Week 7

This is the version of the traditional story of ‘The Magic Porridge Pot’ that we have shared with the children in class. Can your children remember the magic words to make the magic pot begin to cook and then to stop?  
 

We made and enjoyed porridge in nursery, we talked about what we needed to make it and talked about ways to cook it.  Mrs Caradice did a great job making sure that our porridge pan didn’t overflow! 

We had a valentines day theme for our maths this week.  We are doing really well instantly recognising when we see groups of 1,2,3,4 and 5.  We are practising saying or showing using our fingers  the numbers we see.   

We are learning to use 5 frames to help us talk about numbers and know if we have more than 5 , we need more than one 5 frame. 

We had some practise weaving. We made our own hearts using paper and then cut slots in them. We then got some paper and threaded it through the holes to make a pattern. We were careful using our fingers and had to use a pincer grip to thread the paper through.

Week 6

Before reading the story we looked at the words in the title and talked about the word 'enormous'.

The children showed that they understood that it meant very very big and shared some other words that they knew which meant the same. 

We pretended to pull up the enormous turnip, we pulled and pulled and pulled until pop! 
Some children pretended to be the enormous turnip and needed pulling out of the rope net.  Great imaginations everyone! 

We talked about what was happening in the picture and what the characters said when they were struggling to pull up the turnip. The children made marks and told a grown up what these marks meant. 

We practised our cutting skills and tried to cut out a giant turnip. We held the scissors correctly and tried really hard to cut around the turnip shape leaving no white. 

We had lots of fun exploring the different root vegetables. We talked about what we thought they were and what they smelt like. We used peelers to peel the vegetables and practised our fine motor skills. We held the peeler at the bottom and made sure our fingers didn’t go near the sharp edges. We loved smelling the vegetables once they had been peeled. We were able to identify the carrot and the potato but struggled with the celeriac and the swede. 

We were so lucky this week to have singing with Mr Jennings. We sang lots of songs such as incy windy spider and I like to eat apples and bananas. The children absolutely loved it and joined in so brilliantly. I asked them if they enjoyed the singing and they all said “yes.” Well done Nursery! 

Week 5

We used paper plates to make goat faces, we looked at pictures of goats and talked about what we could see. We uses scissors to snip and cut and glue to stick on the ears and horns.   Then we used felt pens to draw on the eyes , nose and mouth.  

We built a bridge to get to the other side of the river.  We then role-played the story, pretending to be the goats crossing the bridge and meeting the Troll!  

Look at our terrible, grumpy Trolls!  We looked at some pictures of trolls in different story books and then painted our own pictures. 

The three Billy Goats Gruff story is a good one to join in with, we practised using different voices for the goats and the troll, and made some fabulous faces, pretending to be the troll.  We set up a story tray, talked about what we could use to make it, and when it was done, began telling the  story using the toy goats and a puppet of the troll.   

We had a go at tracing different patterns practising our pencil grip and pencil control. We used grip and tripod holds and had a really good go. Well done Nursery. 

We made shape trolls learning all about different shapes and which ones had round edges and which ones had straight edges. We then stuck circle eyes on the troll with a triangle nose and a semi circle mouth. We all loved doing this and made some great scary trolls!

Week 4

We listened to the story of the three little pigs and then went outside to build houses for our pigs. We used  straw, sticks and bricks and then the big bad wolf came! “Little pig,  let me come in”.  “no no no, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin,  I will not let you in.” 

We did some brilliant printing using straws , sticks and bricks to decorate the three houses for the three little pigs.

We arranged shapes to fit within the templates to create a picture of the three little pigs. 

We made our own little pigs using tissue paper and card. We followed the instructions given to us and really enjoyed making them. 

We made our own pictures of houses using photos of bricks, straw and sticks. We used our fine motor skills to measure the strips of paper and then cut them out so they fit into the houses. It was great fun. 

We did some building ourselves using mini marshmallows and cocktail sticks. 

We had lots of fun outside trying to build the strongest house for the three little pigs to live in. We decided to use bricks as the wolf didn’t manage to blow this one down. We found out that bricks are stuck together with concrete so this was definitely the strongest. We ran out of bricks so used the slats to make a roof and a door to make it extra safe. We were able to open the door and put the little pigs inside. It was so much fun. 

We had a discussion about the story the three little pigs and what the houses were made out of. We had a go at drawing the three houses and were able to form recognisable shapes and marks. 

Week 3

The three bears came to visit and we fed them porridge but first we had to make sure each bear had the right sized bowl and spoon.  There was lots of good discussion going on as the children played. 

Then we made three beds for the bears , the children talked about the size of bed each bear would need. As we built, we checked to make sure each bed was a different size. 

We made our own Goldilocks using a face template and yellow ribbon. We had to use our pincer grip to pick up the small pieces of ribbon and then stick them on using glue. We made sure we covered her head and then we drew a face on her. It was great fun!

We did some counting using ten frames and bears. We were first asked how many bears there are in the story and we were able to count the three bears on the front of the book. We then had a go at counting out three bears onto the ten frame. We counted them forwards and backwards and added bears to the frame. Some of us had a go at counting the empty squares too. Well done Nursery.

Week 2

The Gingerbread Man

Some children were already familiar with the story of the Gingerbread man and joined in with the repeated phrase, 'Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!'

Baking Gingerbread Men. 
We followed a recipe to make some gingerbread mixture and then all had a go to roll out the dough and use a cutter to make a gingerbread man.  We carefully laid them on the baking trays ready to bake in the oven.   We really do hope that when the oven door is opened, our gingerbread men don’t run away! 

Decorating gingerbread man templates.

After listening the story, the children used their creative skills to make their own gingerbread person.  They selected materials and decorated by drawing, cutting shapes and sticking resources available at the making table. 

Counting buttons

We counted out a number of Pom poms to add buttons to the gingerbread man.  “Can you put on 3 buttons?”,  “ How many buttons are on this one?”  As we played we talked about the different amounts and used numbers to count. 

Counting and matching to numerals

This game on Topmarks website is great for subitising, practising counting and recognising numerals.  The children loved it. They were all keen to have a go so had to wait patiently for their turn.  

We had a go at drawing our own gingerbread men after listening to the story and talking about what he looks like. We talked about his gumdrop buttons and how many he had. We also talked about his head being round and him having two arms and two legs. We practised holding our pencils in a tripod grip and had support if needed. We did some brilliant drawings. 

Week 1 

Welcome back!  We hope all of our nursery children and their families have had a lovely Christmas break. 

Much of our  learning this half term will be based around traditional stories so we are calling it 'Once upon a time...'

There are so many well known and well loved fairy stories that we hope your children will be able to join in with as we go along.   We will be starting with the fabulous book called 'You Choose Fairy Tales' by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart.

Favourite character discussions

Light box fairytale castles

We looked at pictures of different fairytale castles before exploring the coloured shapes on the light box and created our own. 

After looking at the story, You Choose, we drew our favourite fairy-tale character giving meaning to the marks we made. We talked about the colours we should use and practised holding our pencils correctly.

We made our own fairytale castle using junk boxes and egg boxes. We used glue and Sellotape to stick them together and enjoyed deciding what shape to make. This is our final piece. What do you think?

Mrs Gray put water out last night and we came out this morning and it had all frozen over. We cracked it and smashed it. It was so much fun. We had to rescue the characters from the ice too. 

We looked at fairy tale castles and used paper shapes to stick and create our own. We talked about the different shapes and what each of them are called. We created different patterns and made some brilliant castles.