Hello everyone and welcome to Holy Rood Nursery. It has been lovely to welcome back some familiar faces to our Nursery this year and to have the chance to see the little ones who have now moved into full time school after a long absence. We have really missed you all.

We are looking forward to a new school year and have lots of exciting adventures planned so please keep checking in to see what we have been learning. For regular updates please follow us on Twitter @holyroodcps

We have many new children and families joining us in Nursery this half term so please join us in saying a big hello, we know you will help to make them feel welcome. 

As our children leave their families we are spreading a message of hope and happiness. Together we will work for your child to be the best they can be. Thank you for entrusting your child to us for the coming school year. We will do our best to be your child’s guide in learning and exploring this bright new world they have just stepped into. 

Thank you

Mrs Dalton and Miss Haxby

Summer Term 2 - 2021

Run, run as fast as you can

This half term we have explored the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We made ginger play dough and also worked together to make real gingerbread men. The children took turns to scoop, measure and weigh the ingredients. We mixed and we kneaded to cut our gingerbread biscuits. 

We then tasted our biscuits. We compared them to find those that were ‘the same’ or ‘not the same’ as we ate the head, legs, arms and body. 

We thought of alternative ways for the gingerbread man to cross the river. 

We created a long river in our workshop. We then used our bodies to make bridge shapes. We jumped across the river. We then attempted a STEM challenge to create bridges for the gingerbread man.

Some fantastic problem solving from our little ones as we made sure that the gingerbread man’s feet didn’t get wet and he got safely across from one side to the other. 

Summer Term 1 - 2021

People who help us

This half term we have found out about people who help us. We began by having ‘helping hands’ and exploring the ways we can help each other. 

We helped to look after our class teddy bear, Berty Bear, and thought about what we would need to do to take care of him.

We came in to nursery one day to discover that Berty Bear was missing. We found out how the Police help people and how they track down missing people. We looked all over for him and made ‘missing’ posters to let everyone know that he was lost. 

We became police detectives. We made maps of our search area and went outside to look for clues. 

We found honey, banana peel and teddy bear crisps. We decided to make a picnic to entice Berty Bear back into nursery. We were delighted to find him eating the picnic on our carpet. 

The following week we came in to nursery to find Berty Bear stuck on a ladder climbing down from our loft. We thought about how we could help him down. We found out about fire fighters and how they rescue people. 

We made plans to rescue him and had some wonderful ideas. We thought about a helicopters flying up or a balloon floating up. We thought maybe we could use a trampoline to jump up high. We build towers and stairs but we couldn’t reach him. We decided that we needed a ladder and so we asked Mr Jones, our school caretaker, for his help. Mr Jones brought his tall ladder and helped Berty down as we caught him in a blanket. We were so pleased to have him back safely. Fantastic problem solving and creative thinking. 

Spring Term - 2021

What a busy term with home learning and lockdown. It has been lovely to welcome our children back in to nursery. The children were so excited to be back together as a group and we welcomed some new children too. We began the half term by exploring ’The Story of Creation’. We found out how God made our wonderful world in 7 days and enjoyed lots of number exploration alongside this.

We have been focusing on ‘Growing and Changing’ as we explored the changes to our natural environment as we move into the season of spring. We began by reading the stories ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ and ‘Beans on Toast’. We planted beans and found out how they grow and then harvested to make baked beans. We tasted beans on toast. 

We have been caring for our beans and now look how much they have grown!

We have been finding out about Lent. We know that Jesus went away for 40 days and 40 nights. He knew he had an important job to do and he needed to have ‘a big think’. While Jesus is away we each made a promise to be like Jesus and do his work. We promised to be kind, to be gentle and to have ‘helping hands’. Each child hung a piece of purple ribbon on our Lenten tree to symbolise this promise. 

We worked together to grow a tree of love. Our children were awarded a leaf to hand on our tree whenever we observed them being king, gentle or helpful. We are ‘growing in love’ this Lent. 

Autumn Term 2 - 2020

Festivals and fireworks 

This half term we have explored light and dark and found out about celebrations that light up the dark. We explored the traditions of bonfire night and enjoyed taking part in movement and music inspired by fireworks. We tasted traditional bonfire night foods of hotdogs and Parkin. 

We shared our experiences on Bonfire Night and represented the sights and sounds we were familiar with. 

We found out about Remembrance Sunday. We took part on a simple liturgy and made and wore poppies. 

We found out about the Hindu festival of Diwali. This festival also has light and fireworks. We looked at the clothes and traditions of giving gifts and sharing sweets. We made our own Diva lamps to light up the dark. 

We found out about Advent in the lead up to Christmas. We worked together to get our hearts ready to welcome baby Jesus by being kind and caring. We ‘dusted’ our hearts and then collect purple hearts on our Advent dusters whenever we demonstrated kind, caring, gentle behaviours. 

We found out about the birth of Jesus and enjoyed sharing and retelling this wonderful story.

Autumn Term 1 - 2020

All about me

We have explored our emotions this half term. We read the story ‘The Colour Monster’ and used this to find out all about our feelings. We learnt to recognise feelings of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, calm and love. 

We have also explored the season of autumn. We found out about seasonal changes in our local environment and went on an autumn walk in our school grounds to collect autumn treasures. 

We have explored positional vocabulary this half term by putting our bodies in, on and under and hiding small objects in, on and under. 

We have used seasonal number songs and rhymes to aid our understanding of numbers 0-5.

As we approached the end of our first half term we enjoyed a pumpkin party and the children each carved a pumpkin lantern at home and brought it to our celebration.