This week.....

A ‘melange’ of a week this week. We are still enjoying finding about about dinosaurs but our gaze was hijacked when some of our friends told us they had celebrated Chinese New Year! Kung Hei Fat Choy- ‘wishing you great happiness and prosperity’

The children went in to the hall to celebrate by doing a dragon dance. We used large tins to make the drumming music! Fabulous! Take a look.

We also decided to make a Dino world in our dark dark den! Ooooooooh it’s so dark. We had to use torches to see which dinosaurs were in there! Arghhhhhh!

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone! It has been another week of hard work, no wonder we are all tired!

We have been lucky enough to spend some time out in the garden and Thursday afternoon even brought us some much needed sunshine! The children decided to make a ‘Dino Den’ in the garden out of the large wooden triangle. There was room for lots of dinosaurs, carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. The children wanted to camouflage the den so they covered it with some branches from the bush. Some children even had a go at camouflaging themselves (see photos for details!)

We love to experience lots of different music and sounds at Nursery and we found a story where two dinosaurs have a race!  We loved it! Click here to watch.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend together.

Colette.

Michelle’s blog

Hello everyone,

This week has been full of music and dancing. We learnt about Chinese New Year by listening to a story about Nian the monster and how people chased him away with loud noises and fireworks. We couldn’t quite manage the fireworks but we wanted to make the loud music. (of course!)  We performed our very own dragon dance accompanied by our very own Chinese drummers.

Click here for a lovely short story about Chinese New Year. Click here to watch.

We also had lots of fun making our own dinosaur music, slow and loud for a Stegosaurus and fast and quiet for a velociraptor. Maybe you could practise making dinosaur music at home.

We have also continued  practising our Fundamental Movement Skills of throwing, jumping and hopping by building a huuuge obstacle course in the garden. We felt quite brave as we learnt how to step up and step down on to the planks.

Then in the garden we explored how tyres can move because they are round and that they can move faster if they are higher up on the planks. We had a contest to see who could roll the tyres quickest or furthest.

We continued our Maths mastery by estimating how many snakes were in the box. Then we had to guess how many could fit in the box. We were so surprised when we found out we could fit 21 in the box! We had to put the lid on quick as we know those sneaky snakes might just slither everywhere when we are not here. We will have to watch out for them!

Have a really good weekend and we will see you next week,

Michelle

Steph’s blog

Hello everyone

What another busy week! We have spent a lot of time in the garden, it has been lovely watching the children play together and continue to practise negotiation and turn taking skills. We made obstacle courses that were tricky – the children helped each other and tried again and again like Sadie Spider.

Playing with the skittles meant we could practise our counting – we were determined to keep practising to knock down all 10! The children helped each other to put the skittles back up each time.

We have been practising our sounds this week – we used sound cards and matched objects to them if they began with that sound. You could write the sounds on some paper and go on a sound hunt around your house to find objects that begin with that sound. So far we have learnt s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, u, f, b.

We have enjoyed moving like dinosaurs this week – here is a link to the video we used.

This meant we could practise our gross motor skills (big movements) and keep our bodies moving!

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you all next week.

Steph 

Throughout the week we have been making cold colour collage pictures, brrrrrrrrr! First we looked at lots of different pictures of cold environments to see if we could spot which colours we could see, we then mixed the paints to the same colours and cut up bits and bobs we could find which complemented the paint.

The children’s challenge was to use all of the paper and to find a space for each colour paint without mixing them all together! That was a bit tricky but we were like Sadies Spider and try, try, tried….and we did it!

The pictures looked great when we had finished them. We have made a display in nursery and the school hall. Have a look!

Worship

You’ve Got A Friend in Me!

This week we discussed friendships with our friends and the different qualities of a positive/negative relationships. We learned to look to Jesus as a role model for being a good friend.

We continue to work hard on our numbers, shape space and measure and of course our sounds. We may even start a new number and some more sounds next week! Watch this space!!

Keep an eye out for this weeks home learning challenge. Enjoy!

Have the most fabulous weekend and enjoy being together with loved ones.

See you on Monday

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

This week we have been palaeontologists! Great another wow word to add to our list!

We have been digging for dinosaur bones and fossils in the sand! When we found a bone we matched it to the bone chart! Take a look!

The children have been so engaged in finding out facts about dinosaurs, even though some of the dinosaur name are extremely tricky to pronounce! We got there in the end!

If you want to go on some dinosaur adventures check out Andy’s dinosaur adventures and games by clicking here.

Michelle’s blog

Hello everyone,

We have had such a busy week this week. On Tuesday we were greeted by a winter wonderland when we arrived at nursery. Even though it was cold, this didn't stop us going in the garden and making the most of the snowy weather.  We had such fun making patterns in the snow with shovels and brushes.  This helps to develop our large muscles, and our smaller muscles too ready for starting school and holding a pencil for writing. Other activities to develop these muscles can be found here.

We have loved being palaeontologists this wee, and have explored and examined the dinosaur bones and fossils. We have also painted lots of pictures of dinosaurs.

We have really enjoyed PE as well, we are getting really good at hopping and jumping, and this week we have started to jump over the hurdles. Its so tricky to do this with both feet together, but we are practising. Maybe you could practise jumping over objects at home, with both feet together.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week.

Michelle

Steph’s blog

Hello everyone

What a great week we have had! We began the week being palaeontologists - we had fun putting on our special jackets and digging for dinosaur bones and fossils. We used magnifying glasses to help us and matched the bones to the pictures to work out which dinosaurs they belonged to. 

We also finished our fossils - adding some shimmer really made the imprints stand out! Hopefully you’ve all found your child’s fossil in their bag this week. 

We’ve enjoyed making dinosaur footprints in the playdough and some of us even made dinosaur cakes - they looked great!

We’ve worked hard this week to put our numbers in order. We are up to number 6 now (check out Numberblock 6 here!) so we stuck numbers 1-6 on the spikes on our dinosaur. We are all so good at recognising numbers! Try asking your child to show you 6, 5, 4 etc on their fingers. I bet they can show you lots of different ways!

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you all next week.

Steph 

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone! What a wonderful week we have had but my goodness we have worked hard!

We have continued to look at our numbers and the children have been enjoying looking at the Number 6 Numberblock. We enjoyed watching the number six try and get some cheeky sheep to sleep and discovered that two (or three) heads are better than one! Click here to watch. If that wasn’t enough we have even had a go at writing some numbers although it was a bit tricky it didn’t put us off!

Although it has been a freezing cold week we have wanted to go out in the garden and explore the beautiful white trails that Jack Frost had left for us. We definitely needed our hats and gloves on.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend together.

Colette.

Sounds with Geraldine Giraffe!

Click here for ‘b’

Click here for ‘u’

Click here for ‘f’

Enjoy!

Maths Mastery

This week we have been trying to recognise the spot patterns on a dice without counting (this is known as subitising). We are getting very good. Why not have a try at home! You could even make your own dice out of a cuboid tissue box and use sticky dots to make the dice patterns…alternatively, you could just play a boards game with a dice…. good luck and remember to have fun!

Keep a look out for a game coming home too!

Worship- Created to Love Others

Religious Understanding firstly helps children to understand why the Bible is so special to Christians, and secondly helps children to act out the Gospel account of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet, showing that He loves us and is a role model for us to copy in loving one another.

We will also be exploring our relationship with others. Building on the understanding that we have been created out of love and for love We will explore how we take this calling into our family, friendships and relationships, and teaches strategies for developing healthy relationships and keeping safe.

I hope you all manage to have a restful weekend, I believe it is going to be sunny tomorrow! Enjoy it whilst you can.

God Bless

Barbara

Dinosaurs, dinosaurs, can you hear their fearsome roars?

What a great start to our new learning thread! Finding our about dinosaurs is so very interesting, although we have found trying to say some of their names rather challenging. We are determined not to give in though. We have have been amazed at how many fact the children already know.

This week we have been fining out how we know dinosaurs roamed our planet. What clues did they leave behind? Fossils and bones. We decided to make our fossils using clay and making imprints of ammonites and bones (not real dinosaurs bones!). When they have dried our we will be sending them home.

We learnt some new and exciting ‘wow’ words such as extinct, carnivore, herbivore and omnivore. We categorised all our dinosaurs into meat eaters. plant eaters, flyers runners or swimmers. T-Rex was the definite favourite!

Click on the button below to print some dinosaurs pictures to find out about at home.

If you fancy making a dinosaurs pairs game at home click on the button. You will be able to practise your cutting too!

If you think you can move like a dinosaur click here! Enjoy!

This week we have been learning five new sounds c,k,b,u,f.

Click here for ‘c’ with Geraldine Giraffe

Click here for ‘k’ with Geraldine Giraffe

More from Geraldine next week!

Maths Mastery

We introduced numberblock 6 this week. Click here to meet 6.

We have also been measuring dinosaurs using small blocks. Click on the button to have a go at home. If you haven’t got any small block you could use pasta or buttons.

Purple Mash

If you have time take a look at I have pinned some work for you to explore in the mini mash classroom, also, if you click on the sounds cards in the virtual indoor classroom you will be able to find all the initial sounds quiz games and much more!!!!

Colette’s blog

Welcome back everyone! The Christmas holiday seems like it was such a long time ago now doesn’t it!!!

 What a wonderful beginning it has been to the spring term at Nursery. The children continue to amaze the Nursery staff with how well they can remembered all their learning. Our new thread on dinosaurs has been so exciting and the children have learned such facts as a Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut. We had a good look at a walnut and thought it was so tiny!! Thankfully we will never have walnut brains at Nursery because we are so good at listening!

We have continued to work on our sounds and have looked at ‘c’ ‘k’ ‘u’ ‘b’ and ‘f’ …we are getting good at these and the children are even helping each other to remember them.

We have had so much wet and windy weather lately but we have still been managing to get out in the garden for parts of the day. The children invented a game using the plastic spindles and the guttering! We had a competition to see who could make their spindle go the furthest…I have to say the wind did help us cheat a bit some of the time!!!

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend together.

Colette.

Michelle’s Blog
 

What a deliciously dinosaur week we have had!

The children have learnt lots of new words, such as herbivore and omnivore  as well as teaching the nursery ladies all the names of the dinosaurs.

We have made our very own fossils and painted pictures of dinosaurs.

We were also palaeontologists as we explored and examined our very own dinosaur bones. They were all different sizes and we had to sort them according to size. This took lots of concentration but we get there in the end.

Here are some fun facts about dinosaurs and some activities to try.

https://school-learningzone.co.uk/early_years_foundation_stage/dinosaurs/dinosaurs_eyfs.html

We found out that dinosaurs laid eggs, so we have made our own frozen eggs. Look out for some homework to do at home, designing a dinosaur egg.

Next week we are going to find out about different sized dinosaurs.

Have a lovely weekend

Michelle

Steph’s blog

Hello everyone and welcome back! It has been lovely to see you all after the Christmas break. The children have been so excited to tell us what they got up to at home and they have come back eager to learn about dinosaurs!

We have had a wonderful week – we have been learning how to say the names of some of the dinosaurs (something I need to learn too!), what they looked like and what they ate. We have been looking at their teeth to work out if they may be a herbivore, carnivore or even an omnivore. Our wow word sheet is getting very full already! It has been great to see the children so animated telling us what they already know.

The children have been amazing remembering the learning we did before the holidays and we have moved onto learning about number 6 and adding 5 more sounds to our sound wall! (c, k, u, b, f ). Click here to access Alphablocks A-Z and see how many sounds your child recognises. You will be very impressed!

This week we have made dinosaur fossils – we used clay and moulded it in our hands before making it flat and imprinting a fossil into it. The children used lots of describing words to talk about how the clay felt in their hands and we are looking forward to taking them home once they are dry. We left some clay out and used the dinosaurs to make and compare their footprints – we love getting messy!

We also enjoyed working together in the garden to make sure the bikes had enough petrol to go. The children took it in turns to come to the ‘petrol man’ or ‘petrol lady’ and ask how much petrol they needed - some of us counted to 20!

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you next week.

Steph

…and just a few extras from Justine! Just look at the fabulous Spikey Stegosaurus and T-Rex the children have make from reclaimed materials!

I think you will agree we have been very busy.

Library starts again this week. I think lots of dinosaur stories will be coming home!

Could I also tell everyone that we will be having another drop session on Wednesday 8th February 3.45 pm - 4.45 pm. All the team will be available to discuss your child’s learning and to answer and questions that you may have. Try and pop in to see us.

I’m not sure what the weather will do this weekend (probably more rain!) but either way have some lovely family time together and I will see you on Monday.

God bless

Barbara

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone and welcome back. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and you were on the good list!!!

All the children have been happy to be back at nursery and to tell us all about what Father Christmas had brought for them. You will be pleased to know that the nursery ladies were on the good list too…phew!

Over the past three days we have been reminding ourselves of the routines of the day and refreshing our numeracy and phonics before we continue on our learning journey next week…it will be all systems go! You may want to go on to Purple Mash to reinvigorate the children’s number and sound knowledge!

For our learning thread this half term will be finding out about…dinosaurs!!!! Before Christmas we had a whole group discussion about what we would like to learn more about and dinosaurs were a unanimous decision.

If you click on the button below to look at our planning. You will be able to join in with our learning at home. We are all sooooo excited!

Remember to have a restful weekend!

We will see you on Monday ready to ‘find out’ about dinosaurs!

God Bless

Barbara

Christmas Party 2022!!!!!

We had a fabulous time at the Christmas Party!

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!!!!

Party games and dancing!

Meeting Father Christmas.

Great fun was had by all!!!

‘Jesus is the gift that perfectly fits every heart’.

Christmas is inching closer and closer, and the children (and nursery ladies) are getting more and more excited!!!

Everyone has nearly completed their Christmas surprises- keep a look our for them coming home.

On Monday we went to watch the KS1 Nativity play. The children enjoyed being together with the whole school especially when they saw their brothers and sisters….one big happy family!

The frosty days have given us all great joy. The aew and wonder when we noticed that the grass was white!! Justine read us a story about Jack Frost and the children said he had been to their house too! We all melted the frost with our warm hands to make handprints!

It has been very cold though. The children have not wanted to spend as much time in the garden brrrrrrrr!

Colette’s Blog

Hello everyone.

The children were able to begin this week by watching KS1 Nativity. It was such a wonderful experience for them being in the audience especially as they know this beautiful story so well now. Last Friday afternoon the children were beginning to miss performing so much that they decided to build their own stage in Nursery and recreate their Foundation Nativity.  For the Nursery staff this really was the most joyful performance to watch because it showed how the children had really understood the true meaning of Christmas. They never cease to amaze us with how much they can remember in their ‘thinking brains’.

The freezing cold weather has given us lots of exciting things to find in the garden, we have found evidence of ‘Jack Frost’ everywhere. Lots of water had turned to ice and so we have had some lovely conversations about freezing and melting too!

May I just take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Happy Christmas with your wonderful families and thank you so much for everything that you do to support us at Nursery.

Enjoy the holidays and I’ll see you in 2023!

Colette

Steph’s Blog

Hello everyone

What another busy week! We enjoyed watching Year 1 and 2 in their Nativity performance at the start of the week – they were brilliant!

We loved performing in our Nativity so much that we’ve continued performing in the classroom and outside too! We made stages and took it in turns to perform and also be the grownups in the audience – it was so nice to see the children encouraging their friends and clapping for them. Lots of smiles all round!

We have made the most of the cold weather and ice and enjoyed putting small toys in bowls of water outside and explored what happened to them overnight – we learnt the words liquid and solid! It was fun trying to ‘free’ our toys in the warm classroom. The children also decided to make an ice cream shop outside – at least it was cold enough for the ice cream not to melt! This was a great activity to develop language skills and turn taking.

We have continued looking at our 10 sounds we have learnt so far – some of us even know more than 10! We enjoyed ‘crossing the river’ at carpet time. We had to listen carefully for our sound and could only cross the river if it matched. We are so good at recognising sounds on the carpet and also in our environment. Keep looking out for these over the Christmas holidays!

I hope you all have a lovely time with your families over the holidays – I’m looking forward to hearing all about it when we are back!

Steph 

Michelle’s Blog

Hello everyone,

This week has been so chilly but that has led to some wonderful learning about ice and the cold. This week we were scientists and we did our own experiments. We left some items outside in some water and wondered what would happen to them. The children said we were doing an ‘experiment’. We found out that the water had turned into ice and froze the items inside the ice. We also discovered that water when frozen is called ice and that it turns back into water when it gets warm.

We also discovered more about number 5 this week. We drew our high 5 fingers and played a game where we had to put the sheep in the field, always adding up to 5. Maths mastery is knowing that 5 can be made up in different ways. This knowledge will help children with addition and subtraction in later life.

We have also enjoyed watching the school children in their nativity performances, we do enjoy going in to the school hall and sharing special moments with the rest of the school.

Don’t forget party day is Monday 19th, party dress is essential!

Finally, I would like to thank each and every one of you for your support this term. It is truly appreciated. I am sure you will agree with me that we really do have the best children here at Our Lady Star of the Sea Nursery. They are all amazing!

Just as few extras from Justine!

Our freezing and melting experiment.

As Colette has already mentioned, we put lots of different objects in cups and bowls then covered them with water. We put them into the garden to see if they would freeze. We learnt that the water was a liquid and when it got very cold it turned into a solid…ice! When we brought the ice inside our lovely warm nursery it changed back into a liquid…water! We could then rerieve all the objects which had been trapped in the ice. Take a look…

Healthy Start scheme- what is it?

If you’re more than 10 weeks pregnant or have a child under 4, you may be entitled to get help to buy healthy food and milk.

If you’re eligible, you’ll be sent a Healthy Start card with money on it that you can use in some UK shops. Your benefit will be added onto your card every 4 weeks.

You can use your card to buy:

  • plain liquid cow’s milk

  • fresh, frozen, and tinned fruit and vegetables

  • fresh, dried, and tinned pulses

  • infant formula milk based on cow’s milk

You can also use your card to collect:

  • Healthy Start vitamins – these support you during pregnancy and breastfeeding

  • vitamin drops for babies and young children – these are suitable from birth to 4 years old.

If you need anymore information visit healthystart.nhs.uk/how-to-apply/ or click here.

Christmas Taskmaster

As in previous years i have sent home a Christmas Taskmaster activity sheet. If you are a loose end why not try a few of the activities. You may not have time and that’s ok! The important thing is to enjoy being together and having fun!

Purple Mash

Don’t forget to check Purple Mash for any Christmas activities!

Christmas Party

Don’t forget that the Christmas Party is on Monday morning 9.15 am (if it is not your usual day) until 11.45 am. We will be joining Reception and the rest of KS1 for lots of Christmas merriment. Party clothes a must!!!!

Packed lunches and hot lunches are as usual. We will be having birthday cake as a treat to celebrate Baby Jesus’ birthday at snack time. The children have been quite specific in their choice of cake. It must ne chocolate, with chocolate icing, Smarties and chocolate buttons!!! Sounds good!

We are also hoping for a visit from a very special person….I do hope I am on the good list!

Lastly, may I remind everyone that school and Nursery closes at 2pm on Tuesday.

Have a lovely weekend and I will see you for the last two days of the term next week.

God Bless

Barbara

Nativity Special

I’m sure you will agree when I say how splendidly the children performed in our Foundation Nativity this week. The nursery team are so very proud of them all.

If you cast your mind back to September… you can see how every single child has grown in confidence and self belief. It takes a great deal of courage to stand in front of an audience and perform and that confidence is down to nursery and parents working together. I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to you! You have trusted us with your precious children and we are grateful for that trust. We can’t wait to see where we can take their learning after Christmas!

After discussion with the whole team we though we would like to dedicate this blog to all things ‘Nativity’.

On Monday we visited the school worship area for the first time to look at the Nativity scene. The children all could talk about their part in the play and the true meaning of the birth of Christ. We then read the story ‘Little Owl and the Star, a Christmas Story’. Click here to listen.

After story we wrote a prayer on the prayer wall. The children wanted to write “ hello Baby Jesus” with lots of kisses.

Your child’s key person has written a short blog but all the Nativity photos will be at the end of the blogs.

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone.

I’m sure you will agree that your children have given the most amazing performance this week. It has been such a privilege for us Nursery Ladies to see them share this wonderful story with you all. Such a talented bunch! Thank you for all your wonderful  support from home too!

We have enjoyed watching a clip of the Nativity story being told by sand drawings. The children have enjoyed spotting all the characters in the story. Click here to watch it together.

We have continued to practice our sounds i,n,g,p,o and we are looking out for these sounds all around nursery too. We have also been doing our best to be ‘shape detectives.’ We are getting very good at spotting circles, squares, rectangles, triangles (especially upside down triangles) and even the odd pentagon and hexagon. Why don’t you ask your children if they can spot any shapes at home? Click here to watch another shape song.

Have a lovely weekend!

Colette

Michelle’s blog

Well, what a fantastic week that was! Well done to everyone for a fantastic nativity performance, we hope you enjoyed it! We have been practising singing our songs and we felt so amazing in our costumes.

As well as performing our nativity, we have continued to work on learning our letter sounds, some are a bit more tricky than others but we have worked really hard to think of words that start with our new sounds. Maybe your child can find some objects at home that begin with i, n, g ,p or o.

We have continued to learn how number 5 can be made lots of different ways and have enjoyed singing number rhymes. We love 5 sticky lollipops and 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed. Number rhymes are a fantastic way of reinforcing numbers and the concept of taking away.

If you are looking for inspiration for some ideas for learning at home, here are some of the best blogs and websites. https://www.theempowerededucatoronline.com/2015/05/my-guide-to-the-best-early-years-and-play-based-learning-blogs.html/

We have made the best of the weather, although it has been cold, we have had lots of fun making obstacle courses with crates and planks.

Physical play is so beneficial to children’s development in all areas, not just physical development but cognitive and personal and emotional development too. If you have some spare time over the Christmas holidays, go outside, ride a bike or climb at the park.  Any sort of physical activity not only grows children’s brains but also helps them to sleep better too– double win!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and we will see you next week

 Steph’s blog

Hello everyone

What a week! The children were all amazing in the Nativity performance. It was so lovely to see them all performing for you all and seeing everyone’s happy faces as they watched. All the Nursery ladies were so proud of them all. Well done everyone!

We have been busy this week making Christmas things to bring home – you may have noticed your child coming home with little bits of glitter on them! They can’t wait to show you what they have made.

We have been busy making obstacle courses in the garden this week – we had to be extra careful as the ice had made the garden all sparkly! We worked as a team to help our friends if they were struggling and we made some great creations.

We have continued spotting our sounds in the classroom – they are everywhere! We also played a game where we had to pop the sound bubbles – here it is if you would like to play at home (choose set 1 or 2 for the sounds we have been practising). Phonic pop click here

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you next week.

Steph 

Strep A information for Parents

As you will of heard on the news there have been cases of Strep A in communities all over the country. Lancashire County Council has sent out information for you to read. Click on the buttons below to find out more.

Phonics

Click here to watch Geraldine Giraffe find out about ‘p’

Click here to watch Geraldine Giraffe find out about ‘g’

Click here to watch Geraldine Giraffe find out about ‘o’

Nativity DVD

If you would like to order a DVD of Tuesday’s Nativity performance could you please send in £10 cash in a named envelope by Monday 12th December. You will receive a digital film code before we break for the Christmas holidays!

Lastly, I think all the children(and adults) have earned a long rest this weekend, Christmas is exhausting! We have lots more Christmas activities planned for next week…including making Baby Jesus a birthday cake!! The children have chosen a VERY chocolatey one covered in sweets!! No pressure…..

Thank you for being wonderful

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Christmas is fast approaching and over the weekend the elves have been hard at work. Nursery has been transformed into a sparkling, magical, fun, learning space.

We have put up our Christmas tree, made a Christmas bell music area, been threading with tinsel and bauble fishing in the water, as well as making ‘snow’ and recreating the icy North Pole. On Monday a cheeky elf came to nursery and parked his sleigh next to his magic door! Everyday since we have found him hiding all over the nursery!!!! Cheeky old elf! Take a look at our photos.

Only a couple of weeks left…here’s December’s planning!

Worship

As it is Advent, we have been making Advent promises. Each time we hear or see a friends grow an extra bit of love we can draw a bauble on our Chrismas tree poster!.

We have also recreated Bethlehem. The children are excellent at telling the story of the First Christmas. Click here to watch ‘The First Christmas’.

Nativity

Don’t forget:

  • Nativity dress rehearsal Tuesday 6th December - this performance is for the rest of the school. A DVD is being filmed for you to purchase. If you want your child to be on it (and it is not their usual day) please make sure they are in nursery for 9 am and collected at 10.30 please.

  • Parent performances Wednesday 7th & 8th December- tickets only If you want your child to take part (and it is not their usual day) please make sure they are in nursery for 9 am and collected at 10.30 please.

Christmas Party

Monday 19th December. 9.15 -11.45 am (if it is not your child’s usual day in nursery) Keep a look our for the party invitation in your child’s blue bag. Party clothes and dancing shoes essential!!!

Maths

Number 5

Five arrives to get a band together-and gets the party started-with a big high five!

We have been learning:

  • Five is one more than 4

  • To count to 5

  • To line up 1-5 in order

  • To recognise number 5

    Phew we’ve been busy

    Click here to watch high five!

Also five and friends discover a hole that makes their heads fall off! We learnt that:

  • a number of a group can be changed by adding to it or taking from it.

  • Addition and subtraction of 1

  • Number bonds to 5

Click here to watch.

You may want to watch Hide and Seek. Five is so good at hide and seek, she can find the others without looking up from her book-but how? Click here to find out!

Christmas games to play at home

Click on the link and enjoy lots of fun Christmas games to play! Enjoy!

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone.

Another extremely busy week here at Nursery! There has been lots to do! Rehearsals are well under way for our upcoming Nativity and we cannot wait for you all to see it.

We have been looking at number 5 this week and understanding how many different ways we can make 5 (e.g. 2+3, 1+4, 5+0) the children have been playing a game using 5 number cubes and two cups. We hide some cubes under one cup and some cubes under the other. Then we lift up one cup, see how many cubes there are and then we can guess how many cubes are under the other cup. It’s great for working out number bonds! Click here to watch number 5 playing a hide and seek game!

The children do enjoy music times and we like to listen to lots of different kinds of music. One of our favourites stories includes a piece of music called ‘Toccata and Fugue in D Minor’  by JS Bach which tells the story of two giants building tall towers. Click here to listen! It even inspired us to build our own tall towers.

Have a lovely weekend!

Colette

Steph’s blog

Hello everyone 

What a lovely week we have had for the start of Advent. Our nursery is looking very festive and the children are really enjoying singing our Nativity songs - we had a dance on Tuesday and the children chose tinsel to dance with. They all had a great time! We can’t wait to perform for you next week.

We have learnt about Number 5 this week. We are enjoying working out different ways to make up the numbers - as the numbers are getting bigger we are finding out more and more ways! We watched a Numberblocks video (click here) that showed us even if the blocks are arranged in a different way, the total number of blocks is still the same. We had a go at stamping these ourselves with paint and they look great on our Numberblocks display! 

 We have learnt more sounds this week! We are so excited when we see the sounds we know in books or around the classroom! Let us know if you find any at home! Our new 5 sounds are (i, n, p, g, o). 

 Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you next week for Nativity week!

 Steph 

Michelle’s blog

Hello everyone, what a busy week we have had this week. We have continued to work on our letter sounds and have learnt five new sounds, i,n,p,g and o.

We have had a tricky challenge to match the letter pebbles, but we worked very hard to complete the challenge.

This week we had a visit from some cheeky reindeer, numbers 1 to 5, who hid around the room and we had to spot them. They can’t hide from us!

We also had lots of fun playing in the snow we had made!

Our workshop has been a hive of industry, all full of glitter and sparkles for some very special gifts for some special people later in the month.

We can’t wait to welcome you all to our Nativity performances next week. We have been working very hard practising our songs.

See you all next week, have a good weekend.

Here’s a few extra from Justine!

Geraldine Giraffe

‘i’ click here to watch

‘n’ click here to watch

Watch this space for more next week!

Lastly….

Please remember to collect your Nativity tickets from nursery. Correct payment in a named envelope please. Thank you.

As you can see everything is getting a bit hectic!!! We are all trying to keep calm!

Have the most wonderful weekend in readiness for an even busier time next week.

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Another lovely week at nursery, even though everyone appears to be a little‘under the weather’. Nonetheless, we have battled through and got to Friday with smiles on our faces.

We have started to talk about Advent and what that means in the Christian calendar. Everyone is very excited about getting ready for Baby Jesus’ birthday…we have already started to make preparations! More on that next week.

On Friday we went in to the school hall to sing our Christmas songs alongside Reception…we are getting very good!!

Ooodle of noodles!

We had great fun on Monday. We coloured some noodles pink and some noodles blue! We then practiced our snipping skills until they were all cut into tiny, tiny pieces. Take a look!

Nativity

If you have not completed your order form (the form is on last weeks blog) you will need to do it a.s.a.p., as the school office needs to calculate numbers. If you can send in money to nursery when tickets have been allocated that would be great!

Your key person should have emailed you this week about parts for the Nativity, and if you need to provide anything. If there are any problems just let me know.

Worship

This week through Mollie the Cat and Billy Bird talking about their respective journeys from kitten/egg to adult animals, we explored the natural human cycle of life, focusing on what we could remember about our development so far and what we know will happen as we get older. This was underpinned by the religious understanding that growing up is part of God’s plan for our lives and that we are loved by Him at every life stage. Click on the button below to see the slides.

Michelle’s blog

Hello, 

We have had such a busy week. Our rehearsals for our Nativity are really have coming along, we can't wait to perform for you all. Hopefully you seen the message on last week’s blog about how to get tickets. We are getting so good at singing and doing all the actions. 

Thank you to everyone for your generous donations to our Children in Need Pyjama Day, it was such fun coming to nursery in our pyjamas and with our teddies too.  

We are really working hard to learn our letter sounds, and this week we have begun to learn some new sounds. Here is a quick reminder of the sounds, remember it’s the pure sounds your child needs to learn e.g., ‘mm’ not ‘muh’  Click here

We have spent some time this week playing games with our friends. It's so important that we can learn to take turns but sometimes it's just so hard waiting when we want to win! We do have to remember that we can't win all the time. The shopping game is our favourite this week, but we have also played outside games and games on the computer too. Some ideas for games to play at home. Click here.   

This week in PE we have further explored our feelings with the Cherry Tots. Our favourite cherry is still Cheeky Cherry and we love it when the cherries dance together at the end. Doing PE gives us the opportunity to practise putting our shoes and socks on, at first this was so tricky but we keep practising and we are getting better every week.  

Although the weather wasn’t great this week, we have still managed to get out for lots of outdoor play. We can't believe that we still have so many Ladybirds in our nursery garden, and we have also seen some slugs and spiders too. Maybe you can go on a mini best hunt in your garden, I’m sure there are lots of creepy crawlies hiding out there. 

Have a lovely weekend everyone and we will see you all next week! 

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone.

We have been practising our songs this week for our wonderful nativity and Nursery Ladies are trying very hard to remember the actions that go with the songs….we definitely need more practise. I wonder if your child can sing you any of the songs.     The cast list has been finalised and now we truly cannot wait to tell you the wonderful Christmas story.

We have been looking closely at the number 4 and understanding how many different ways we can make 4 (e.g. 2+2, 1+3, 4+0) the children can do this by using their fingers. Click here to watch numberblocks. We have been singing lots of number songs about sausages sizzling in the pan, current buns in the bakers shop and our favourite 5 bananas on the banana tree. Numbers have been everywhere!! Even the number monkeys have been sneaking off from their usual spot and have hidden themselves all around nursery (the children just keep on finding them…they are almost too good!!!!)

Have a lovely weekend!

Colette

Steph’s blog

Hello everyone!

What a week we have had with the weather – we’ve been inside, then outside then inside again! We loved seeing a rainbow on Wednesday and spoke about all the colours we could see.

We have continued to make up funny stories this week – we wrote a story about a cat that went on the bus and then wrote a letter! The children have great imaginations! We also had a go at sorting objects based on their initial sounds, using the 5 sounds we have learnt so far (m, a, d, s and t). The children are working hard to listen for the sound at the beginning of a word.

We have continued looking at Number 4. The children are coming up with all the different ways to make 4, they have shown us on their fingers and also with gems under cups! They have been trying to trick the nursery ladies by moving the gems around under the cups – but somehow the total is always 4! We have also been doing some lovely work for our Numberblocks display in the classroom.

PE has been great fun this week. We have looked at different ways of moving – we danced with ribbons and we also had a go at walking on benches and jumping off the raised platforms. Some of us were a bit wary but very proud when we did it!

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you on Monday

Steph

…and a few extras from Justine!

As you can see it’s been another fun week at nursery…we can’t wait for next week!

Have a restful weekend…it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

God Bless

Barbara

This week....

Another busy week.

Monday was ‘messy Monday’ and oh my goodness did we make a mess! We has fairy filling with tiny implements and bottles. The sand was red and glittery!!!! We also made fluffy slime! We read the instructions very carefully but it all went horribly wrong, arghhhhhhh! In the end it was all fine, we made up a different recipe, with different ingredients. We all loved playing with it nonetheless.

We wanted to try and make sudsy gloop, get the bubble mixture and make dough but we ran out of time…..but there is always next Monday?

We are doing really well learning our Nativity songs and actions. We have now got all our costumes out of storage and will be giving out parts next week. We have got all the costumes for each part but would like to ask if everyone could bring in one strand of silver tinsel each. Stars may also need a white t-shirt and leggings to go underneath their costume but we will let you know next week.

As you know, our Foundation Stage Nativity Play is being staged on Tuesday 6th December and Wednesday 7th December at 9:30.

Each Nursery and Reception family may have up to 4 tickets at £2 each across 2 performances (no more than 2 tickets per performance). We need the form—link attached—to be completed by you no later than Friday 25th November. Tickets will only be allocated to people who have completed the form and will be sent out in envelopes via classes, the week beginning 28th November . Payment for tickets will be made on ParentPay for Reception children (Parents you will need first to activate your account using the log in letters which we are sending today). Nursery parents can pay for tickets by sending cash in a named envelope please, to Nursery.

We must point out that we have a maximum capacity of 120 ticketholders in the hall and with the stage plus 60 children, staff and audience, the Hall will inevitably be hot and somewhat crowded. We know how much everyone loves seeing their little ones but advise you, particularly if there are any vulnerable family members, to be aware that this is a confined space. We shall of course be arranging a professional digital film to be made of the play, details will be sent later.

Sounds

Geraldine Giraffe

Click here for Geraldine and the ‘s’ sound.

Click here for the ‘t’ sound.

Click here for the ‘d’ sound.

Learning to Talk

he DfE have launched new online resources to promote the importance of the home learning environment to boost children’s language and socio-emotional development in the early years.

These expand the NHS Better Health Start for Life website with a full range of evidence- based, detailed and accessible advice for parents on activities you can do with your child at every stage between birth and 5 years old.

Click here to find out more.

Worship

This week we looked at examples of challenging situations that we could face. We read the story about Daisy’s birthday and that actions can sometimes have consequences; that when we make mistakes, we should say sorry and ask for forgiveness. This led us to explore how Jesus forgives us.

Click on the button to read the story at home.

Click on the next button to to look at the slides.

Visit from Stuart Robinson.

As you know we had a visit from Stuart Robinson, a rugby Paralympian. He devised a series of exercises for the children (and staff) to take part in. It was so exciting and the children loved every minute. We joined in with Reception and Year 1, cheering each other on to complete each task…..phew!

Take a look at the pictures

Colette’s Blog

We began the week by making a mess!!  For some reason we just can’t seem to help ourselves!! Our ‘mess’ involved the creation of our own fluffy slime (it did smell wonderful in Nursery!) We were very lucky with the weather in the afternoon so we were able to play outside! The children are really enjoying building their own obstacle courses and we have been noticing some great balancing skills (no one wants to fall in the hot lava or get eaten by sharks!!!) We were also able to practise our skills on the balance bikes and the scooters…. the children are getting better and better.

The children decided to make a car garage to help repair some faulty vehicles which also included a petrol station. Don’t worry……the fuel in Nursery garden is entirely free and it never runs out (there was a bit of a queue though!!)

We enjoyed dancing to the Cherry Tots in our Hall time and we were introduced to two new Cherries, ‘Shy’ and ‘Cheeky’. We think Cheeky Cherry is our favourite one yet.

I hope the weather manages to stay dry for the weekend!

See you next week.

Colette

Michelle’s Blog

Hello everyone

What a busy week we have had this week. We are well and truly underway with our preparations for our Nativity performance and we have been practising our songs and actions.

Our Worship this week has concentrated on our actions and the consequences of our actions. We have been practising how we can make our friend happy by passing a smile and saying sorry. As always, we try to make good choices but we also need to learn what to do if we do make a bad choice. We read a story about Daisy and her birthday and made lots of good suggestions about how Daisy could make better choices. We learnt it’s important how we speak to others as this helps us to build friendships.  We also passed a smile around our circle.

We continued our investigations on shape and went on a shape hunt. The shapes were hiding everywhere!  

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week

Steph’s Blog

Hello everyone!

We have had another busy week! We started the week getting messy – we continued learning about colour and explored coloured sand, glitter in the playdough and made fluffy slime. This was fun and also very sticky! We spoke about how it changed when we added each ingredient. It smelt great too!

This term we are going to try and make up our own simple stories. We had a discussion as a key group and we wanted to write and learn about dinosaurs, unicorns and princesses. We have had fun dressing up as different characters and making up our stories in our play. The children also found different props and linked them to stories they already knew .e.g a red apple for Snow White. We also had a go at drawing some of our ideas – we used our story dice to help us and we came up with some great ideas for our stories. We will do more of this over the next few weeks – I can’t wait to see what the children come up with!

We have continued to enjoy outdoor play, especially the bikes this week. We have worked hard to practise pedalling the bigger bikes and added the trailer to see if we could ride the bike with our friends on the back – this was hard work! We enjoyed sitting in the back and having a relaxing ride though!

We are working hard to practise our Christmas songs ready for our Christmas Nativity. I’m sure you have heard your child singing them at home. We can’t wait!

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you on Monday

Steph

Here’s a few extras from Justine!

Curriculum Evening

A big thank to everyone who managed to come along to our Curriculum Evening. It was so lovely to see all our families back in school….a true community working together. Take a look at these few photos!

Children in Need Pyjama Day

What fun day! We made Pudsey Pink Playdough, coloured in Pudsey pictures, took photos of everyone with their teddy and another with our Pudsey blanket!

Have a look in the childrens books bag….there is an activity to do at home too! When you have completed it either send it back to nursery or send us a picture!

Here’s are just a few photos of our day!

Termly Drop in Session

Tuesday 29th November 3.45-4.45 pm we will be having our termly parent drop in session. If you would like a quick catch up with your child’s key person just pop along. No appointment necessary.

Advent Mass Cancelled

Sadly this year, Father is unable to come to school to conduct our Advent Masses.

Finally, here’s hoping that the weekend weather is slightly better than during the week…it’s been very wet! Christmas shopping is beckoning!!

See you on Monday!

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Another fabulous week at nursery! We have completed our firework/colour display, complete with sounds that we heard on Bonfire Night. We splatted paint everywhere just like Jackson Pollock!!! Take a look at the photos.

Take a look at our field of poppies!! We all made a remembering poppy.

We have also updated our snack list. Please take a few minutes to read it. Click on the button below.

Worship

This week we used pictures and short stories of Freddy Teddy and his friends experiencing different feelings. The children discussed how they are feeling, what feelings can look like and why they might be feeling them. We also worked on empathy and understanding of others, and how to help. Click on the button below to read the story.

Read Write Inc

We have continued learning and playing with the sounds m,s,a,t,d. We have been looking for them in our environments, buried in the sand, we have played ‘pinny time’ and much much more.

Click here to watch Geraldine Giraffe find objects beginning with ‘m’.

Click here to watch Geraldine Giraffe find objects beginning with ‘a’.

More to follow!!!!

Maths Mastery

Four is the new block on the block and he can’t wait to share how much he loves to be square!

We have been:

  • learning 4 is one more than 3

  • counting to 4

  • the structure of 4 as a square number

  • recognising 4 items without counting (this is called subitising)

Click here to meet 4!

Stuart Robinson - Paralympic Athlete Visit

On Wednesday 16th November, school is being visited by Stuart Robinson. Stuart is a gold medal winning Paralympian, who represented GB in the recent Olympic games in wheel-chair rugby.

Stuart’s visit is part of an event for Sports for Schools. This is an opportunity for the children to take part in a sporting event organised by Stuart, and to then hear about his story as part of an assembly. He will be with us all afternoon.

Stuart is incredibly inspirational. I had the pleasure of meeting him last year and hearing about the life-changing events that led him to where he is now. I have no doubt that the children will take a huge amount away in terms of attitude, resilience and living life to the full.

This event is also an opportunity to raise money for our school - for PE, Sport and Active Learning.

The children have all brought a sponsor form home for them to collect as many sponsors as they can before the event next Friday.

Craig McCann visited our school three years ago as part of the same event. We managed to raise over £1000 for our school - it was fabulous! Let’s see if this year we can do even better!

Could all our Wednesday children please come to nursery in trainers and PE clothes as we will be joining in with school at this event!

Children in Need

Friday 18th November 2022 is Children in Need Day. The children are invited to pay £1 and wear pyjama’s for the day. Please no slippers, sensible shoes or trainers. It’s always a fun day and a good way of donating to charity. All proceeds will go to Brian House.

Brian House cares for local children with very complex needs and life-limiting conditions. They face huge challenges, but with our help they can continue to support children and their families at every step of their difficult and often unpredictable journey…

Colette’s Blog

Hello everyone,

We have reached the end of another busy week…where do the children get all their energy from??

At the beginning of the week we discussed our experiences of Bonfire night and the children told us all about the wonderful colours and sounds they saw in the night sky.

Afterwards we turned our discussion to Remembrance Day and we wondered what poppies looked like and wanted to know why some people wear them in November. To help us understand we have been watching a beautiful children’s animated story where we were able to see how some small animals reacted to the fighting during WW1.   Click here to watch the story together.

We have also been looking at lots of numbers!! We have been introduced to number 4 and have been playing lots of number games. There have been some monkey numbers hiding all over Nursery too.

Finally, remember to keep your eye on the website for any important information that you might need.

Have a lovely weekend together.

Colette

Michelle’s Blog

Hello everyone

We have had another busy week. We have continued to make firework pictures, using lots of fluorescent paint and glitter. We have also learnt about Remembrance Day and why we wear poppies. We had a go at painting poppies and have made a display or our artwork. We also went to Chapel and sang our loudest songs, we hope that the neighbours like our singing too.

In PE we have danced with the Cherry Tots, exploring sad and glad and also yes and no. Just look at our sad faces! Its not easy pretending to be sad when we are having so much fun.

Our learning continued as we consolidated our knowledge of the letter sounds, ‘a’ ‘d’ ‘m’ ‘s’ and ‘t’ with lots of games and challenges. We also met number 4 this week and explored how we can make number 4 in lots of different ways.

We have also practised really hard being independent., putting our shoes and socks on after PE and putting our coats on by ourselves. Here is a really good method for children to do this by themselves, ask your chid to show you how thy do it. Click here to watch.

Here’s a few extra photos from Justine!

Steph’s Blog

Hello everyone!

What a fun week we have had! I have watched some lovely role – play taking place this week. The children have enjoyed making food for each other and taking on different family roles in the house inside and outside. This is great for developing the children’s friendships and their language and conversational skills. It has also provided the opportunity to talk about our likes and dislikes and how we are all different.

We have also been helping each other and taking turns, especially in the garden. Barbara brought us in some big new logs – some of us were a bit wary so our friends helped us get up on them and walk across them. It was great fun!

We have carried on practising our five phonics sounds this week (m, a, s, d and t). The children are really excited when they find them around the classroom or in their books. Maybe you could find some around the house at home and send us a picture. We also played ‘Snowball Phonics’. Each child got one of the sounds on a piece of paper, then screwed it up into a snowball and threw it into the middle. We then found a new snowball, opened it up and had a look to see if it was the same sound as before or a new one. We also found a friend with the same sound.

We finished the week with a minutes silence to Remember those who were hurt in the war. We have been discussing this over the week and have made some lovely poppy pictures for the classroom and in our learning books. This allowed us to continue our discussions about feelings. Here is a link to the CBeebies video we watched: Click here.

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you on Monday

Steph

Curriculum Evening

Our long awaited CURRICULUM EVENING is being held on Thursday 17th November 6pm -8 pm. Come along with your child to find out more about our Jesuit Virtues and how they underpin everything that we do in nursery and school. You will also have the opportunity to find our more about what we mean by ‘Cultural Capital’, Read, Write Inc and much more!

It is always a fabulous evening and a wonderful opportunity to learn alongside your child and the staff.

Please come join us!

Nativity

This week we have started to learn our songs for the Christmas Nativity. In previous years ( pre Covid ) we always joined Reception for a whole Foundation Stage production. I am pleased to say that this year there will be live performances! We can’t wait!

The children (and staff) are so very excited!

The Nativity performance dates are:

Tuesday 6th December- this is a dress rehearsal performed for the rest of the school

Wednesday 7th December- Parent performance

Thursday 8th December- Parent performance

Parts have not yet been allocated but we are hopeful that we will have all the costumes that we need. Sewing volunteers if we need them are always useful….let me know if you can help.

Whilst we are talking all things ‘Christmas’ can I remind everyone that the Christmas Party is being held on Monday 19th December 9.30-11.30 am (if is not your child’s usual session), otherwise times are the same.

I think that could be enough information for this week! Oh, just before I go, don’t forget to keep checking Purple Mash for more home learning!

Enjoy your weekend

God bless

Barbara

This week.....

Welcome back everyone! I hope you managed to have a good rest over the holidays…I think you may have needed it. The next half term is going to be so very busy.

We have started the week with a huge splash of colour! we have been finding out about how we can mix two or even three clours to make new colours. Click here for the colours song and here for mix the colours song! We has such good fun and made some very unusual colours (and a whole lot of mess)! Check out the key person blog to see what we have been doing.

Read Write Inc

This week we have introduced the sounds m, a, s, t, d. If you want to practice and hear how to say the sounds click here .

Click here to access the parent guide to Read Write Inc. Please remember over the next couple of week we will only be focusing on m, a, s ,t, d.

Click on the button below for your speed sound set. It will show you the sequence we will be introducing each sound to your child. We need to walk before we can run!

If you want to have a go writing the sounds fab! Here are the rhymes to help you. Click on the button below.

As Bonfire Night looms we have had extensive discussions about firework safety….and Guy Fawkes! The children are all very excited but we have been instilling how to stay safe. Sorry no sparklers!

We have read stories and made firework sounds. We have even created firework splatter pictures and ICT pictures!!

Colette’s Blog

Welcome back everyone!  It has been so wonderful to see the children spring back in to Nursery after the half term holiday and be ready to learn.

We began the week looking at colours and we all talked about which one was our favourite. We decided to make a tally chart so we could see which colour we liked the best. The children had a go at mixing some coloured paint…we had to predict what colour our paints could make….it was messy but very fun! Please apologise to your washing machines!!

We have been continuing to look at numbers 1,2, and 3 and finding numbers everywhere! The children have been learning some new sounds…why don’t you see if they can tell you about them.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend together.

Kind regards

Colette

Michelle’s Blog

Hello everyone, hope you all had a fantastic half term! The next few weeks will be very busy as we have so much planned. This week we begin by learning all about fireworks. Noisy, loud, sparkly, colourful, and that’s just been the children as they pretended to be fireworks. We also learned that we have to be safe around fireworks and bonfires, as always, we like to follow the rules. We then made our very own fireworks pictures just like Jackson Pollock.  We  We have also made our own firework pictures on the computer as we explored mixing colours.

Stephanie’s Blog

Hello everyone!

We’ve had a lovely first week back, the children have enjoyed telling us what they got up to over the half term break.

We have started to explore colour this week, which has led us to discussions about Bonfire Night, fireworks and Diwali. One of our friends in Nursery celebrated Diwali with her family over the half term holiday. She brought in her special outfit and showed her friends pictures of how she celebrated. We spoke about how celebrating festivals is similar across religions – she said prayers and lit candles just like we do in church. She also wore special clothes, had a special family meal and received a gift – we said it sounded a bit like celebrating Christmas! The children loved seeing pictures of their friend on the big screen in the classroom. Some people make Rangoli patterns for their house to welcome in their guests and bring good luck. We had a go at drawing some with chalk in the garden and also decorated some with different coloured glitter on paper to take home. Here is a song about Diwali you can watch at home: Click here.

We have spoken about our favourite colours and explored what happens when we mix colours together. We were amazed to find out some colours mixed together make a whole new colour! It was great fun working out which colours we needed, and also adding more and seeing what happened. Barbara tried to trick us by hiding the paint on the table with shaving foam but we managed to mix it all and find the colours underneath! The white made our colours a bit lighter and we all enjoyed making handprints in our floor books with the colours that we made.

We have discussed how excited we are to see lots of different coloured fireworks in the sky this weekend, and how to be safe around fireworks and sparklers. I hope you all have a lovely weekend – I am looking forward to hearing about the colours you have spotted. I have put a firework painting activity on Purple Mash for you to have a go at – I can’t wait to see your pictures!

See you on Monday

Steph

 

and here’s a few extra photos from Justine !!!

Worship

Emotional Well-Being.

We have been talking about likes, dislikes and self-acceptance. Click on the button below to read the story. and discuss at home.

As you can see we have started the half term with a BANG (no pun intended. Next week will be just as busy as we find out about poppies and Remembrance Day. There will be more on ‘sounds’ and we will be finding out about the number 4. I can’t wait!

Have a fabulous weekend and see you on Monday.

God bless

Barbara

Time for a rest!

It’s hard to believe that we have been at nursery for seven weeks! Half term starts today and we return on Monday 31st October, hopefully bright eyed and busy tailed. The second half of the Autumn Term is even busier as we have Bonfire Night, Remembrance Day and of course Christmas. Nursery along with Reception are already thinking about our Nativity! Watch this space for more information.

As I say every week we have not stopped. Our number work is coming along leaps and bounds, we have even started to make number bonds to 3! We have been:

  • comparing numbers 1, 2 and 3 - ‘bigger’ and ‘smaller’

  • Ordering numbers to 3

  • Understanding that 3 is made of 2 and 1 or three 1s

  • Recognising the numerals in the environment

After the half term break we will be starting ‘Read Write Inc’. We will focus on five sounds every couple of weeks. The children love learning sounds. I will be posting on the blog a sound mat and activities so you can join in the fun at home!

We have been discussing at length about oral health and food that out teeth don’t like. I have noticed that everyone is questioning everything that we eat! Sorry.

Harvest

On Monday the children joined Reception for a short Harvest Festival.

We gave thanks to Our Lord for all our food and our lovely world but we also remembered those children who may be hungry and need our help. We then danced around the hall, performing our Harvest samba. Here is the Harvest Festival song if you would like to have a dance at home. Click here .

After all the fun of our dancing we got down to some serious business and helped to pack all the generous donations for the food bank. Click here if you would like to know more about the food bank in St Annes.

Colette’s Blog

Hello everyone! Just because it was a short week didn’t mean it was a quiet one….oh no! The children and Nursery Ladies have definitely not been resting! Sadly, we have had a few bouts of illness in Nursery but I hope that the half term holiday allows everyone to rest and recharge those tired batteries!

On Monday Nursery and Reception shared their own Harvest Festival celebration in the hall. We thanked God for all the wonderful things that grow on our planet earth and we even had time to dance our favourite ‘Harvest Samba!’ Thank you to all of you that donated the tins of soup!!

As always, there have been lots of building, puzzles singing and number fun. We have been continuing to look at number 3 and all the ways we can make a three… 2 plus 1 more or 3 and zero!

In our hall time we tried out some new songs, the floating song using some different coloured ribbons and the bean bag song where we had to follow the instructions and try not to drop the bean bag!!! Click here to have a go yourself!

We have finally arrived at our half term holiday. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support and I hope you all enjoy a lovely half term together.

Kind regards

Colette

Michelle’s Blog

A shorter week than normal but that doesn’t mean we have been any less busy than normal. I think we have packed more learning into our week!

We continue to learn about healthy food and how to make sure we make healthy choices with our food to care for our teeth and the importance of exercise by taking our PE lessons outside and having lots of running races on the school field, including a running backwards race. This was tricky but lots of fun!  We then could feel our hearts beating fast in our chests, this means we are getting lots of exercise to keep our hearts healthy. Hopefully you can all get outside during half term, here are some ideas for you to try. Click here.

We have all had a fantastic start to our nursery year, and I can’t believe it is half term all ready. I have been amazed at how well the children have settled in and taken to all the routines. The children are all working so hard on their independence skills, especially putting their coats on. Next half term I will be making sure we are getting lots of practise using scissors, I hope you all enjoyed the cutting and sticking homework I sent home. Click here for some more scissor skills activities, which are really good for developing hand muscles needed for holding a pencil and writing. Click here.

Finally, I hope you all have a wonderful half term and I will see you soon.

Steph’s Blog

Hello everyone!

What a lovely last week of term we have had. We have enjoyed role play this week, making food and drink in the house and the sand area outside. We’ve also looked after the dolls making sure they were warm enough to go outside and we even went on an aeroplane! We all lined up on the bridge and our pilot flew us to a lovely hot destination! Of course we needed snacks and drinks too – we’ve had lovely discussions about family and favourite things. It’s been so nice listening to the children having conversations with each other and continuing to develop their friendships.

We have continued to practise numbers 1, 2 and 3 – we found things in the garden and tried to match them up to the correct number. The children have developed their mathematical language without even realising – ‘I need one more!’, ‘Now I have 3! You have 2 and I have 3!’. Barbara also tried to trick us by hiding numbers and slowly revealing them but she can’t trick us! We are great at recognising 1, 2 and 3 now!

On Monday we had our first assembly in the hall with Reception. The children loved it, especially doing the Harvest Samba around the hall. We gathered all our tins of soup for the people that have hungry tummies, thank you for all your generous donations.

The children have continued to love the ‘Where’s the Monkey?’ video and have been singing the song themselves and hiding our monkey – look out for the photos of it on our heads! One of our friends even brought in his guitar from home and we sang the song together on the stage outside. I went outside this morning and found the monkey in one of our tubes! Here is the video again if you would like to watch it over half term and hide things around your house! Click here

I hope you all have a lovely week off together – get lots of rest and have lots of fun!

See you soon

Steph

Just in case you are at a loose end next week click on the buttons below for a couple of ideas! Enjoy! It would be lovely if you could send us some pictures of your adventures to share during circle time!

When we return after the holiday I will be posting the events for the half term….keep a look out so that you don’t miss anything!

I hope you all manage to have some family time and a chance to make memories that will last forever. Keep safe and well. I will see you on the 31st!

God Bless

Barbara

This week....

What a soggy old week!!!

We started the week by thinking about all the parts of our body that help us to do things, without us realising, such as our brain, heart, lungs, stomach….you get where I’m going with this?! First we watched a short video about body parts. Click here to watch at home. We then went for a jog around the garden to exercise our heart! When we came back to nursery we felt our heart beating inside our body….that was really exciting!

We have continued to talk about our thinking machine (brain), breathing machines (lungs) and stomach and what happens to the bits of food and drink we eat that our bodies don’t’ use! That was a very interesting conversation! BUT the message was very clear if we eat unhealthy foods there is no goodness for our bodies to take and store! I must remember that this weekend!

Colette’s Key Group

Hello everyone! What another busy week!

We have continued to look at our wonderful bones and we know that our smallest bone is in our ear (called a stirrup) and the largest bone is in our leg (called the femur!) We have danced our skeleton dance and continued to move and shake our bones in our hall time!

Numbers have also been around Nursery this week! The number 3 Numberblock has made an appearance and we have been singing the song ‘1, 2, 3 everybody look at me’ click here to watch and join in at home!

The children have been noticing that even more leaves and sycamore seeds have been  falling down from the trees so we have enjoyed sweeping them in to piles and looking at all the different colours. Some of us have made our own paintings using the beautiful Autumn colours!

We have certainly noticed that it is getting a bit colder now....I had better start looking for my favourite bobble hat for after the half term holiday!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend together.

Colette

Stephanie’s Key Group

Hello everyone! It has been so lovely to be with the children again this week! We have enjoyed spending time in the garden and the big hall developing our physical skills – we also managed to practice our numbers doing this too! We made some ‘action cards’ together – you could try this at home. We used the numbers we have already met – 1 and 2 and our new number this week, 3! We had to do 1 hop, 2 claps, 3 jumps – my favourite was 3 wiggles! The children’s favourite was definitely 10 ‘unicorn jumps!’ – something new for me to learn! It was great fun.

We have also been counting around the classroom – I’ve heard lots of comments this week - ‘I have 2 bears’, ‘I have 2 ice creams’, ‘I have 3 plates’. Some of us even noticed if we join 2 and 1 together it makes 3. You can watch Numberblock 3 here .

This week we have spoken all about teeth and how to care for them. You should all have taken a toothbrush and toothpaste home with you – we’d love to see some photos of you using them! We have spoken about foods that are better for our teeth and some that we shouldn’t have all the time to help keep our teeth healthy.

We practised our positional language – some of us have found this a bit tricky and this video helped us practise the language: click here. The children loved trying to spot where the monkey was hiding next! Try it at home and see if your child can remember how to describe where the monkey is. We also explored this by making a train in the garden, asking our friends who they were sitting in front of or who was behind them. Positional language can help your child to be more independent – many instructions in school will involve them understanding where they need to be, or where something is that they might need e.g. ‘your snack is in your tray’, ‘the cups are on the shelf’.

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you on Monday!

Steph

Michelle’s Key Group

This week we have continued our learning about our bodies. We worked as a team to build the skeleton, making sure we put the bones in the right place. Great team work everyone!

We have also been very busy practising our sticky kids songs. This is a new song that we have loved this week. Click here to have a go at home!!! I hope you have lots of energy!!!

When we run, we can feel that our hearts are beating very fast. We know this mans we are getting lots of exercise and looking after our bodies.

We have also learnt about foods that are good for us and foods that are not so good for us and some of these foods are not very good for our teeth. Hopefully, you will all have found the new toothbrush and toothpaste in your book bags, we hope you use them to keep your teeth shiny and white.

We used some healthy foods and did some art work, making prints with apples and oranges. This was a bit messy but we concentrated to make a pattern of three.

We continued our healthy exercises by riding the bikes and computers in the garden. We are trying really hard to use the pedals on the bikes, its tricky but ewe are getting really skilled at this. We have also been practising putting our coats on by ourselves, this is something we can all practise at home too!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week.

Michelle

 

We would like to thank everyone for coming to parents meetings. All the team have been overwhelmed by your lovely comments. You must believe us when we say it is an absolute privilege to be able to work alongside yourselves and your children. There truly is no better job. Thank you.

Next week will be a shorter week as we close for half term on Thursday. I think we are all in need of a rest and recharge. If you click on the button below you will be able to see what we will be learning…we will also be continuing with our mighty quest to make healthy choices and look after our bodies. On Monday the children will be joining with Reception for a short Harvest Festival assembly. I must thank everyone for all their kind donations, you have been so generous.

 Have a fabulous weekend everyone and I will see you next week.

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

What a week! We have been finding out all about our skeleton and where it is hiding! We have looked at the skeletons of animals too!!!

Making fruit Kebabs

This week we made healthy fruit kebabs…mmmmmm, they were yummy! We chopped up the fruit and then carefully put the pieces onto a kebab stick!

Worship

Me, My Body, My Health

Over the next few weeks we will be meeting the story book characters of Freddy Teddy, Mollie the Cat and Billy Bird.

We will be learning about our uniqueness, including celebrating differences and individual gifts, talents and abilities. We will be have been learning about looking after and using their God-given bodies. Click on the button to look at this weeks slides.

Stephanie’s Blog

Sadly Steph is poorly so hasn’t been in nursery since Monday. We are missing her lots! So guess what…. I have been a stand in for your children this week! It’s been great fun.

On Monday we met Henry our skeleton. We talked about all the bones in our body and how they work! We found our there are 206 bones in our skeleton and they help up to stand up, run, wave, hop and dance, in fact they help us to do EVERYTHING! We have chalked a picture of our skeleton, have a look at the picure of our busy bones display!

Click here to find out more about body parts.

We have also been talking about how to stay health and the foods we should be eating. We played a game where we had to make our meal only using healthy choices! Click here to watch what humans need to stay healthy. There is even a quiz at the end! Next week we will be finding out about how to take care of our teeth!

In PE we danced to the bones song. Click here to do it at home!

Number 2 is still being explored click here to watch and sing along to the Number Rap 2!

Hopefully Steph will fit and well and be able to come back to nursery next week.

Enjoy your weekend

Barbara

Colette’s Blog

Hello everyone! The weather has been so mixed this week. One minute raining, then sunny, windy and one day it was so windy we had to wrap up really warm. The wild wind has delivered us a huge amount of sycamore seeds all over the garden. As you can imagine, we have just had to throw them up in the air and pretend they were helicopters!!! We seem to have an amazing number of ladybirds too (lots of spots to count!)

We began the week looking at our lovely bones and talking about the fact that we all have a skeleton inside our bodies, if we had no skeleton we would all be like a wibbly wobbly jelly. We have made some chalk drawings of our skeletons….they looked so amazing that we even made a skeleton display! We had fun dancing to a skeleton dance . Why don’t you try it at home? Click here.

We have enjoyed our hall time this week with lots of walking, head, shoulders, knees and toes (watch out it goes really fast at the end), the stand-up sit down song and some lovely cool down time too.

What another busy week!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend together.

Kind regards

Colette

Michelle’s Blog

This week we have continued to learn about our bodies and have produced some fantastic pictures of our skeletons using chalk. We have learnt the names of our bones and how to keep our bodies fit and healthy. Did you now we have 206 bones in our body?

As well as looking after our skeletons we have also had fun learning about how we can keep our bodies healthy by eating healthy food. We made delicious fruit kebabs. They were lovely.

We have continued to learn all about number one and number two. We had a tricky challenge to work out how many of our body parts we have one of and how many we have two of and make a number chart. This made us use our brains to think really hard. But we got it in the end.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week.

We have had lots of soup donation for our Harvest Festival…thank you soooo much for your generosity! Have you tried the Harvest Samba yet?

It’s been a bit of a wet and windy week and the children have been reluctant to go into the garden…especially on Friday. Wow we had never seen rain like it! We wondered if we should start to build and Ark! One of the children suggested that we bet a boat.

Let’s hope this weekend isn’t too rainy.

Have a restful weekend and see you on Monday.

God Bless

Barbara

Harvest

Wow, what a week! We have found out all about how to make bread and wheat. We all watched a powerpoint about my friend Pip. Click on the button to see the slides.

We then made some bread…it was so yummy! We have been talking about all the foods that are made from wheat/flour. On Friday morning we read the story about a Runaway Chapati. Click here on the button below to read the story. On Friday afternoon….we ate chapati’s…..mmmmmmm

Harvest Festival

On Monday 17th October school will be off to Church to celebrate Harvest Festival. We have decided to have our own mini Harvest Festival in nursery (it will probably go on all week!!). As in previous years school and nursery will be collecting food for the Food Bank. Nursery has been asked to collect tins of soup. Any donations would be very welcome, just send them into nursery next week (by Friday please) and we will make sure they are delivered.

To help us celebrate Gods Creation of our wonderful planet we have all been doing the Harvest Samba! Watch out Strictly, we are very good! It’s a 10 from me! Click here to have a dance at home. Get your sparkles on!

If you still have any energy left click here.

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone! It’s been another very busy week here at Nursery.

We started the week with Barbara’s friend Pip who shared his journey to his friend’s farm where he saw the farmer gathering the wheat. Pip taught us how to make bread so we decided to have a go at making our own. I won’t say any more but I’ll let you have a look at the photos so you can see for yourselves!!  Needless to say it was yummy!

The children had also been noticing how many leaves had been falling in Nursery garden. The colours were so varied and beautiful and we decided to make a colourful autumn display by collecting some of the leaves and making leaf prints!

As always there has been lots of time spent in the garden making obstacle courses and practising our skills on the tricycles and the scooters.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend together.

Kind regards

Colette

Michelle’s blog

 Our week has been so busy, we have had so much fun and learnt so much. Our main focus has been Autumn and learning about the changes in the weather and the environment. We have used our new Autumn collecting baskets to forage and collect our Autumn treasures. We then used our foraged items to practise our cutting skills. This is such an important skill for the children to master, so we are giving them as much practice as possible. See here for some fun activities to develop cutting skills. Click here for some cutting activities to try. We also used our foraging treasures to make a very big Autumn collage. The children were fascinated by the shapes and colours of the leaves and made some wonderful leaf prints for the autumn display.

We have also had a very physical week, with lots of Wacky races, such as backwards races and  hopping races. During PE we have practised listening and following instructions to Sticky Kids. Here is one of our favourite songs. Click here to have a go at home.

Our learning continued as we met Numberblocks number 2. We had a tricky challenge as the number 1 and number 2 baskets got mixed up. We had to work hard to put everything back in the right baskets, working out which items belonged in the number 1 basket and which belonged in the number 2 one. But, we worked it out, like Tommy Turtle, we kept trying. Click here to meet number 2.

Thank you to everyone who came to our parents meetings, and hopefully I will catch up with everyone soon. Don’t forget to check Purple Mash this weekend.

Have a good weekend, see you next week!

Michelle

Stephanie’s Blog

Hello everyone!

What another fun, busy week we have had. We have really enjoyed talking about Autumn and all the changes that have been happening to the trees and the weather. We collected different leaves from the garden and made leaf printing pictures using the paint. This was a great activity to look at different colours and talk about the textures of the leaves.

We spoke about our upcoming harvest festival and how we can help others by collecting food to donate. Your child may have told you about our Harvest Samba around the nursery – we loved singing about all the foods we can grow and eat. We’d love to see some photos if you have grown anything in your garden, or if you tried the potatoes we harvested from the nursery garden last week.

Making bread was so much fun! We took turns to add the flour and warm water to the bowl and made our own bread rolls to eat at snack time. We really enjoyed spreading butter on them ourselves!

We have continued to look at ourselves this week and all the things that make us the same and different. We have enjoyed books that show us different cultures and spoken about how we can be friends with everyone. We have practised different ways to say ‘hello’ and ‘happy’ in other languages and also using our hands to sign. Here is a video you could watch at home to practise ‘hello’ in different languages: Click here to find out more.

We have looked at Number 2 this week – Click here to watch We paired up with our friends to practise going from 1 to 2 and enjoyed doing 2 hops, jumps, claps etc outside in the garden. We also tried to see if we could fit 2 friends in the red twirly seat which then progressed to 3, 4 and even 5! It was a bit of a squeeze! We also led on the floor to see if we were taller or smaller than the shark we had drawn – have a look at our scared faces!

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you on Monday!

Steph

 I think you will agree it has been a fun week!

I’m sure about this weekends weather but enjoy it anyway. Get on the wellies and waterproofs and have a splashing time.

See you all on Monday

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

After a sombre start to the week we have slowly managed to get back into our routine. The weather has been a bit hit and miss and on Thursday we realised that we haven’t seen ‘real’ rain at nursery for such a long time! The children kept saying “it’s raining!”.

We are slowly working our way through our monthly plans but keep getting side tracked by things that keep happening in nursery. For example, on Friday during worship we had been talking about Gods creation of our wonderful earth when all of a sudden we remembered it is going to be Harvest in a couple of weeks. This led to a conversation about if God hadn’t made the sun, rain, land…how could be grow food for the farmers to harvest and for us to eat.

Seizing the moment we went into the garden to harvest the potatoes we had grown. The children dug them up and then washed them. We have sent a potato home for you to cook for tea!!!

Have a look at these fabulous photos!

Next week we will talk more about the seasons and harvest. The children are wanting to make bread!!!! Watch this space, Paul Hollywood better watch out!

Colette’s Blog

Hello everyone! Just because it has been a shorter week doesn’t mean that we haven’t done as much!

As always, there have been lots and lots of storytelling, some by the Nursery ladies and some by the children. They all seem to have such hungry appetites for books….they just love stories!!! The children have been so inspired by the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ that they decided to make their own brick houses in the garden. Even the ‘Big Bad Wolf’ appeared to try and blow it down!!! Click here to watch. We are continuing to enjoy ‘Little Rabbit Foo Foo’ (making his bad choices!) and also ‘Lima’s Red Hot Chilli’!

The fine weather earlier in the week allowed us to spend lots of time in the garden and we made some wonderful finds. There were lots and lots of conkers…I think we counted 23 at one point! The cases were really spikey as well! We also discovered quite a few ladybirds….even some baby ones too. Some of us were lucky enough to go on a little walk through the ‘Environmental Garden’ behind the school field. It was so lovely and we even found a bench for a sneaky little sit down!!

Inside nursery there have been lots of water and sand play, puzzles, large construction (don’t worry…we did wear our builder’s hats) and we made some wonderful flower gardens.

I told you we had been very busy! We had better have a good rest this weekend.

Kind regards

Colette

Michelle’s Blog

What a fantastic busy week we have had this week.

We have continued learning about how God created us all to be individual and unique. We have explored our similarities and differences and discovered all about our families. Click here for Along Came a Different

Hopefully you will have received your log in details for Purple Mash and will have seen the activity for your child’s self portrait.

We then explored houses and homes in different stories, going with Goldilocks for a walk in the woods and hiding from the Big Bad Wolf in our houses we had built in the garden. Click here for another lovely version you can share.

We have explored further afield this week, gong on an adventure to the Environmental Garden, where we discovered a rainbow bench. We took the wibbly wobbly path around the school field and visited the chapel before we discovered some stars and a boat.

Thank you to everyone who has sent in snack in your child’s blue bag, this really does help them to be more independent at snack time and is a good practise for school. Please remember that snack should be a piece of fruit or veg, please, and grapes should be sliced lengthways for safety. Click here

Please keep a look out for a letter in your child’s blue bag with a template for a leaf for our Wishing Tree display. Please write your wishes for your child’s time at nursery and we will display them on our Wishing Tree- hopefully we can make your wishes come true.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all next week!

Michelle

Stephanie’s Blog

Hello everyone! We have had another lovely week in Nursery. Our friendships have continued to grow and I have seen some very happy faces this week!

We have continued to look at Number 1 this week – we are great at choosing 1 object to add or take from a group and a favourite activity this week has been working together to build a tower. We all added 1 block each to see how tall we could make it. We also checked if it was smaller or taller than us! Some children wanted to add a second block to make it even higher which will lead us into looking at Number 2 next week.

We worked hard this week to practise our listening skills. These skills can help with learning new things and with developing friendships and engaging with the world. We have been listening to what we can hear in the garden and inside – we’ve worked hard to work out which sounds are which when it is very noisy. We’ve enjoyed playing a game with the instruments – I showed the children 5 instruments and played them so they knew what they sounded like. I then covered them and played one to see if they could work out which one it was. You could play this at home with things you have around the house – make it tricky if they find it too easy!

We have been ‘Have a go Tommy Turtle’ again this week – we have worked hard on challenges in the garden. Some of us have tried hard with the stilts and kept going until we could do it. We also found a broom and worked together to ride it – it was tricky to get more than one friend on at a time but we managed it!

We have been developing our body awareness. We named different parts of our body and looked at ways we are the same and ways we are different. We have made different faces on the big screen, making them look different each time. ‘Simon Says’ was a bit tricky but lots of fun! We spoke about who lives in our house and drew pictures of our family. The children really enjoyed telling us about who is special to them. You could draw pictures at home and ask your child to tell you about the new friends and nursery ladies they have met in school.

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you on Monday!

Steph

Fundamental Movement Skills

Fundamental movement skills are a specific set of skills that involve different body parts such as feet, legs, trunk, head, arms and hands. These skills are the “building blocks” for more complex and specialised skills that children will need throughout their lives to competently participate in different games, sports and recreational activities.

This months challenge is for the children to practise balancing on one leg  and then the other for five seconds without wobbling or putting the other foot down! Good luck ‘have a go’ Tommy Turtles

 Children’s Dental Health

Information For Parents

BRUSHING TEETH

• Brush children’s teeth twice a day with a small headed toothbrush with medium-textured bristles and a family fluoride toothpaste.

• Brush last thing at night, just before bedtime and only have water to drink afterwards.

• Brush one other time of day

• Children younger than 3 years old should only have a small smear of toothpaste on their brush.

• Children aged 3 years and older should use a pea sized amount of toothpaste on their brush.

• You should encourage your child to spit out the toothpaste and not to rinse afterwards.

 St. Annes Library

The library is holding a Fun Palace at St. Annes Library on Saturday 1st October, 10am to 4pm. Click on the button below to find out more.

I feel it’s a rather long blog this week, sorry. It’s just we have so much that we like to share with you all. Don’t forget to check Purple Mash and here’s a little game for you to play at home! Click here and happy counting!

Have the most wonderful weekend and we will see you on Monday for an even busier week at nursery!

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Another wonderful week! The children have all been so happy and I’m so impressed as to how they have been coming into nursery independently.

As always a busy week. By Friday we are really tired and some of our friends sometimes fall asleep!

School Admissions 2023 -24

Click on the buttons below if your child is due to start school in September 2023.

Here is what we have been up to this week.

Worship

This week we have been finding out how God created our wonderful earth. The story of Creation. If you click on the button below you will find the slides that have helped us to understand. We have made the slides into a book for our worship area. Perhaps you could make a book at home?

Next week we will be learning a song to help us remember the story of ‘creation’. Here it is for you to have a sing song at home!

Barbara’s Blog

Here’s a surprise! I bet you were expecting Michelle. Sadly, Michelle has been poorly this week so has not been in nursery every day. Don’t panic though I have taken over her key group for the week and have had the most wonderful time...I do hope the children have too….

We have started the week by meeting ONE. A little block fell from the sky, meets her numberling and discovers one wonderful world, singing and counting to one. It’s all about the oneness of one! Click here to watch https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08bzzns/numberblocks-series-1-one.  We then made a number collecting bucket to find lots of one objects, one car, one banana, one pencil….you get the idea. Click here to watch ‘one’

Our one wonderful world fits well with this weeks worship….more about that later…

We have had such fun in the garden….building tall towers, cars, tricky balancing and climbing. We also made dinosaur world and ramps and tunnels for the cars…..wheeeeee!! All great fun.

I suspect the children have been telling you all about Little Rabbit Foo Foo… it has quickly become one of our favourites. The children tell me that he makes ‘bad choices’. Click here to watch at home.

Some of you have been asking about criss cross legs. We have been practising really hard not to get our legs in a tangle! We have also been trying to put coats on all by ourselves. We put the coat on the floor, stand by the hood then bend down to put our arms in the sleeves We can then flip it over our heads….have a try at home. The children are very proud.

This week we have  met ‘Have a go’ Tommy Turtle. When anyone says ‘I can’t do it’ we say be like Tommy Turtle and ‘have a go’. Maybe this is something you could try at home. We read the story at story time and the children have been ready for a challenge.

Watch out in your child’s book bag for their Purple Mash log in details and how to access the webpage. I have pinned a parent video for you to watch. On other weeks keep checking to see if any work has been set. Please let me know if you have any trouble.

Lastly Michelle will be contacting next week to arrange a quick catch up meeting to discuss learning and how everyone is settling into nursery. In the meanwhile I am here for you, feel free to drop me a quick email. I always like to hear from you.

Under such sad circumstances try and have a lovely weekend and I will see you on Tuesday. I have great things planned!

Barbara

 Colette’s blog

Hello everyone. I would like to begin this week’s blog by saying thank you to you all for continuing to allow us to support your child as they come to Nursery in the morning. We do appreciate how difficult it can be, especially when your child is upset, but you have all been fantastic. Also, putting your child’s snack in to their blue bag does help your child to become familiar with the routine and to find their own tray!

This week we have been looking at the Number one. We watched the story of Numberblock one where a little block falls out of the sky and discovers one wonderful world!

This week some of the children have been asking for the story ‘Lima’s Red Hot Chilli’ and they have been enjoying joining in too. Click here to watch.

After reading ‘The Colour Monster’ last week we are continuing to look at our emotions and practise finding our ‘calm’. With this in mind we have had a go at some ‘Rainbow relaxation’ where we pretended that our arms were paintbrushes then we could paint a rainbow. Click here to have a go yourselves!  

In addition to all of this we have played a teddy bear counting game, completed jigsaw puzzles on the big screen, played with a dinosaur world, sang the magpie song (a good listening game), found some conkers in the garden and painted a portrait of ourselves!!

I think we will definitely need a good rest this weekend.

As you are aware Nursery is closed on Monday for the Bank Holiday so the week will begin on Tuesday. I will also be contacting you to arrange a convenient time for us to have a parent’s meeting.

Kind regards.

Colette

Stephanie’s blog

Hello everyone! What a great week we have had. It has been lovely to see how settled the children are after just one week, even if they are a little upset when you drop them off they are settling quickly and having a wonderful time. I’ve loved seeing all their happy faces this week.

Our focus this term is ‘All about me’ - this week we have worked hard to paint a self – portrait. We looked at our faces in the mirror and worked hard to work out what features we needed to paint and what colour they needed to be. This resulted in smiles and giggles – especially when we were looking at our lips. They all look great on the wall in the classroom, you will be able to see them when you come for your catch up meeting (I will send you all an email to arrange this – hope you can all make it).

We have learnt about number one this week – the children have enjoyed watching the story of Numberblock one and finding things to put in our number bucket e.g. 1 shell, 1 brick, 1 gem. You could try this at home with objects around the house or garden. We have also been doing this outside – 1 jump, 1 hop, 1 ball etc.

We have continued to look at the Colour Monster – it is a great way for children to become aware of, and talk about their emotions when it can be difficult to put them into words. We have made a display in the classroom – if anyone has had a go at colouring the monster we sent home last week please send it in and we can add it to the display. We have practised ways to calm down and relax and have enjoyed ‘rainbow yoga’ this week – here is the link to have a go at home.

Our friendships have continued to grow and it has been lovely listening to the children talking to each other and working together in their play – we worked together to build a car in the garden complete with seats and wheels and we’ve also enjoyed singing songs together in the tree house. Making potions in the water was also a favourite activity this week! We have been proud of ourselves for ‘having a go’. A few of us found it tricky to jump off crates or walk over the bridge but with a bit of practise we managed it! We were so proud of ourselves!

I can’t wait to see you all again next week, as you are aware Nursery is closed on Monday so I will see you on Tuesday.

Have a lovely weekend.

Steph

Remember…

To look out for your Purple Mash log in details and instructions so you can have an explore over the weekend. Check to see if your child’s key person has set any work!

Check on all the key person blogs, there may be some different work to explore.

Look out for your child’s key person inviting you to a catch up time.

Lastly and most importantly have some lovely family time this weekend. I realise that recent events may have been overwhelming but we can hold each others hand until the darkness passes.

God bless and I will see you all on Tuesday.

Barbara

Such a fabulous start to nursery!

It has been such a fabulous start to our year at nursery. I understanding that as parents you can be quite anxious when your child starts nursery. So a massive thank you for being brave!

As in previous years we would love you to get involved in our learning by supporting us at home. I know this can also be tricky but don’t worry do what you can

If you click on the button below it will tell you everything we are hoping to do this month…fingers crossed! You will notice that what we do not manage to get through will roll over into the next month. Also some skills will be present for the whole year!! Practise makes perfect so they say! If there is anything you want to ask about either catch me at the gate, drop me and email or speak to your child’s key person!

I’m not sure if you have managed to dip into the documents I sent home during the summer term so I will attach them again for you. Click here for the EYFS Development Matters and on the button below for What to Expect When. They are a good start to understand your childs development.

This year we are doing things in nursery differently. Monthly newsletters will not be sent out. Instead we are putting everything in this webpage. I usually write it on a Friday, it will have your child’s key person blog and images of their learning for the week.

You will also find parent information and home learning activities! Pencil it in your diary it would awful for you to miss any important information or special events!

Anyway here is what you have all be waiting for….your childs key person blogs.

Stephanie’s Blog

Hello everyone! What a wonderful first week in Nursery we have had. I have loved meeting you all and getting to know you. This first week has been about you getting to know all the nursery ladies and our new friends. We have learnt lots of new names already!

The children have begun to learn our nursery routine – they have been practising listening at Carpet Kingdom times and washing hands for snack and lunch – they have been great! ! We have snack time in the morning and afternoon – it would be great if you could put their healthy snack in their blue bag rather than their lunchbox then it can go straight into their tray in the morning. They have enjoyed independently going to their tray at snack time and seeing what is there to eat.

You will see from the photos that we have had lots of fun exploring nursery and playing with all the new things. We’ve loved playing in the garden and there has been lots of mark making and crafts taking place too. We have also read the Colour Monster and spoken about our feelings – the children may come home saying they are feeling ‘yellow’ or ‘blue’. Here is a link to the story so you can watch it at home. Click here to watch! We are sending home a colouring sheet so you can talk about feelings at home. Check your blue bags.

We can’t wait to see you all next week – we have lots planned and it’s going to be fun!

We are also going to make a display with all our family photographs on, so we would love it if you could bring a photograph of your family for us to add to it – you can email this too if it is easier.

Have a lovely weekend!

Steph

Michelle’s Blog

What a wonderful first week we have had! It has been really exciting meeting all our new starters. The children have had so much fun exploring all the toys and activities on offer.

This week has been all about getting to know each other and getting to know the routines of nursery.

We are all learning everyone’s name and the children have started to develop friendships already. Snack time has been very enjoyable with lots of chatting and laughing. We have snack time in the morning and in the afternoon, so don’t forget your child will need a healthy snack for these times, e.g. fruit or vegetables. It is easier for the children if this are separate to their lunch box- they can be placed in their book bag and go straight in their tray at the beginning of the day.

Story time has been great fun this week. We read Owl Babies and Shark in the Park. Watch Owl Babies here

We have also practiced our counting and subtracting by singing 5 Sticky Lollipops. Click here if you would like to sing along.

The children have all amazed me with how well they have all settled and they all tell me they are coming back next week!

Next week the children will be starting to paint their self portraits and to talk about their families. It would be wonderful if you could send in a photo of your family for our display. This can be emailed if you prefer.

Have a lovely weekend.

Michelle

Colette’s Blog

Welcome everyone! What a wonderful beginning it has been to our autumn term at Nursery. The children have amazed the Nursery staff by allowing us to guide them along the path and in to Nursery where their new adventures can begin.

We have been meeting new friends and saying hello to some existing friends too. We have found our trays and had a look at which picture we have (mine is a cat!) We have also found the toilets, water machine, the place we hang our coats, where we put our lunch boxes (if we have one) and our bags and most importantly where the toys and books can be found. What an achievement!

Thank you for the lovely family photos that have been coming in. We can’t wait to put them up on our display. Don’t worry if you haven’t sent one in yet, there is still time. Also just a quick reminder that we have two snack times a day so if you could send your child’s snack in their blue bag that would be a big help!

Finally, remember to keep your eye on the website for any important information that you might need.

Have a lovely weekend together.

Colette

Worship this month

Created and loved by God

Created and Loved by God explores the individual. Rooted in the teaching that we are created by God out of love and for love, it helps children to develop an understanding of the importance of valuing themselves as the basis for personal relationships.

Next week we will introduce the children to the story of creation, where God created the earth, sea, stars, plants, animals and humans. A five-story sessions will encourage children to creatively explore this topic and help them to deeply know that they are created by God out of love and for love.

We have also started to visit our chapel in the school garden. We are learning lots of new songs to sing and to sign.

Diary Dates

Tempest school photographer will be in school on 12th October- I will give you more information nearer the time.

Break for half term 20th October 3.30 pm

Curriculum Evening 17th November- more details to follow

Nursery Drop in session 29th November 3.45-4.45 pm- just in case you want a quick catch up. This is for parents and not for children. Your key person will be contacting next week to arrange a meeting this half term.

Advent Mass in school at 8 am 25th Nov, 2nd Dec, 9th Dec and 16th Dec. Please come along with your child, we would love to see you.

Foundation Stage Nativity 7th and 8th December - more details to follow

Foundation Christmas party 19th December - all children invited- more details to follow

Break for Christmas 2pm on the 20th December.

Now just a few housekeeping points.

Owing to lack of space in our entrance would it be possible to get your child and Our Lady Book bag instead of a large back pack.

Could any item of clothing that may be taken off during the day please be clearly labelled. We are getting so confused, especially if we have two items the same.

We are a healthy eating nursery. Could all snacks be either fruit or vegetables only and put in your child’s blue bag and not in their lunch bag please.

Finally, it has been such a happy week in nursery and the children have enjoyed being together. We can’t wait to see everyone next week. Have a lovely weekend, hopefully the sun will shine.

God Bless

Barbara