Nursery And Pre-School - PSHE - Valentine's Stay And Play
This week, Nursery and Preschool were delighted to host a special "Stay and Play" session, inviting the children's grown-ups into the setting to celebrate Valentine's Day together. The children took great pride in being "tour guides" for their visitors, showing their grown-ups their favorite areas to play and explaining their daily routines. This provided a wonderful boost to their confidence and communication skills as they shared their learning environment with their families. Throughout the session, the children engaged in various collaborative crafts, working side-by-side with their grown-ups to create Valentine-themed art. It was lovely to see the children interacting so positively with each other and their families, demonstrating their ability to share resources and work together on creative tasks. The morning was a beautiful celebration of the bonds between home and school, filled with happy faces and a wonderful sense of community.
Nursery And Pre-School - PSHE - Valentine's Stay And Play
This week, Nursery and Preschool were delighted to host a special "Stay and Play" session, inviting the children's grown-ups into the setting to celebrate Valentine's Day together. The children took great pride in being "tour guides" for their visitors, showing their grown-ups their favorite areas to play and explaining their daily routines. This provided a wonderful boost to their confidence and communication skills as they shared their learning environment with their families. Throughout the session, the children engaged in various collaborative crafts, working side-by-side with their grown-ups to create Valentine-themed art. It was lovely to see the children interacting so positively with each other and their families, demonstrating their ability to share resources and work together on creative tasks. The morning was a beautiful celebration of the bonds between home and school, filled with happy faces and a wonderful sense of community.
Nursery - Art - Valentine's Flowers
This week, the children in the nursery class have been busy creating beautiful vases of flowers as special Valentine’s gifts for someone they love. The project began with the children focusing on their mark-making skills to decorate their vases. Using a variety of tools, including dabbers and felt tips, they practiced their control and intentional design to make each vase unique and colorful. To create the flowers, the children engaged in a tactile sensory experience by painting their hands with bright red paint. They then carefully used handprints to represent the flowers growing from their vases. This activity was a wonderful way for the children to explore the properties of paint and see how they can use their own bodies to create art. The finished pieces are a lovely celebration of the children's creativity and the spirit of Valentine's Day!
Nursery - Literacy - Bakery Creations
This week, the children loved visiting our classroom Valentine's bakery, where they used playdough to "bake" their own cakes, biscuits, and treats. The activity provided a fantastic workout for their fine motor skills. The children worked hard to squeeze, splat, roll, pinch, and poke the dough, building the hand strength needed for future writing. They used cutters to create heart-shaped biscuits and carefully placed dough into cupcake cases, adding various decorations to finish their "bakes." As the play progressed, some children were inspired to record their work. They moved from the dough table to the drawing area, where they transferred their real-life creations into drawings. This was a wonderful way for the children to give meaning to their marks, as they explained what they had drawn and matched their pictures to the treats they had made in the bakery.
Nursery - Music - Computing - Creating Music
This week, the children enjoyed making their own music using the 2Explore tool on Purple Mash. We focused on using the computer to find different noises and seeing how we could put them together to make a fun tune. The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to the wide variety of sounds available within the software. They practiced their navigational skills to select and trigger different instrumental notes and effects, discovering how the software combined their chosen sounds into a continuous song. This process allowed them to experiment with different noises and hear how they sounded together in a rhythmic way. There was a wonderful sense of achievement as the children listened back to their completed "songs." Many were so proud of their digital creations that they even began dancing to the beats they had produced.
Nursery - Maths - I Spy...
This week, the children have been developing their early mathematical skills by learning how to categorise and sort by colour. To explore this concept, the children played a game of "I Spy" using a variety of resources set out on the malleable tray. Each child selected a coloured bowl and was challenged to find items that matched that specific colour to fill their bowl. This task encouraged the children to focus on the properties of objects and use their visual discrimination skills to ignore distractions and find matching items. Throughout the activity, the children were encouraged to use colour language to describe their findings. This hands-on approach successfully introduced the concept of sorting into sets and helped the children build confidence in identifying and naming different colours within their environment.
Nursery - Music - What Instrument Did I play?
This week, the children participated in a high-focus auditory discrimination activity designed to sharpen their listening skills and musical awareness. The children were tasked with identifying instruments based on sound alone. While hidden behind a screen, one instrument was played and the children had to listen very carefully. From a varied group of instruments laid out before them, they then had to select which one they believed was being played. Once they made their choice, the children were encouraged to mimic the sound they heard by playing the instrument themselves. This was a crucial step, as it allowed for instant confirmation of their choice or a self-corrected change of mind if the sounds did not match. This activity successfully promoted critical thinking, active listening, and early performance skills as the children explored the unique sounds each instrument could produce.
Nursery - Maths - Categorising Objects By Size
Today, the children used our topic story, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, to explore size and categorization. The activity began with a "herd" of goats on the grass. The children were tasked with identifying and sorting specific sizes, focusing on big and small. To support their understanding, they used visual Widgits and hand gestures to represent the sizes they were searching for. Once a goat was found, the children placed it on the bridge, checking that their group consisted of the same size. This promoted skills in matching and comparison. For an extra challenge, some children were introduced to the 'medium' goats, practicing the tricky task of distinguishing them from the big and small ones. This successfully built their mathematical vocabulary and ability to differentiate between three distinct sizes.
Nursery - Science - Our Gardens
This week, the children engaged in a hands-on science lesson exploring the environment and how things grow. Using images of their own houses as inspiration, the children were tasked with creating their very own gardens! To make the activity even more meaningful, the images of their houses were taped onto the pots to create the illusion of the children's own gardens at home growing. The children practiced their physical coordination and tool use, using trowels to carefully scoop soil into their pots. Once the pots were prepared, they used shakers to distribute their seeds, learning about the first stages of a plant's life cycle. During the activity, we discussed what we need for a healthy plant. The children learned that for a plant to grow big and strong, it needs two vital ingredients: water and sunlight. This exploration allowed the children to connect their learning to their own homes while building a foundational understanding on how we can take care of plants. We are now keeping a close eye on our pots and hope to see some blossoming flowers soon!
Nursery - Literacy - Story Props
This week, our literacy focus centered on the classic story The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children used a variety of resources in the malleable tray to bring the narrative to life and deepen their understanding of story structure. To support their retelling, the children were provided with a rich assortment of aids, including puppets, masks, and soft toy teddies. These tools allowed the children to take on different roles, experimenting with key phrases from the book, such as the famous "Trip, trap, trip, trap!" as the goats crossed the bridge. To ensure the activity was inclusive and accessible for all learners, we integrated sound buttons which provided auditory prompts for the children to hear and repeat key parts of the story. We also utilized Widgits to offer visual symbols that helped the children sequence the events and recognize important vocabulary. Through this interactive play, the children demonstrated a growing grasp of narrative sequencing and gained confidence in using expressive language to communicate the story to their peers.
Nursery - Art - The Three Little Pigs
This week, the children visited the craft table to create their own pigs, directly linking to our core story, The Three Little Pigs. The process began with a paper plate as a base. The children practiced their spreading skills using pink PVA glue to create an even layer for their design. They then used their fine motor skills to carefully pinch and place pink tissue paper to cover the pig's face. To add the features, including eyes, a nose, ears, and a curly tail, the children used their own faces as a reference to determine the correct quantity of each item needed. This encouraged them to identify and count the features before placing them onto their pigs. This activity successfully combined creative expression with early mathematical counting and a better understanding of their own physical features.
Nursery - English - Write Dance
This week, the nursery class began their 'Write Dance' journey, a program designed to bridge the gap between large physical movements and early writing skills. We started with a focus on gross motor movement using the classic song 'The Grand Old Duke of York' as our guide. The children used ribbons to mirror the lyrics, moving their arms in large up and down motions. They were highly engaged, enjoying the visual feedback of the ribbons trailing through the air as they controlled their movements to match the rhythm of the music. To transition these movements toward literacy, the children then used their core muscles to lie on their tummies, a position that builds the shoulder stability necessary for writing. On large paper, they worked to recreate those same up and down movements, observing how their physical actions left marks on the page. This process was vital for helping the children give meaning to their movements, turning a physical dance into a purposeful mark-making experience.
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