The Christmas Robin

Mrs Robin sees tinsel on a Christmas tree in a house, Mr Robin goes to try and get some to decorate their nest but a little girl and boy spot him on their tree and think he's the best!

Shaping plasticine

We used plasticine to mould and make shapes to give the robin templates, a red tummy, eyes and a beak.  The children did a great job and soon found out that using just a small piece and squeezing between thumbs and fingers was the best way to shape it.   Kievah commented, “ it’s getting warmer now and it’s better”.  

We drew our own Christmas Robins and did some great mark making. 

We had a go at using tweezers to pinch pom poms and put them on the Christmas tree. We enjoyed choosing our favourite colours to make the tree look fab!

Stick Man

We have snow!

The weather at the beginning of the week was perfect for our introduction to the Julia Donaldson story, Stick Man! As we were enjoying the illustrations in the book and noticing the snowy scenes, we were able to look out of the window and see snow in our nursery garden.    We had great fun, getting wrapped up and exploring the freezing, icy and  snowy outdoor area.   We found ice in the tuff tray, icicles hanging from the roof, we noticed the snow melting and dripping from the trees when the sun came out. 

We’ve used sticks for to make lots of different things!   We made a fire,  a bow and arrow,  an X shape and used them to make our own stick people.  

We made chocolate stick men today. We had to count 2 arms and 2 legs. Some of us could count up to 4 items. 

We are loving having the story read to us and can talk about what happens in the story. 

We tried to rescue stick man from the ice. He was so stuck that we had to use hammers and saws to try and free him. When this didn't work, we used hot water and salt to melt the ice. It was so much fun and a brilliant ending when he was eventually freed. 

Messy Play

We mixed cornflour, coffee and added drops of water. We used sticks to mix it and make marks.  The children used their senses and made comments about what they could smell, see and feel.   

We decorated our own Christmas tree using baubles and tinsel. We loved seeing what decorations we had and were so excited with the Christmas costumes. 

We had a look at the family of stick men. The three children and the mummy and daddy. We put them in size order from smallest to largest. Some of us were able to order three of them and some of use could order all five. Well done Nursery.

The Leaf Thief

This week we have been learning all about Autumn by reading the story, 'The Leaf Thief.' We have explored all of the different senses that come with Autumn including touch, smell, hearing and see. We have done lots of activities with acorns and conkers and enjoyed discussing squirrels. We have had a fab week.

We have been talking about squirrels and practising our fine motor skills. We have been able to hold our pencils correctly.

We practised writing our names again as we did this at the start of the year and we and another go to see how much we had improved and how much stronger our pencil grip was. We did a brilliant job and are starting to form recognisable letters. 

We listened to the story and had a chat about he animals that we could find in it. We then had a go at drawing our favourite part of the story. The children loved drawing the squirrel and were able to give meaning to the marks they had made. They thoroughly enjoyed both listening to the story and retelling it. 

We made fork print hedgehogs using forks and brown paint. We had a template that we used and added the paint ourselves. It was so much fun making the spikes go in all different directions. Great listening and great concentration Nursery.

We made leaf wreaths using paper plates and leaf pictures. We coloured our pictures in and then cut them out. We then stuck the leaves onto our paper plates. They look lovely. 

We have also been reading the story 'The Colour Monster' which talks about our feelings. We have loved telling each other how we are feeling and exploring the different reasons why the monsters feel the way they do. 

National Nursery Rhyme Week

This week we will be learning a different nursery rhyme each day. Nursery rhymes are important for developing language and help with speech development. They help children develop good listening skills. 

Miss Polly had a Dolly

We had lots of fun singing Miss Polly had a Dolly and pretending to be doctors and nurses. The children carried the doctors kits around with the all day and kept taking each others temperature and hearing their hearts beat. 'Bu bum, bu bum' said Hephzibah, 'You are okay.'

We had a go at writing a get well soon card to Dolly to try and make her feel better. We practised writing our names and even had a go at colouring in the front of the cards. 'It's a bed for Dolly, and a pillow to sleep and a blanket,' said Evelyn. The children could give meaning to the marks they made. 

We played a turn taking game where we had to take it in turns to find a body part in the lentils. The children waited so patiently for their turns and enjoyed finding out if they had found a part they didn't already have. They loved it when they found all the parts.

Today we sang our Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme while outside and dropped humpty dumpty off a wall we had built using our construction bricks. The children were very excited to see what had happened to the egg and what was inside it.

We thought of ways we use eggs after watching how humpty dumpty smashes. Some of us suggested that we bake with eggs so we decided to bake some biscuits using our humpty dumpty eggs. 

"I use eggs when I bake with my Mummy." -Farrah

"The oven gets very hot so I mustn't touch it." - Darcie

The wheels on the bus

On Monday we sang along to wheels on the bus, we used wheeled vehicles to mark make and enjoyed watching the different tracks they made. We made people in the playdough and put them on a bus, we also used chairs to make a bus in the outdoor area and in the classroom. We used our counting skills to count people on and off the bus. 

Rememberance Day

Today we learnt all about Rememberance Day and why we wear poppies. We loved the different provision areas and played brilliantly together whilst learning about the people who died for us in the war. 

We did lots of poppy activities and had poppies in provision. The children loved making the poppy wreaths and playing with the soldiers. 

We’re going on a leaf hunt

We wanted to go on our own leaf hunt so we set off and went up the big slope onto the field where we found lots of different shaped and coloured leaves as well as leaves that were different sizes. 

We sang the song, 1 little, 2 little, 3 little acorns as we played with acorns and 10 frames.  There was some great maths going on, subitising, counting and showing different amounts of acorns.  

We did some leaf printing using leaves and different coloured paints. We painted our leaves then pressed them for about ten seconds onto the paper. We then took the leaf off the paper and it left a loved print with a lovely pattern. We had a great time doing this. 

Matching leaves

Sleeping Beauty

We had the best time watching sleeping beauty with the rest of EYFS and KS1. We all sat brilliantly whilst the show was on and we listened really carefully. It was so exciting! We loved the songs and joined in when we were asked to clap. 

Bonfire Night and Halloween

We are very happy to have Nursery back after half term. We will be learning all about Bonfire night and why we celebrate it as well as learning all about Halloween and why we celebrate that. We will be doing lots of fun activities and cannot wait to get started.

We looked at photographs and videos of bonfires and fireworks.  We talked about keeping safe if we do go to a bonfire this weekend. Outside we built our own bonfire and used coloured paper strips to  ask if look like it was on fire! the wind kept blowing the, away so we used bits of masking tape to keep them in place.   We also loved making sparklers. 

We made firework patterns using shapes.

Doing our splatter firework pictures was great fun! 

We used pipe cleaners and threaded them into the holes on the silver containers.  They looked great and really colourful, just like fireworks.  

We made a smaller bonfire for the second half of the week and pretended to toast marshmallows on it. We were careful and talked about using gloves if we were using sparklers. We loved talking about fireworks after watching some on the screen inside and cannot wait to see some at the weekend. 

We explored the pumpkins and the different textures of them. They felt slimy and sticky and Shania said 'it smells!' Farrah said that she had tasted pumpkin before but it was 'eeeurghh.' We had a great time trying to break them open and take all of the seeds out. We used spoons and our fingers to explore. It was great fun!