This week Harold came to visit nursery

Welcome back! I hope everyone managed a rest this Easter, we’re going to need all the energy we can muster!

It has been a busy start to the term with lots of new learning and challenges. The children are raring to go. Take a look at our planning by clicking on the button below

I don’t know how we are going to get everything done!

Barbara’ blog

It was so lovely to see everyone’s smiley faces this week. I had missed you all! We started the week with a discussion about how plants grow, what do they need? We then decided to plant some beans. First we made a cosy bed for the seed to live in, covered it up with soil, gave it a drink and then put it in the sunshine. We are all now waiting for the seed to germinate! We watch a slow release video of how a beanstalk grows, click here to watch.

We then though of all the stories we could think of about growing. We stared of course with Javk and the beanstalk. Click here to watch.

The children are amazed at how the grass seeds and meadow seeds we planted before Easter have grown…they have geminated and we now have grass (a lawn) and flower shoots.

The children have been longing for an ice cream parlour, so this week we have made one. Take a look!

We have been focusing on number by making lots of number bonds to 10…it’s really tricky!

The children have also been practising ALL their sounds including ‘special friends’, we just keep getting better and better.

On Thursday and Friday the LIfe Education Bus (minus the bus) came to nursery to talk about how to look after ourselves…Harold the Giraffe came along too.

Ass you can see we have been really really busy! Here’s a few extra photos!

Have a great weekend

Barbara

Planting potatoes

Before Easter we plated some potatoes…..they have not grown yet, but we are hopeful!

The Life Bus came to visit

The children really enjoy the Life Education sessions. We talked things through with Harold the Giraffe and watched video clips to engage with new learning such as discussing how we can stay healthy. Take a look at the photos.

Worship

This week we introduced a very simple way the concept of the Trinity, where God is three-in-one and each part loves the others and loves us. The children understood that we are made in the image of God, we are designed to love God and love one another in our wider communities too... that our loving actions can be used by God to do incredible things. Click on the button to watch the slides, maybe you could have a discussion at home.

Steph’s blog

What a lovely first week back after the holidays! We’ve loved seeing some sunshine towards the end of the week.

We sat as a key group at the start of the week and spoke about what we would like to learn about this term. We are going to look at growing, rainbows and weather. Some of us are interested in more water play, and one of us even wants to learn how to draw a robot!

We experimented with the water and making ripples. We worked hard to work the syringes and use different containers to see the impact on the water. Maybe next week we could make the water different colours.

We have had fun this week making rainbow sensory bottles. We all chose our favourite colours and added colour to water with glitter and oil. As we moved the bottle around something happened to the water and oil - they didn’t mix! Ask your child if they can remember whether the water or oil was the heaviest! Here is a simple activity you can try at home: Click here.

We’ve also been busy planting beans and peas in the garden - we can’t wait to see if they grow! 

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

Steph 

Michelle’s blog

Welcome back everyone, hope you all had a good rest over Easter. Hopefully, by now, everyone should have found out which school they will be going to in September, and hopefully everyone has got their first choice.

This week we have started the term with a bang and have started our growing topic by planting beans and peas. We are hoping our beanstalks grow and wonder if we will see any giants.

The children have discussed what else they would like to learn this term, lots of suggestions include a pretend shop, going to a real shop, a picnic and finding out if we can grow pasta. Looks like we are going to be really busy!

We have had lots of fun practising our throwing and catching, ready for Sports Day later in the year. We have all been improving like Lizzie Ladybird.

Independence will be a big focus over the coming weeks as our older children prepare for the transition to school. Here is some info on this important time. Click here.

We have already become very skilled at putting our shoes and socks on, as well as putting on our coats. We are now practising doing up our zips and recognising our names on our trays and book bags. This week we have decorated name tags that we will attach to our book bags to help us recognise our names.

Our number work continues as we concentrate on number bonds and growing our brains by working out how we can make number bonds up to 10. We are learning that there are different ways to make the same number., so 6 can be 6 and 0, or 5 and 1, or 4 and 2, or 3 and 3. But its still 6!

Hope you all have a good weekend

Michelle

Sports Day t-shirts

As in previous years the children will be designing their own bespoke t shirt to wear on sports day. Could you please bring in asap a named plain white t shirt so that we can get going! Thank you.

Phew, what a busy week! We will be continuing with our exploration of ‘growing’ and parts of flowers of plants and flowers next week but we will also be writing to Prince Charles and Queen Camilla to say congratulation on his Coronation. We will be sending him some lovely portraits of both him and Camilla!

Have a fantastic weekend, fire up the BBQ and have some fun. See you on Monday!

God bless

Barbara

Holy Week in school

Barbara’s blog

It’s been a time of thoughtful reflection this week as we have been to all of the school Holy Week assemblies. The children sat so beautifully and calm and when we returned to nursery they were able to tell in great detail each segment of the Easter Story. I am so proud of them.

They rest of the week has been dedicated to Easter activities and having fun! We made Easter biscuits (yum, yum, yum< went on an Easter egg hunt, played pin the tail on the bunny, and guessed what Easter themed object was in the ‘magic box’ this week.

The glorious weather has meant we have spent even more time in the garden. We have planted potatoes, peas and beans, and our grass has germinated and started to grow…we will have a lawn soon!

Michelle’s blog

This week has been all about Easter. We wee very lucky to be invited into assembly each morning to see the school perform the story of Easter. We thought they were all so good and we were so pleased that we knew the story and could follow what was going on.

We have been busy with our Easter crafts, making bunnies and chicks and we had so much fun trying to pin the tail on the Easter Bunny.

Outside we had to listen very carefully to the clues as we had an Easter Egg Hunt.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and we will see you after the holidays

Michelle

Steph’s blog

This week I have been so impressed with the children’s memory - I printed pictures from the Easter story and they were able to help me stick them in our floor book in the correct order. Their memories are amazing!

The children have also worked hard to order numbers 1-10 using numbers on Easter eggs. The eggs were cut in half and had spots on the bottom. The children were great at matching the numbers with the correct quantity. 

I hope you all have a lovely, restful Easter break with your families. I look forward to hearing all about it when we come back. 

Steph 

You will notice that I have sent home an Easter activity book, full of little tasks to do at home (in case of a rainy day). Also, you will find some sunflower seeds in a small brown envelope. They are for you to plant together at home and nurture in readiness to plant in the nursery garden in June. Good luck!

It has been such a lovely term. The children’s learning knows no bounds and we are all so very proud of all their achievements, but we couldn’t do it without your continued support; it makes nursery such a wonderful learning community. Thank you very very much.

Have the most glorious Easter, hopefully with lots of chocolate! Stay safe.

God Bless

Barbara

This week....

Another busy week.

The children were looking a bit tired by Tuesday this week! In addition to their key person learning they have planted a meadow in the big tractor tyres and flower beds. One of the plants was called a fried egg plant, we all thought that was funny. We are hoping for fired eggs to grow now!

Read Write Inc.

We have now introduced all the the sounds in Set 1. We are soooo proud. We are noticing and hearing sounds EVERYWHERE! After the Easter holidays we will be ractisng writing them all, we love a challenge.

Don’t forget to say the rhyme that goes with each sound. Click on the button below to find out what to say!

Barbara’s blog

All things gingerbread this week. We kicked of the week by going on a Gingerbread Man number hunt in the garden. We had to listen to the clues and they would tell us where to find th numbers. Some gingerbread men were on the roof, in the bush and sand…even in Receptions’s garden, cheeky!

We then came into nursery and made a number line to 20!!!!! Woweeeee!

We all then made, guess what…gingerbread men. Yummy! Jacquie in the kitchen cooked them for us and then we ate them all up! Mmmmm they tasted so good, we thought it would be a good idea to make some more later in the week.

Storytime was, yes you’ve guessed ‘The Gingerbread Man’. Later in the week we decorated a picture of gingerbread men. We had to decide how many buttons and if he was angry, sad, funny or scared. I will be sending home some Gingerbread Men themed activities if you fancy having a go!

We have been trying really hard this week to use ‘duck fingers when we draw and write. We started be playing “duck talk” finger play with the thumb and pointing finger. We then put the pencil in the duck's mouth. Quaaaack, have a go at home.

Here’s a quick video to explain the tripod grip. Click here.

Click here to watch a video all about the Gingerbread Man.

Haven’t we had a busy week at nursery! Make sure you have a good rest this weekend!

God Bless

Barbara

Michelle’s Blog

Hello everyone,

We have had another really busy week, growing our brains. We have been looking at all things related to transport. We started the week talking about how we get to nursery and we discovered that 9 of us travel by car and 7 of us walk. 3 travel by taxi and 1 by bus. We then made our own bus and train in the garden, with our own tickets to our favourite destinations. We went to the zoo and the beach!

We had lots of messy fun as we painted and made tracks using lots of different sorts of vehicles. We have also had races using reels and balls down the drain pipes.

We have had lots of interesting things in for Show and Tell, remember the item has to fit in your child’s drawer. Some children shared some photos on the big screen of the things they had got up to at home. If you would like to do this, then just email them either to nursery or your child’s key-person. The children really enjoy sharing their special moments with their friends.

We have also had a very musical week, singing and playing the musical instruments. We had a challenge of making some more shakers so we asked the lovely ladies in the kitchen for some rice and pasta so we could make our new shakers. They work brilliantly!

You wouldn’t believe how well we are getting at putting on our own coats and doing up the zips. I can tell the children have been practising at home.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week.

Michelle

Steph’s Blog

Hello everyone!

What a colourful week we have had. We have enjoyed painting rainbows – I gave the children red, blue, yellow and white and they had to work out how to make all 7 colours of the rainbow. What a challenge! We had great fun mixing the colours to make new ones. I’m going to put the pictures up in the classroom – the children were all proud of what they had painted.

We also made wands out of different coloured ribbons and sticks. We practised our fine motor skills to attach them on with Sellotape – this was a bit tricky! Luckily it was windy outside so we could run and dance with them in the garden.

We enjoyed working out different ways to go down the bridge outside – I heard lots of giggles and saw lots of lovely smiles! We are so proud of ourselves when we achieve something, especially our jumping and hopping in P.E. We also enjoyed dressing up outside in different outfits – have a look at our happy faces!

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

Steph

and a few from Justine…

To complete our wonderful week we were invited to join the whole school on their journey through Holy Week. On Friday we watched when Jesus rode in to Jerusalem and everyone wave palm leave and shouted Hosanna!

Next week we will continue our journey of reflection with The Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, The Crucifixion and finally on Thursday The Resurrection.

Don’t forget!

Next week we will be collecting in all the children’s Lenten boxes and Sponsored walk money. We will add it to the school collection for a hopeful bumper amount for Cafod.

If you are entering the decoarting and Easter egg competetion that too will be next week, all entries to be in on Monday, £1 per entry

Lastly, nursery will close for Easter on Thursday at 2.00 pm for a well deserved chocolatey rest. Mmmmmmmm!!

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Spring has definitely arrived in the nursery garden. The daffodils are in full bloom and this week we have seen the arrival of hyacinths and our hydrangea’s are budding. On Wednesday we planted some grass. First, we made a cosy bed for the seeds to live in, then we sprinkled the grass seeds… “there are hundreds” the children said. Next we gave the seeds a drink of water, we have to remember to do this every day! They children are very good at reminding me!

Everyone is now watching carefully for the seeds to geminate. I fear it may take a while!

Michelle’s blog

This week has been a very active week. We have had so much fun in our PE lessons in the hall. We have been practising our jumping and landing. Take a look at the photos to see the progress w have made. We have PE every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. We have got so good at putting our shoes and socks back on. Developing independence in dressing will help us when we start in Reception, so any practice we can get now is crucial in developing the skills needed for independent dressing.

Our number work continues as we have used our brains and solved tricky number problems, growing our brains as we added numbers together.

Our new sounds this week include x, z, qu, and ch. The children all thought we had a fit of sneezing when we made the ‘ch’ sound!

Although the weather has not been the best this week, we have still manged to get lots of outside play. We made a bus and a train and made sure everyone had tickets for their journey.

Thank you to everyone who managed to make it to parent’s evening this week, it was a pleasure to see you all. As always, I am always available to discuss and issues or concerns. Please feel free to email any photos you have as the children love sharing these on the interactive white board.

Have a lovely weekend.

Steph’s blog

I’ve missed you being off for two days this week – I’m glad to be back with you all!

We have been busy this week decorating Easter crosses for an Easter card to bring home. They look great. The children are really good at remembering the Easter story – ask them at home and see if they can tell you!

We have also loved playing with the Numberblock cubes – the children have been amazing finding different ways to make the numbers and using the correct colours for the different numbers. They are noticing so many connections between the numbers and have worked really hard. I love seeing their happy, proud faces when they have achieved something. Here is a Numberblocks game you can try at home – see how many numbers your child can tell you! Click here.

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

Steph

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone.

You will not be surprised to hear that although this week has been extremely busy, for us Nursery Ladies it has been very rewarding. Sometimes we just stop and look at your wonderful children and we appreciate how much they have achieved since the year began. They are amazing!

On a personal note I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your continued support and very kind words during this last week. I am leaving Our Lady’s Star of the Sea with a heavy heart but I have many years of such wonderful memories and happy times.

I know that the other Nursery Ladies will continue to love and nurture your precious children and help them on their journey towards their next chapter. As for me, it is time for my next adventure.

Thank you all so much.

God Bless.

Colette

…and a few extras from Justine!

This weeks sounds

Geraldine Giraffe ‘z’ Click here.

Geraldine Giraffe ‘ch’ Click here.

Geraldine Giraffe ‘qu’ Click here.

Geraldine Giraffe ‘x’ Click here

Geraldine Giraffe ‘ng’ Click here.

Geraldine Giraffe ‘nk’ Click here

The children are amazed at how many sound they know!!!! We are spotting them everywhere! The children have even noticed them hiding in their name.

Alphablocks

DESCRIPTION Meet the Alphablocks, get to know the alphabet and letter sounds and sing along to the Alphablocks song.

HOW TO PLAY It couldn’t be simpler: tap to bring each Alphablock to life and hear them sing their letter sound and a line from the Alphablocks song. Every Alphablock is designed to help the children remember the letter sounds, so A says a! when an apple falls on her head, and so on.

LETTER SOUNDS AND NAMES Listen to the Alphablocks singing their letter sounds, then change to Letter Name mode and have fun learning all the letter names too.

Click here and enjoy! We loved playing this game at nursery this week!

Easter Maths Challenge!

We played this tricky game at nursery this week using our special decorative eggs. Try and have ago at home (please don’t use real eggs!).

As you are aware today was Colette’s last day at nursery. I am chatted quite openly to all the children explaining that it is our turn to share Colette. It’s only fair because we have had here with us for a long time. We have had a lovely special week with Colette, spoiling here with lots of treats and hugs. She has promised to keep in touch, the children want a picture of her new uniform!

A big thank you goes to Colette with lots of love. She has been a key member of our nursery community for over ten years and we will miss her enormously. Good luck in your new venture, I know you are excited to take on this new challenge.

I’m not sure what the weather will do this weekend but nonetheless enjoy the time being together. I will see you all bright and breezy on Monday. I have great things planned!!!!

God Bless

Barbara

This week....

A mixed bag weather-wise this week. Nonetheless, we kicked off the week with Messy Monday and oh my goodness did we make a mess!

In the morning we mixed colours (the children’s request) using paint and shaving foam. We made handprints and drew pictures and letter sounds in the foam. Sorry only two photos would upload.

The afternoon got even messier. We mixed our own dough using flour, water and our hands. It was very sticky.

Worship

The children have been spotting crosses everywhere. On Tuesday the children (and Frances) made a huge collage cross which is now proudly hanging on the nursery door. It is so beautiful, take a look.

Michelle’s blog

Hello everyone,

We have had a very busy and happy week at nursery. We have had a discussion about our feelings using our feelings jars. The children had to choose a colour which corresponds with a feeling, e.g. pink is loved and yellow is happy. We discussed how its ok to feel sad or scared and we thought of ways to cheer up our friends if they were sad “Give them a cuddle”.

We have explored the Easter Story and have learnt lots of new words, such as disciple, Gethsemane, hosanna and Judas. We have continued our work making and decorating crosses and have made a ginormous collaged cross. We will have to find a ginormous space on the wall to display it.

We have spent some time this week playing games together. We have enjoyed playing the shopping game and this led to a discussion about healthy eating and our favourite foods. Sausages are very popular!

We ended the week with great teamwork. The children were very keen to help at tidy up time and worked as a team to carry the black builders tray but we couldn’t fit it through the door. The children had a good think and worked out that they had to tip it on its side to fit through the door. Great work team!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Michelle

Steph’s blog

Hello everyone

We started the week with Messy Monday! The children have been asking to do our shaving foam colouring mixing activity again and they loved it! We used our fingers to mix the paint around to make new colours. We also made sticky dough with flour and water. It was so fun getting messy!

The children have continued to enjoy singing our ‘Walk in the Light’ song this week as we have continued reading the Easter story. We decided to make a stage and the children loved performing for their friends. It is so lovely to see how their confidence has grown since coming to nursery and how they all support each other and cheer each other on.

The children have been asking every day if we can learn new sounds and numbers – they love it! We watched Numberblock 9 this week, click here to watch. The children have found so many ways to make 9 with our cubes – 5 and 4, 6 and 3. Someone even said 2, 2, 3 and 2! We have realised that the bigger the number the more ways we can find. We can even make more shapes and arrangements with the cubes – we made the 9 look like steps.

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

Steph

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone.

It was great to catch up with some of you on Wednesday for our parents evening and I look forward to seeing the rest of you next Wednesday.

It has been a bit of a messy week at Nursery! We have been dabbling in a bit of messy play which you may have noticed by just looking at your children’s clothes when they came home (sorry about that!) but it was a lot of fun! We mixed colours using shaving foam and paint and our ‘mixing finger’ and we made some fantastic colours…some I had never seen before!! Later in the day we made our own playdough. There was a lot of discussions about measuring and mixing and rolling and we were really careful to make sure that we shared out the dough equally!

We have been a bit giddy about Numberblocks again, we just can’t help it! Some of us know how to make numbers beyond 10 with the Number link cubes, the children’s learning seems to be going from strength to strength!

Not only have numbers continued to excite us but our phonic knowledge appears to be picking up momentum too. We are spotting sounds everywhere and we are starting to write some sounds as well. There is no stopping these wonderful children.

I hope that you have a lovely weekend together.

Colette

…and as always a few more from Justine!

The 100 board!

On Friday the children wanted to find out how many gems we had. We thought using the 100 board may help us find out.

We did find out…181 gems. It took us ages to find our the answer to our question but we didn’t give up.

We found out that number go on, and on, and on, and on…………

Click on the button below for number 9 activity! Can you help frog hop on to the number 9 or sets of 9!

Sponsor money and Lenten boxes

As you are aware we completed our sponsored walk last week. If you have already collected your sponsor money you are welcome to send it in now, or, you can send it back when you return the Lenten Boxes. The last day for returns will be Wednesday 5th April.

As always we are so grateful for your support. You are all wonderful!

In addition to the sponsored events, the student council have decided to bring back an old, Our Lady tradition - THE EGG DECORATING COMPETITON. For £1 entry fee, the children need to bring in a boiled, decorated egg for the competition. Let your imagination go wild. Could the egg be a character in a scene? Or have a specific pattern? Think creatively. The student council will be judging the winners from their paired class. There may even be a large chocolatey prize for the winners.

Play, Explore and Learn

Click here for lots of ideas to help little minds learn! There are lots of activities to keep you busy! Enjoy!

Finally, as I write this blog the sun is shining and it it getting warmer. At last! I can hear all the children having fun in the garden…I’m jealous, so I am going to sign off and go and join them. Have a fabulous weekend and see you on Monday.

God Bless

Barbara

Walk in the Light....

This week we have been completing our sponsored walk around the school field (on very wet days we have walked around the netball courts)! As we walked we sang ‘Walk in the Light of the Lord’ hymn. Friday was great fun, we walked in the snow!!!!!

We began to read the Easter story in readiness for Holy Week. We read one part of the story each day but the children were so eager to read on to see what happened next. We discussed how Jesus died on the cross and the children then made crosses out of any object or toy they could find. They have been very inventive, take a look!

Painting Spring Flowers

As we are noticing signs of Spring (before the snow!) we decided to paint pictures of a selection of Spring flowers. We painted tulips, daffodils, iris’s and hyacinths. Have a look.

Michelle’s blog

This week we have started each morning with our sponsored walk round the field. On Thursday we were amazed to walk in the snow as we wrapped up warm and braved the elements. We had lots of fun making patterns in the snow with the brooms and brushes but we were a little disappointed that we didn’t have enough to make a snowman.

We have continued to work hard at practising our mark making, writing in the sand and as a very special top secret project- I’m sure you will find out all about this in a couple of weeks time.

We have learnt some new letter sounds this week, some of these are tricky sounds but we are getting really good at recognising the sounds now. This week we have learnt j, v, th ,y and w.

This week we have also learnt about number 8 and have practised how to make 8 in lots of different ways.  We were excited this week to have a delivery of sand and had to work out how to move it to the sand pit. With lots of team work and working together we worked it out!

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Michelle

Colette’s blog

Hello everyone. Hope you have all had a lovely week. It has been a very cold week but we didn’t mind so much because at least we got to see a little bit of snow! Sadly, on Thursday it disappeared as quickly as it came! But on Friday……..there was lots and lots of snow. We even made a snowman! See photos for details!!

Last week we started giving the garden a little tidy up and we moved a few of our resources which means that the children can get things out more ‘independently’ and because everything has a place we are able to tidy it all away too (we are trying very hard!)

We already love books at Nursery but there has been lots of discussions about our favourite stories….it turns out lots of our favourite stories are about animals. Last Thursday, because it was World Book Day we decided to do a quiz….we did really well. Click here to play at home!

Finally, as you already know we just love Numberblocks and we enjoyed watching the episode where the ‘Fluffies’ arrive in Numberland. We know some different ways of making a number 7 (number bonds!)  6 +1=7  5+2=7  3+=7. Click here to watch.

Have a lovely weekend together.

Colette

Steph’s blog

What a fun week we have had! We have started each morning with our sponsored walk around the field or the playground depending on the weather! We are getting so good at singing ‘Walk in the light of the Lord’ – we have got louder and louder each day.

We have been busy making cards for our special Mummies this week – it has been lovely hearing their thoughts about you all. I won’t put the photos on the blog just yet to keep it a surprise for you!

We have continued our work on Shape, Space and Measure this week. We used the bricks to make churches and castles. The children independently chose the bricks they needed to make the structures balance so they wouldn’t fall over. ‘This is a pointy one’, ‘I can add another brick to make it bigger’. We also had a delivery of a big bag of sand and had to work together to get it all in to the sandpit. We’ve added the photos to our display in the classroom with our tower building from last week.

It was fun to end the week with a snow day! The children were so excited to complete our sponsored walk in the snow – we had to wrap up warm! It was great fun playing in the garden but unfortunately there wasn’t enough to make a snowman!

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

Steph

…and a few extra from Justine!

Sounds

We have learnt some new sounds this week j, v, y, w, th. Click below to learn with Geraldine Giraffe.

Click here for j

Click here for v

Click here for y

Click here for w

Click here for th (special friends)

How many things can you find at home beginning with these sounds? Enjoy your sound hunt!

Wish list

Our collection of underwear and socks has become perilously depleted. If anyone has any unwanted items to replenish our stock we would be very grateful!

Similarly, we are looking for any old pans and kitchen utensils to restock our outside sand kitchen. We had a delivery of one tone of sand this week and the children have been asking for real pans etc! Please can anyone help out!

Thank you in anticipation.

We are loving number eight still. Eight is great! Click here to watch. Next week we are thinking about meeting number 9! Can’t wait! Look out for a number eight ‘search’ game coming home this week.

SNOW UPDATE!!

How exciting, on Friday it had snowed during the night! Everyone was so excited! We took full advantage and made a snowman and had a jolly good play! Take a look at the photos below and check out Mrs Gregan’s blog on the schools main page. She has compiled all the photos from around school and made a lovely video!

I have to finish this week with some sad news. I am still trying to digest it myself. After ten long and happy years at Our Lady’s our lovely Colette has decided to hang up her early years boots and seek new challenges away from education. Over the past 10 years Colette has loved and nurtured so many children, it will be a great loss to both early years, education as well as our nursery and wider school community.

I am sure that each and every one of you will feel as upset as we are at losing such a fabulous and valued member of the team, but as Colette says “now is her time” to try something new. I am in awe of her bravery and would like to wish her every success and happiness as she opens a new chapter. Sadly, Colette’s last day at nursery will be Friday 24th March. We must treasure her for the next couple of weeks.

Wrap up warm and have a lovely weekend.

A bumper week at nursery!

What a week! We have been soooooo busy, we are exhausted!

We started the week by discussing the cross on which Jesus died. Everyone was very sad, but, we also talked about the Easter story having a happy ending. As Christians we believe that Jesus died on the cross and came back to life again to show how much God loves us.We talked about how Jesus came into the world to save us—to be our saviour—but He is just like us. Jesus had friends and family, cared about people, and helped those in need.

Next week we will be reading the Easter Story in small sections in preparation for Holy Week in school.

We have all made our own Easter cross this week and will be bringing them home in readiness for you celebrating Easter at home. Take a look they are beautiful.

We have also been making prayer rocks, some have already been sent home along with a little poem about how to use them. It was so lovely when the children told us that they had a chat or said a prayer using their prayer rock. Don’t worry if you haven’t got yours yet they will be coming home this week, fingers crossed.

World Book Day was great fun!!! We loved dressing up and staying in character all day. We read lots of stories including ‘Journey’ our whole school book study. We have now finished our display depicting the book. Take a look….

We have also written our own ‘Journey’ story and made a display.

Everyone has great fun on World Book Day, we read lots of stories! Such fabulous fancy dress costumes too, well done I know how stressful dress up days can be. Take a look at some of the photos.

Where’s Wally?

We had a fun game of Where’s Wally? The children had to guess where he was…can you?

Click on the button below to to read Happy Little People top tips talking.

As if we haven’t done enough this week look at everything else we have been up to!

Phew, I think everyone has earned a good rest this weekend!! Enjoy!

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Welcome back everyone, I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable half term.

A very busy week at nursery and also a different sort of week. We have started to walk in the footsteps of Jesus as part of our Lenten promises.

Each day we have been trying to be Disciples of Jesus in all we say and do. We have been mindful of all our actions and how they can impact on others. The children have embraced this difficult challenge at nursery, I hope they are at home too!

During Lent we are asking the children to continue their acts of kindness and to keep their promises so that we can collect lots of money for Cafod.

On Tuesday we had our last big treat until Easter Day by eating yummy pancakes, mmmmmmm they were delicious! Click here to listen to the story of Mr. Wolf’s Pancakes.

On Wednesday we were invited into Ash Wednesday Mass with KS1 and Father Peter.

On Friday we swapped all the lovely Lenten boxes the children had made with our paired class (Yr 3). A big thank you to everyone for getting involved. You too are becoming Disciples.

As donations have started to come in we have started our ‘totaliser’. We have a special counting machine that the children are fascinated with!

Colette’s blog

Welcome back everyone!

I hope you all managed to have a lovely half term with your families?

 It has been so wonderful seeing the children return after their rest and ready to learn.

On Monday we were able to enjoy using the apparatus in our Hall P.E. time. There were some wonderful displays of balancing, hopping and jumping. We continued to practise our skills out in the garden by making our own obstacle courses…. we are definitely getting better and better.

On Wednesday the children went in to the hall with Reception as Fr. Peter came to visit us. We talked about Lent and its meaning and we received our ashes on our foreheads. Back in Nursery we discussed why we are going to be collecting money for those less fortunate than ourselves. This year we will be collecting for CAFOD.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful Lenten boxes, the children are so excited to swap them with our Year 3 class.

Have a lovely weekend together.

Colette.

Michelle’s blog

Welcome back everyone, hope you all had a restful half-term. The learning continues this week as we have learnt about Lent. We tasted pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and had  mass with Father Peter on Ash Wednesday. We are hoping to be more like Jesus by being kind, helpful and generous as part of our Lenten promise. We have also made Lenten boxes that we will be gifting to our friends in Year 3.

We have had a bit of a recap of the letter sounds we have learnt so far before we learn another group of 5 next week. This week we have been practising our writing by using our ‘duck fingers’. This gives us a better grip to form the letter correctly. A little bit more about pencil grip here.

Here are some activities to develop pencil grip. Click here.

We have also been keeping a close eye on the plants and flowers in the garden, there are lots of green shoots and flowers appearing. We cant wait for Spring to arrive so we can get busy growing our plants.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week.

Michelle

Steph’s blog

Hello everyone

What a lovely week we have had enjoying the sunshine in the garden. We have practised our throwing and catching skills and made a den to hide in. We were also able to practise our problem-solving skills when a toy ended up through the fence. We worked together to get it back, using a stick and eventually a broom to hook it back. What a great team!

We began the week making our ‘Lenten promise’. We all decided how we could behave during lent to help others and be more like Jesus. Lots of the children promised to help their grownups at home – if they do they can have a smiley face stamp on our sheet when they come into nursery! We have been very helpful and kind in Nursery.

We were so lucky to join the big children in the hall when Father Peter came to see us on Ash Wednesday. We sat so nicely while he told us about Lent and Easter, and showed each other the ashes on our head when we got back to class. We also enjoyed some yummy pancakes on Tuesday!

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

Steph 

and our usual few extras for Justine…

Purple Mash

Don’t forget to keep checking Purple Mash. I have pinned more learning in the virtual classroom and set some activities to do at home. I hope you enjoy them.

Walking with Jesus around the field

Another part of our Lenten Almsgiving is going to be our sponsored walk around the field. Week commencing 13th March before our learning begins we will endeavour to walk three times around the school field! We may need a lie down afterwards.

This week we are sending home the children’s sponsor forms. We are hopeful that friends and family may want to contribute. All proceeds this year will be going to Cafod.

Join us during Lent help to ensure no one is beyond reach of the love and care they need.

Give today to help us reach people who are still in need of help.

Pray for our brothers and sisters living in poverty.

Book Week

Next week will be Book Week at nursery. The actual date for World Book Day is on Thursday so children are invited to come to nursery dressed a book character. I am aware that not all our children will not be in on Thursday so if you would like to choose another day for your child to dress up, please do.

Can I ask when you are choosing a outfit that you are mindful about being able to go to the toilet independently (no onesies if possible). Also, as we are dedicating a whole week to books and story telling, if your child would like to bring in their favourite book from home that would be great! Please make sure they are named.

Click on the button below for top tips for sharing stories together.

Beach School/Library

As the weather is now becoming ‘Springlike’ we will be starting our regular trips to the beach and storytime at the library.

If you click on the button below you will find our beach school information booklet.

Lastly, I hope everyone manages to get our in the sunshine this week and just enjoy being together with loved ones.

God Bless and I will see you all on Monday.

Barbara

This week....

This week we have continued our mindfulness and yoga activities (I hope you have tried them at home too!). Everyone is feeling very chilled.

We have also been finding out about how to stay safe online. We have had interesting discussions about how long to stay on an digital device and what games we could play on them. We then watched a short film about Smartie the Penguin. Click here to watch at home. See if your child can remember some of the rules.

If you click on the button below you will find some online safety tips. Also, click here to watch a short video.

Throughout the week story times have been dedicated to stories that help us understand the internet and more importantly stay safe. Here they are online!

Click here to listen to Once Upon and online

Click here to listen to Chicken Clicking

Michelle’s Blog

This week we have continued our theme of health and wellbeing and mindfulness. We love the bubble burst video, it really helps us to concentrate and to feel calm. Mindfulness activities have so many benefits for children’s wellbeing.

Yoga has been lots of fun this week as we continue to learn lots of new positions.

We were very surprised to find those sneaky snakes had returned and escaped all over nursery. It took us a while to find them all, some were even trying to escape out the window. Watch out, you never know where they might end up next!

Next week is half term, so we hope you all have a great week off and we will see you all after the holiday.

Don’t forget to look on purple mash for some fun activities.

See you soon,

Michelle

Apologies for the lack of photos. For some reason unknown to me they wouldn’t upload. I will ask Michelle to email them out to you…sorry. Fingers crossed for all the other photos! Barbara

Colette’s Blog

Hello everyone!  I can’t believe that we have come to the end of our first half term…where does the time go?? It was lovely to see some of you at the parent drop in this week and to be able to share some of the children’s learning with you from their floor book. We sat as a group last week and looked at all the things we have been learning since September and we couldn’t believe how much we have done together.

I really do hope that you all manage to spend some time together over this half term.

Thank you for all your support over this half term.

See you all after the holidays.

Colette.

Steph’s Blog

Hello everyone

It has been lovely this week watching the children be so kind to each other. They have worked together in the garden to find different ways of moving down the ramps. Some of the children pretended they were stuck and needed a superhero to help them! We ‘had a go’ like Tommy Turtle and ‘didn’t give up’ like Sadie Spider!

We have continued practising Number 7. We are so good at noticing the different ways we can make it – 4 and 3, 5 and 2, 6 and 1. Even 7 and 0! Ask your child to show you different ways on their fingers at home. We enjoyed playing a game on the big screen that let us practise counting 7 bees – we are so good at this! Have a go, click here, you can choose which number you would like to practise.

When we come back after half term we will continue looking at Number 7. We are going to make a rainbow each for our key group floor book, and fill the colours with 7 special things about us e.g. our favourite colour, our pets, what we like to play with. I can’t wait to hear what is special for your child.   

Have a lovely week off and I’ll see you soon.

Steph 

and just a few more from Justine!

Reading stories with our paired class, Mrs Hotchkiss and Year 3

This week we started our ‘getting together’ activities with our paired class. Year 3 came to visit us in nursery and to read us stories. It was so lovely! Some of the children even got to read along with their sibling!

Take a look at some of the photos. You may also want to check out the Year 3 blog for more pictures.

Lenten Boxes

As part of our Almsgiving, this year we will be decorating Lenten Boxes to give to children in our paired class (Year 3) and Year 3 will be decorating boxes for all the nursery children.

The boxes will be then sent home for each child to fill with the money they have earned by doing kind acts for others. When your box is full you can send it back to nursery. Last year was a bumper year for donations…let’s do even better this year!

A big thank you to everyone who managed to come along to out parent drop in session. It was so lovely to have time to catch up with you.

As you know nursery will be closed for half term from today (10th) until Monday 20th February so I have put a half term activity sheet in each bag if you wish to take up the challenges. Good luck and don’t forget to send us some pictures if you manage to complete any of the activities.

As always thank you all for your wonderful support and I will see you on the 20th.

Keep safe and God Bless

Barbara

This week....

A different kind of week. We have been trying to think of ways we can look after our minds and bodies. When everything is so busy around us we need to take time to rest. This week we have been doing just that.

The children and nursery ladies have have been taking part in mindfulness exercises. Firstly, we did a mindful breathing exercise called ‘Smell the Flower and Blow the Candle’. Click here to have a go at home.

We have also been practising mindful looking. Click here for this exercise.

Ask your child to show you Hummingbird breathing, hand breathing and some of the yoga poses!!!

This prepared us for our session with the Yogi on Tuesday….more of that (and pictures) later.

Colette’s Blog

Hello everyone!  It has been such a calm and relaxing atmosphere at Nursery this week, we have all felt very peaceful. I wonder if your child can remember some of the ways we have found our calm?

The children have been enjoying looking at the numberblocks again this week. On Thursday we looked at numbers 1-5 and how they can be made up of different numbers. Why don’t you take a look at this episode of Numberblocks where they show us what they are made of, all the parts that make a whole! Click here to watch.

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend together.

Colette.

Michelle’s Blog

Hello everyone,

We have had a very restful week as we have been practising mindfulness and yoga. We joined in with the rest of the school to take part in a yoga session in the hall, learning lots of poses such as the cobra, the plank and the downward dog. We continued with Caterpillar yoga, pretending to be an egg, a caterpillar, a cocoon and finally a butterfly. For more poses click here.

We have worked very hard learning our new phonic sounds this week, e, l, h, sh and r. We have amazed all the nursery ladies with how many of the phonic sounds we can remember. We cant wait till next week to learn some more sounds.

Have a good weekend

Michelle

Steph’s Blog

Hello everyone!

What a lovely, calm week! We have been practising mindfulness this week with lots of breathing exercises and calming music. Your child may have told you about ‘smelling the flower’ and ‘blowing out the candle’, which we used to practise long, deep breaths to help us to feel calm. On Tuesday we had a visit from the Yogi group. We went into the hall with Reception and we learnt different ways of breathing and moving our bodies to help us to feel calm – some of us nearly fell asleep! The lovely lady ended the session with us telling ourselves some positive affirmations – ‘I am happy’ and ‘I am amazing’.

This week we have been making shape dinosaurs. We have used different shapes in different colours to make our favourite dinosaurs – the children also chose to use the felt tips to draw markings and faces on their creations. I love how each dinosaur turned out differently! I have sent home a dinosaur shape sheet you can look at with your child at home.

We have continued to build and practise climbing in the garden – the children just love it and it is brilliant for developing their confidence and perseverance skills. They are so proud of themselves!

Here is a lovely calming video that you might like to watch over the weekend - click here

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

Steph

…and extras from Justine!

With the help of Smartie the Penguin, next week we will be discussing online safety. We have lots of exciting stories to read and lots to discuss. Watch this space or click on the button be low to look at our planning. So much to do…so little time!

This week we have started to introduce the book the whole school will be studying for World Book Day. It is a magical story without words and it evokes lots of interpretation and discussion. Each child sees different things in the pictures as they try to understand what may has just happened or what may happen next. Click here to join in the conversation at home. It is called The Journey by Aaron Becker.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on Purple Mash and activities which have been sent home in your child’s bag.

Number 7

The children were very excited to meet a new number…lucky number 7! Click here to meet 7. Why not make collections of 7 at home…seven forks, seven spoon, seven teddies, you get the idea!!

Parent drop in session

This terms session is on Wednesday 8th February 3.45-4.45pm. Please pop in and say hello and have a quick chat with your child’s key person.

Lastly, as we approach the last week of the half term I would like to say a huge thank you to all of YOU for everything that you do for your child in support of nursery. We are all so very grateful and never take your hard work for granted.

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

We wish you a Merry Christmas....

On behalf of all the Nursery Team may I thank everyone for their wonderful support this term, it is so very much appreciated. Your kind words and generosity has touched all our hearts…thank you.

Working with your child and being part of their life’s journey is such an honour.

Wishing you a Happy and Holy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.

God Bless and we will see you in 2023!

Barbara, Michelle, Colette, Steph, Justine and Frances.

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