Sports' Day Special!

As promised last week here is your Sports’ Day Extravaganza!

I know many of you were disappointed not yo have been able to attend our sporting event of the year but we have taken a huge amount of photos for you to get a ‘feel’ of the day. The children were very excited to be assigned a school ‘House colour’ to compete for.

We had:-

Red- Plessington

Blue- Harcourt

Yellow-Bamber

Everyone was super competitive, each team really wanted to win the cup!

Mrs. Greghan was our compere for the afternoon, the flags were up and we competed to the best sporting music from yesteryear! The scene was set!

Click on the button below to see all the vents we took part in!

Here comes the photos!

Didn’t we have fun! I do hope you manage to get a feel of what was a truly fantastic day. The children all loved joining the main school. In fact they are still talking about it! It was so much more exciting than the Euros!

You will be pleased to know that Miss. Lavelle (the Reception teacher), is as we speak compiling a video of all the Key Stage events from throughout the week (including Nursery). When it is complete I will post it for you all to watch!

Finally, I can announce the overall winner of the whole weeks events….it is Plessington. Well done Plessington!

It remains for me to say to you all, have a lovely, restful weekend. Perhaps you could do a mini Sports’ Day at home? Send me some photos!

The Nursery Team

We are happy to be back together again!

Welcome back! I trust everyone has had a restful break?

We have all hit the ground running this week, blessed with the glorious sunshine.

This half term we will be exploring and investigating the mini beast world. Have a quick look at our plans.

We began our investigation by watching a short video all about ‘What is a mini beast. Click here to watch. We decided that we already knew quite a lot! Everyone thought it would be a good idea to make a display using mini beats resources and factual books. These would help us to learn lots of new facts.

We then took the viewing tubs and magnifying glasses and went on a bug hunt in the garden.

As the weather was so warm we got distracted and hot so we all went paddling to cool down. Wow, that was such good fun, even though we did get very wet!!

To mirror our new learning of ‘lots of water’ Clare suggested painting shells so we could make an under water mermaid lagoon. Fabulous!

You can never have too much water play! Look at our fantastic water machine we made! The children worked so hard to join pieces of tubes and guttering together to direct the flow of water. Once more very wet, but great fun!

The children were very excited when we had a delivery of linking blocks to help with our number work. There are soooo many! We measured each other, made shapes and one friend counted the bricks to 33 all by themselves!

As has become a regular feature here are all the other activities and learning that has taken place at nursery this week. We made a sand café, mark making and picture making (a firm favourite), big building with soft shapes. physical activity practicing for Sports Day and then just having a jolly good time with our friends. I hope you enjoy looking at them.

Two final things to share with you.

Next Monday afternoon is Sports Day 1.30 -3.15 pm. All the children are invited to take part but I am sure you will understand that owing to Covid parents will not be able to attend. Don’t worry, we will take lots of photos. If it is not your usual session, please make sure that your child is in nursery no later than 1.15 pm and then collected promptly at 3.15 pm. Could all children please wear shorts, t-shirt, trainers and lots of sun cream!

Lastly, I would like to say a BIG welcome to Hannah who has joined the nursery team this week. She has been a huge hit with all the children, I’m certain your child will have told you all about her. Hannah will be working in nursery on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and all day Wednesday. When you see her say hello and introduce yourself.

Have a lovely weekend, I hear the weather is going to be fantastic! Fire up the BBQ!

The Nursery Team

This week...

Great news, our butterflies have emerged!! We found out that they are call Painted Lady butterflies. They are very beautiful.

We had to give them some sugary water to drink and pick some flowers for them to get the nectar from. The butterfly's primary source of food is nectar which it gets from plants and flowers

We also found out that Butterflies eat by extending the proboscis deep into a flower to sip nectar. Butterflies also use the proboscis to drink water and juice from rotting fruits.

Before we released the butterflies we managed to hold one on our hand, they felt so lovely. Take a look at our photos

One of our friends even made a butterfly picture using the peg boards. Well done!

Look out for the half term challenge sheets being sent home today….butterfly spotting! Good luck!

If you ten minutes spare click here to watch the The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

It may come as no surprise that hatching caterpillars and waiting for them to emerge as butterflies was fascinating. With that in mind we intend to repeat the cycle again after the holidays as well as expanding our investigative impulses by finding out about other insects and minibeasts. Maybe you could get ahead of the game and explore in your gardens to see what is living there. We’ve already started looking in the nursery garden!

Download the garden spotter sheet to help you out!

The children were excited to find deep at the back of the cupboard a big marble run game. It took us ages to fathom out how it fitted together, but we got there in the end. We have had endless fun experimenting how it works.

We have also been given the most fabulous road and train track, great fun!

Our passion for number is going from strength to strength and this week we had a new number puzzle arrive. We have made it over and over again. We LOVE number challenges!!!

Everyone had a good time playing a rhyming game with lots of fun objects (especially the snake in a box! Arghhh!)

…and now for our photos of the week!! They include balancing, block play, birthday celebrations, garden watering (our strawberries are amazing!), water play and mark making. Have you noticed how well the children are doing forming letters?

I must remind everyone that Sports’ Day will take place on Monday 14th June (Health and Happiness week). Unfortunately, owing to restrictions, we are unable to invite you to join us at this event but rest assured we will take loads of photographs to share with you. Please make sure that you send your child to nursery wearing shorts, t-shirt and trainers on that day. We have their special personally designed t shirts here. All the children are invited to take part, when I know the times I will text everyone!

It is IMPORTANT that before you wash your child’s Sports’ day shirt, you MUST press it for at least three minutes to seal in the colours.

Lastly, can I thank all of you for your wonderful support of nursery and your child’s learning. All the team are very proud of each and everyone’s journey this year, long may it continue. We hope that the sun shines on us over the holidays and you create some magical memories with your loved ones that will last forever.

See you all on Monday 7th June bright eyed and bushy tailed.

The Nursery Team

This week....

Box monster came to nursery this week and scared our socks off! Instead of playing ‘What time is it Mr. Wolf?’ and ‘Trollie, Trollie can we cross your river?’ we changed the name of the games to Box Monster, Box Monster can we cross your river?’ and ‘What time is it Mr. Box Monster?’ We had such good fun!

We also had a special deliver of a dragon. It came complete with instructions on how to care for it, what it ate and if it was friendly or not! We hoped it didn’t breath fire and eat children and nursery ladies! The children decorated the box it arrived in to make sure he had a cosy bed to sleep in.

Have you noticed how good the children are becoming with their mastery of number. We are all very impressed. This week Clare played lots of tricky problem solving number games to try and catch the children out….but she couldn’t. We will have to challenge them even more!

The children have been practicing writing numbers. They were inspired after watching an episode of Numberblocks which explained how to write the numbers using simple rhymes. Click here to watch and have a go!

On Wednesday it was so sunny in the garden that we decided to have a building day. We got out the large bricks, small bricks and the waffle bricks. Everyone worked so very hard. We even found the game ‘Jenga’ to build and play, we were fantastic at choosing the correct brick to take out so that the tower wouldn’t collapse. Although it was fun to shout ‘Jenga’ when it fell down!

We have no news to report with regards to our butterflies yet. We have learnt a new word this week...metamorphosis. Click here to find out what it means.

However, we have been looking all over the garden for insects and mini beasts. We have found woodlice, moths, spiders earwigs and slugs. This is clearly going to have to be explored further after the half term break. Watch this space!

As you already know we are never still at nursery. We see every second as an opportunity to learn, explore, discover more about EVERYTHING! Here is collection of learning which is ongoing, has been triggered by the children’s curiosities and fascinations. As you can see we are all interested in different things so life at nursery is diverse and very exciting!

Finally, I would like to finish this weeks blog by sharing some joyous news with you all. Our lovely Sarah has had her baby! I’m sure you will join us in sending Sarah and Liam huge congratulations as they welcome Baby Jude. Everyone here are soooo excited and hope to meet him very soon. Both Sarah and baby are doing well.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you all on Monday.

The Nursery Team

This week...

Although it has been a short week, we have all managed to cram as much learning in as possible! We continue to search for superhero powers in everyone and everything we do; you would be surprised that no matter how small we all have special gifts that we can use to help others.

We also watched the Alphablocks ‘X’ who is a super hero. We then all had a try at writing ‘x’. We loved it!

Click here to watch and then test the children’s knowledge of ‘x’. You may need your Read, Write Inc. sound mat! The rhyme goes; down the arm and leg and repeat on the other side…easy peasy!

The children noticed when they returned to nursery that our caterpillars had started their transformation into a butterfly and were inside a cocoon. We have been trying to understand the process but it’s rather tricky. We found out that:

Pupa and chrysalis have the same meaning: the transformation stage between the larva and the adult. While pupa can refer to this naked stage in either a butterfly or moth, chrysalis is strictly used for the butterfly pupa. A cocoon is the silk casing that a moth caterpillar spins around it before it turns into a pupa.

We also watched ‘Come Outside’ with Auntie Mabel and Pippin to help us understand more about butterflies; they visited a butterfly house and it looked fabulous. There are so many different kinds of butterflies and moths. We discovered that moths are nocturnal, we love that word.

Click here if you would like to watch at home.

We have also been reading the story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ along with the puppet and all the foods it ate through! Click here to watch. So busy!

Inspired with our chrysalis we decided to explore patterns on butterfly wings. Guess what we found out? They are symmetrical! Mmmm… lots of learning there. We have drawn symmetrical butterflies, painted symmetrical butterflies on the computer, did some string pulling pictures and even made symmetrical butterflies using our giant peg boards. Take a look.

If you remember, last week a shared a new song about the seven continents. I have found the song and a video on YouTube if you would like to listen and watch. Click here and enjoy!

The next item seems to be fast becoming a regular feature. It’s where I share all the other learning and fun we have been having at nursery this week. You will notice that our passion for building obstacle courses hasn’t abated. We have also enjoyed digging in the sand kitchen this week, sorry if we sent the children home a bit grubby but they created some love dishes and wonderful cakes. Watch out Great British Bake Off.

The children also have been practicing their bubble blowing skills. I must say they are getting very good. We had a bubble blowing challenge with Reception, I think we definitely won! Hooray!

If you want to have a go at home all you will need is some washing up liquid and household items with holes. You could be scientists and conduct your own experiments. Send us the pictures we would love to see them.

Remember ‘think big’ – if you want to scale up the recipe, you just need one part washing-up liquid to six parts water. Try making a big bubble mixture in a washing-up bowl – then you can use bigger items, like colanders and slotted spoons, to make bubbles in the garden. Have fun!

Finally, I’m not sure what the weather will be like this weekend (surely it can’t be as bad as the Bank Holiday), but whatever the weather have a fabulous time as a family. We will see everyone on Monday for yet another great week of learning.

Barbara

This week...

A massive well done to everyone who managed to complete last weeks home link challenge. The children have made some wonderful super hero masks. We finished them at nursery by laminating them and adding ties so the children could model their creations

They look fabulous!

The children are continuing their exploration of number and are loving it. They enjoyed playing the dinosaur and dice game, so much so that they can now play independently or in small groups. We feel a bit left out!

The children’s passion for number saw a group of children ( with some help) make a 100 square using the multi link block, wow!

We also measured how many bricks tall the super heroes were in the pictures, again using the multi link blocks. It was tricky but we got there in the end. Good brain growing. Some even decided to could block on their fingers.

To strengthen our hands we made a super hero squirting game. We had to fill a syringe and then squirt the super hero pictures. Such good fun, but we did get a bit carried away and got a bit wet! Ooops!

We had great fun making our own Super Tato using REAL potatoes. Some of our heroes looked a bit odd and a bit funny but we enjoyed it!

I am pleased to announce that the Sports Day t-shirts are finished! Well done Clare. They look FANTASTIC! Take a look!

This week our friend Alfie taught us a song to help us remember all seven continents on our planet Earth. We love it Alfie. Here are the words in case you would like to sing along at home. It is to the tune of 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive.

Here goes!

Asia and Africa,

North and South America,

Antarctica and Europe,

And finally Australia

Enjoy!

As alawya we love building obstacle courses to practice our balancing. Each course is just a little bit more difficult and we love it! This week we got all the soft shapes out and the children got building and designing. It was tricky though because every time we stepped on the they were squishy and changed shape! Keep practicing!

Some friends even tried look at the word from a different angle…upside down!

As always the children have been very busy doing lots of other activities and learning. Here is a collection of other learning which happens daily at nursery.

I am sure you will agree everyone at nursery is in need of a good long rest. Luckily, it’s Bank Holiday weekend. Three days to recharge our batteries for another busy week next week.

I hope you all mange to get some down time and to enjoy just being together with your loved ones. We will see you all on Tuesday.

Barbara

This week...

Another week of super heroes! The children continue to use their imagination and to explore open ended objects, media and materials to support their play.

This weeks mission with Super Croccy was to find baby spider. He kept running away and hiding from mummy and daddy spider. The children had to use their special powers to find him. Sometimes it was in some very unusual places.

Here’s a websites that give ideas for fostering imagination

The Imagination Tree click here

You will be pleased to hear that the Sports Day t-shirts are well underway, well done Clare! They all look fabulous.

The children have continued with their exploration of number six. We have been learning how to mix things up with a dice! Click here to watch.

Here’s and activity to do at home; Maths in the Bath.

Location: Bathroom Materials needed: Your hands.

Aim: This activity will help your child to understand that there are 4 fingers and 1 thumb (5 digits) on each hand and to recognise 1,2,3,4,5 digits without counting.

Ask your child to look at your hand and ask them: “How many fingers am I showing you?” If your child doesn’t say the number just tell them you are showing 4 fingers. Show your child 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 digits in random order. Can your child recognise automatically the number of fingers without counting? If your child doesn’t answer or gives a wrong answer just tell them the correct number without counting.

Or

Maths in Steps

Location: Anywhere Materials needed: Your feet.

Aim: This activity will help your child to count up to 20 steps correctly and to use words such as, more, same, and fewer.

Ask your child to walk from one side of the room to the other. Then ask them “How many steps did you take?” Now you do the same. Ask your child to count your steps as you walk. Then ask them: “How many steps did I take?” Ask your child: “Are the number of the steps the same?”, “Who made more steps?”, “Who made fewer steps?”

Or

Scavenger Hunt

Location: Garden/Green Space/Park

Materials needed: Things you can find in the garden like leaves, stones, flowers, and feathers.

Aim: This activity will help your child to understand and solve additions up to 10.

Ask your child to find 2 groups of objects. For example: Find 5 leaves and 3 stones. How many do you have in total? Find 3 small stones and 1 big leaf. How many do you have in total? Find 6 green leaves and 2 brown leaves. How many do you have in total? What other examples can you think of? If your child counts incorrectly, put all of the objects in a line and count all of them pointing at each one.

Good luck and enjoy!

The children have been using bricks and soft shapes to construct dens (and to have a just a jolly good time). Some of their building defied gravity!

As always in nursery we have been extremely busy. We have been watering the garden, writing to the ‘Poggle’ and looking for ‘Smeech’ who came into nursery garden and left lots of litter! Poor Smeech now gets the blame for anything and everything. Nobody has seen him so we don’t know what he/she/it looks like!

On Wednesday afternoon we had an unexpected visit from the Fire Service…don’t panic all was well. One of the children’s daddy drives the fire engine so he stopped outside the nursery so we could all have a look! It was very exciting!

Last but not least here are some photos of everything else we have been doing at nursery. It’s no wonder we are tired by Friday!

Here are the plans for the next two weeks!

I do hope the good weather stays for weekend and we can all fire up the BBQs. Have a lovely and restful couple of days and we look forward to seeing everyone on Monday.

Barbara

Super heroes assemble!!

A super fabulous start to a the summer term. The children were soooo excited for our new learning thread….super heroes!

We kicked off the week by discussing super powers. Everyone chose their favourite power and shred with the group why they chosen it. X- ray vision was very popular although Clare’s teleportation power took some beating!

We are learning a song all about Amazing super heroes and their super powers: click here to sing along at home! I wonder what would your super power be?

We then decided that we should get our super hero play box out. What fun! We wore cloaks (some of them were invisibility cloaks), masks (some mask could freeze you!) and x-ray vision glasses! Have a look at our photos !

On Tuesday Super Croccy came to nursery. There was huge excitement when the door bell rang! He had a mission for us all to join in with. A puppy had got stuck up the tree in the garden. How would we get it down, what powers would we need? It took us ages to solve the problem.

We then read the story of Super Tato. Click here to listen.

If you fancy getting involved here is a mission for you to do at home! Don’t forget your cloak!

We then thought it would be a great idea to make a HUGE Spiderman web. You had to be very careful not to tough the web in case you woke up the spider in the tree. Arghhhhh!

Next, we made smaller webs on the chair legs for the small world super heroes. Beware of ‘Alligator’.

Clare made a super hero assault course. It was very tricky and we had to be brave and keep trying.

What a week! We are all exhausted! All this on top of our number and sounds work, watering the garden, water painting the walls and generally having a jolly good time at nursery! Phew! You better have a rest over the weekend we have another full on week next week!

May I say a big thank to everyone who has donated items from our wish list. Your support of nursery is greatly appreciated. Also, WELL DONE for firstly remembering to bring your sunflowers back to nursery and for your fabulous nurturing of the seeds. Some have grown very tall. I feel maybe some healthy competition has been afoot. Monty Don would be proud. The seeds we planted in the garden have only just started to germinate! The beans and strawberries are doing well though.

It has been lovely to see the children happy to be back at nursery. As we enter the final term of the year we have noticed how much the children have learnt and grown in confidence. We are so very proud of them all.

Finally, have a lovely weekend, try not to go too mad now the shops, bars….and hairdressers are opening up! Enjoy the sunshine and we will see you all on Monday, but remember to stay safe.

Barbara

COVID-19 reporting and contacts over the Easter holiday

In the first 48 hours (until 3:30pm on Saturday 3rd April) after breaking up we continue to need your support. If your child shows symptoms of Covid-19 within 48 hours of last being in nursery, please can you report this to nursery immediately by emailing b.draper@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk  

Following this, please then seek a test as soon as possible and inform the nursery of the result, as soon as you receive it, even if the result is negative. Again, you can do this by emailing b.draper@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk  

If your child tests positive for Covid-19 having shown symptoms within 48 hours of last being in nursery, we need to be informed immediately so that we can notify any other children in your child's bubble and their families so they can self-isolate for ten days. This will help to prevent the spread of coronavirus in our community.  

If your child develops symptoms after 48 hours of last being in school (after 3:30pm on April 3rd) and then tests positive, then contact tracing should be picked up by the NHS Test and Trace Service. 

Your help with this is greatly appreciated. 

Barbara

This week...

We have managed to reach the end of the spring term and thankfully all safe and well.

It has been an exhausting term and I can see that the children are beginning to flag (as are the staff). Nonetheless, we have had great fun learning and growing our brains. This week the children have been reflecting on the events of Holy Week and have drawn pictures to show how they are feeling.

All the nursery ladies are so proud of all the children’s achievements this term and we can’t wait to start our new learning thread after the holidays….Super Heroes!

Click on the button to see what we will be doing.

This week saw some glorious weather and that meant we could move nursery into the garden. On Tuesday and Wednesday we stayed outside all day. We even had snack and lunch in the garden. It was all very exciting!

As it was so warm we decided to get all the BIG water play out…we had to wear wellies though. We attached hose pipes, cisterns, got the water wheel working and watered the garden using HUGE teapots. Everyone enjoyed the water but we did get a bit wet!

All the children made Easter chicks with Clare and decorated Easter eggs on the computer with Colette. Don’t they look splendid?

Whilst we were in the garden the children wrote letters to the Poggle monster. We drew a picture of the Poggle on the computer and then stuck it on to the post box. You can write anything to the Poggle even if you are missing mummy and daddy. If you want to summon the Poggle you stamp your foot three times….

It was an excellent way to encourage the children to mark make!

Considering we only had four days at nursery this week we certainly crammed in as much as we could, we even made hot cross buns again.

Throughout the year the children have been practicing their balancing skills by building more and more complex and difficult obstacle courses. This week was our best one yet! Take a look!

Finally, on behalf of everyone at nursery I would like to wish everyone a happy and Holy Easter. I hope you all gets lots of time with loved ones, albeit in the garden. Let’s hope it’s BBQ weather!

Nursery reopens on Monday 12th April and we look forward to seeing all then.

Barbara

This week...

We began the week by reading the Easter story and discussed the events of Holy week. We were all very sad talking about the crucifixion but happy again when Jesus was alive again. We have tried all week to be more like Jesus in everything that we do. We have shown love and compassion to all our friends.

The children watched a short video explaining Easter. If you want to watch it click here. Also, if you visit the CBeebies webpage there is more about Easter, including Jesus coming back to life depicted in sand. We were all fascinated by this, next week we are going to try and make pictures in the sand at nursery; Click here

On Monday and Thursday we made hot cross buns as another way to explore Easter. We found out that hot cross buns go back a long, long time (as far as the 12th century). According to the story, a monk baked the buns and marked them with a cross in honour of Good Friday. Over time everyone wanted to eat them and eventually became a symbol of Easter weekend.

We used the bread maker to mix the ingredients and then we watched as the dough started to rise. Jacqui in the school kitchen baked them in the oven and then we ate them all up!!!! Mmmmmm yummy!

 It was also Frances’s special birthday on Monday. We made her a card from everyone at nursery. We all had a lovely day…I hope Frances did too!

On Wednesday we read a story all about when mum turned into a monster. The cousins are coming to tea and Mum is busy cleaning, shopping and cooking. Sam and his sister are no help at all; they make lots of bad choices and create even more mess. Click here to listen.

The story inspired us to make a jungle camp in our garden just like the children in the story. It was so much fun!

Everyone was very excited to get a delivery of strawberry plants from Miss Neves in Reception. It took us ages to plant them. The children can’t wait until they grow and we can eat all the fruit. Fingers crossed!

As always nursery is a very busy place to be. We are so excited about our learning that it often takes us many directions all at the same time. Look at the photographs to see how many different activities have been happening.

As you will already know, nursery closes next Thursday for the Easter holidays. However, unlike in previous years nursery will not be closing at 2pm; we will remain open until 3.30 pm. We open again on Monday 12th April.

Try and have a restful weekend we have lots planned for next week! Our learning at the moment has no boundaries! Stay safe and I will see you all on Monday.

Barbara

This week...

This week we have been continuing with our investigations as well as concentrating on our number work, sounds, planting and growing, celebrating St. Patricks’ Day and making dens to tell the story of the Three Little Pigs. It’s been an exhausting week.

Our garden is beginning to look much tidier and we have planted a butterfly and bee patch, potatoes, sunflowers and our broad bean plants. If you have any plants that you would like to donate yo our garden we would be most grateful. We will try very hard to look after them!

On Tuesday we celebrated St. Patricks’ Day. We watched a short video about the story of St. Patrick and them drew and coloured pictures. Click here to watch the story.

We have played lots of number games this week and read many many stories associated with a number. On Wednesday the children acted out the story of the Three Little Pigs. The wolf was very scary!! Arghhhhhh!

We also introduced Numberblocks Number 6. Click here to watch! The children also enjoyed this episode all about holes. Click here. Also, here’s the Numberblocks version of the Three Little Pigs…enjoy! Click here.

Through the week the children have been playing number snap, fishing for sounds and hunting the number gingerbread! Those gingerbread men kept running away and hiding in the nursery and garden! Listen to Mr. Tumble telling the story here.

To tie in with our floating topic we had another bubble blowing afternoon. It was great fun. We watched our bubbles float off over the school roof. Some of the children blew enormous bubbles!!

It’s hard to believe we still had time to take part in even more learning and fun, but we did. Look at everything else we did this week!

Over the next couple of weeks we will be focusing on the Easter story. I have attached our plans to the button below for you to take a look at. Next week I will be posting more information.

Lastly, let’s hope the good weather continues and we can get out in the sunshine, we certainly need it. Enjoy your weekend and we look forward to seeing on Monday.

Barbara

This week.... sinking and floating

The children have loved working scientifically and finding out through first hand experiences; the nursery ladies have too! It has been VERY exciting.

This week we have been exploring sinking and floating. Click on the button to look at our plans for the week.

We began our experiments by watching and listening to a song.. Click here to listen. We even learnt a new word buoyant! We like finding new words. Everyone then set off around nursery to find an object that we could put in a large water trough. Before we could test out object we had to predict what we thought would happen. Needless to say there were some surprises. Look at our photos; we loved experimenting!

As you can see some of the children went on to build boats from boxes others used a boat building construction set to test if their boats would be able to carry people and not sink! That was tricky!

Towards the end of the week we watched another video to see if we would be able to predict what would happen; we had learnt so much! Click here to watch!

Here’s another video to watch in case it’s raining at the weekend, we haven’t had time to watch it at nursery; we’ve been so busy! Click here.

Later in the week we had a visitor come to nursery. Can you guess who it was? Yes, it was the Gruffalo! Of course we had to read the story!

The children over the past couple of weeks have been making special surprises for Mothering Sunday. I’m not sure if they have kept the surprise secret, but here just a few photos anyway. I do hope all our mums have the most wonderful restful day.

Next week we will be having a number a phonics week so watch out for things to do on Purple Mash! I’ve pinned lots of things on the Mini Mash site.

Finally, I have a huge favour to ask. If anyone has any nursery clothing at home, especially underwear could you please return them. Also, if you have any clothing that you no longer use donations would be gratefully received. Our stocks of clothing are very much depleted.

I’m not sure about the weather forecast for the weekend but I hope everyone manages to have some time together as a family, and…..

This week...all about magnets

We started out investigation of magnets on Monday by watching a short video about ‘Magnet Man’. He wore powerful magnets on his hands and feet and could climb tall buildings and towers! Mmmm… we wondered why he didn’t fall off. The children thought it would be a fabulous Idea to put magnets on Colette’s hands and feet to see if she could walk up the wall!! Guess what we found out, she couldn’t, but why?

Click here to watch Magnet Man.

The children all took a magnet and went to find out what the magnets would stick to. They discovered magnets only stuck to metal, but not all metal. We made a list of everything we could find that the magnets stuck to. Look at our photos below!

We found out that the magnets stuck to iron objects. Sometimes iron is mixed with other metals to make steel, therefore steel also sticks to a magnet. So if a magnet sticks to an object, the object is iron or steel.

We made our waterplay into a magnets fishing game and the sand a magnet minibeast hunt!

You will notice we are wearing bandana’s on some of our photo’s. That’s because later in the week we were Magnet Man superheroes! Ninja’s assemble!

At music time we made up a sing to the tune of Spiderman. We all sang and played the musical instruments whilst Colette played the guitar!

Magnet Man, Magnet Man,

Climbs a wall like a spider can,

Does he fall?

Does he fly?

No he can’t he’s a guy

Oh yeah, here comes Magnet Man!

I really don’t think Andrew Lloyd Webber has anything to worry about!

On Tuesday we built using magnetic construction toys. The children joined all the magnets resources together to see if they would reach from one end of the nursery to the other! It took ages as some of the magnets pushed and some magnets pulled. That was a puzzle so we had to find out about north and south poles! (not the Artic and Antarctic, that was confusing). Click here to find out!

Later in the week we watched a funny video about two mice using fridge magnets to climb a fridge door to reach some cheese sitting on top of it. They cleverly use another magnet to help them escape from a waiting cat! A bit like Magnet Man but with mice! Click here to watch.

You will be pleased to know that our beans have started to germinate! The children are very excited about climbing the beanstalk! Also, when we came to nursery on Monday our cress had grown. It look liked grass. We all had a taste a snack time, we were all underwhelmed!

I hope you have all managed to plant your sunflowers at home? The children all know how to do the planting and nurturing! We have all be using Purple Mash to create pictures of sunflowers. Well done to everyone who had completed the challenge at home. Keep a look out just in case your key person posts any new activities.

As you are aware we have had some glorious weather this week. It was so lovely to be able to play in the garden ‘coatless’. Have a look a the photos below to see what we got up to!

On Thursday it was World Book Day, so we had a day full of stories. The children love their stories.

There are lots of eBooks to listen to on the World Book Day website. Click here for audio books. Also, watch out for the World Book Day book tokens which are being sent out next week.

There are more stories for young children available on the Literacy Trust webpage. Happy reading!!

Lastly, as always I would like to say thank you for your ongoing support of nursery, we’re a good team! Please have a relaxing weekend enjoying each others company, but remember if you go our wrap up warm I believe it’s going to be a bit chilly (again!)! Brrrrrrrrr…..

This week...

A week of experiments and investigation. Our first experiment was to place white flowers in different coloured water to examine what would happen and why? The children were amazed to see that each flower took on the colour of the liquid we put it in. Wow, how did that happen?

We had a big discussion and then watched a video about the structure of flowers and how they ‘drink’. Everyday we watched the flowers change colour, except for the one that remained in plain water.Perhaps you could have a go at home?

Click on the button below to see everything that we have been doing in nursery this week!

You will probably understand why the children are exhausted by the end of the day.

We then decided to plant some broad beans to find out about germination and the life cycle of a plant. Click here to find out more.

So we could examine the root system more carefully we planted one bean on a clear pot…it’s not germinated yet!

Everyone planted their own bean and when they are strong enough we are going to put them in the garden. If they grow really tall and strong maybe we could climb up and visit the giant!

We found out that it takes time for a seed to germinate and we were eager to see shoots from our seeds so we thought we would plant some cress seeds, as they germinate in a week. Watch out for them coming home. You will be able to make egg and cress sandwiches for tea!

Also, look out for this half terms home link challenge. We will be sending a sunflower seed home for you to nurture at home and then bring back to nursery in the summer term. We are hopeful we can fill our garden with sunflowers, so no pressure! Click here to watch what plants need to grow. I am sure the children will be able to tell you what to do.

We have noticed the sunny weather has made all our daffodils and crocus bloom this week. We thought it would be a good idea to examine them closely and then paint a picture of what we could see. They look wonderful!

We have trying to learn all the parts of a plant. Click here to watch the short video that has been helping us to remember.

On Friday the sunshine was fabulous and we thoroughly enjoyed playing in the garden without our coats, hats and scarves! Bliss!

We started to prepare the garden to plant our meadow on Monday and then we worked a s team to get our water pump working. It took a while but we did it in the end. We spent most of the afternoon pumping the water and making bubbles! It was great fun and very messy.

Later in the day we cleaned the outdoor house and den. We found loads of spiders and slugs, yuk! We (Clare) carefully lifted them all out and placed them on a tray to watch what they did, everyone was fascinated (except for Barbara)!

Here’s a sneaky peak at what we will be up to next week.

Lastly, I have pinned some new learning on Purple Mash if you fancy taking a look. Although, if the sun is shining I would recommend that you take full advantage of it! Who knows how long it will last.

Have the most lovely weekend and we will see you on Monday for another fabulous week of fun and learning.

Barbara

This week...

It’s hard to believe we have already reached half term, time has just flown by. The children have had a very busy half term and we are now in need of a rest, we have seen them start to flag towards the end of the week.

It has been extremely cold this week but we have not been put off from going outside. We have wrapped up warm and embraced the chill factor. Have a look at the photos to see our outside learning!

We also carried on with our shape learning by finding ice shapes!! I must say we found some odd looking shapes too!

We have continued learning about number five and have drawn and decorated some ‘high five’ pictures. Clare also made a math’s game, it was great fun! I think we will be able to move on after the holidays…I can’t wait! Here are our high five photos. Click here for a math’s counting game and see if you can get your gold star from Miss Grizzlesniff.

On Wednesday we had a building afternoon. We made a long long road for the cars and then built bridges and tunnels. It was a team effort, the road even went underneath the table, it was sooooo long!

Also on Wednesday we made our own percussion orchestra and Colette played the guitar. We sang and played all our favourite songs and learnt a new one called ‘We’re going to the zoo’. You can watch it here.

During our P.E. session the children have been finding their calm by doing yoga. Why don’t you try at home Click here to ‘squish the fish’!

On Friday we all listened to a poem called Tiger tiger burning bright. It wasn’t very long but it did have some new words for us to think about. Click here to listen.

Here are the photos of all the other learning we have been doing this week. It’s no wonder we are all tired!

Finally, if you have any free time over the half term holiday click here for interactive games to play. Oh, and there is always Purple Mash, keep an eye out for ‘to do’s’!

I hope you all have a lovely week and that the weather is kind to us all. Remember to keep yourselves safe and well and we will see you all on the 22nd.

Barbara

This week...

Yet another week crammed full of fun and learning. We kick started the week with the song and story ‘Walking through the Jungle’, as the children are not quite ready to leave learning about wild animals yet. A group of friends then designed and made all the animals mentioned in the song. I have used their display at the start of this blog, isn’t it fabulous? If you want to learn the song at home click here.

We also enjoyed doing the ‘Animal Boogie’, click here to join in! You may need a rest afterwards.

We have started to learn about animals on the farm, although they are not quite as exciting as lions, tigers etc. Everyone decided that we could find out about both categories!

The children have been learning adult and baby names. Watch out for the home learning challenge that will be coming home this week. Good luck.

Click here for Animals and their babies, Part 1

Click here for Animals and their Babies, Part 2

I’ve also set some Purple Mash activities to do at home. There is a farm pairs game to play with a family member, try and get your sister or brother to play. Next, I have set a Mash Cam picture of a farmer to create, let me know what is happening down on your farm! Mummy or daddy you will have to help with the typing. I can’t wait to see them. Also, if you enter the Mini Mash indoor play room I have pinned some topics to explore. You choose which ones you would like to play. Have fun!

A big thank you and well done to everyone who has completed last weeks challenge.

In our exploration of number five we have got a challenge for the children at home.

In the picture below can the children count:

How many animals are in the grassy green?

How many animals are in the flower meadow?

How many animals in the whole picture?

I think the children will amaze you at their number skills. You ask the questions and then let the children count. I bet some will be able to count the animals in their heads! Wow!

We found some plumbing tubes in the outside store cupboard and the children put them in the sand. Everyone was very inventive and made some kind of machine, ranging from a magnet, binoculars, a fire machine full of hot lava, ouch! Look at the photos below.

It reminds me of a story. The Most Magnificent Thing, click here to listen to it! It’s one of my favourites. Maybe you could make a ‘magnificent thing’ at home this weekend. Send me a photo I would love to see it!

As if we haven’t already done enough this week we have been practicing our letter sounds, playing a memory game and animal pairs. You could try and make the memory game at home. All you will need are some small toys (we used farm animals), a tray and a tea towel. Memorise the things on the tray and then ask a grown up to remove one. Can you say which item is missing?

On Tuesday we found lots of keys; large keys and fairy keys. We thought the fairy keys were for the fairy doors in nursery, but we couldn’t find the right key to unlock the door! So we decided to sort them in to keys that were the same. There were so many of them it took ages!

Here are a collection of all the other activities we have doing at nursery. As you can see learning never stops at nursery!

I am sure you will understand why the children (and staff) are tired when they get home, we are so very busy the whole day long.

Finally, it remains for me to wish everyone a restful weekend, enjoying each others company. Fingers crossed for some sunshine like today so we can go out for a socially distanced walk with our family. Keep safe and I will see you all bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday.

Barbara

This week....

Firstly, a huge well done to everyone who completed the Purple Mash challenge this week. I loved seeing your mixed up animals; it gave me an idea! This week I have set you another painting challenge’ I would like you to listen to the story here and then create your own ‘Call me Gorgeous’ animal. Think about what kind of animal it could be, what it eats and where it lives. You can record your answers (maybe mummy, daddy or older bother or sister could help you). I can’t wait to hear from you all.

This week we have continued finding out about wild animals. The children found it confusing that they could go to the zoo to see wild animals and that they didn’t all live in their natural habitats. That led us to discuss conservation and endangered animals.

We have continued our exploration of number four by making an ice cream maths game. It’s really easy to make. Maybe you could make one at home home, watch out for the game to make in your book bags.

The children have spent a great deal of the week going on shape hunts. Shapes are everywhere click here to listen to the shape song and then you can go on a shape hunt at home too! Well done to anyone who finds a dodecagon! Click here for a shape sorting game.

If you enjoyed the Letters and Sounds animal noise game click here for another game. Ask mummy or daddy to click on a sound without looking at the picture, can you guess what it is? If you want to play a mystery sounds listening game click here.

We have been practicing our letter sounds and we are getting very good at recognising and saying the sounds correctly. Click here to listen to ‘here it and say’ it monster songs. Click on any of the sounds to listen to a phonic song. Happy listening!

We have found some great stories with animals in them but I think our favourite this week has been ‘The Runaway Chapati’. I promised the children that I would put it on our webpage so that you can enjoy reading it at home. In fact I bet the children could tell the story on their own!

We also read ‘Dear Zoo’, lots and lots!

Once again it has been VERY busy at nursery. We are learning so much! Try and have good rest this weekend because we have lots more exciting activities to grow our brains next week. We will be exploring farm and woodland animals. We have already started having a sneaky look at baby animal names. Watch out for more over the next couple of weeks.

Here are a few photos of everything else we’ve been up to this week! Enjoy.

I’m not sure what the weather forecast is for the weekend but I do hope you manage to get some fresh air, if only in the garden. After such a soggy week I’m sure we should be due some dry, sunny days. Whatever you decide to do, enjoy each others company and stay safe. We will see you all on Monday.

Barbara

This week....

Firstly, I would like to thank all of you who have emailed me with kind words, understanding and concern for our nursery community. I am hopeful that if we have no other reported cases we will be safe to reopen on Tuesday. I would however like to reiterate that if anyone develops symptoms of Covid that they book a test straight away and inform me as soon as possible. A positive case could push back our opening.

In the meanwhile, I have lots of activities that you can be doing at home! We are continuing with our exploration of animals and have moved on to ‘wild animals’, although the children are reluctant to let go of our ice experiments. This week we had to make more ice globes and we even made snow. Check out the photos below!

To kick start our new learning we watched a video all about animal sounds. Click here to watch at home. The children were very good at recognising the sounds, but were caught out with a few!

Click here to play a Letters and Sounds animal noises game.

We then all chose our favourite animal for us to discuss. We found out if they were herbivores, carnivores or omnivores; we loved those words. We even remembered that dinosaurs could also be herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. That meant we had to make a dinosaur world as well as a safari/rainforest for the wild animals. We had lots to do!

Later in the day we all danced the Animal Bop! Have a go at home, it’s really good exercise!! Click here.

If you click on the button below you will find more information about physical movement whilst at home.

Still eager to find out more about animals we set up our Noah’s Ark and read the story. We put all the animals in pairs to enter the ark. Click here to listen to Noah’s story.

We noticed that some animals have different patterns on their fur and some animals had no fur at all; some had scales, feathers or hard, hard skin. We decided to paint animal patterns and to make animal pictures. by cutting out shapes using animal print tissue and googly eyes. They look fab! We are going to make a display of them all.

We also looked at the ‘big cats’ and their fur patterns. We used a programme on Purple Mash to create a picture. I have set it ‘to do’ at home, so you may be receiving notification (if I have done it correctly!)

It’s hard to believe what we have achieved in only four days. Why not test your child’s knowledge with the following quizzes.

Click here for the ‘guess the wild animal’ with David Attenborough and as we have been reading lots of books with animals in them why not complete this ‘animals in books quiz’; click here.

We are continuing with our exploration of number 4 (and1, 2 and 3), so click here for ‘make and play’ number blocks. It would be great of you could concentrate on the numbers 1-4.

A big thank you to everyone who has completed their home learning challenge that was sent home this week. The pictures and videos of you cutting and them playing your matching pairs game were fabulous. Remember to keep practicing your cutting skills and to watch our for next weeks challenge!

If you want to continue finding out about animals click here. There are facts to explore, games to play and even more quizzes to do. Who knows what we can learn about! Find out lots for next week!! You could send me me some pictures, I love to see you learning!

Finally, I would just like to say, keep safe and well. I know it’s hard not being able to go out, but hopefully it will only be a few days and now you have lots to do!! If you want to access learning from previous weeks you can do so by clicking on ‘in Nursery’ at the bottom of each blog. This will open all earlier postings.

Please can you keep an eye on your emails and text messages just in case I need to contact you. If you need to contact me my laptop is on!

I look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday.

Barbara

This week....

Another week full of ‘finding out! We have continued with our learning thread about polar regions and the animals which have made such conditions their home. This has led us to explore new themes such hibernation, camouflage and nocturnal animals. Wow, have we been busy!

Click here to watch a fabulous video about camouflage, the children loved it. They have even learnt some of the animal names.

We have continued to find out about liquids and solids. We even made some ice globes and recreated the Arctic and Antarctic using ice cubes. We compared our winter months to the weather at the ‘poles’ and decided it was cold but not that cold! Next week we hope to make snow!!! We can’t wait!

We read the story Winnie in Winter. Click here to listen.

The children have enjoyed ‘number 4’ activities, it seems to be a favourite, mmmm I’m not sure why? We have counted ice cubes, collected objects to four and had a peek in our number 4 bag. There’s so much to learn.

I have put some photos together to show everything we have been doing at nursery.

Later in the week the children made bird feeders, we thought the birds would get hungry during the winter! We used bird seed and fat.

You may want to take part in the RSPB Garden watch. Click here to get involved and to find out more!

I’m sure you will agree we have been very busy! Over the coming two weeks we will be exploring wild animals and their habitats. Watch this space!

Whilst I have your attention, can I remind everyone to wear masks when dropping off and collecting your children. We really do want everyone to remain safe and well.

Also, can you make sure that your send your child to nursery in warm clothing. As nursery windows and garden door is left open for ventilation, it can get chilly. I would suggest layered clothing (vest, t-shirt, jumper/hoodies/ fleece), then if it gets too hot the children can remove and item of clothing (please make sure that all items are clearly named).

I would like to finish on a happy note. As you are aware Sarah has not been at nursery for a few weeks and we are all missing her a lot, but I am very pleased to tell you that she is fine and well and expecting a baby in the spring. Everyone is thrilled, but at the moment it means she is unable to come to nursery. I would also like to share the news that Paige has joined the nursery team whilst Sarah is off. She will be taking over Sarah’s key person group alongside Barbara. Please introduce yourself and ‘hello’ when you meet at the gate.

Finally, have a lovely weekend. Enjoy and treasure these (enforced) quiet times together and make some fabulous memories that will last a lifetime.

Barbara