Nursery PE Session - Summer Term

Tuesdays AM (alternate weeks, first session 25/04)

Welcome to our Nursery class page.

We have just had a very busy RE week! We have had visitors from the Sikh education service with Mr Singh teaching us about the Sikh belief that we should all love and respect each other and care for the world as we are all part of one humankind. We have been to a very colourful Hindu Indian wedding with flower garlands, decorative gems and throwing rice on the fire. We have explored many aspects of Easter through role play, making Jesus’ life bracelets, creating delicious Easter nests and Eastingles and having fun with plenty of Easter Eggs! Our very own RE Ambassadors ( four year 6 children) also created a treasure hunt game for us to find out about places of worship - we had to find out the answer to the questions to be able to get to the treasure! We have also had a Prayer station day thinking about what we are grateful for and thinking of others that are less fortunate than us. 

Our trip to the library and baker shop was fantastic! Terry and Gillian welcomed us to all the books in the library. We chose books and had a story read too. The baker shop treats were chosen and paid for with the coins we brought, some of us had change too. We also went to the postbox (although we thought it wasn’t a box, but more of a cylinder!) and we posted some special letters. We love our village!

We have had a short but fully packed half term. We welcomed families in to class to share our learning around rhyme (see a few photos below) and also we met everyone at Parent Consultation evenings to talk about the progress of each child. Next steps of learning were also shared.

Next half term we look forward to our Library visit to promote reading and a love of books (World Book day also falls on this week too and we plan to dress up as our favourite Nursery Rhyme or Fairy Tale character). We also plan to pop to the Simmon’s the Baker Shop to ask for a chosen treat and pay with real money. 
 

After the success of our current topic, we move on to a new focus of “Large, Small and Something Tall” which will give opportunity to explore size, mini beasts, and growth, including gardening activities. Our love of stories will continue with a focus on the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. All our plans are flexible to enable us to respond to the children’s own interests and fascinations.

“Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?

I’m going to eat you for my breakfast, lunch and tea!”

We have got excited about The Three Billy Goats Gruff! We can join in with the story words and retell the tale. We build bridges, we draw, we act out the story. We can also identify the different sizes of each of the Billy Goats. “We always have the Little Billy Goat go first, then the Middle Gruff size one, then the Big Billy Goat one…coz he butts the troll in to the water!”
 

We are learning to take it in turns to play our favourite character and we are better at waiting our turn to cross the bridge too.

We created a massive story map of the tale and we labelled it with the story words and initial sounds eg T for Troll, s for sunshine and m for mouse. Fabulous piece of work 👏.

We have started our ‘Nursery Rhyme and Fairy Tale’ topic by looking at Rhymes. We have been exploring opposites with fast and slow in the rhyme Little Miss Muffet and in up and down or high and low in Incy Wincy, Hickory Dickory, and Little Mousie Brown. Humpy Dumpty has been making a big mess too! See the photos 😁.

It’s been a fabulous term, the children were amazing at our Nativity performance and so excited to show off our learning. There is much to be proud about with the singing, dressing up and celebrating the very first Christmas. 
 

Looking ahead, we welcome some new families to our nursery. See below for a transition booklet to help those new ones settle, and we look forward to getting to know you better in the new year. With an increase in our numbers we also welcome Mrs Shew to our Early Years team too.

Please see our new topic map too for the first half of the Spring term. There is sure to be more singing and story telling as our topic is ‘Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales’.

We wish you all a magical Christmas time and wonderful New Year, and we look forward to the return to school on Thursday 5th January 2023!

Mrs Roberts, Mrs Cutler, Mrs Smith and Miss Wilson

So the madness begins! We have started our Nativity dressing up and getting ready to share our learning with our families. We are dressing up and telling the story of the very first Christmas, and learning that it’s a celebration of Jesus’ birthday. We have no set parts, each time we dress up we change characters so everyone gets a chance to be their favourite role in the story. The songs are all repetitive and catchy, we hope the adults will join in when they come to visit. Our performance is on 14th December at 10.45am. Please just two adults per nursery child as we have limited space in the classroom. 

It’s Anti-Bullying week this week. On Monday, we celebrated  all our differences by wearing odd socks. We pulled on our odd socks to show we’re ALL unique and different, and we learned to be kind to each other and respect each other’s individuality. We learned a song by ‘Andy and the Oddsocks’ (by the Anti-Bullying Alliance) all about being proud of our differences and being happy together.  We also explored who to reach out to if we do feel unhappy. We decided that it’s best to tell our loved ones and get cuddles and if we are in school get help from one of our teachers.

Wow, what an exciting week, we had Ranger Stu bring his animals into school. All children sat beautifully and listened so well as Ranger Stu introduced each animal. 

We saw a tortoise called Hingey Mc Bat Face, Flame the bearded dragon, Cinnamon the tenrec, a tarantula called Coconut, a cheeky boa constrictor called Reggie and an armadillo called Dobby. Children were chosen to come and handle and stroke the animals. 

We found out lots of different facts including:

The longest snake in the world is 33 ft long, the same as double decker bus or the width of our school hall! 

Cinnamon the tenrec is closer related to an elephant 🐘 than a hedgehog 🦔, who knew?

It was wonderful to welcome parents to our family learning session this week. What a great turn out. All children loved to show their learning off in the classroom and were proud to have their loved ones share a story and take part in a phonic activity. Parents and children were very good at practising their “t, t, t alliterations”. Here are a few photos I managed to take 🤗.

Our next topic is “Twinkly Lights and Gloomy Nights”. See below for a topic map with possible avenues of learning. We also have a visit from Ranger Stu to look forward to where we can meet some special animals and find out some facts about how they live and what they need to be healthy.

We also would like to welcome you to our Family Learning session on Wednesday 2nd November at 9am. We will be exploring fine motor activities and then developing our phonic skills, we would love to share our learning with you.

Wow, what a fabulous half term we have had! From log dogs, to Autumn walks, to conker counting and bashing! We have learned Nursery routines now and are super at tidying up!

Well done to all our new children!

It was lovely to welcome in some Nursery parents for our 'Meet the Teacher' meeting. I hope you managed to see your child's self portrait on display, they are wonderful. We have uploaded the slides from the meeting for all to refer to. Please see below. If you have any questions please speak to any member of the team or send a message through Tapestry. If you haven't yet been sent a link to access your child's account please let us know.

We are looking forward to welcoming our new children and their families to our Nursery class and we are beginning to get things ready for you. Here are a few photos of our classroom.

We are really excited to begin to get to know you all.

Miss Wilson, Mrs Cutler, Mrs Roberts and Mrs Smith.

This is our topic map detailing possible avenues of learning. There is flexibility to allow the children to explore their own fascinations and interests.

’50 Things to do before you’re five’

There is a brand new app for families in Hertfordshire! It’s called ’50 Things to do before you’re five‘, it’s intention is to improve outcomes for our younger children. It’s full of ideas for activities and experiences that can be accessible for everyone that encourage communication and language, being active and trying new things. Many experiences are outdoors and open ended so the whole family can take part!

How many experiences and memories can you tick off?

A message for any nursery families that are coming to us or staying with us in September.

We look forward to welcoming children and families in September. Some children may be excited, and some may feel daunted, I’m sure many of you parents feel a little apprehensive and we all have a mixture of feelings.

I have attached a pdf story of a child starting school for you to share with your child. This will enable you to introduce the idea of going to nursery or school and possibly staying all day. This will help all children especially those that will be full time in September. Read the story and talk about it with your child. Doing this several times every now and again will help your child understand some of the experiences that will be ahead for them and help them cope emotionally for what could possibly be a challenge. It will be ‘welcome back’ to those families we know and for those that are new, we are looking forward to meeting you and beginning the process of getting to know you.
 

Georgina Wilson, Early Years Lead