Tag Archives: SSM

World Book Day & The World Around Us

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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!

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!

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!

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!