘Crash, Bang, Thud!’, ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’ and ‘Old MacDonald’. We learnt about animals and their babies and what we get from the farm.

We had a visit from Ark Farm who brought in lots of animals for us to see. We saw rabbits, guinea pigs, a tortoise, a dog, a gecko and a barn owl. We all had so much fun and said it was the best day ever!

Throughout the term we have continued to learn different letter sounds during our Phonic sessions and some of us can even write CVC words!

It’s been a great fun filled half term and we can’t wait for our next adventures.

Spring 2

What a fact filled half term we have had!

We began our journey looking at ‘Dinosaurs’. The first week we learnt lots of facts. We went into our Key groups and learnt about either a T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, Pterodactyl or a Velociraptor. Each group then shared their facts with the rest of their friends. We did an amazing job!

Did you know that a T-Rex’s teeth were as big as a banana and a Stegosaurus had plates on its back that changed colours! We now know which dinosaurs were carnivores and which were herbivores.

We read the story ‘How to Grow a Dinosaur’ and discussed how exciting it would be to have dinosaurs in our garden. Some of us thought it might be a bit scary as they might want to eat us! At the end of the two weeks we each decided which dinosaur was our favourite and made a chart. Our favourite was the Diplodocus.

We then moved on to ‘Space’. Now this was super exciting as we had our very own Space Station. We loved zooming off to the moon! Again we learnt lots of facts about space, watching videos about the different planets. We even watched an astronaut landing on the moon. Did you know that there is no gravity on the moon? This makes things float and the astronauts move slowly.

We read the story ‘Whatever Next’ and drew pictures of what we would take to the moon with us. Just like the bear in the story we used a cardboard box for our rocket, a colander for a helmet and welly boots for our space boots. We made space pictures, name rockets and painted the Earth on the floor outside. We listened to a song called ‘Space Odyssey’ and did large mark making on the floor and talked about how the music made us feel.

For the last two weeks we looked at ‘People Who Help Us’, there are so many!

We learnt all about Firefighters, Police, Doctors and Nurses, Opticians, Dentists and the Lolly-Pop person to just name a few!

We loved our doctor’s surgery, dressing up and making people feel better. The babies had a bad case of chicken pox and one of the teachers even got diagnosed with scarlet fever!

Outside we dressed as Firefighters and put out fires on the houses. It was very dangerous work and we had to make sure we had all the correct equipment so we didn’t get burnt. We then learnt how to cross the road safely using the Green Cross Code. We now know to think, stop, look, listen and wait and also where the safest places are to cross the road.

We have engaged in lots of experiments this half term and have made super scientist. Some of them include making an erupting volcano, germ experiments and how to make bubbles. It’s been a lot of fun.

We are all super excited for the next half term!

Spring 1

This term our theme was ‘Story Chest’, we looked at some of our favourite stories.

We began our journey with ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ where we learnt all about bridges and what makes them strong. We used Duplo inside and large blocks outside to build them.

On week two we looked at ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. We came to Nursery one day and there was a big mess in our home corner, someone had broken a chair and there was porridge all over the floor! Do you know who it could have been? We also painted pictures of the bears and enjoyed tasting porridge, it was just right!

We then moved onto ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Here we enjoyed building houses using different materials. We did an experiment to find out which materials were the strongest by blowing them like the wolf.

We next looked at ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We thought that this was a very exciting story. We decorated our very own Gingerbread people, making sure that they didn’t run away!

After that our story was ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?’ We made our very own Nursery book. We each had to choose an animal, a colour and draw what we had decided. We were the authors and the illustrators.

We finished the term by looking at ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea.’ We made tiger masks, learnt about tigers and made sandwiches for our very own tea party.

Throughout the term we have been amazing at retelling all of the stories using props and puppets, remembering all of the main parts and joining in with the repeated refrains. The language that we have been using has been fantastic and our teachers are very proud of us! We made lots of puppets, really working hard on our scissor skills.

This term we also started learning a sound a week, thinking about what things begin with that sound and we even tried to write them! We became birdwatchers for the RSPB great garden birdwatching weekend, using our binoculars to see which birds we could see.

We are continuing to learn lots of new skills at Nursery. We have spoken about not giving up and not saying “I can’t”. Our favourite saying is “We can try!”

It has been a super busy term and we cannot wait to see what learning we do next!

Autumn 2

What a super exciting half term we have had!

We started the term off by looking at the story ‘Room on the Broom’. This was a firm favourite with all of the children. We made wands, potions and witches hats. We became very good at retelling the story, we particularly liked the part where the witch made a new broom for all of her new friends. “Igetty, zigetty, zagetty ZOOM!”

We then moved on to a story called ‘Leaf Man’, we all collected leaves on our way to Nursery and made our own Leaf Man. We explored the leaves making rubbings and printing with them. We became very good at subitising, saying what we could see without counting.

Our next story was ‘Little Rabbit Foo Foo’. The children absolutely loved this story and became real experts at retelling the story. We used Michael Rosen’s version to help us, putting actions to each part, it was so much fun! We drew pictures of the Goonie and spoke about the bad choices that Little Rabbit Foo Foo made and how he could be nicer to his friends.

After this we read the story ‘Elmer’, he was a very colourful elephant who was different to all of his friends. We had lots of discussions on how we are all different, how we like different things and that we do not all look the same. We looked at the different patterns that the elephants made on ‘Elmer Day’ and designed our own elephants. We did colour mixing and even made our own Elmer’s using an empty milk carton and tissue paper, they looked amazing!

At the beginning of December the children did a wonderful performance of ‘The Nativity’ to parents and the school. They learnt lots of songs and sang their hearts out, we were all very proud of them!

We have finished the term by looking at Christmas, reading ‘The Nativity’, ‘The Jolly Christmas Postman’, ‘The Snowman’ and the ‘The Night Before Christmas’ to name just a few. We have been very creative making cards, calendars and many decorations.

It’s been a wonderful term and we can’t wait to come back in January!

Happy Christmas everyone!

Autumn 1

What an exciting start to the year it has been!

We have been welcoming lots of new children into our Nursery and making new friends. The children are so happy to come in and explore and learn lots of new exciting things.

We have learnt all about the Nursery rules like walking feet inside, using kind hands and sharing is caring.

We started the term off by looking at the stories ‘So Much’ and ‘Owl Babies’. We looked at our families and who lives with us. We really enjoyed these stories and were able to retell them to our teachers.

We also learnt all about owls. Did you know that owls have big eyes so they can see in the dark? They are also nocturnal, this means that they sleep in the day and come out at night. How cool is that!

We then moved on to the story ‘The Colour Monster’. This helped us to talk about our feelings. We learnt the words happy, sad, angry, calm, frightened and love. This story helped us to be able to express why we feel different emotions.

We finished the term by looking at two of our favourite stories, ‘The Gruffalo’ and ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.’ We made our own Gruffalo’s using blocks and big boxes and painted pictures of him. We then learnt about bears and where they live. Did you know that bears sleep during the winter? This is called hibernation. We made our own bear cave outside and went on a bear hunt around the playground.

We have had so much fun, we can’t wait for next half term!