Tag Archives: People & Communities

World Book Day & The World Around Us

Posted on by
Reply

The week before last, we celebrated World Book Day across the school and, in Nursery, we were visited by all sorts of story book characters including The Three Little Pigs!  The children absolutely loved playing in the pigs’ houses, so much so that they requested we keep them set up this week too!  A huge thank you to all our parents and carers for your amazing efforts in sending the children to Nursery in their costumes.

Of course we had to read the story of the Three Little Pigs several times but we also particularly enjoyed this alternative version by Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury:

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury

You can revisit it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZpYMLp1LdQ

These stories, along with some lovely sunny mornings, inspired yet more building works…

The children are always fascinated by the world around them, whether digging for worms…

…or spotting the first signs of Spring in the school garden…have you noticed the beautiful tree covered with pink flowers at the school office entrance?

It inspired us to have a go at creating our own blossom tree pictures which are now decorating the classroom.  Do take a moment to admire them when you are next at drop off.

To help us look more closely at the features of the world around us, we have been learning about the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.  He liked to create paintings of the things he saw around him but he hated using straight lines!  Instead, he used lots of different shapes in his paintings.  This is what he looked like…

Image result for hundertwasserhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedensreich_Hundertwasser

And here’s one of his paintings…which shapes can you spot in his painting?

Image result for hundertwasserartexplorers.co.uk

We quickly spotted that Hundertwasser had used lots of circles when painting trees in his picture and we thought they looked a lot like lollipops!  Although he was a famous artist, we all agreed that each and everyone of us is an artist too!  So, we had a go at creating some of our own circle pictures:

Do look out for our Hundertwasser Art Gallery coming soon to a Nursery near you!

In the meantime, you can have a look at more of Hundertwasser’s paintings here…

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

Pete the Cat & our Shoe Shop

Posted on by
Reply

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!

Bravery & Inspiration

Posted on by
Reply

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!

Festivals of Light

Posted on by
Reply

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 😊

Coral Reefs & Welly-Boot Outings

Posted on by
1

We have had lots of lovely feedback from so many of you about our Rainbow Fish display – thank you so much for taking the time to share this feedback with us and for taking a moment or two in the mornings to talk about the display with your child.   It has been wonderful to see the children’s reactions when they have spotted their Mer-Child swimming alongside the Rainbow Fish!

This week, we encouraged the children to develop further ownership of the display by adding a coral reef to the ocean floor.  This is a work-in-progress and we will be adding more shiny material, fabrics and coral creations next week.

To develop the children’s understanding of what this particular ocean habitat looks like, we have been watching a lovely video and song called ‘Bubbles on the Reef’ which has been taking us on a mesmerising journey under the sea.  You might like to re-watch it at home:

With Father’s Day in mind, our Splish, Splash, Splosh stories this week focused on getting out and about with our families.  We loved the story of Mr Gumpy’s Outing; Mr Gumpy accepts more and more passengers on his boat until the inevitable happens and they all end up in the water!  The children came up with some fantastic problem-solving ideas for Mr Gumpy, including “he can get a bigger boat” and “he needs a long boat”.

Image result for mr gumpy's outing

You can revisit the story here and, as always, I’d recommend turning the sound off and reading the story yourself.  What do you think Mr Gumpy should do next time?

We also re-read a firm favourite; ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ which follows a family on a sensory adventure as they head out together to hunt for a bear!

Image result for we're going on a bear hunt

You can revisit it here and, this time, I would actually recommend you leave the sound on as the story is read by its author, the fantastic children’s novelist and poet Michael Rosen:

Thinking about our wonderful Daddies, we have also been busy working on a surprise for Father’s Day which each child should have brought home yesterday in a brown envelope.  Without giving anything away, I can tell you the surprise we made involved painting our hands!

Image result for child painted hands

Have a wonderful Father’s Day everyone whether out and about or tucked up at home.  The weather forecast is for yet more rain, so if you do head out on a bear hunt, don’t forget your wellies!

Easter is almost here…

Posted on by
1

Well, it looks like Spring has Sprung, or at least it’s been trying to!  Back in the Autumn Term, the children really enjoyed planting Spring bulbs in the planter next to the Nursery path.  Last week, we spotted our first daffodil and, this week, we’ve been delighted to discover several tulips have blossomed.  Aren’t they beautiful? One of the children asked if they could take this photo below…

With the sun doing its best to shine, most of the class chose to spend sometime outside this week.  We’ve noticed that they have been particularly interested in building an array of assault courses and balance pathways.  As ‘moving and handling’ is one of the prime areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum, we are always looking for ways in which to promote the development of both gross motor and fine motor skills.  We also encourage the children to challenge themselves by taking reasonable risks that build self-confidence and promote an understanding of personal safety.  As you will see from the photos that follow, the children are very supportive and encouraging of one another if anyone feels unsure or needs a bit of encouragement when attempting a tricky challenge!

Back inside the classroom, we were very busy getting ready for Easter.  Thank you Mrs Morris for coming up with the idea for our gorgeous Easter cards!  Can you remember what you used to make the paint look like a fluffy chick? (hint: it is something we use when we are eating!)

We hope everyone’s Easter card made it home safely – on the back of the card you will find a prayer for Easter.  Each child thought carefully about something they would like to thank God for and the children drew a picture of this.  We hope you will enjoy sharing these prayers together over Easter.

On our last day of term, we made some delicious chocolate nests by mixing together cornflakes and melted chocolate.  We then carefully counted out three mini-eggs into our nests. The end result looked simply delicious but, unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to take a photo as we were rushing to get ready for our Lenten Singathon!

A huge thank you to everyone who came along to support us with our singing and, if you weren’t able to make it, you can see some of our singing on Seesaw.  I’m sure you’ll agree that the children did a really wonderful job – we were very proud of them!  We will be collecting in sponsorship money (for The Lunchbowl Network and WaterAid) during the first week back after the holidays – any donations will be gratefully received!

You will be able to access Seesaw during the entire Easter holiday – so please do take a moment to look through your child’s EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) Profile with them.

Have a very Happy Easter everyone!🐰🐤