Welcome to the 2016-17 academic year.

Welcome to Nursery!

The Nursery admits its new intake every September. It is staffed by a qualified Nursery teacher, a Nursery nurse, three part-time level 3 qualified assistants. The Nursery takes in 40 children - approximately 20 in a session. We offer the universal 15 hour entitlement and additional hours.

We offer five sessions of 3 hours per week, either in the morning, afternoon or in two and a half day blocks ( Monday and Tuesday from 9a.m. to 3.15p.m.; Wednesday from 9a.m. to 12 noon OR Wednesday from 12.15p.m. to 3.15p.m.; Thursday and Friday from 9a.m. to 3.15p.m.). However we do try to accommodate any variants to this.

In September 2017 we will be offering 30 hours to those entitled 9-3 Monday to Friday.

There is currently a waiting list for September 2017.

The ethos of the Nursery is to provide a mixture of child initiated play alongside adult-led activities.

Have you seen the Kids' Zone? Play games, and visit some cool websites. You can vote for your favourites! 

Reminder:

Please remember if you change any contact details to let us know especially mobile numbers. It may worth keeping the School's phone number in your diary or phone incase you get unavoidably held up it is:01278 784641

If you are held up picking up your child please let us know as soon as possible we will obviously look after them in the Nursery until you arrive. If it is the end of the day and Mrs Lovibond-Stephens has meeting they will be cared for in after school club.

 British Values 
 

As part of our focus on democracy we have been voting on our favourite fruits and food. We have made graphs using the 2Count program on the computer to record our results as well as voting to select our favourite snack time fruit.

26.1.17
The children had a vote on what they would like our new role-play area to be. The outcome was a hospital/doctors for babies and baby animals.

5.10.16
This week we have been thinking about rules and have written some rules together about how we can keep ourselves safe outside.

16.3.17
The children have been voting for and choosing which toys we are having out in the afternoons now we have our new storage and they can access the resources themselves.

4.4.17
The children have been voting for their favourite seaside foods. We have recorded the results on a graph displayed in the classroom.

 Weekly Updates:
6.7.17
We have been finishing our work on Hawaii this week and making more uniquely designed surfboards.

We have visited the Golden Book Assembly this morning as part of transition preparations for starting school.

We also had a fun PE session today using the foam javelins and playing games with the parachute.

Our butterflies hatched this week and we released them on the school field today. They all flew off into the trees successfully.

PLEASE REMEMBER THE NURSERY IS CLOSED FOR VISIT OF NEW INTAKE ON FRIDAY 7TH JULY. IT IS THE BEACH VISIT ON MONDAY 10TH JULY AND OUR VISIT TO COURT FARM ON WEDNESDAY 12TH JULY.


30.6.17
We have worked very hard on our sponsored obstacle course this week. Most children achieved five laps see photos below. Thank you so much for all the generous amounts of sponsor money we will have a grand total shortly.

We have also had great fun this week learning about Hawaii. We turned our classroom inside and outside into a Hawaian oasis with surfing experiences, luau party play and Hawaian food tasters.

24.6.17
A big well done to everyone for performing so well on Sports Day last week.


This week we have been painting pictures of seasonal trees using our hands to enter the, 'Britain in Bloom' competition.

We enjoyed the hot weather keeping cool by playing with and drinking lots of water. The hot conditions have inspired us to start a project looking at the state of Hawaii. We have begun our research using the globe and internet. Next week we are going to use holiday brochures and the internet again. We have already discovered that Hawaii is the place surfing was invented so we are going to make a surf shop outside role-play area.


9.6.17
This week we have had a focus on symmetry. We made symmetrical butterflies as our adult led activity. The children then used this knowledge to go on and make their own symmetrical creations in their child initiated play. We have had wonderful peg patterns and duplo models. See photos pinned up around role-play area in the classroom.

We have also started our topic about caterpillars and butterflies. We have of course read, 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' as well as looking at non-fiction books about the life cycle of the butterfly.

25.5.17
We have been taking advantage of the good weather this week and have been outside preparing for Sports Day on the running track.

We have also been working with the children individually to review and set their next step targets.

On our welly walk we have been decorating the playground with large chalks. The children chose their own thing to draw we had a huge variety of pictures from giraffes to train tracks!


18.5.17
We have had a whole week of Forest School in all weathers! The children have been working together to build traps to catch the wolf chasing Red Riding Hood. See photos below.

We have been continuing to practise for Sports Day and are hoping to use the running track on the field next week.

We have also been reading and sharing books about telling the time. We especially enjoyed, 'What's the time Mr Wolf?'


11.5.17
We have been learning more about sea creatures this week. A local author called Anne Poole kindly gave us a newly published book about sea creatures and we have found out about what they do at the seaside. We have also been making jelly fish using paper bowls and collage materials. Each jelly fish is made to a unique design with the number of tentacles counted out by each child.

On our welly walk we looked for 2D shapes outside then extended our knowledge to look for 3D shapes and find out what their names are. See photos below.


4.5.17
We have been continuing to work on our seaside topic this week answering some of the questions we had at the beginning of our topic. Harvey found out about the different types of shark that exist working with Mrs Francis on the internet and in small groups we voted for our favourite seaside foods and recorded them on a graph.

On our welly walk we went on a scavenger hunt collecting twigs, leaves and pebbles. We have now made a large class collage picture of a beach scene using our finds. See photo below.

27.4.17
This week we have had a math's focus on addition. We have been using shells to practically combine to groups to find the total by counting. We have been using the language, 'part, part, whole' to help us understand this method.

In PE we danced like the sea creatures whale, lobster, swordfish and octopus.

On our welly walk we carried out a listening walk as part of our phonics focus.


20.4.17
We have started our new topic about the, 'Seaside' this week. We have been thinking about what we know about living so close to the sea as well as discussing what we would like to find out about such as, what types of sharks are there?

In PE we used, 'Commotion in the Ocean' audio book to act out different types of sea creatures and bounced sea creatures on our trampoline.

As part of our Welly Walk we used chunky chalks to draw large sea creatures on the school playground, see photos below.

Please remember to send in photos of the seafront or beach.



28.3.17 Today we had a very big surprise. Twinkle our puppet friend sent from Santa returned with a note from the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny had left us a hunt to go on and after looking for clues around the school we finally found some yummy chocolate bunny lollies.

We are in the process of clearing our classroom ready for painting in the Easter Holidays. When you return in April we will have a transformed classroom!

22.3.17
We have joined in with the School RE themed Art Week. We have made prayer plates, mats and windsocks to be displayed in the gallery in the Hall on Friday 24th after school.

This week we have also been designing and making our own t-shirts.

On welly walk we have used chunky chalks to make Easter drawings on the playground.
16.3.17
Our topic this week has been, 'Stick man'. We love this book and can now read it together as a class. Linked to the story we have made our own Stick man models using sticks collected outside. We have also made yummy chocolate Stick man cakes.

Please remember to keep sending in plain t-shirts for our art week.

7.3.17
We have turned into authors and illustrators this week. We have had great fun making our own class book based on the story, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. The children decided what animal they were hunting for and then set up photos outside using the chosen animal. We will be showing our book to the rest of the school in Celebration Assembly next Thursday.

We had a PE session outside this morning. We practised throwing and catching a basketball and tennis ball as well as acting out the, 'Bear Hunt' story using the parachute.


1.3.17
We had great fun on Pancake Day. We took part in pancake races outside and ate lots of pancakes for snack.

We have started a topic about the story, 'We're Going On a Bear Hunt'. We have been reading and acting out the story in small groups. We have also been talking about what we like and dislike about the story. We have started a large display linked to this topic in our classroom. We used Brusho paint to create the watercolour background for the display. See photo below.

24.2.17
This week we have been looking for signs of Spring. We went on a welly walk and pretended to be, 'Spring detectives'. We searched for new growth and photographed the things we found such as, snowdrops, daffodils and buds on trees. We have also been using pastels to sketch real daffodils. We have used the sketch to make a card for Mother's day.

We have been lucky to have Mrs Duckett in twice this week with her guitar. We have been learning some new songs and using our new instruments.

9.1.17
This week we have been reviewing and setting new individual targets. On our welly walk we have been planting primroses in our garden as well as using chunky chalks to practise tracing and writing our names on the playground outside.

In PE we finished our work on throwing by using the foam javelins we were so much better than last week!

In our child initiated play we have had the opportunity to make valentine cards and crowns.

2.2.17
We have been continuing to measure this week. We have been measuring weight by using weighing scales and shells. We have been finding out which shells are the heaviest or lightest.

On our welly walk we listened for sounds we could here outside as part of our phonics and noted what we found for display.

In PE we continued ball skills but used hockey sticks as well as javelins for fun!

26.1.17
This week we have been measuring capacity. We have used small bottles to fill large bottles. We predicted how many bottles it would take to fill a larger bottle and used green water to help us measure.

On our welly walk we went to the staff car park and counted how many tyres, windows and windscreen wipers we could see on our teachers cars. We recorded our results using tally marks.

We have also started to learn about Chinese New Year. We have watched several video clips about the celebrations in China and have started to make our own celebration banner by decorating and colouring the animals from the Chinese zodiac. We found out it is the year of the Rooster.

19.1.17
This week we have continued to have a number focus. We have made some large collage numbers which are displayed on the fence in the garden. On our welly walk we used a colour bar chart to mark off the colours we found in the outside environment. In PE we used scarves for throwing and catching as well as continuing with, 'Write Dance'. We have had fun outside playing with the mud kitchen see photo below. As part of our phonics work we have been changing words to songs especially, 'once I caught a fish alive'.

12.1.17
Welcome back and Happy New Year!

We have made a good start on our new topic about, 'mysterious numbers'. We had great fun on a number treasure hunt. The children had to find a piece of a number puzzle and when they completed the puzzle found the golden coin treasure!

We have also been using numbers to help us count and measure ingredients to make bird feeders. We measured 2 scoops of seed, 4 cubes of lard and filled the yogurt pots with 2 scoops of mixtures. We have now hung up around 30 bird feeders in the Nursery garden and we are looking out for a variety of visiting birds.

5.12.16


We are continuing with Christmas chaos! We are finishing our Advent wreaths and starting to make robin calendars this week. We are also practising very hard for our Christmas show on Friday 9th. Don't forget it is the Christmas party on Wednesday 14th December all day! The sign up list for food is on the Parent's Notice board.

2.12.16

Christmas has arrived! We have glitter everywhere! We have made our crowns for our performance on Friday 9th of December. We have also started to make advent wreaths.

We had a very exciting visitor in Nursery this week. Santa sent us a special friend called, 'Twinkle' we had to send her off in our rocket by filling the rocket with number fuel. Sadly we didn't put enough fuel in the first time and the rocket crash landed but yesterday we made numbers and photographed numbers to fill the rocket to the top and 'Twinkle' zoomed off to the North Pole.

24.11.16
We have been feeling very chilly in the Nursery this week as we have started our topic about, 'Winter'. We have been making snowmen and lady Christmas cards inspired by the film, The Snowman and the Snow dog'. We have had many stories set in cold, icy places and have thought of all the words we could about Winter.

We also did an experiment with ice. We made 4 pots of ice and then placed two outside and two inside. We thought the ice that was inside would melt quicker because we knew it was hotter and our prediction was correct.

16.11.16
We have continued to make our individual carnival float models this week and have nearly completed our classroom parade! The children have had great fun pretending to be on our large carnival float we made, dancing with pom poms and musical shakers.

We have worked in small groups to create large firework pieces of art by throwing balls covered in paint onto large black pieces of paper.

For our welly walk this week we have been writing and tracing our names with chunky chalks outside. See photos below.
9.11.16
We were all very excited about our visit to the Carnival. We spent most of today looking at photos of the floats and talking about what we saw. We have been working in small groups to make a large 3D carnival float for our new role-play area which we are putting together tomorrow. Today we have been on a welly walk collecting sticks to make a pretend bonfire in our outside area, see photo below. For the rest of the week we will be working on making individual carnival float models.

4.11.16
We have started to think about Fireworks this week. We have talked about what fireworks look like as well as what they sound like. We have made firework paintings using the end of toilet rolls and also chalked large fireworks on the playground during our welly walk.

In PE we used pom poms to dance like fireworks. We also played a new game about an alien spaceship with the parachute.
21.10.16


It has been multicultural week in the Nursery and we have tried and made foods from the countries, France, Italy and China. The French food of croissants, brioche and pain au chocolate proved the most popular! We also made flags from the same countries using the 2Paint programme on the computer. We are now going to use these as a bunting outside.

We have also had a messy play theme this week enjoying a scavenger hunt on our welly walk and porridge and flour in our creative trays.See photos below.
14.10.16
Our learning this week has been directed by the children. Through our, 'Loops for Learning' work the children came up with their ideas on what they wanted to find out about our new topic on the, 'dark'. We have researched what animals come out at night and have made collage animals as props for our role-play area. We also watched lots of video clips about Space and found out many new interesting facts.

We have had a focus on, 'colour' as well this week. We went on a colour spotting welly walk, see photos below and also made lots of colourful jellies following simple instructions.

5.10.16
Wow what a busy week! We have continued to make family trees and have also been making some fantastic Christmas pictures to be sent away to be made into professional cards.

We have been hunting for 2D shapes in the school environment, see photos below.

We have been making obstacle courses outside and the children have shown some excellent balancing skills.

Today we enjoyed a wonderful cowboy lunch see pictures in the classroom.

30 9 16
We have started to make family trees this week. The children have bought in photos from home of close family members and are now putting them on individual trees. During this process the children have been telling us about the people in their family and special events where the photos were taken.

We have also had a writing focus this week particularly enjoying a session on, 'write dance' in PE, see photos below.

Keep a look out for our new seasonal collage display on the fence in the garden.

22.9.16

We have all settled well at Nursery now and know the daily routines. Last week we made some fantastic hedgehogs using our hand prints which are now part of our Autumn display. We practised counting to ten when making our hedgehogs. This week we have started a small topic about ourselves. We are painting our own portraits using a mirror to help. The portraits are being displayed in the classroom with our targets.

Our phonics focus this week is from Aspect 1 and has been a listening welly walk. The results are displayed on our phonics wall in the classroom. Linked in with writing we will be starting our, 'Write Dance' work in PE tomorrow.