16th - 20th December 2024 

As it has been the last week of term, last week of nursery 2024, and the last week before some new children start nursery, we have had lots of fun activities going on within nursery. 

It started with our nativity, and I must say, the children SMASHED IT! It was amazing to see so many parents, carers and family members attend, but also absolutely fantastic to see how well the children did and how excited they were to show you their performance too. 

All the adults were blown away by their final performance. Well done to all!

The rest of this week, the children have been watching the KS1 and KS2 performances, one in the school hall, the other in the church, and again, their impeccable behaviour shone through, and they have had nothing but praise from members of staff around the school. 

As with our last day, we have had a Polar Express Day. Pyjamas and comfy clothes were a must, with lots of fun surprises planned throughout the day too. Photos will follow on tapestry. 

Lastly, every single nursery child has made amazing progress over the last few months, and they have all come so far. We as a nursery are proud of every new step they have made and how all their individual personalities are coming through. We cannot wait to see what the new year brings. 

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Miss Dale and the Nursery Team

9th - 13th December 2024 

Second to last week of term, and the children have been busy bees. They have been working hard to practise for their nativity on Monday, learning about the Christmas Story and who Jesus was, and they even managed to squeeze in a 'fire day'.

Wednesday's fire day saw the children exploring lots of equipment, clothes and activities associated with firefighters and their very important role. The children had the opportunity to dress up in fire fighter uniforms, complete with hats that were VERY large. They played in a fire engine tent, and completed a fire drill so they are super prepared if a real fire were to happen. 

In the afternoon, the children waited their turns are had a go at hosing down sokme painted flames. They started with individual turns and later on, worked together to make sure all of the 'flames' were extinguished. It was lots of fun and the discussions the children were having and language used during their play was amazing to hear. 

I have been hearing lots of positive comments on the children's development within nursery, and all credit must go to the children. They are all developing so well, both individually and together. They blow the adults away with how much they know, want to know and their determination in their learning. Every child has made leaps and bounds since September and it is incredible to see! 

As lots of time has been spent on nativity practise this week, there is not much news to share as we will not spoil the suprise of their nativity performance. 

The Early Years performance will take place in the School Hall next Monday. We will start at 9.45am so please arrived by 9.40am to get a seat. 

Have a joyous weekend, 

Miss Dale and the Nursery Team

2nd - 6th December 2024 

This week has been quite busy with the festive period, nativity rehearsals and the other odd bits that crop up all over the place. However, the children have handled being out of routine very well!

On Monday, the children painted their hands green to help create a very unique advent wreath. They learned about advent and what it means in the lead up to Christmas, and Jesus' birth. 

On Tuesday, the children in the afternoon were able to do some baking in Room 7. They wore aprons and became little bakers. Some of the children made chocolate concrete and the others made banana flapjacks. The children were responsible for matching the correct ingredients to the picture. Looking at the numbers on the scales to make sure the quantities were correct, and mixing everything together. Some even had a few sneaky tries of the mixtures before they were baked. Whilst waiting for the creations to bake, they had the chance to play with the toys in Room 7, and really enjoyed themselves. Amazing work by all the children!

Wednesday's rehearsals meant no PE, but the children did get to have an Advent assembly with Mr Condon and explore the Christmas corridor, much to all their delight and fascination. They loved the lights and figurines and even started chatting about who was who and relating it to their roles in the nativity. 

To end the week, the have learned about Hanukkah. They listened to Miss Dale tell the story of Hanukkah, then proceeded to make Hanukkah candles, practicing both their pen and scissor skills. They are amazing us with their development, with most children now using the thin pens to practice their mark making and the pincer grip. 

With only two weeks left before Christmas, the nursery is quickly becoming a fully festive Christmas classroom, with most of the decorations made by the children, hanging from ceilings and walls. It all looks super effective, and they are very excited to take it all home at the end of term too.

Any nativity costumes, please bring to Nursery in a named bag ASAP. The nativity is on Monday 16th December at 0945. All headbands for the children will be made in school.

Have a restful weekend!

Miss Dale and the Nursery Team

25th - 29th November 2024

What a week!

Monday became a Health and Safety Day for the children to learn and understand what will be happening on the farm trip. They discussed the rules we have whilst at the farm, such as not talking to strangers, what to do if someone we do not know speaks to us etc. They did a practice walk around the big playground with their high vis jackets, and their key adults for the farm trip. I must say, all their 'training', certainly paid off.

Tuesday was TRIP DAY. The adults in nursery were a mixture of emotions, lots of excitement, thrown in with some nervousness and a little bit of uncertainty of what the day would bring, however, it was an amazing trip. The children were fantastic and got stuck in to EVERYTHING!

Some of the activities they did included:

- Holding and petting Guinea Pigs (Named Flash and Bolt)

- Feeding sheep

- Feeding and petting chickens

- Touching some cows heads

 - looking at the goats

- Trying some plants such and Sorrell and Chive

- Smelling plants such as Thyme, Rosemary, Mint

- Playing with the mini diggers

- Gardening

- Lots of snacks and eating too

The children were absolutely fantastic, they asked lots of questions, were on their best behaviour and really represented themselves as positive, kind and enthusiastic. It was astounding to hear all of the knowledge they had and the questions they gave were thoughtful too.

For the rest of this week, the children have been looking at Christmas in different countries, Japan, Australia and Germany.

They learned that in Japan, people eat KFC for their Christmas dinner and have to order it months in advance.

In Australia, they usually spend Christmas on the beach, and Santa wears shorts! They also looked at and made some of the different foods they eat for Christmas. Some children helped to cut up some fruit to make a fruit salad for snack time, whilst others were designing shorts to put on our Santa.

Next week is the start of Advent, and the children will be doing lots more Christmas crafts to bring home, decorate the class and to get ready for the Nativity.

As a reminder, please send your nativity costumes to Nursery ASAP in a named bag. Some things will be made in nursery, such as a headband for every child for their role.

Have a restful weekend, ahead of the start of December,

Miss Dale and the Nursery Team 

18th - 22nd November 2024 

The nursery children have made everyone really impressed with their effort and development this week.

We have been exploring the book Aargh Spider, by reading, listening, acting it out and sequencing the story throughout the week. The children even had a look through some close up photos to work out what the picture may be, it was lots of photos related to spider signs, and they further explored the outside area by hunting for the signs. They were very respectful by not poking and prodding any webs or spiders. Plus, Tuesday's snow helped the webs to become sparkly, just like in the story.

Wednesday's PE lesson gave the children lots of activities related to the sequence of the story. They used their creative big movements to move like spiders, dance, catch flies (beanbags) and to make up an alternative part of the story after the spider goes driving with his new family.

They displayed their cutting skills by making snow angels from paper plates and completed some more decorations for the nativity play. Of which, all children now have their roles and are super excited to perform it at the end of term.

It has been a fantastic week and we are all prepared for the trip on Tuesday to Windmill Hill City Farm.

Have a restful weekend,

Miss Dale and the Nursery Team. 

11th - 15th November 2024 

21st - 25th October 2024 

Term 1 is over! It has been super busy with lots of learning, socialising and messy explorations. Every child in nursery has made amazing progress and I am super proud of every single child.

The learning journey photo is a small snippet of all the learning of Term 1, and by no means a showcase of EVERYTHING the children have been up to, we would never manage to put every photo or achievement on one board. We would instead need a board for each child, they have just done SO MUCH in 8 weeks!

As ever, this week has been chaotic. Despite having lots of coughs and colds, all the children have been really determined in nursery and shown their good behaviours, listening skills and positive attitudes off, to staff and the other children in the school. It was noted by the photographer on Wednesday as to how well behaved the children were during their photos.

The children were learning Shine, Jesus, Shine this week in class. A much calmer and slower song than last week, though Our God is a Great Big God was still frequently sung.

The link to the song is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-OPTEEhVs

The children have been able to do lots of activities surrounding the creation story this week. They have heard the story, watched the story, helped sequence the story with an interactive session outside and helped produce a display depicting each of the seven days in order.

The link to the video we watched is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teu7BCZTgDs

Our ABC song this week has been a phonics version. The children have learned the sign of all letters, and this learning will be consistently repeated throughout the year, however the new version of the song helps with the letter sound and name too. The link to the song is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmB3SIjNdQ

Alongside this, the children have had lots of messy play activities this week. On Monday, they all helped turn a box into  a pirate ship, and each child had a pirate's hat made for them. They further played lots of pirate games, listened to a few sea songs, and some children had a pirates lunch all together.

On Tuesday, the children helped to clean lots of farm animals and dinosaurs with sponges and scourers. They further used the water to make lots of lemonade, cupcakes and other delicious baked goods in the mud kitchen.

Thursday has been our messiest day of the week so far. The children explored colour mixing, falling objects, water play and turn taking by dropping lots of conkers and pine cones in pink and blue paint. The nursery was filled with lots of laughter and happy chatter afterwards, along with MANY pairs of purple hands. The children used books to create wind and blow lots of tissue paper around the classroom. They also used the play dough to make more delicious goods in their mud bakery.

The imagination and creativity of every single child is amazing to see and a wonder to hear. Their developing friendships and excitement to see each other and get stuck in each day is fantastic.

We cannot wait to see the development of every single child next term in the lead up to Christmas!

We wish you a restful and happy half term,

Miss Dale and The Nursery Team.

14th - 18th October 2024 

We have had lots of coughs, colds and sickness in nursery this week, however, having less children in class, has not meant it has been less noisy. The children who have been in, have certainly made themselves known with their emerging voices!  Especially now everyone has settled in fully and their individual characters are starting to show!
 

This week we have been learning about the creation story, and what God did on each day. We have not finished the story yet, for the children are recapping and learning the days one by one. So far, they have learnt:

Day One - There was darkness, and God created light. (We covered our eyes for the darkness and opened them when Miss Dale said about there being light).
Day Two: The sky was made to separate the sea from the rain in the clouds.
Day Three: The land was created with plants, trees, fruits and vegetables for us to eat.
Day Four: God created the sun, moon and stars to give us daytime and nighttime.
Day Five: God created animals for the sea and the birds for the air.

Alongside this, the children have been learning the song, Our God is a Great Big God. They have adored this song, and learned the actions very quickly. It is a joy to sing it everyday - sometimes, multiple times a day too! The link to the song is..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8obB5mZxHs 

The children are still learning their ABC's in sign language too, they finish this week off with the letter 'p'. Their sounds and signs for the alphabet are improving all the time.

The children have been using their new colour mixing knowledge through their play at the making table and in the water tray too. They have been asking lots of questions and have been very enthusiastic with their knowledge too. The curiosity of the children in the nursery is amazing, even while asking hundreds of questions a day, they are always keen to learn and explore more. It is wonderful!

The children did a science experiment with a pumpkin this week. They used lots of tools to carve and core out a pumpkin, then further added some oats and water to make pretend cupcakes, soup and other bits and bobs. With the second pumpkin, they tried to help him feel better, but managed to make him throw up instead. They enjoyed seeing the reaction of the bicarbonate and vinegar, they smelt the 'sick' and had a feel of all the bubbles and bits in the bowl too. It may have been a more disgusting experiment, but the children seemed to enjoy it more!

Last week, the children were learning and identifying farm animal sounds. This prompted a discussion on whether cows drink milk or water. Further to this discussion, we decided to do a milking activity to learn about how cows are milked and which other animals may produce milk in a similar way too. The children had a blast and loved using the 'udders' to produce milk.

Have a restful weekend ahead of the last week of term, next week.

Miss Dale and the Nursery Team.

7th - 11th October 2024

In nursery this week, the children have played and created lots of things together. Buildings, bridges, towers, and hedgehog homes too.

Our learning for the week has been around the alphabet song. Alongside this, the children have learned 2-3 signed letters a day too. We are currently up to 'k'.

The link for the signed alphabet is...... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OO4VfT-OzI

The alphabet song can be sung in any format and does not need to be consistently the same, just make sure the video ends with the English 'z' sound and not the American sound if you would like to practise at home.

For PE, the children did lots of running races as animals. We did bunny hops, frog leaps (a particularly hard jump), creeping like mice, stomping like elephants and slithering like snakes. The children put lots of effort into their movements and were very enthusiastic too. At the end of PE, we played a tag like game. it started with Miss Dale as Spiderman, whoever she tagged then became Spiderman and had to tag others. It was a very fun lesson, and the children were very tired and ready for their toast and Bluey afterwards.

We have been exploring what makes all the children special over the last few weeks, and so, the children have all had a go at drawing a self-portrait using a mirror this week. We have had lots of artistic interpretations of facial features and it was very nice to watch and hear how the children see themselves as they did their self-portraits. 

Special mention to one of our children, Myla, who was awarded with a headteachers award for her self-portraait and amazing attempt at writing her name too! Well done Myla!

In the tuff tray, everyone had a go at exploring what happens when yellow and blue are mixed together. After they discover what can be made, we watch the colourblocks video of said colour and discuss other things that are the same colour.

We have so far explored, red, yellow, blue, orange and green.

Quick reminder: please send your child to school with suitable footwear for running on a Wednesday for PE. If the come in with wellies on and trainers in their bag, that is great, however, if they do not have any suitable footwear, they will not be able to participate in PE. Trainers are preferred.

Have a restful weekend!

Miss Dale and the Nursery Team 

30th September - 4th October 

This week in Nursery Class our book of the week has been, Room on the Broom.

The children have heard, watched and discussed the story. They amazed Miss Dale, Miss Smith and Mrs. Sofia with their knowledge to help created a story map on Thursday morning.

We have done lots of witch crafts this week, including wand making with natural resources and potion making.

The children have had lots of fun with water paint to tap and blow paint onto paper. Once they had finished their creations, they explained what they had made. We have some very creative children with paintings ranging from elephants to fire and leaves.

On Wednesday's PE lesson, the children played crack the egg to help their eye-hand co-ordination and Spiderman tag. It is fair to say that we had lots of out of breath children after PE, and had a rather quiet 10 minutes whilst they recharged their energy with toast.

On Thursday, the children made blackberry crumbles and everyone tried a little bit. It was very messy, but very fun! It made the nursery smell delicious too!

Our nursery rhyme of the week has been the days of the week. It is the same video as last week, however, the children have slowly learned how to sign each day of the school week in Makaton too.

Days of the week song link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXMofxtDPUQ

The video link for the Makaton is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYIQWWpZm08

As it is Autumn, and the children are learning, exploring and discussing the seasonal changes, we would kindly ask the children to bring in twigs, leaves and autumnal bits they may find around when walking to school or on the weekends. This helps them to explore their surroundings and expand their creativity when using natural resources to both craft and build habitats for creatures in school. Creatures such as hedgehogs, the children have learned that hedgehogs come out at night and sleep during the day.

We also request the children to bring coats to school. We have a shelter and so the children are able to play outside for most of the year. With it being colder over the last few days, the children need coats on to play outside. If they do not have a coat, they will not be able to play outside.

Have a restful weekend,

Miss Dale and The Nursery Team

16th - 20th September 2024

4th - 14th September 2024

The first two weeks of nursery have been full of lots of learning. 

In the first week, the children walked in brightly coloured paints to look at their footprints and how they are all different. We made a mess with slime, making shapes, filling cups and trying to make solid balls of slime in our hands. 

We ended the first week with an explosion outside - The children got to see what happens when you mix diet coke and mentos! 

The second week, we welcomed our new nursery children and they have made a fantastic start!

Our nursery rhyme for the week was Humpty Dumpty,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrv495corBc

Our Makaton focus was colours. The children have learned to sign black, blue, brown, green, orange, pink, purple and red. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDkw0VTNNvA

If you would like to continue their learning at home or see how well they remember the signs, use the links above. 

This week, we have read The Colour Monster, and The Colour Monster goes to School, to help the children understand their different emotions and start to discuss their feelings whilst in nursery. The children coloured in their monsters on their first day with the colours they were feeling. 

• Green - calm

• Yellow - happy

• Blue - sad

• Red - angry

• Grey - scared

• Pink - love

• 
  

The children have started to learn the rules and routines in nursery, and it has been noted by the teaching assistants in class, as to the children's AMAZING tidying skills!

As a team we are very proud of all the children in the way they have settled into nursery, and the friendships they are starting to make together.

If you have any questions or queries or need any help, do not hesitate to email nursery@ctk.education

Miss Dale and The Nursery Team

15th - 19th January 

This week we have welcomed more new children into our Nursery, our existing children have been great at making them feel welcome and showing them around!

The children explored the ice when it was very cold midweek, they have been using the climbing and balancing equipment, and making lots of different creations with the tape and scissors.

Next week we will continue looking at our book 'Lost and Found', we will look at animals who live in colder climates, and we will be comparing clothes to wear in hot/cold climates.

I hope you're all having a great weekend :)