Festive Fun!

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It’s so hard to believe that we are already here in the final week of term!  It has been a really wonderful term packed full of playing, laughter and lots of smiles!

We are so proud of each and everyone of the children; they have all grown a little bit more everyday; not just physically, but also in terms of their self-confidence and independence.

We hope everyone has a wonderfully restful and peaceful Christmas and we look forward to welcoming the children back to Nursery in January.  There will be 7 new children joining us when we return.

PLEASE NOTE:

The Nursery Christmas Party will take place during the normal morning Nursery session this week on Wednesday 18th December.  If your child would like to wear a Christmas jumper that day or a special party dress, please feel free to send them into school wearing this.  If they would prefer to come to Nursery in their normal clothes that is also absolutely fine!  If you do choose to send them in in something special, please remember it will be a normal, messy morning in Nursery!

The Christmas Party is a chance for us to celebrate with our Reception friends.  We will spend about an hour in the big hall where we will play party games and do some dancing!  We will also be having some party food and drinks and we would be most grateful for any contributions you may be able to make towards this (please see the list of suggested contributions in the classroom).  Thank you!

The last day of term for Nursery will be this Thursday 19th December. This is also the last day for the Little Acorns.  Children in Nursery break up one day earlier than the rest of the school so we can hold an Open morning for the new children starting in January.

The first day back for the children will be Wednesday 8th January. This is also the first day back for the Little Acorns.  Again, we start back a little later than the rest of the school so that we can carry out home visits for the new children.

Thank you for your understanding.

As you may have noticed, the classroom is now looking decidedly festive!  Here are a few photos from last week…

Here’s our Christmas Post Office & Sorting Centre – the children have been hard at work, wrapping parcels, writing Christmas cards, stamping parcels and letters, posting them and even delivering them around the classroom.  It certainly feels like the busiest time of the year!

The large wooden car received yet another makeover this week…can you guess what it might be and who it might belong to…?

Our placing & arranging table was brimming with an inviting array of Christmassy colours and objects.  The children love to spend a quiet moment at this table which is always a feast for the senses…can you spot the snowman with his scarf?

The polar bears were out in force roaming around their snowy landscape.  At one point, they decided they wanted to roam further afield and come down from the table top onto the carpet.  It was a bit too far for them to jump but, luckily, the Nursery children were on hand to come up with some ingenious construction ideas to help them get down – well done Nursery, you are always so kind and friendly!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!  We are looking forward to the final four days of festive fun!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

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What a particularly busy week it has been in Nursery!  The children performed in not one, not two, but three performances of our Christmas show.  We have been so impressed by how hard they have all worked to learn the songs with actions, to remember where to stand on the stage and to understand what to expect from an audience.  We couldn’t be prouder of each and every one of them.  Well done Nursery!

And thank you parents and carers for coming to watch the show – your children were so excited to see you in the audience!

Here are some candid backstage shots taken while we waited patiently for our cue…

Pete the Cat & our Shoe Shop

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When it’s time to get ready for home-time, one of the things we always do is sit down to change into our outdoor shoes.  Several weeks ago, we happened to play an impromptu game of ‘shoe shop’ at this time and, ever since, the children have wanted to play it over and over again!  So, we decided it was time to give them their very own shoe shop to enhance their learning through play.  This has linked very nicely with our ‘Who am I’ topic and our particular focus on our growing and changing bodies.

The shoe shop was very well stocked with footwear for every occasion including welly boots, sandals, slippers, high-heels, football boots and even ballet shoes!

The children have absolutely loved the experience and have been busy measuring, comparing, checking and choosing.  All the while, they have been practising their super speaking and listening skills to take on the roles of shop keeper and customer!

Price tags and receipts have been written, while money has been carefully counted out, handed over and placed in the till.  Sometimes, customers have even been given change and a 5p carrier bag!

A particularly groovy cat, by the name of Pete, must have caught wind of our shoe shop, as he decided to come and visit us this week.  Pete is a rather unusual cat as he loves shoes (and he is also blue, as one of the children pointed out: “cats aren’t blue, Miss Cronin”)!

MerryMakers 14.5" Pete the Cat Doll, based on the book by James Dean

In particular, he loves his own brand new pair of white shoes.  Unfortunately, his shoes never stay white for long as Pete doesn’t tend to look where he’s going when he’s walking down the street!   We know all of this because we read the fantastic story of Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin.

You can revisit the story here in this video clip.  As always, please ensure you watch the video clip with your child to ensure autoplay videos and adverts are suitable for young children.  Thank you!

The children were so taken with Pete and his book that we often discovered them re-reading the story for themselves…

In fact, the book was so well loved and had been re-read so many times that, by mid-week, I had made a rather startling discovery: when I picked it up, I realised that all the words and pictures had fallen out of it!  I had a good look under the cupboards, in the dressing up box and even in the magic room but without any success – the book was empty!  Fortunately, the children knew the story so well that, when I shared this problem with them, they suggested we simply re-write the story ourselves, sticking our own pictures back into the book to create our own version of the book!  Thank you Nursery, what a super idea!  Thank goodness you remember the story so well!

We are still working on our version of the book and we hope to complete it next week, so do look out for it at drop-off time and perhaps ask your child to show you their page…

Have a lovely weekend everyone and wrap up well!

Leave us a comment…

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If you are one of our parents/carers reading our blog, please consider leaving us a comment now and again…

We very much appreciate your feedback and it is always lovely to hear if your child has enjoyed something in particular this week…

Here are some of the comments we have had from parents/carers in the past…

“What wonderful adventures the nursery children are having!”

“So much happens in a morning…. I’m grateful for this blog and all the photos. Thank you for keeping us in the loop!”

“I love reading the Nursery blog! I have learned so much about what the children are learning. Wow! thank you for keeping us parents so well informed.”

“Such a brilliant opportunity for the little ones to see touch feel and experience the reptiles and creepy crawlies. They’re very brave to have held them. Thank you for setting the example for them.”

Growing Bigger & Tasty Toast

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Our story time focus this week continued with a growing theme and this time we thought about ourselves.  We wondered if we are growing and when we might be as big as our big brothers/sisters or even Miss Cronin?  The children were fascinated to hear that grown-ups have actually stopped growing (upwards, at least!).  We read a delightful book called ‘The Growing Story’ which was originally published in 1947.  It has since been beautifully re-illustrated by Helen Oxenbury (who also illustrated We’re Going on a Bear Hunt).  In ‘The Growing Story’ a little boy watches the plants and animals around him growing bigger as the seasons change and he wonders if he will ever grow too…

Image result for the growing story helen oxenbury

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a good quality video clip of the story for you to revisit at home, but you can read more about the story here and share some of the lovely illustrations together…

Image result for the growing story helen oxenbury

Image result for the growing story helen oxenbury

We also read the story of Titch by Pat Hutchins about a little boy trying to keep up with his big sister and even bigger brother.  The children decided that Titch was probably about 2 or 3 years old, while his sister Mary was 4 or 5 and his brother Peter was 6 or 7 “or even 10!”.  Such impressive mathematical reasoning Nursery – well done!

Image result for titch

You can revisit the story in this clip below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_BNxLeKI20

The children decided that one of things they need to do to make sure they are growing is to eat lots!  So, we all had a go at making toast.

First, we put the square piece of bread in the toast and pressed the button down.  We stayed well back from the toaster because “it is hot” and “because it is electric”.  We knew that only grown-ups should touch a real toaster and if we see one at home, we must not make toast without asking a grown-up first.

We waited patiently until the toaster popped!  Then Mrs Morris carefully took the square piece of bread out of the toaster and we looked at it to see if it had turned into toast.  If it had turned golden brown, we knew it was now toast!

The next step was to use a knife to spread the butter onto our toast.  Miss Cronin showed us how to hold the knife carefully, using our pointy finger on top to steady it and guide it along the toast.  We also held the piece of toast in place with our other hand.  After the butter, it was time to spread on the strawberry jam.

Image result for how to hold a knife when buttering

https://assets.seesaw.me/us-2/c/f/9/d/c/0/cf9dc0c5-5ddb-4537-bcbf-c6848ae9cfa3.jpg:::1574467200:::604800:::vG6KtpiWI7eUQduOjkLDnoArppV8N7K0vESrYxo1lPuwXd7DwEA_nOhOgiDqumaVzB4hJeQHpPj-8mpUskQ50A.jpg The children then chose to cut their toast into two triangles, four triangles or keep it as one square.  After all that hard work, it was time to eat our toast and everyone agreed it was delicious!

Finally, the children’s interest in numbers this week also led us to this nursery rhyme…can you guess what it is?

That’s right!  It’s the old favourite – Ten Green Bottles!  Why not have a go at singing along at home or make your very own green bottles (e.g. you could write numbers on yoghurt pots or something similar from your recycling box).

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Bravery & Inspiration

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It has been yet another busy week in Nursery! Not only did we join in with the rest of the school as they marked Remembrance Day and Black History Month but, as always, we found plenty of time for learning through play.  We also had Parents Evenings and I do hope everyone found their meeting helpful and informative.  Thank you very much for taking the time to come along.

On Monday, the big children at school got together for a special Remembrance Day assembly.  Each class had made a poppy wreath, organised by our Art Coordinator Mrs Bibby, and these were placed on the prayer table in the big hall.

Two of our Nursery children went into the assembly to present Mr Quinn with our wreath and later in the morning, at 11am, we took a pause from our play to spend two minutes thinking quietly about all the very brave people in the world.  We watched a delightful CBeebies animation which helped us complete the two minutes silence.  You can watch it again here.

Later in the week, we joined the rest of the school once again, by contributing to a whole-school exhibition of children’s work to mark Black History Month.  Mr Stocking, who is our History & Geography Coordinator, gave each class the name of a famous black person to research and be inspired by.  In Nursery, we were inspired by the famous children’s television presenter Floella Benjamin.  Back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, a television programme called Play School appeared on television sets around the UK.  One of the segments was a short film about the real world which was introduced through a square, round or arched window.   Floella was one of the presenters of ‘Play School’ and you can read more about her here.

Taking inspiration from these shape windows, we decided to have a look through all the many different shaped windows in our Nursery (both inside and outside).  The children took their own photographs on the Ipad of the images they could see as they looked through the different shapes.  We hope you will agree that the resulting images are quite fantastic!  Who knew that 3 and 4 years could be such amazing photographers!

The exhibition was on display during Parents Evenings this week but, don’t worry, if you didn’t get a chance to see it, we will be displaying the photographs in our classroom soon, so do look out for them at drop-off.

Back in the classroom, we are always looking for new hands-on, sensory experiences for the children that encourage the development of their fine motor skills.  We thought coloured rice might provide such an experience but, instead of colouring it for them, we decided to set them the challenge of colouring it themselves!  At the start of the week, the children discovered plain rice in the water tray and spent much of the morning pouring, scooping and sieving…

The following day, we removed all the water and gave the children soap pumps filled with blue or red food colouring.

After a morning of pumping and mixing, the children were fascinated to discover that the rice was turning red, blue and, in some places, purple!

The next day, we removed the rice from the water tray and spread it out on a tuff tray under the heater to encourage it to dry out.  Doesn’t it look wonderfully colourful!

During our story time sessions, we followed last week’s reading of Pumpkin Soup with the stories of The Gigantic Turnip and The Enormous Potato.  Both are, of course, twists on the classic ‘Enormous Turnip’ story.

The Enormous Potato

Finally, we read ‘The Enormous Watermelon’ which…

Image result for the enormous watermelon"

…you can rediscover here…(remember to turn off the sound and read the story yourself)…look out for the pictures which give a clue as to the next character who will come and help to pull the watermelon out!

Finally, after all that talk of planting and growing, the children were thrilled to have the chance to plant their own bulbs in the garden.  They all followed the instructions very carefully to make sure the bulbs were placed into the soil the right way up and then gently covered them over with soil.  We can hardly wait to watch our bulbs sprout, grow and blossom.

“they will grow tomorrow”

“they will grow after Christmas”

“they will grow in Spring”

We hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!

Let’s Go Camping!

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As people across the country looked forward to heading out into the cold, Autumnal nights to keep warm around the bonfire and watch the night-sky light up with fireworks, we were busy enjoying our very own firework display and campfire in the classroom!  Don’t worry, we all kept safe with the firework display provided by several youtube clips on the interactive whiteboard and the campfire consisting of wooden logs, orange tissue paper and lots of imagination!

Several weeks ago, we had noticed that the children were particularly interested in the idea of “going camping”.  So, we decided to support their learning through play with the creation of a campsite complete with tent, sleeping bags, camping pillows, camping chairs and, of course, torches!

The children absolutely loved their campsite and quickly set to work, rolling the playdough into sausages, ready to be cooked on the open fire…

…making sure there was plenty of firewood to keep the fire going…

…and even reading a story or two by torchlight in the tent…

Our camping chairs provided the best seats in the house for the firework displays…and a quick chat on the phone!

And the firework displays inspired our very own firework mark-making in coloured sand…

We read the story of Bernie Sparks and Rocky the Rocket on Bonfire Night to help the children understand about how to keep themselves safe on the real Bonfire Night.

And, following on from last week’s excitement 🎃, we also read the story of Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper.  This charming book tells the tale of Cat, Duck and Squirrel as they learn about friendship and sharing by working together to make their favourite pumpkin soup.

Image result for pumpkin soup story

You can revisit the story below.  Try turning the sound off and reading it aloud yourself.

The Little Acorns had a go at creating their own pumpkin recipes…

And back in the classroom, Mrs Morris came up with this rather novel use of an old pumpkin!

Have a lovely weekend everyone and thank you for all the wonderful contributions to our nature table – it is really looking beautiful! 🍁

Festivals of Light

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Welcome back to the second half of the Autumn term!  We hope everyone enjoyed a restful half term break.  As the dark nights draw in and the leaves start to change colour, we have been encouraging the children to notice the different coloured leaves in the garden.  If you find any red, yellow or oranges leaves when out and about this weekend, please do bring them into Nursery for our Nature Table.  Thank you!

There was great excitement this week as many of the children were looking forward to spending time with their families, celebrating a certain festival that involves special costumes, decorating homes, eating sweets and lighting candles! 🎃

In Nursery, we take every opportunity to find out about different cultures and religions so, this week, we decided to find out about a celebration that also involves costumes, decorations, sweets and candles: the light festival of Diwali.

Unlike Halloween, Diwali is a religious festival.  It is celebrated every year by Hindus all around the world.  First, we read the story of the Ramayana which tells the tale of Rama and Sita, who defeat the ten-headed demon king, Ravana, with the help of the monkey king, Hanuman.  The children all agreed that Ravana was “not very kind and friendly”!

Image result for rama and sita story

You can re-visit the story in this CBeebies clip:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories/lets-celebrate-diwaliperformance

During Diwali, Hindus light diya lamps to symbolise the victory of light over darkness, just like in the story of Rama and Sita.  They also wear special clothes, decorate their homes and eat lots of special sweets!

Meet Jessica here to find out more about how Diwali is celebrated.

We had a go at dressing up ourselves!

Retelling the story of the Ramayana:

And we practised our mark-making within this beautiful Rangoli pattern!

We hope you’ll understand that we decided to leave all the sweet-eating to you at home!  Have a lovely weekend everyone 😊

The Big Red Bus & The Big Red Engine

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Last week, we noticed the children were spending lots of time piling themselves and their belongings (i.e. bags full of items from the home corner!) into the big, wooden car to head off on various adventures.  As we always try to follow the children’s interests when it comes to enhancing our learning environment, we decided to transform the car into a number 57 bus!

The children were thrilled to discover the bus waiting for them at the bus stop when they arrived on Monday morning.  They grabbed a debit card, tapped in and quickly found a seat!  Luckily, several of them also knew how to drive the bus and it wasn’t long before they set off…

I wondered if they were heading off to Kingston but I was quickly corrected “no, we’re going to beach!”  And, sure enough, a small group got off at the next stop (the sand tray) to play at the beach!

At the end of the week, we were lucky enough to be visited by another big, red vehicle – in this case, a real fire engine!  There was great excitement as the children spotted the engine pulling up outside the school…

We joined the Reception children in their classroom to meet the firefighters and learn more about the special clothes they wear to keep them safe…

Then, we went outside to have a close up look at the fire engine! We were even allowed to sit on the back seats and try on the firefighter helmet!

What an exciting end to the half term!  A huge thank you must go to Blue Watch at New Malden Fire Station for coming to visit us and to Mrs Bibby for organising the visit.

If you would like to find out more about fire safety at home, including fire alarm installation, visit https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/safety/the-home/.

We hope everyone has a wonderful half term break!  See you back at Nursery on Monday 28th October.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Mrs Williams

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This week it was time to say Goodbye to a very special person.  Our wonderful Mrs Williams is moving on to a new job after 16 years at St. Matthew’s!  We will miss her so much but we are so grateful for all the love and expertise she has given to our Nursery over the years and we know she will continue to make a real difference to so many children in her new role as a Speech and Language Therapist.

All the children in the school (from Reception to Year 6) contributed to a special memory book for Mrs Williams which we presented to her in a whole school assembly on Friday morning.  And Mrs Williams was absolutely delighted with the wonderful card & flowers that Mrs Robinson organised from the Nursery children and parents.  Thank you so much everyone!

As we say goodbye and thank you to Mrs Williams, it seems rather fitting that our whole school value this half term has been thankfulness.  In Reception, the children have been finding out about people who help us and being thankful for these people.  This week, they have had several visitors from the local community.  Mrs Bibby and Mrs Rainey kindly invited us to join the Reception children as they met Brian the Firefighter and PC Rainey.  You can read more about their visits on the  Reception blog.

On Mrs Williams last day, she read the children one last story; “This is Our House” by the former Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen.  You can re-watch it here below.

The children’s play in the classroom this week reminded me of the picture at the end of the book when everyone finally plays together!  Of course, the children in our Nursery know just what to do when there isn’t enough space for everyone in the car…why, simply add more chairs and turn the car into a camper van!  Well done Nursery!