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Nursery & Pre-School News 2020-2021

Pre-School - New Adventurers

Pre-School have been talking and preparing for the next new adventure as they get ready to start school.  To help this enjoyable and fun the children set up their own classroom. The children wanted registers.  They have been writing their own name and also attempting other children’s names. It has been fabulous to see such wonderful writing. They also made a picture of themselves wearing their new uniform and we have had a tour of the school that we do not normally see.  We saw lots of different people who help us.

We will also revisited sounds s,a,t,p,i,n,c,k,e,h,r,m,d,g,o and learning a new sound ‘u’.

Pre-School - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This week we have been looking at caterpillars and seeing how they move and grow. We have read the story ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and look at new vocabulary.  We have used circles to create a caterpillar and then write our name. Using a circle for each of the letters.  We have also been counting the circles in our caterpillar, each time adding 1 more. 

Pre-School - People Who Help Us - Doctors & Nurses

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Pre-School have been carrying on with their theme ‘People Who Help Us’.  We have learnt about Doctors and Nurses.  The children have designed and created their own hospital in the role play area.  They have learnt how to care for patients looked at x-rays and then writing letters on the lightbox to make it look like an x-ray.  The children have learnt the letter sound ‘o’

Nursery on the Spider Web Hunt

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This week the children in nursery have been learning about spiders.  They have been on a spider web hunt around the outdoor area and found some in the mud kitchen and the play house.  They have been on a spider web hunt around the school garden.  They have pretended to be a spider by climbing through a man made web in our forest garden area. They have practised their gross motor skills by throwing woollen spiders at a sticky web and they have created their own spiders using kitchen rolls, glue and glitter.

A Week with the Nursery Children

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As part of our topic ‘People Who Help Us’ we have been learning about lifeboats.  The children have made a paper lifeboat.  They have concentrated very hard threading and weaving their very own life rings using wool.  We  have been singing ‘Row, row,row your boat and big ships sails. The children have had great fun exploring  and investigating  natural materials such as pebbles, sand, rocks, seaweed. 

Pre-School - A Week With the Adventurers

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The children have been learning all about the Police.  We have been researching how the police find out who may have committed a crime, one of the ways is to take fingerprints.  We found out that everybody's fingerprint is different and makes us unique.  The children then used ink to make their own fingerprints and see how they are different to their friends. We also talked about how Police can help us if we ever got lost from a grown up.  The children then told staff how they have lost toys and felt upset. The children Then made their own lost poster of the item they had lost.  We had ‘Monster trucks, puppets, snakes, lots of different items.  We have been learning a new sound ‘g’.

Road Safety

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This week we will be learning about Road Safety. They have learnt a poem about keeping safe when crossing the road. The children have enjoyed learning to cross the road safely in our EYFS garden acting out the actions.We have had fun threading a ribbon to help us understand how to fasten our car seats and the importance of them keeping us safe whilst driving in a car. The children have used their fine and gross motor skills as they paint road signs.  We have had a busy week and they understand how to stay safe in the car and crossing the road.

Holding hands is what we do

Holding hands like sticky glue

Holding hands keeps me safe

When crossing over roads

People Who Help Us - Fire Brigade

Continuing with our theme ‘People who help us, we have been learning about ‘The Fire Brigade’  The children have used their printing skills to make a fire engine, they have been using chalk to write their names and then using water and a cotton bud retrace their name using the correct letter formation.  The children really enjoyed this activity and thought it was magic.  The children watched a short clip about fire fighter and learnt that they had to keep fit and eat healthy.  We made up our own exercises to help us keep fit and the children had good knowledge of healthy foods.  Well done preschool, we have had a busy week

People Who Help Us - Police

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This week we have been learning about Police.  We have made a police car and acted out in the role-play area.  We have used circles and lines to draw the numbers 999. 

The children have learnt about size of big and small,  placing pictures of police cars in hoops counting how many they have and trying to identify the correct number.  We have been singing songs about police.

People Who Help Us - Road Safety

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As part of our topic People who help us, this week the children have been learning about road safety.  The have learnt the  ‘green cross code’.  ‘STOP, LOOK, LISTEN’.  We set up a road and zebra crossing in the school grounds and asked the children to use their knowledge to cross the road safely.  What a super job they did.  Well done.  We have made our own road signs and used spray bottles of water to find 1 more than any given number Lots of fun.

The children will be learning the letter sound ‘m’ and practising writing this using large paint brushes.  We will also be revisiting sounds s,a,t,p,i,n,c,k,e,h,r.

People Who Help Us - Coast Guard

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‘This term we are covering People who help us.  This week the children have been learning about Lifeboats/Coast Guard.  They have used large equipment to build a lifeboat and worked together to act out a story.  They have been learning about 3D shapes whilst constructing a lifeboat using junk modelling.  The children used their knowledge about coast guards to produce a poster for RNLI.  We went to the beach to act out lifeguards and life boats.  Ben from the Coastguard visited us and gave us information about how to stay safe.

People Who Help Us - Doctors & Nurses

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We have been learning about Doctors and Nurses this week.

The children have been looking at the Doctor’s bag and discussing the contents.  We have counting plasters, cotton buds and bandages to make our own bag for our display for People who help us.  We used pipettes to follow a line using paint to help with our pre-writing skills.  We have read the story ‘Monkey Puzzle’ to the children to emphasise how we can care for each other.

 

Busy Week in Nursery & Pre-School

 

This week the children in Nursery and Pre-School have been concentrating on the book ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’.  They have read the story, created their own bridges for the goats to cross, using crates, planks of wood and wooden bricks and enjoyed recreating their own story by acting it out. 

In outdoor play the children had really good fun building dens.

In messy play they were focused on making Easter eggs with paper mache and making bubble pictures. 

In their cookery session at the end of the week they made tuna and cheese pastry fingers.  Phew what a busy week the children have had.

The Three Little Pigs

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This week the children in nursery have been concentrating on the traditional story of the ‘The three little Pigs’.  We have been busy creating a building site in the role play area so that we could construct using straw, bricks and twigs and we have used shaving foam to represent cement to build structures with the large Duplo bricks.  We have also been very busy making our very own ‘Big Bad Wolf, wanted posters, creating a card for somebody very special and joining in with World Book Day by dressing up as a character from a traditional story.  We are all now very tired after all that hard work and are looking forward to seeing what Goldilocks and the three bears get up to next week.

Cave Baby

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This week in Nursery and Pre-school we have been concentrating on the book ‘Cave Baby’.  We have created our own cave in the role play area and been practising making marks on the walls with earthy coloured paint together with our own paints that we have made from natural resources found in the outdoor area.   We collected leaves, grass and mud and ground them together using a stone with a very small amount of water to create a coloured liquid which we then applied to the walls using our own paintbrushes which we created using feathers, pipe cleaners and cotton wool attached to pegs.  In literacy we have been experimenting with letter sounds, shape stampers and drawing underneath tables to strengthen our arm muscles. In maths we have been exploring with a large wooden abacus, noticing when something is added or taken away from a group, how the quantities change and one more and one less. In messy play we have been exploring ice and making our own playdough.  Phew, another busy week.

Inside Out Day

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The children in Nursery and Pre-school took part in Inside Out Day.  We talked about how sometimes we can feel different on the outside to what we show to people.  The children were shown different pictures of emotions and were asked how they felt inside and then to draw that feeling on to their t-shirt.  Thankfully all the children felt happy.

The Gruffalo

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The children in Nursery and Pre-school have been having lots of fun this week as they have been concentrating on the book ‘The Gruffalo’.  They have been writing out recipes to create their own Gruffalo crumble in the Gruffalo Café, they have been on a walk in our forest area to find the animal characters from the book and the letter sounds ‘s’, ‘t’ and ‘a’, they have created their very own 3D Gruffalo using different types of media and materials, created 2D shaped framed pictures and rounded off the week by baking a Gruffalo Crumble.  Phew what a busy week.

The Smartest Giant in Town

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This week the Nursery and Pre-School children enjoyed the story of ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’.  They listened very carefully to the story and discovered how kind the Giant was by sharing his new clothes out with friends who needed them.  The children made shopping lists of clothes that they would need and then went to the shop to purchase them, both the staff and children enjoyed trying on the different items of clothing and pretending to be the giant and the shop keeper.  The children created some lovely decorated crowns and ties and made some wonderful patterns with the beads and laces to create the giants scarf.  We finished the week on Friday by creating some very tasty banana and chocolate chip muffins……….yummy.

A Squash and a Squeeze

This week the children in Nursery and Pre-School have been concentrating on the book ‘A squash and a squeeze’.  We have listened very carefully for the rhyming words in the story and sequenced and matched the animals in the order that they appear.  We have danced and moved to music using scarves, musical sticks and streamers and we have visited Number Land to concentrate on the number 5.  In ICT we have been learning how to use Beebots and in messy play we have used shaving cream, glue and food colouring to create foamy paint and crushed, scooped and poured cereal in to pots and pans.  In Letters and Sounds we have been concentrating on the sound ‘s’ and played games sounding out words.  Phew what a very busy week we have had.

Room on the Broom

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This week the children in Nursery and Pre-school have been concentrating on the rhyming book ‘Room on the broom’.  They have had great fun collecting sticks and twigs from our forest area and used them to create their very own brooms with, they listened to the story very carefully and when they heard the word witch, they used them to fly around the play area.  They have used different types of media to make their own witches hats with, created witches potions in the Lair and played a rhyming soup game.  Phew, what a very busy week they have had.

Snowball Target Practise

 

 

Christmas is getting closer!

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This week the children in nursery have been very busy wrapping presents, re-creating Christmas at home in the role play corner and having great fun using their gross motor muscles to throw snowballs at hooped targets.  We have also visited number land again and concentrated on the number 4, finding shapes that have 4 sides, animals that have 4 legs and jumping , hoping and clapping 4 times.  On Friday we enjoyed making chocolate truffles.

Christmas Fun

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In Mini Cooks this week the children have been making mince pies.  They have weighed out ingredients and counting spoons to count the mince meat into the pastry.  Yummy!

Christmas has arrived and the children have been very busy. They have decorated the Christmas tree in the home corner and playing dressing up with the Elf costumes.  They have also enjoyed wrapping up pretend presents to place under their tree, writing labels with kind words such as share, play, be nice. Some of the children enjoyed taking their writing to the home corner and wrote their own Christmas cards.  The children have been busy making place mats ready for our Christmas dinner and Christmas party.  Lots of paint and glitter here!!

Domino Rally

A child was using the blocks to construct a domino rally.  The other children stopped and watched and then decided to join in and help.  The placed the bricks quite tightly together and then set them off to fall.  They didn’t fall, with some critical thinking the children quickly learned that they had to space them out further for them to be able to fall.  The children had so much with this activity and spent along time playing.

Sailing Along

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Our topic is ‘boats. The children were given open ended resources and by using their critical thinking skills they have been able to make boats boat for the role play area.  They have participated in a group physical activity which involved moving forwards, backwards, under and over the sea before they get shipwrecked. Using the above movements the children are developing pre-writing skills.  To build on their early comprehensive skills we looked at books, pictures and film clips about boats and discovered how information can be relayed in the form of print.  We also started making Christmas cards.

Flying High

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The children have been learning about aeroplanes this week.  They have created an aeroplane in the role play area where they have decided to pack their suitcases and go on holiday.  They have been creating their own passports and pretending to fly by sitting in the cockpit.  We have talked about Diwali and how the festival is celebrated.  The children have enjoyed creating their own henna patterns on hand templates using paint and piping bags and we have visited ‘Number Land’ exploring the number 1 and circles.

Odd Sock Day - Anti-Bullying Week

This week children have been wearing odd socks for school for Anti Bullying week, we read the story ‘Simon Sock’ and discussed how it is ok to be different and still get along.

Children In Need Day

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The children in EYFS have been helping to raise money for Children Need by wearing something spotty.  The staff prepared a wonderful rice pudsey bear for the children to play in, they have been playing in coloured rice weighting and scooping.  What fun we had.

Learning About Diwali

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The EYFS children have been learning about the Hindu celebration Diwali ‘Festival of lights’.  The home corner has been decorated in traditional colours, the children have had a go at painting henna pattern using paint in icing bags which were squeezed to create fine lines to make the patterns.  We will learn how to make a diva stick and then learn a stick dance and we will produce our own rangoli pattern in the home corner in the coming days, please keep an eye out for more pictures.

Riding the Trains

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This week in EYFS we have been learning about trains. The children made a train track on the floor with tables to represent tunnels and the children found different ways to move around the track. We read the book ‘The Train Ride’ during story time and the children joined in, building on their early comprehension skills. The children have had great fun as they have taken on the role of a train driver and passengers.  We have had a lot of trips to Liverpool.  The children wrote tickets for the passengers. The children have also learnt about numbers and shapes as they visited numberland.  They have had great fun using their bodies to make shapes.  

                                     

Fishy fun

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This week the children have been focusing our activities on the nursery rhyme ‘1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive’. The children have enjoyed singing this familiar rhyme, joining in with the words and actions during story and song time. They have been participating in a fishing game, counting how many they have collected and grouping them into colours. They have been imitating drawing lines and circles on fish shapes to represent scales and bubbles, talking about the patterns they have made and they’ve also been exploring various types of fish in our tuff spot, looking at their similarities and differences. In addition to this, some of our parents have come along for ‘stay and play’ sessions to join in with the activities on offer and find out about the learning outcomes that they cover.

Finding out about Transport

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The Nursery and Pre-School children have settled well after half term and have been enjoying the activities related to our new topic ‘Transport’.  Our first mode of transport this week has been cars.  The children have thoroughly enjoyed the garage role play area where they have been able to book their cars in for repairs, they have looked at the traffic light system, worked together in teams to complete different road sign puzzles, counted and matched numerals to quantity for passengers in cars and began to create our transport display board.  Phew, what a very busy week we have had.

Enjoying the Autumn in Nursery

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The Nursery children have had another busy week.  We have collected different types of leaves, twigs and other autumnal findings from our forest area to use in creating our own pictures, as well as having lots of fun running through the willow tunnels.  We have continued to enjoy our visit from the Spanish teacher and we began our Dance and Musical Mini’s sessions, where we enjoyed learning new movements and used lots of different props to support them.  Messy Play was another great success as we learnt how to make our own play dough, using flour, salt, water and powder paint, it was a messy job but we really enjoyed it.

Working on Their Pre-Writing Skill in Pre-School

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This week Preschool have been very busy working out different ways to make marks on paper.  The children have explored paintbrushes, pens, paint.  They even tried throwing empty egg shells full of paint to see what marks they would make.  Once all the eggs had been thrown the children then took a print of it.  The children even took part in squiqqle whilst you wiggle, to practice their pre-writing skills.  The circular movements they are becoming familiar with will help to form the letters o,b,d,p, c, a.   We used paper streamers to make our circle shape then we transferred the circular movements to the table and shaving foam.   We have also had our first computing lesson and cookery lesson this week.  We have been very busy.

Squidgy Jelly Fun in Nursery

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The children in Nursery have been very busy this week.  They have been practising their gross and fine motor skills, balancing, jumping, hopping, walking, running, and using scissors.  They have continued to practice their listening skills by playing a game called jack in the box, waiting for instructions and jumping up.  They have particularly thoroughly enjoyed our messy play activities with jelly, shaving foam and paint.  The children have created autumn coloured leaves by mixing paint with the foam,  dipping leaf shaped stencils in and scraping the foam away.  As this activity progressed, the children decided to mix up the paints and foam and create their own marks using their fingers.  The jelly was a great success, squeezing it through their fingers and scooping it in to pots.  All these activities help to build up their muscles in their arms, hands and fingers and of course they are so much fun.

Action Words in Pre-School

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This week the children have been learning about action words.  They were given an action word and then asked to act this out.  We used words such as stomp, crouch,  shake, press, flick, float.  The children then went on to talk about different occupations, we talked about the actions they make. The children came up with fireman sliding down the pole, lifeguard swimming and of course Spiderman flying on webs.  We had so much fun.  The children also enjoyed playing with the balloons.  They tried different ways of making the balloon travelling around their body.  Over our head, around our waist and through our legs.  The children enjoyed this so much that they keep asking to play the balloon game.  We have had a fun week.

Fun in Nursery

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This week the Nursery children have been practising their throwing, catching and kicking of balls.  They have also had great fun exploring different ways of making marks in play dough and in our outdoor area using the bikes and cars.

Settling Into Nursery & Pre-School

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The children in Nursery have settled in very well, after exploring their indoor and outdoor environment.  We have been concentrating on building up our gross motor muscles and making marks in different ways using different resources and materials.

This week we have been continuing to settle into Pre-School and have had fun exploring the sand and water. We have been concentrating on shape recognition and have enjoyed scrunching up paper balls and throwing them at a chosen shape. Together we looked closely at the shapes and counted all their sides. We have also been practising scissor control, using the scissors to follow different lines.