Nursery

Welcome to Nursery

painted-hand-prints

The staff in nursery are  Louise Wood, Jenny Elia and Alison Rush, Lydia Dennis and Mirisje Kastrati

Here is some important information about the safety of nursery children: Safety tips leaflet for the beginning of nursery sessions

The nursery operates two sessions – one in the morning (8.45am-11.45am) and one in the afternoon (12.45pm-3.45pm).

  • Breakfast is available from 7.45am-8.45am for £7.
  • Lunch is from 11.45am t0 12.45pm is £7 for the session and £2.30 for cooked lunch – children can also bring packed lunch or go home.
  • Nursery After School club is from 3.45pm – 6pm and costs £15.75 plus a meal for £2.30.

Here’s some useful information for parents:

In nursery, the children spent a week carrying out 4 different science experiments. First they explored what happened when they put coloured vinegar onto bicarbonate of soda. The children found using pipettes very tricky but they did not give up and they made the powder bubble will lots of colour! In our second experiment, the children explored ice. Each block of ice had a toy inside and the children had to find a way of getting the toy out of the ice. Some of the children tried to melt the ice whilst others tried to break it using a variety of tools. Our third experience was about floating and sinking.

The children passed round objects and spoke about what they felt like. They predicted whether the object would sink or float before putting it into a tub of water to find out. Finally, the children were given magnets and told to find magnetic items around the nursery. They were then taken around the rest of the school building to find more items that were magnetic.

The main focus at the start of the year was to settle in the new children. The first focus was ‘Owl Babies and Autumn’ with lots of activities to support this such as; reading the story/re-telling story with props making owls with play dough, feathers, eyes and sticks, painting characters, counting activities with natural objects, taking an Autumn walk around the school and exploring natural objects, drawing owl babies pictures, cutting leaves and developing scissor skills, using small world to create an Owl Babies scene, looking at and talking about photographs of own family, drawing pictures of own family and looking at non fiction books about owls.

The Nursery also learnt about Diwali and made diva lamps, rangoli patterns etc to show how people celebrate, They also had fun with Halloween activities such as dressing up and potion making.  The focus in the second half of the term has been traditional tales. They have used the Three Little Pigs. In maths, the children have been introduced to Numicon and they are exploring the different shapes and colours that are used by playing games and matching.

ARCHIVE: Here’s what we got up to in nursery last year. 

Children in the Nursery were lucky enough to visit the pirate-themed Princess Diana Memorial Gardens for their school trip this term. This linked really well with the work they were doing on pirates, such as counting golden coins, making maps, telling pirate stories and making flags. Since their trip, the children have been learning about growing and have read Jack and the Beanstalk, planting their own bean and making their own observations about what is happening to it. Their current focus text is that of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They have a brood of caterpillars that they are watching closely to see their transformation into butterflies. They have been making caterpillars and using the language associated with 2D shapes and printing butterflies to make symmetrical pictures. The children have loved retelling the story using props and pictures.

At the end of the Nursery year, the focus has been on ensuring that children have an appropriate pencil grip to continue with their handwriting skills when they are in Reception. There have been many opportunities such as big writing and developing fine motor skills using clothes pegs to pick up pom-poms and using tweezers to collect tiny objects. The children who need support to develop their understanding of mathematical concepts have been taking part in maths interventions with the Nursery Nurses which has helped to develop their confidence and their skills. Talk Boost is another intervention that has been taking place to develop children’s speaking and listening skills.

The nursery children have been doing lots of work around the story of Handa’s Surprise. They looked closely at where Handa lives and compared the houses in her African village to their own ones. They looked at African clothes and talked about the patterns and colours they could see and then they painted their own African style patterns. 

The children got the chance to explore the fruit from the story and they had to think of interesting words to describe what the fruit looked like, felt like and tasted like. They then did their own observational drawings of the fruit. Finally, the children looked closely at the animals from the story and painted beautiful pictures of them which we have added to our Handa’s Surprise display.

The nursery children have had a very busy term. The children who started in September have settled really well and are already making lots of progress in their learning. We have been doing lots of mark making in different areas of the nursery and have particularly been working on drawing clear representative pictures. In number we have been counting lots of different objects and trying hard to count the objects carefully so that we get the right number.

There are lots of other skills the children have been working on such as climbing apparatus, using various tools, pen grip, building with construction materials, listening and attention, speaking and making friends.

Here are some photos of us busy in the nursery.