Nursery

Class Teachers: Sally Eustance, Andrea Clover and Kirsty Spittle

Welcome

Our School Values for this academic year (2020-2021) are: Friendship (Autumn 1), Helping Others (Autumn 2), Patience (Spring 1), Courage (Spring 2), Ambition (Summer 1) and Sharing (Summer 2).

Welcome to Hedgehog Class

Hedgehog class is a full time/part time daily nursery (15/30 hour provision which includes lunch) which is open from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm. The class has 30 per session (42 over the course of the week) children with an age range of three to four years. Sessions take place in the Early Years Foundation building which is based near the main entrance to the school. Pupils have access to all our indoor and outdoor learning areas and they have weekly opportunities to venture out into our wooded Spinney area.

Welcome to Woodpecker Class

Woodpecker class is a full time nursery and provides nursery care for 30 hours. The class has 30 children per session with an age range of three to four years. Sessions take place in the Nursery building that overlooks Albert Recreation Ground. Pupils have access to indoor and outdoor learning areas and also have many opportunities to explore the school’s wooded Spinney area.

Aims

We aspire to provide all children with a happy and exciting start to their school life by providing a rich, stimulating learning environment with exciting, explorative learning opportunities. We celebrate success and develop the self esteem of all children regardless of language and ability. We look forward to working with all parents and carers throughout the year, in order to enable each child to have a successful and rewarding start to their school career.

Class Letters to Parents

Autumn Newsletter 2020 Woodpecker Nursery Autumn Newsletter 2020 Hedgehog Nursery

Preparing your child for nursery – Nursery-Booklet-2020-2021

Nursery Overview 2020-2021

Tapestry

Parents/carers can track their child’s progress and experience by logging onto your Tapestry Account with the log in code you will receive this week.

Key Person

In both nursery classes, every child has a ‘Key Person’ who provides additional emotional support through your child’s time in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and they are your first point of contact.

Nursery Teaching Team

Nursery Manager	Sally Eustance
Hedgehog Nursery Teaching Staff	Sally Eustance (Mon-Wed)
Hedgehog Nursery Teaching Staff	Kirsty Spittle (Thu+ Fri)
Nursery Nurse	Donna Cade
Teaching Assistant	Laurel Whitten
Woodpecker Nursery Teaching Staff	Andrea Clover

Nursery Nurses	Jill Karavias
Nursery Nurses	Kerry Colletta
Teaching Assistant	Sandra Grant
Teaching assistant Child Specific 1:1	Gunnasir St Omer

Curriculum / Learning

The EYFS Curriculum

There are 7 areas of learning with 3 prime areas which build the capacity to learn Communication and Language, Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. The prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 Specific areas; Literature, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and design.

These 7 areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. The staff teaching and supporting your child will make sure the activities are suited to your child’s unique needs and their ‘next steps’ in learning.

Children learn by playing and exploring, being active and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outdoors. The curriculum is led by play, both ‘planned’ play opportunities and also by child-initiated activities.

The School Values that we will be exploring this year are: ‘Co-operation’, ‘Empathy’, ‘Fairness’, ‘Forgiveness’, ‘Kindness’ and ‘Loyalty’.

To see what we will be teaching this academic year click on this link for Nursery Overview 2020-2021.

Nursery-Booklet-2020-2021

Downloads

‘What to expect, when?’ ( Guidance to your child’s learning and development)

Lots and Lots of fun Nursery activities for you to do at home. Have fun!

Chimp and Zee story – click here for the video

Understanding number – click here for the video

Number hunt – click here for the video

Number recognition – click here for the video

Number walk – click here for the video

A story about friendship – click here for the video

Animals – click here for the video

Covid 19 Activity Book – click here

A Little Bit Different story – click here for the video

Fine motor skills threading skills – Part 1 – click here for the video

Fine motor skills threading skills – Part 2 – click here for the video

Make your own superhero – click here for the video

‘You’ story – click here for the video

‘The Worrysaurus’ story – click here for the video

2D Shape Game – click here for the video

Fairy Garden activity – click here for her video

Making a House – click here for her video

5 little ducks song – click here to see her video

Blossom tree activity – click here for her video

Owl Babies Story – click here to see her video

The Tiger who came to tea story – click here to see her video

Biscuits in the oven song – click here to see her video

Baby Beluga song – click here to see her video

Stone painting – click here to see her video

Tractor Ted in Springtime book – click here to see her video

Old Macdonald had a farm song – click here to see her video

See how they go – Chicks (book) – click here to see her video

Nursery rhymes sing-a-long – click here to see her video

Cornflour Fun – click here to see her video

10 Red apples (story) – click here to see her video

In the garden – click here to see her video

5 Bunnies in a Bed session – click here to see her video

Goldilocks and the 3 Bears storytime – click here to see her video

If you’re happy and you know it song – click here to see her video

5 things that make her happy – click here to see her video

3 Billy Goat’s Gruff story – click here to see her video

Giraffe’s Can’t Dance story – click here to see her video

The 3 Little Pigs story – click here to see her video

Little Shark story – click here to see her video

Counting Story – click here to see her video

Book about being 4 – click here to see her video

Peace At Last story – click here to see her video

Art with Mr Badger – click here to see her video

New baby story – click here to see her video

10 little men in a flying saucer – click here to see her video

This Is Not a Book – click here to see her video

Sock Bunny activity – click here for her video

5 Speckled Frogs – click here for her video

Nursery songs – click here for her video

5 monkeys in a bed song – click here for her video

Making a spider – click here for her video

Making a maze – click here for her video

Rabbits Don’t Lay Eggs story – click here for her video

Making an octopus – click here for her video

Making an Elmer – click here for her video

Shapes – click here for her video

Number game – click here for her video

Number game 2 – click here for her video

Mr Rainbow story – click here for the video

Little Mousey Brown song – click here for her video

The Train song – click here for her video

Worry dolls – click here for her video

Silly Billy story – click here for her video

The Best Chip story – click here for her video

Making bird feeders (part 1) – click here for her video

Making bird feeders (part 2) – click here for her video

Making a bird nest – click here for her video

Supertato, Veggies in the Valley of Doom – click here for her video

Days of the week song – click here for her video

Message – click here for her video

Song – click here for her video

Lunchtime song – click here for her video

Making Play Dough Part 1

Making Play Dough Part 2

Free 30 hour entitlement

Many working parents of 3 to 4-year-olds in England will be eligible for 30 hours of free childcare – rather than the current 15 hours for 38 weeks per year. Not everyone is eligible but you can check whether you can apply by clicking on the links below.

Information about the free 30 hour entitlement

Parent journey for 30 hours free childcare

Extended School Provision

Breakfast club and after school club is available to both part time and full time nursery children. Please contact the school office for more details.

Admissions

Please visit our Admissions page for greater detail for the application process, see link below.

Admissions page

Last half term New letter

Weekly Learning – Week beginning 7th June 2021

The children have been very excited to be back in Nursery this week and have lots to tell us about their half term breaks.

We are starting our new topic this half term which is about ‘Growing, change and moving on’. Our News letter is attached to this page and will be emailed to you shortly too.

We are planting seeds and beans and watching them grow and learning about what conditions they grow in best. We are enjoying the lovely weather and making the most of our outside spaces too.

We are continuing with our phonics learning and the children are beginning to form the letters well.

Please look out for the Challenge 21 information for next week too and the Nursery Trip letter. Both will be emailed to you shortly.

Weekly Learning – Week Beginning 10th May 2021

The caterpillars have continued to grow at an impressive rate and are showing signs of turning into Chrysalis, which we are all very excited about. We have learnt about how to look after them in the different stages of their development and have made a ‘butterfly’ environment ready for them to emerge. We have also looked at other life cycles this week too such as frogs and chickens so the children can compare the different changes that take place.

The Hungry Caterpillar book has given us other opportunities for learning about healthy eating too. In the story the caterpillar eats a variety of foods on Saturday; not all of them healthy choices. So we have lots of interesting conversations as to why he has a tummy ache.

This week we will be continuing this discussion and looking at different food choices and what some foods might be back for us if eaten in any quantity. We will be planting some fruit and vegetables and tasting different ones too. With the unusual shaped ones we will be printing with them too.

In Maths we will be continuing with the measuring activities and measuring ourselves too. In Literacy we are continuing with our phonic learning and are really enjoying working with ‘Fred the Frog’.

Weekly Learning – Week beginning Monday 3rd May 2021

Great excitement in the nursery last week as the Caterpillars are very hungry and growing very fast. We have been watching them closely, observing how they grow and change and learning facts about what each stage of growth and change is called.

In the forest we went on a ‘Caterpillar hunt’ to see if we could find any Caterpillars out in the wild. We looked under leaves and branches and looked out for signs of nibble holes and hiding places. In class we made caterpillar models in our craft corner and on the focus table we made caterpillars using our names and compared how long each child’s names was and then noticed how long each child’s caterpillar was too; counting each segment as we went along.

We have been enjoying our daily Phonics sessions and learning our weekly sound. The children are having fun practising writing their new sounds in the sand, salt, on the ground with chalk and in the hall on large sheets of paper with crayons.

Next week we will continuing to watch the caterpillars grow and change, looking out for signs of them making Cocoons rounds themselves. We will be learning the “Hungry Caterpillar song ” too with actions words to explain the different stages of the growth and change of a Butterfly.

In Maths we will be measuring different seized caterpillars using standard and nonstandard units of measure.

In Literacy we will be reading the firm favourite ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle and talking about ‘healthy and unhealthy food choices’.

Weekly Learning – Monday 26th April

We have enjoyed the arrival of the caterpillars and they are beginning to grow well. We have been looking for mini-beasts in the forest and learning about different life cycles. The warmer weather has been lovely , long may it continue.

This week we will be beginning to talk about the ‘Life cycle of a Butterfly’ and the children will be making their own to add to as our own caterpillars begin to grow and change. In Maths we will be making our caterpillar number lines, using our names too.

Below is our termly Newsletter outlining many of the planned activities.

Summer newsletter 2021

Summer Term 2021 – Nursery Weekly Learning – Monday 19th April

Welcome back to everyone, we are all looking forward to a healthy and happy Summer term in the Nursery.

We hope you have had a restful, healthy Spring break and are looking forward to being back at school this week. We will be settling the children back in, reminding them of the routines and expectations of nursery life and looking forward to a full and busy term ahead.

As we return on Monday we will be welcoming some very hungry caterpillars into the nursery to help launch or half term topic based on the Eric Carle story The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We will be watching our caterpillars grow, learning about what we need to do to look after them , feed them and watch and they change into butterflies for us to release into our garden later in the half term. In the forest we’ll be looking at the habitats of the caterpillars and going on a mini-beast hunt to see which mini beasts we can find in our local environment.

This term we will be also started our weekly phonics learning as we begin the Ruth Miskin ‘Read write inc’ programme. Each week we will be introducing a different sound with the help of Fred the Frog, who will guide us through how we make the sound, identify it at the beginning of different words and the write it using ‘hand, write, speak’ activities. The children will all have a workbook to take home and stick a new sound in each week. (More details to follow)

The mathematics learning this term will be ordering numbers to 10, recognising those numbers and beginning to make marks to represent them too. We will be measuring using different objects, comparing size of different caterpillars and making number lines using caterpillars too.

In literacy we will looking and lots of fiction and non-fiction connected with The Very Hungry Caterpillar theme and using the factual books to find out interesting facts about the life cycle of a butterfly and other mini beasts.

Weekly Learning – Monday 23rd March 2021

We have had lots of time in the forest and outside this week looking for buds on the trees and bushes and Spring flowers. This inspired us to create a fabulous Link display, see the photo above. Both Nursery classes painted, printed, created pieces to put on the display which is now proudly hanging in the dining hall. Well done everyone.

This week we will be learning about Easter celebrations and making lots of Easter crafts, counting Easter eggs and making sets of Easter eggs. We will will be having Easter fun in the forest and making real nests too.

Weekly Learning – Monday 16th March 2021

Wow! what a busy, fun week. Everyone has had so much fun being back together. Old friendships were renewed and new friendships extended.

The children have loved being back in their respective classrooms and have fitted back into routines and expectations.

We have been talking about the changes in the weather and looking for signs of Spring. And the children have been very busy making surprises for their mummies too.

We also had fun dressing up again for the second of our World Book Day celebrations.

Next week on 17th it is St Patrick’s Day and we will be learning about the celebrations and traditions families follow.

The Nursery are learning to hold pencils in a firm hold and make purposeful marks on paper and writing our names too. In Maths we will be using number lines to find ‘one more’ and ‘one less’and ordering numbers to 10.

We will also be starting to think about Spring and Easter and the traditions and celebrations that families follow then.

Weekly Learning – Monday 8th March 2021

This week we are welcoming our ‘Home Learners’ back to Nursery and all of our children will be back together again in their respective Nursery Classes. Hurray!

We have seen some amazing resilient children learning in many different ways and in different rooms and settings and we are now looking forward to moving on together and carrying on with our fun learning in Nursery for the rest of the year.

This week will be ‘getting to know’ each other again. Playing some team games and activities getting used to sharing resources again and working together as a whole group.

We will be exploring the outside environment and looking for signs of spring, bulbs flowering and plants and trees budding.

We will be continuing with our weekly ‘Write Dance’ sessions in the hall where we get to learn ‘pre writing’ patterns through large movement and dance.

In Maths we will be sequencing numbers to 10 and counting forwards and backwards from 1-10 too. We will be making up sets of toys, counting how many toys we have and then finding the numeral to match that set.

Learning to write our names is also a big focus this term and we will be practising this when we make our Mothers Day cards this week too.

Thursday is the second of our ‘World Book Day’ events. Now all the children are back in school we can all be together to celebrate properly. The children are welcome to dress up again and bring in their favourite story book to share with us.

But most of all we are just looking forward to all being back together and having fun with our friends.

Weekly Learning – Monday 22nd February 2021

We had a fabulous end to our last half term with our Chinese New Year Celebrations it really help us to end the half term on a high note.

Welcome back after a relaxing half term. It was lovely to see some more children arriving back into Nursery to join our hubs and following the encouraging news from the government that we will all be back together on Monday 8th March.

This half term we are continuing with our topic on Traditional tales and Rhymes and reading the story or the Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Little Pigs too. We will be making puppets, acting out the roles and building houses and bridges as props for our role play.

In Maths will be looking at the number 3 and making sets of 3 objects and then move on to other numbers too. We will be ordering the Three characters from the story in order of size and finding something bigger and smaller than ourselves.

Parents Spring Two plans

Next week will are looking forward to World Book Day with lots of lovely storytelling and dressing up.

Weekly Learning – Monday 8th February 2021

Last week both Nursery Groups learnt about our ‘Inspirational person’ this term who is Chris Packham the Naturalist and TV presenter. We looked at his work and learnt a little bit about British wild life particularly birds in our area. We will also made some ‘apple bird feeders’ for our Nursery gardens.

Both groups enjoyed reading the story of the 3 Bears this week and discussing why Baby bear was upset with Goldilocks eating his porridge and breaking his chair. We will discus how he felt and what Goldilocks should do to make Baby Bear feel better. We wrote a letter yo baby bear to say sorry and the children came up with lots of lovely ideas as to how make your friend feel better if they are feeling sad. The Hedgehog children really enjoyed making a chair for baby bear using recycled materials too.

We have a very busy week ahead again. We will be learning about the ‘Primary colours’ and then exploring what other colours we can make from those Primary colours. This will involve lots of different colour mixing activities and some rainbows too.

We also have Chinese New Year to look forward to. The Year of the Ox is coming up and the Nursery children will be learning about the traditions, dances and music surrounding this very colourful celebration.

Chinese New Year 2021

The end of the weeks sees the beginning of half term. We return again on Monday 22nd February.

Weekly Learning – Monday 1st February 2021

Last week :- We saw the welcome return of the Woodpecker Nursery children and some more of the Hedgehog children joined their pods too. They all settled into the routines well and adapted to their new environment and play spaces in the Reception classes with little fuss. We saw Snow at the beginning of the week which defiantly helped to lighten the mood and gave us lots of opportunity to talk about changes in weather, frost, ice, freezing and melting. All the groups went to the hall to start their ‘Write Dance’ sessions which puts music and story to movement and encourages the children to explore using their gross and fine motor skills to create pre writing patterns on large paper.

The Woodpecker children carried on their work on the ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear’ story painting some fabulous pictures of their favourite animals in their chosen colour too.

The Hedgehog children created a 3 Bears Cottage in their play spaces and enjoyed acting out the story using different voices for the characters and play acting the roles. They sorted different sized furniture and bowls and made sets of 3 things of different sizes. The highlight of the week was making and tasting porridge which was a lovely activity to do on a cold frosty morning. The children helped to mix the porridge before it was cooked and then we made a tally chart to see how may children liked porridge and how many didn’t. Most children did like it.

This week.

Both Nursery Groups will be learning about our ‘Inspirational person’ this term who is Chris Packham the Naturalist and TV presenter. Looking at his work and learning about British wild life. We will also be looking at making Bird feeders for our Nursery gardens. ]

Both groups will be reading the story of the 3 Bears this week and discussing why Baby bear was upset with Goldilocks eating his porridge and breaking his chair. We will discus how he felt and what Goldilocks should do to make Baby Bear feel better. This will lead us into thinking about our own ‘Well Being’ and what makes us Happy or Sad and how we can feel better or make others feel better.

Hedgehog nursery will be writing a letter to Goldilocks and Making a new chair for him too.

Woodpeckers are moving onto colour mixing activities.

Next week we will all be looking forward to learning about the traditions of ‘Chinese New Year’ and helping some of our Nursery community celebrate it together with us.

bird_spotter_sheet

bird feeders (1)

Chris Packham

Sorry letter to baby bear

Weekly learning – 18th January 2021

We are welcoming back lots of children to a New Nursery set up this week and we are continuing out Remote learning for some pupils too. We will be learning new routines and systems and getting used to being in a classroom once again. We will be continuing with our Brown Bear, Brown Bear story; writing our own books and creating our own favourite coloured animals for a classroom display. We will be enjoying some colour mixing too and you might even see a few rainbows too.

How to make a zig zag book

Small Brown bear colouring

Brown bear stick puppets

Brown bear puppets (2)

Brown bear sequencing (2)