Nursery - PSHE - Looking After Our Teeth!
Our PSHE lesson this week focused on the importance of good dental hygiene. The children learned how to look after their teeth, with a particular emphasis on the introduction of toothbrushes and the correct way to brush. To help them understand the concept, we used a giant toothbrush and giant teeth to practice wiping away the germs. This hands-on activity helped the children develop a basic understanding before they tried brushing their own teeth. The children had a fantastic time brushing their own teeth while following along with the Hey Duggee Brush Your Teeth song. They enthusiastically copied the characters' movements, which made the activity both fun and educational. To promote good oral hygiene practices, Nursery class will be brushing their teeth together every day. This routine will reinforce what they've learned and help them establish a healthy habit for the future.
Mental Health and Wellbeing - Recognising and Managing Stress
Stress is something we all experience – but for children and young people, it can feel especially overwhelming. This guide presents 10 simple, actionable strategies to help young people manage stress in a healthy and balanced manner. Whether it’s noticing early signs, encouraging open conversations, or modelling calm responses, there are plenty of ideas here to support positive change. Perfect for both school and home settings, the guide equips adults to identify subtle signals of stress and create safe spaces for pupils to open up. It also suggests mindful habits and healthy routines that can become part of daily life, promoting long-term emotional strength and mental wellbeing.
Staying Safe Around Water
Whether it’s sunny days at the beach or fun in the paddling pool, children are naturally drawn to water. But with excitement comes risk. This guide brings together 10 clear, practical tips to help parents and educators protect children around water – whether that’s at home, on school trips or on holiday. Backed by the Royal Life Saving Society UK, the advice includes knowing what beach flags mean, avoiding inflatables in open water, and learning to ‘float and call’ in an emergency. With a focus on prevention and supervision, this guide is a must-read for summer safety and beyond.
Nursery And Pre-School - Imaginative Play, Pirates!
The nursery and preschool children have loved the pirate theme this week, quickly selecting dress-up items to transform into swashbuckling pirates. A significant highlight was the children's collaborative effort in constructing a pirate ship using the jumbo building bricks. They worked together, demonstrating emerging cooperation and negotiation skills as they discussed where to place bricks or how to make the ship bigger. Once their magnificent ship was constructed, the children climbed aboard, steering their vessel and actively sailing their ship across the imaginary seas. They eagerly engaged in target practice, throwing 'cannonballs' at 'enemy ships' in the distance. This action-packed segment refined their gross motor skills, including throwing and aiming, and further fueled their imaginative narrative.The rich vocabulary used by adults (e.g., "Ahoy, matey!", "Walk the plank!") was frequently echoed by the children, showcasing developing communication and language skills within their play.
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Nursery - Art And Design - Sensory Play Ice-Creams
The children showed delight and engagement with the shaving foam. Their initial response was tactile, poking, squishing, and spreading the foam, exploring its texture directly. The activity quickly transitioned into imaginative play as children began making "ice creams." They demonstrated developing hand-eye coordination and fine motor control by actively scooping foam into cones and cups. Using shakers to add "sprinkles" further refined their fine motor skills through precise grasp and release. Rich imaginative role-play emerged, with children offering their foam creations to peers and adults, exclaiming "Yummy!" or "Ice cream!" This showed budding communication and language skills and engagement in pretend scenarios.
Beached Themed Reading Cafe
Wow, what an incredible day we had at our beach-themed reading café! A massive thank you to everyone who joined us and made it such a fantastic success. It was truly wonderful to see so much fun, laughter, and, most importantly, a clear passion for books filling the room!
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Nursery - Geography - Exploring Familiar Landmarks From our Community
The children have been exploring the miniature town setup, demonstrating a strong connection to their immediate world. They eagerly selected toy cars and began to drive them around the roads, navigating between the familiar buildings and landmarks. There was clear recognition of the nursery building and the school, with many children pointing and making excited sounds or simple comments like "My nursery!" or "School!" As they drove, children frequently paused their cars at the images of local shops and statues, initiating conversations or responding to adult prompts about their experiences. They used simple words and gestures to indicate where they had seen these places, showing a developing understanding of familiar geographical features in their community. The activity fostered rich opportunities for communication and language, as children shared their personal connections to the landmarks, such as "I go there!" for a shop, or pointing to a statue and looking for adult affirmation. The interactive nature of driving the cars around the 'town' facilitated active exploration and helped children make tangible links between the models and their real-world experiences.
Nursery - Computing - Ice-Cream Creations
The children approached the interactive whiteboard with high levels of curiosity and engagement, particularly with the vibrant colours and responsiveness of the Purple Mash drawing function. For the newer class members, the activity provided a foundational experience in early digital literacy. These children primarily focused on the cause and effect relationship between their physical movements and the marks appearing on the screen. They explored moving their hands across the board, watching lines and scribbles appear, demonstrating an initial understanding that their actions directly influenced the digital output. Their movements were broad and experimental, indicating the very first stages of control over a digital tool. The older and more experienced children in the class exhibited more refined digital literacy skills and intentionality. These students actively attempted to control their movements to achieve specific shapes, notably working on creating circular motions to form ice cream scoops. Their engagement also extended to thinking about their design, verbally contemplating and selecting virtual "toppings" for their ice creams e.g., "I want sprinkles!", "Strawberry on top!". This demonstrated developing digital dexterity, early planning skills, and the ability to integrate imaginative ideas with the available digital tools. Overall, the activity successfully catered to a range of developmental stages, allowing all children to explore digital mark-making at their own level while fostering early computing and creative expression.
Nursery - Science - Exploring Textures In The Sand
The children in Nursery class actively explored the materials with their hands, running sand through their fingers and picking up the feathers. This demonstrated strong curiosity and active exploration. As they explored, children spontaneously generated descriptive words for the textures they encountered. Several children were heard saying "fluffy" when touching the feathers and "soft" when feeling the fine sand. When adults modelled words like "bumpy" and "smooth", while touching shells, these words were frequently repeated by the children, showing developing listening and understanding skills and an expansion of their descriptive vocabulary. Children also engaged in various actions with the materials, such as sprinkling sand over the feathers and shells, and examining the intricate patterns on the shells. This hands-on interaction allowed for direct observation of material properties and fostered a deeper sensory understanding of their immediate environment. The activity successfully provided rich opportunities for sensory exploration and language development around textures.
Let’s Talk Dummies – Helping Your Pre-Schooler Get Ready to Talk and Learn
Dummies can be really helpful when children are little, especially for comfort and sleep. But as they grow and get ready for nursery or school, dummies and bottles can start to get in the way of their talking. Using a dummy too much can make it harder for children to: • Babble and practise new sounds • Move their tongue properly for clear speech • Develop teeth and mouths in a way that supports speaking All of these things are really important as children build their confidence with talking, listening and joining in – key parts of being ready for school. How can you help? • Try to keep dummy use just for sleep times • Take the dummy out when your child is playing, exploring or talking • Start to reduce dummy use gradually – and aim to stop altogether before they turn 2 If you’re not sure where to start or would like some ideas, just ask a member of staff – we’re always happy to help. Together, we can support every child to find their voice and feel confident for their next steps. ????????
Online Safety - Nintendo Switch 2
Nintendo’s long-awaited Switch 2 has finally arrived, blending fresh hardware with fan-favourite franchises. From Mario to Pikachu, the familiar mascots are back – but so too are evolving online features, in-game purchases, and potential exposure to mature content. As ever, it’s essential that parents and educators understand the risks to young players. Among these are GameChat voice communication, camera-based gaming, and potential access to mature-rated titles. This guide outlines what to watch out for and how to keep children safe, engaged and having fun.
Nursery - P.E - Ball Skills - Throwing, Catching And Rolling.
During PE, Nursery class focused on fundamental ball skills, specifically rolling, throwing and catching. The children engaged in independent, small group and paired activities, demonstrating a range of developing abilities. In the small group rolling activity, many children showed good control, pushing the ball forward with an open palm. Some were beginning to anticipate the ball's movement and adjust their body to receive it. The children have been developing the coordination required to consistently send the ball in a straight line. Transitioning to paired throwing, the children were at different stages of mastering this skill, while their aim varied, they all worked on releasing the ball with an underarm throw. All of the children showed enthusiasm and persistence, readily retrieving their balls and attempting throws again.
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