Nursery

Hello and a huge welcome to our class webpage.

Our Nursery staff team are: Miss Quartermaine (M,Tu,Th,F), Mrs Lowery (W), Miss Ahmed and Mrs Hardy.

Our children have lots of fun, here you can find out what’s been happening in Nursery this week.

Class Update

24/11/23 - Hedgehogs

Dear all,

This week has been all about hedgehogs. Our words of the week were ‘prickly’ and ‘spiky’ and we had many opportunities to use them.

We made some fabulous artwork, combining different skills. First, we had to print autumn leaves on our background paper using stampers. Next, we added the shape of the hedgehog using paint and a brush. Finally, we switched back to printing and used a cotton bud to print a face and cardboard triangles to print the prickles. They are the cutest pictures and we will be making a little hedgehog gallery in class before sending them home.

We really enjoyed using clay a few weeks ago to make diyas for Diwali, so this week we made some more time for clay exploration and we made some really cool, clay hedgehogs with lots of prickles.

REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT NEWS: you must make sure that you apply for your child’s place in Reception class. The deadline is January 15th so make sure you have all your forms completed and submitted on time. Please don’t forget!

Bookings for school Christmas Dinner are open on Parentmail, please book yourself in if you are joining us. If you are not sure how to do this, let me know via email and I’ll forward the email to someone smarter than me that will be able to help you.

Have a lovely weekend.

 

17/11/23- Autumn

This week we have been trying to learn about autumn, though the trees are stubbornly refusing to do full autumn for us. Never the less, we have managed to find some leaves and we’ve read some great stories about trees and seasonal changes. We particularly enjoyed Leaf Thief and Tap the Magic Tree.

Our word of the week was crunchy and we talked about things we could think of that are crunchy, like carrots and crisps etc.

Our Number of the week was 3 and we spent some time counting things. We did three claps, three jumps, three stamps. I wonder if you can spot any number threes this weekend?

 

10/11/23- Diwali

This week we have been learning about the Hindu, Sikh and Jain festival of Diwali. Diwali originates in India, but many people in the UK celebrate too.

We joined the celebrations and made some diyas lamps as Diwali is about celebrating light over dark. It was hard work using clay and making them the right size and shape to hold a tea light. Next week we will paint them (we’re still waiting for them to dry.)

We made some fabulous Rangoli patterns to bring good luck. Usually people make them on the ground outside their homes and some communities have competitions to see who can make the best one. It was rather wet this week so we made ours on paper to take home.

In the garden we have been focusing on throwing and catching skills- always great if you can have a practise at home too!

Next week we are learning all about Autumn and the seasonal changes. We’d love a few, well chosen, autumn leaves if you are out and about this weekend and could collect us some? Not too many though! Also, we could do with toilet/kitchen roll tubes to make trees!

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

03/11/23 - Handa's surprise

This week the weather has had a distinctly soggy feel to it! Luckily we didn’t see much of the storm. Now the weather has turned to the wetter side, please ensure that your child has plenty of spare clothes in their bag as we love to play outside, but we often get a big soggy and like a change. On that note, we also need a suitable coat for the garden every day, we are definitely into the unpredictable part of the year weather wise.

To make ourselves feel warmer and sunnier we headed off to East Africa for our story times and read all about Handa and her lovely basket of fruit. Inspired by the story we have been looking at fruits and vegetables and painting/drawing pictures of them. Mrs Hardy has mounted our work and she’s making a lovely display of it. So, you’ll be able to see it in class.

Drawing is a great activity for us to do at the moment as it helps us develop our fine motor skills and our imaginations. Miss Quartermaine is hoping for a class of artists! We have some favourite crayons at school which we’ll tell you all about soon because they make fab Christmas presents. When looking for colouring pencils for children, it’s worth avoiding the very, very cheap ones (if possible) because they often don’t have enough pigment and produce very feint lines which then encourages us to press too hard and learn bad habits. If in doubt, test it yourself. If you can make a mark fairly easily, your child will too, but if you have to use a lot of force, your child will be using even more.

In the garden this week, we’ve continued using the palm drills and clamps to make holes in conkers. This is the start of our woodwork sessions. Throughout the year we learn different skills at the woodwork table- this term is all about drilling.

As it’s Bonfire Night this weekend, we started making some pictures on dark paper and talked about how it needs to be dark to see fireworks. Some of us have made bonfire pictures, some of us made firework pictures and some of us made general night time pictures. Lots of great work!

We have started some number work and our Number of the Week was 1. See how many ones you can spot when you are out and about this weekend. We’ve been learning to recognise the number 1 and sorting things that represent 1 from things that are not 1. For example, if we pull 1 conker from the bag it can go with the one things and if we had two stones they had to go in the bin. Bad news for the stones, but they’ll get their moment in the spotlight nest week when we learn about 2.

Our word of the week next week will be celebrate/celebration- see how often you can fit that into a conversation this weekend! We’ll be learning all about the Hindu/Sikh/Jain festival of Diwali.

If you pop off to a fireworks display this weekend, do see if you can take a photo to send to us. If you email it to me, the kids love to see them on the big board and talk about what they did.

That’s all for now, have a great weekend and enjoy the fireworks.

20/10/23- Black Voices week

This week we have been celebrating Black Voices Week with the rest of the school. We had lots of fun reading Baby Goes to Market and seeing all the things that baby puts in Mama’s basket. The story is set in west Africa and we really enjoyed looking at the pictures. Our favourite bit was the taxi, it’s a motorbike taxi, so very different to the taxi’s we are used to.

We had a look at some African wax print fabric and printed our own designs. We dressed up in chitenge fabrics and made ‘iro’ wraps to carry our baby dolls.

Towards the end of the week, we had the exciting job of helping to get out special books ready. We had already decorated the covers and the teachers had taken a few photos of us. We’ve started to stick our photos in and reflect on the things we have done in our first half term at school. It was a tearful start in September, but we are all so happy and busy now that the days disappear so quickly!

See you back here on Monday 30th October for lots more fun.

13/10/23- We're Going on a Bear Hunt

Wow, what a week we’ve had! We really managed to get stuck into some fun activities. We read; We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and made our own massive bear hunt in the garden. We set up all the areas from the book and then followed the trail to the cave to find the bear. Some of us even took our shoes and socks off and explored the squishy, squashy mud with our toes!

We also made some Bear Hunt sensory bottles to explore in class.

On Wednesday, we joined the rest of the school for Hispanic day and we learnt about the Colombian Donkey Festival and came to school dressed in the colours of the Colombian flag.

On Thursday, it was Teddy Bear day and we all brought a favourite cuddly toy to school to join us for a honey sandwich which we made ourselves.

And today? Well, we’ve just had our first ever experience of having our school photos taken. I think we can give ourselves a pat on the back as we were all very good and most of us managed a smile.

Next week is Black Voices week and we’ll be reading Baby Goes to Market by Atinuke. Next Friday is Red Card to Racism Day and we all wear red to school.- get digging out those red clothes!

06/10/23- Dear Zoo...

This week we have been enjoying the story of Dear Zoo. We had a lovely bag of animals to go with the story and if we were really good at sitting we sometimes got chosen to look after one.

On Monday and Tuesday we tried really hard to draw the animals. Some of us are already able to draw and for some of us it was our first time having a go. Either way, we all did very well. We’re keeping our pictures at school to make a display.

On Wednesday it was Harvest Festival. We made plates of food to show God what we are grateful for.

On Thursday, Mr S came and taught us some throwing skills. We tried to throw balls onto tyres.

On Friday we had gymnastics with Miss Shannon and Miss Fiona. We have been learning lots of action songs and our basic gym shapes.

A little bit of fun home work for you this week! See if you can find us any conkers to bring in. We need lots and lots because we will be starting woodwork after half term and the first activity is conker drilling for all of Nursery and both Reception classes.

29/09/23- Brown bear, Brown Bear

This week we’ve been reading the brilliant story of: Brown Bear, Brown Bear. It is one of Miss Quartermaine’s favourite books (probably because se got a gold star for painting a picture of it when she was five!) But, aside from past art award glory, it’s a cracking good group read because we can all join in.

We’ve been having lots of fun joining in with the retelling and if we sit really nicely we might even get chosen to hold one of the special animals.

We made our own version of the book, starring al of us. First, we had to have a go at cutting out our own photos and then we learnt how to use the glue sticks to paste them into the book. Next week we can have lots of fun reading it and spotting ourselves. We did a grand job with the scissors and we’re please to report that everyone still has 10 fingers and we have all made a great start to our cutting skills. Have you got children’s scissors at home? If not, now is a good time to start practising cutting skills.

Hope you all have a fab weekend, we’ll see you here on Monday for some Dear Zoo fun.

22/09/23- Where is the Green Sheep?

This week we have been reading the story of; Where is the Green Sheep. It was lots of fun and we had to wait until the end of the story to find out where he was. Once we had read the story we played a game of hide and seek with our very own toy sheep. He hid all over the Nursery and garden and we had to help Mrs Hardy find him. Lots of brilliant language in the book to develop our speech and language skills; under, over, behind, big, little, thin, wide etc.

This half term we have two really important things to focus on;

Firstly, our language skills and vocabulary. So we’ll be sharing lots of good books with lots of great words and plenty of repetition to get us all joining in.

Secondly, our Personal, Social and Emotional development. We’ll be learning group skills, like, sitting together and lining up. friendship skills, like, asking how to play and being kind to others etc.

Plus are lots of exciting activities to try out each week. Next week, as one of our focused activities with the teachers, we’ll be practising cutting out. Scissors at the ready!

15/09/23

Hello and welcome to the start of our weekly updates.

We’ve all had our first full week at school and some of us have managed to stay for full days too. We’re pleased to say that after a slightly tearful beginning we’ve settled down and the fun has begun.

We’ve been reading the very exciting story of; Kitten kid, and finding out where he’s been hiding. Most of us can now manage to sit for a whole story- hooray!

We have discovered the bubble machine, the mud kitchen, the space toys and all sorts of lovely things.

Lunch has been going really well, we have a healthy appetite as a group and generally demolish whatever school dinner is sent to us. So far we’ve had fish fingers, peas and chips, Chinese chicken and rice, sausage and mash and a lentil curry. Most of us have a second helping.

We’ve had our first every gymnastics session in the school hall and Miss Fiona and Miss Shannon taught us some gym moves!