We began this half term by finding out about Shrove Tuesday and exploring ‘pancake day’ traditions.

We made and tasted pancakes and took part in pancake races and pancake tossing competitions.

We started thinking about what we might find down at the bottom of the garden. The children brought interesting objects from their gardens to share with us and we worked together to plant flowers in our nursery garden.

We found out that plants grow from seeds. We planted mystery seeds and found out what they need to help them grow. We predicted what our seed might grow into.

We read the story ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ and embarked upon a week of adventure.

On Monday we found beans and peas. We sang ‘5 little peas’ and enjoyed counting them and making shakers. On Tuesday we planted them. On Wednesday we watered them and explored pouring, sprinkling, filling and emptying with our water provision outdoors. On Thursday we found out how to harvest them. We made and shared beans on toast. On Friday we became bug explorers. We found out all about worms and went digging for worms. We made a wormery so that we could care for the worms and observe them. 

We were so brave handling these little wiggly worms. 

Come and See - Growing/Lent

Our RE focus for this half term was ‘growing’ as we found out all about Lent. The children discovered that Jesus had to go away for 40 days and 40 nights. He needed to have a big think as he knew he had an important job to do. The children each made a promise to be like Jesus and do his work while he was away. They placed purple ribbons on our Lent tree to show that they promised to be kind, gentle, caring and helpful. Each day we chose a child who we had seen being like Jesus and they were given a leaf to add to our tree. We worked together to help our tree grow in love. We are so proud of how well our children took to this challenge. 

It is so cold! We have been exploring the season of winter. We went outdoors without our coats on and experienced the cold. We thought of ways to warm up by jumping, stamping our feet and cuddling each other.

We noticed frost and ice outdoors. We wondered where the ice and frost had come from. We filled cups with water and put them in the freezer. The following day we passed them round to discover they were frozen. We began exploring freezing and melting. 

Each child took home a piece of felt to decorate with their families. We brought them back to school to make them into a blanket. We built on our experience of joining last half term and used a new technique to sew the pieces together.  

As we explored warm blankets, sock and scarves we began to notice patterns. We have learnt to recognise familiar patterns and have created repeating patterns using a variety of resources. 

Towards the end of the half term we made a discovery. Berty Bear, our class teddy bear, had been left outside overnight and he was frozen solid. We thought about what had happened to him and how we could help him. Some fantastic discussion around this. Our children had some wonderful ideas. They were so caring and considerate. 

Our RE focus this half term was ‘celebrating’. We began by celebrating the epiphany and then went on to find out about celebrations that take place in church. We heard the story of the presentation, when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple to thank God for him. The children re-enacted this story.

We were very happy to welcome our families in to nursery for Stay and Play as we celebrated St Valentine’s Day and the love we have for our families. 

It was a cold dark night

This half term we are exploring the dark. We are also looking at using tools for cutting and joining. We came in to school to discover that it was dark. Black paper covered the windows. We decided that we needed to make holes to let the light in. We used tools to make holes by cutting, poking, puncturing and piercing the paper. 

When we put the paper back up to the window it looked like starlight shining through the holes. We read ‘Laura’s Star’ and made beautiful sparkly stars which we hung up to make a night sky. 

We came in to school to discover that our stars had fallen down from the sky and broken. We used a variety of tools and materials in our ‘star repair shop’ to join the pieces back together again.

We decided to find out more about the dark so we became ‘dark explorers’. We searched around our school to find and collect 5 glow in the dark stars. 

We used these stars to learn a new number rhyme ‘5 little stars’. We are fantastic at counting to 5 now.

We are trying to use more vocabulary to describe familiar objects. We used a dark box to explore mystery items. We shined a torch inside and described what we could see. 

Autumn Term 2 - 2019

Let’s explore what’s through the door

The children came in to nursery to be faced with a real life problem. The lock to our store cupboard was broken. We couldn’t get in and Sally rabbit, our class puppet, couldn’t get out. The children had lots of ideas and quickly got to work to try to solve this problem. They tried a variety of tools and keys and even even wrote to Mr Jones our caretaker to ask for his help. The children were delighted when Mr Jones visited with his real tools! 

Push, pull, twist, turn. 

We decided to explore what’s through the door by venturing out of nursery and in to school. The children took a key each and investigated lots of locks and door handles. We visited ur school hall, key stage one and two and our school office. 

As we explored doors we also began to recognise door shapes, or rectangles. We looked at flat shapes and made four new friends: Sally Circle; Sam Square; Reg Rectangle and Trudy Triangle. The children have been able to identify and name these shapes and have also begun to describe them, looking at the properties of these shapes. 

Our RE focus this half term was ‘Welcome’. We welcomed each other through the door and thought about how to make each other feel welcome. Our children have surprised us by welcoming visitors into nursery saying “welcome, come on in”. 

We discovered a baby in our classroom and chose to name it and welcome it into nursery. We found out that baptism is a welcome into God’s family. We role played a baptism with the baby.

We found out that Advent is a time to ‘get ready’ to welcome baby Jesus at Christmas. The children were each given a duster and were encouraged to get their hearts ready to welcome the baby by being kind and gentle. They were challenged to collect four purple hearts on their dusters through acts of kindness, by working together and by retelling the Nativity story for our families. 

We welcomed our families in to nursery this half term for our stay and play session themed around Christmas crafts. It was lovely to see so many families taking part. We made reindeer antlers, we decorated our Christmas tree and made beautiful gold stars. Thank you to everyone who took part. 

We have explored the story of the first Christmas. The children worked very hard to practice a retelling of the nativity entitled ‘The Key’. We were extremely proud of them for performing this story for their families. They were all so brave. 

Harvest

We came into nursery to discover a ‘Harvest treasure basket’. 

We explored the story of ‘The Little Red Hen’. We explored the foods and spoke about where they came from. Each day we have taken food from the basket and shared it. The children have learnt the following song to help them share the food we have:

‘God gives good things

For us all

Food to make us healthy

Share it round’. 

We chopped and shared the apples and the bread for our snacks, counting the pieces to make sure we had enough for everyone. 

We worked together to peel and chop the vegetables to make vegetable soup. Then we shared it.

The children have completed 5 ‘Little Red Hen Challenges’ this half term. The challenges were aimed at helping the children to think of others and work together as a team. We baked bread together and shared it. The children’s families were invited in to join us for a stay and play session. They helped the children to complete their final challenge to make a bird feeder, which they took home to hang in their garden. Thank you to everyone who took part, it was a pleasure to share our nursery session with you.

See it, touch it, smell it, taste it. 

This half term we have been using our senses to explore the world around us. We ventured out into the wooded area and walked around our school grounds to explore what we could hear and what we could see in our immediate environment. 

We have also taken part in taste challenges exploring a variety of sweet, savoury and sour foods. We used this experience as an opportunity to extend the self-help skills of our children as they followed simple three step instructions to make their own sandwiches.

We have also begun to explore seasonal changes as we move into autumn. We walked to Locke park for our annual autumn walk. The children took part in an autumn treasure hunt to find a variety of natural objects. We also took the opportunity to observe their physical ability as they explored the play area. 

When we returned to school we recalled this experience using a variety of media. We made maps to sequence this past event. We used our senses and lots of descriptive language to explore and talk about our treasures.