Nursery And Pre-School - P.E - Ball Skills
This week, the children in Nursery and Preschool thoroughly enjoyed their energetic PE session with Liam from Sports Cool. The focus of the lesson was all about developing confidence with ball handling, hand-eye coordination, and spatial awareness through fun, active challenges. The children worked hard on practicing their fundamental ball skills, including throwing and catching. They focused on tracking the ball with their eyes and using two hands to secure it, building both their gross motor control and reaction times. Liam encouraged the children to adjust their stance and use soft, ready hands when receiving the ball from a partner or coach. To finish the session, the children put their accuracy to the test by practicing rolling a ball towards a specific target. This required a great deal of control, concentration, and patience, as they judged how much force to apply and aimed carefully to hit their mark. The children celebrated each other's successes with lots of cheering and enthusiasm, showing fantastic teamwork and sportsmanship throughout the entire lesson.
Nursery/Pre-School-Physical Development-Tuesday Trails
Nursery and Preschool really enjoyed their first Tuesday Trails with Mrs Corbally. The children practised putting on their wellies and coats independently and then went in our outdoor environment to explore the world outside. The children made leaf water and mixed it with the different size sticks that we found together. The children developed their gross and fine motor skills jumping in the muddy puddles and picking up the different size leaves from the fallen trees.
Reception-Phonics-S
Our Reception children have taken their exciting first step into phonics learning by exploring the 's' sound! Through fun, hands-on activities, we have enjoyed discovering objects starting with 's', practising saying the sound clearly, and tracing its shape.
Reception - Expressive Arts - Self Portraits
Our Reception children have been busy exploring their creative skills by drawing their very own self-portraits. Looking carefully in mirrors, the children looked closely at their unique features, practicing fine motor control to draw shapes and lines for their faces, eyes, and hair.
Reception-Maths-Counting
Reception have had fun this week playing an engaging maths game where they practised identifying numbers and counting colorful fish to find the correct match. The children counted each fish one by one, showing brilliant focus as they matched the quantities to the corresponding written numbers. They also worked well learning how to take turns to use the spinner and choose a number.
Nursery And Pre-School - Maths - Categorising Objects
Our nursery and preschool children have been diving into early mathematical concepts this week with a vibrant, hands-on activity at the light table! The illuminated setting provided a captivating backdrop for multi-layered learning as the children explored colour, size, and counting. The children began by categorising glowing coloured blocks and translucent splats by colour, matching and grouping similar shades. From there, they put their counting skills to work by building colorful rainbow towers, carefully counting each block as they built higher. As the towers grew, the children explored height and spatial vocabulary, working together to identify which structures were the shortest and which were the tallest. To solidify their understanding, we supported the children in using this new mathematical language in short, complete sentences—such as "This red tower is the tallest!"—helping them connect physical play directly to clear mathematical thinking.
Reception-Literacy-Name Writing
Our Reception children have been busy making their mark as they practise writing their names this week. We have been forming letters in the sand and carefully writing them into our Literacy books. We are very proud of how hard they have been trying.
Nursery And Pre-School - Literacy - Wiggle Me Into Squiggle
Our Nursery and Pre-school children have made a fantastic start to our new 'Wiggle Me into Squiggle' intervention this week! This programme focuses on developing large, gross motor movements, which form the essential physical foundation needed for fine motor control and early writing. This week, our focus was all about mastering 'UP' movements. The children began in a group setting using ribbons in each hand, lifting their arms high and watching the fabric flow through the air as they tracked their physical movements. To refine these big movements into early mark-making, the children then moved over to the easels holding two paintbrushes at once. Working with both hands simultaneously helped strengthen their bilateral coordination while turning those large arm sweeps into controlled, painted strokes on paper. It has been brilliant to see their confidence grow as they connect active movement directly to writing skills!
Nursery And Pre-School - PSHE - Outdoor Exploration
What a fantastic first week back! We have loved welcoming our nursery and preschool children back into the setting as they jump into exploring our new environment. The outdoor area has been a huge hit, with the children eager to try out the new resources and enjoy learning in the fresh air. It has been wonderful to watch them dive into independent play with so much curiosity, making new friends and settling into their routines with big smiles.
Reception- Continuous Provision- Settling In
In Reception this week we have had a wonderful time settling in. The children have explored the classroom and outdoors. We have been making new friends, learning new routines and rules and how we go about our daily tasks. The children enjoyed music time learning new songs and have been introduced to new stories.
Nursery/Pre-School-P.S.H.E-Welcome Back
Nursery /Preschool would like to welcome back our children and welcome all our new starters that will be starting with Darwen St James Nursery over the next couple of weeks. We are super excited to meet you all and start our learning journey in Nursery/Preschool.
Reception- Music- Expressing Ourselves
In Reception this week the children have been putting their learning of music into practice. Using the different instruments to make a beat and then develop it into a song that they know. We then took it to the next level and used the role play outfits to put on a music show. Singing our favourite songs and making up lots of different actions. We had so much fun!
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