Welcome to the Welton Nursery

Weekly Updates

10.12.25

This week in nursery we have been exploring snow and frost during our play. We have had a lovely tuff tray set up with white moon dough where the children could mould, crush and sprinkle using their hands. We had Arctic animals in the tray which encouraged children to talk about what animals they might see in the North Pole and other cold countries around the world. We extended the play by adding a train track and the Polar Express! The children enjoyed covering the track with the snow. 

We have also enjoyed other festive activities which started at the end of the last week. We have made some beautiful salt dough christmas decorations with all of the children. They helped make them by mixing adding the ingredients, mixing the mixture, rolling the dough and cutting the shapes out. Once they were cooked the children painted them and added glitter! We have hung them all on our nursery Christmas tree ready for them to all take home at the end of term. The children can't wait to show you what they have created!

A group of children went on a walk at the end of last week and took some cuttings of Christmas foliage, Holly, Ferne and Ivy. The children have practiced their scissor skills in the room and cut up pieces of the foliage to fill a Christmas tree shape taped on the floor.

Our Pre School children have enjoyed our Christmas Maths game this week where they have had to count baubles on a picture and match the amount to a number on a Christmas tree. Our 2-3 year olds and Pre Schoolers have enjoyed learning our song 'Way up high in the Christmas tree'. This is a counting song and the children have to remember how many candy canes are left on the tree each time it is sung. 

We have read a lovely Nativity story to the children this week. They have enjoyed learning about the journey to Bethlehem and baby Jesus being born. We are looking forward to singing our songs to you next week which the children have been practicing very hard at! Our songs include Away in a Manger and Little Donkey. 

03.12.25

This week in Nursery we have started reading Stick Man. The children have enjoyed listening to the story and joining in activities themed around the story. We have also started transforming our role play area to Stick Man's family tree. We have displayed pages from the story in order of beginning, middle and end. Some of the children have enjoyed looking at the book independently and matching pictures from the book to the pages displayed in the role play area. We started making our own stick man family using the sticks we collected last week and attaching some colourful materials (tissue paper, shiny materials and cut up pieces of coloured paper). The children have also taken part in an activity which involves matching pictures of things you would see in different seasons to the correct season. This links to the Stick Man story because Stick Man gets lost on a journey and makes his way home through all the seasons. 

We have also been practicing songs for our Christmas performance on the 17th December. The children have enjoyed using the bells and learning the actions! We are looking forward to showing you what they have learnt and hope you can make it! Children who do not attend Wednesdays but would like to join in are more than welcome!

We have started our traditional Nursery Christmas Advent calendar this week. Each day a child is chosen to glue a piece of cotton wool onto the number of the day to create Santa's beard! We have also had a special visitor appear in Nursery this week, Buddy the Elf! The children have enjoyed looking for Buddy each day to see what mischief he has got up to!

26.11.25

This week in Nursery we have been completing our theme of 'Birthdays' and our story 'Happy birthday Hugless Duglass' ready to start our new story 'Stick Man'. The children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring our birthday role play area, birthday themed activities and exploring the Doctor's kit linked to the story. At the end of last week we went down to the woodland area and collected sticks to build a Stick Man family and went off site on a walk and took cuttings of greenery which we will expand on over the coming weeks leading up to Christmas! We have also started learning some Christmas songs which we will sing on the 17th December to some of our friends in school! 

We have enjoyed doing large scale mark making which has included chalk mark making on the floor on big sheets of paper and painting on cling film!

We have been enjoying the icy weather at nursery. The children have explored coloured water that was left outside to freeze. They used different tools to break and melt the ice for example potato mashers and pipets to squeeze up water and then squeeze the water out over the ice, We have walked down to the field and listened to the ice crunch under our feet. The children have enjoyed feeling the cold ice on their hands. 

19.11.25

We had a great day on Friday 14th November taking part in Children in Need. Thank you to everyone who has donated via Parent Pay. The children enjoyed being cosy in their pajamas with their favourite teddy whilst taking part in some fun activities! We had a mini disco, a teddy bears picnic. stories, we did a Pudsey Bear treasure hunt where the children had to hunt around the nursery for pictures with Pudsey on, Parachute games with our teddies and Pudsey colouring. The children coloured Pudsey and added his coloured dots! They also made their own badge for their bears. The children enjoyed tasting their cupcakes they made for the picnic and finishing the day with a warm hot chocolate whilst watching Zog. The children were excited to bring home their certificate this week for taking part. Well done everyone!

This week we have started talking about our emotions. We have read 'The Colour Monster' to help the children identify their feelings and be able to express them. The children have created their own Colour monsters using the colours from the book to match the feeling. We have also made play dough faces using natural resources to show how we are feeling. 

It is Maths week and the children have enjoyed taking part in some Maths activities. Pre School did a fun turn taking game where they rolled a dice and counted the dots and matched the amount to a number card. They then attached a correct amount of pegs to that number. 

This week we created our own self portraits. The children have looked in mirrors whilst drawing themselves. They have made comments such as "I have green eyes". The children have used pencils and paints to create them. 

We have started our 'Get set for PE' program this week. The children enjoyed learning ball skills in the hall. The children teamed up and carefully dribbled a ball around cones until they got to the end then ran back to the next person, passing it to them and continued. The children then got into partners and practiced lightly kicking the ball to each other then throwing and catching. The children then got into a circle and we played 'roll the ball'. This is a great game to also help communication and language as the children have to sing and say the child's name they roll it to. We then turned around with our backs and pass the ball to each other behind our backs, this was tricky!

13.11.25

This week in nursery we have been talking about Remembrance Sunday. We have talked about why it is important to remember the soldiers who served in the war. The children have enjoyed exploring the Poppy themed tray with red coloured rice and black seeds with Remembrance Sunday pictures which encouraged children to talk about the topic and extend their vocabulary. We have also created Poppy pictures using finger prints by dipping fingers carefully into red and black paint then printing onto the circles on the paper. The children matched where they had to put the correct colours by looking at the pictures, This was fun! 

This week is also nursery rhyme week! The children have enjoyed singing lots of lovely nursery rhymes. We have used the finger puppets and listened to some on the speaker in the background whilst playing. The children have enjoyed exploring nursery rhyme themed tuff trays and completing puzzles. 

We have been doing lots of baking this week. On Monday we baked a tasty apple and cinnamon crumble which the children took home to taste with their families. On Thursday we baked some cupcakes for our Teddy's Bears picnic Friday in aid of Children in Need. We are looking forward to this event as we can all come to nursery wearing our pajamas! 

7.11.2025

This week we have continued talking about Diwali and made our own tea light holders out of clay. The children enjoyed moulding their clay into the correct shape and then using the end of a paint brush to create patterns around the outside. The children also watched a video of the story Rama and Sita. Our Diwali topic has led us to exploring other light festivals and talking about light and dark. We have talked a lot about bonfire night this week and fireworks. The children have enjoyed talking about the fireworks they have seen. They have enjoyed exploring firework themed activities including coloured salt in the tuff tray where they were encouraged to copy pictures of patterns using their fingers by making marks in the salt. We also had other patterns and designs on pictures created with lolly pop sticks for the children to try and copy. The children have created some lovely firework pictures using different media such as paint and chalk. They have done paint flicking, chalk mark making, paint blowing threw a straw and dipping cut up toilet roll tubes in paint and pressing them onto the black paper. We have also learnt some fun bonfire and firework songs and watched videos about bonfire night, Guy Fawkes and firework safety.

Nursery have also enjoyed our new birthday themed role play area this week. We have talked about when our birthdays are and how old we are. We have enjoyed reading Happy birthday Hugless Duglas. Hugless Duglas is a bear and he receives a doctors trolley for his birthday. We have had a doctors kit in the role play area for the children to explore and they have enjoyed pretending to be doctors and patients as well as using teddy bears. We have set up the bears for a teddy birthday party in the role play area with party hats, cake and balloons. On Friday we had a party in nursery, played lots of music, danced an played party games. It was great fun!

The children have also continued the birthday theme by creating their own birthday cake by doing a cutting and sticking activity and matching an amount of candles to a number on a cake. 

Thursday this week we invited parents in for our first stay and play afternoon. We hope you enjoyed your time with the children and look forward too welcoming you back next week! 

23.10.2025

This week we have started learning about the Indian festival, Diwali - The festival of light. The children have enjoyed learning about Diwali and how Indian families celebrate it. We have watched short videos, looked at pictures of Rangoli patterns, candles, lanterns and fireworks and different foods they eat. The children have explored Diwali by taking part in some fun activities involving coloured rice where they used the fingers to make marks and copy the Rangoli patterns in the pictures, mark making with chalk and pens and salt painting. The children also learned about how Indian families decorate their hands and arms with patterns using Henna. They did this using a template of a hand and following patterns with steady pen control with brown and black coloured pens. The children also enjoyed making their own Diwali candle by making a collage on a paper plate. We will continue our topic on Diwali when we return after half term and look at the story Rama and Sita. This will also tie into our theme on festivals and Bonfire night. Towards the end of the week we have been enjoying some Halloween fun messy play! The children also helped carve the pumpkins! 

17.10.2025

This week we have continued our Autumn themed activities. The children have been enjoying water play with Autumn leaves using different utensils to scoop them up and transfer them to the mud kitchen and tuff tray area. We have compared sizes of leaves by grouping them 'big, smaller and smallest'.

The children have enjoyed exploring our new role play Cafe in the garden. They have taken turns in being the Waiter/Waitress and being a customer. This has expanded their imagination and they have taken on the roles really well. 

This month is black history month and we have been reading different stories to the children that talk about different cultures and backgrounds. We have talked about why it is important to treat everyone equally. The children have listened and danced to African themed music and used instruments to play along to different pieces of music. The children have looked at pictures of famous black people and have been told about what they are famous for. The children then took part in a conversation and talked about what they might want to be when they grow up. 

10.10.2025

This week has been Space week! The children have enjoyed exploring the space themed tuff trays. We had a ice planets in the tray for the children to explore using water and pipettes. They enjoyed feeling the cold ice on their hands and feeling it melt. They used the pipettes to squeeze up the water and then squeeze it out to melt the ice. It was interesting finding out how long it would take to melt the planets. We managed to keep them and refreeze them to last a second day! We looked at the different ice planets and tried to identify what planets they looked like by looking at our Solar System poster. The children also enjoyed building rockets with wooden blocks and with junk modelling. 

We have also continued talking about Harvest and attended the Harvest festival at Welton Baptist church on Thursday 9th October. It was a lovely morning and the children sat very well for a whole hour! We showed our performance of 'Dingle dangle Scarecrow' and joined in with all the other harvest songs. A small group of children walked to a local super market and did an 'eye spy' activity which involved ticking off fruits and vegetables on a sheet when they spotted them in the store. They also brought some back to look at and talk about all together. 

We have talked about animals that will be starting to hibernate and have created our own Hedgehog pictures using brown paint and forks to make the spike marks on the paper. We have also created Hedgehog pictures using sticks and glue.

03.10.2025

We have had a great start to the first term. We have been enjoying the story 'Giraffes can't dance'. We have been measuring ourselves against Gerald the height chart to see we are as tall as him and seeing who is tallest and shortest. The children enjoyed sticking Autumn leaves we collected on our walk onto Gerald the Giraffe we made. 

We have been talking about what we might see on our way to Nursery and have created our own maps of our journeys. We also talked about how we get to Nursery and what transport we use to get there. 

We have been talking a lot about the Season changing from Summer to Autumn and have enjoyed collecting different coloured leaves and conkers to explore. We have also learnt some new songs with actions!

On our walks we have spotted some blackberries and we did a fun blackberry painting activity with the blackberries we collected!

This week we have started talking about hygiene. We have talked about why it is important to wash our hands and brush our teeth. The children enjoyed a fun teeth brushing activity which involved cleaning dirty teeth with a tooth brush and shaving foam!

This week we have also started talking about Harvest. We have talked about different fruits and vegetables that are harvested this time of year and have also started learning some songs we will sing next week on our church outing! 

Key news and updates:

We are now using and App called Seesaw to update you on activities we have been doing each week. It would be lovely to receive comments or likes from you on observations that have been put up. You can do this by clicking on the icons under the observation. Thank you for your support.

We are always here to talk to you about your child's day and development please ask to speak to your key worker at drop off and collection. 

Bags 

Please make sure your child comes to nursery with everything they will need for the day. Spare clothes including socks, underwear, coat and wellies if you have them and suncream. We expect children to arrive at the nursery already wearing suncream in the morning and a bottle in their bags so it can be reapplied after lunch. For those in nappies at least 3 provided each day and wipes as we do not have these spare and if not provided we will have to call you to bring them in. 

Lunches

Please make sure your children's lunches comply with our lunch box policy which can be found on the website. We would expect to see something similar to a sandwich or pasta, fruit, crackers or crisps and a small treat but not sweets. Please ensure that they contain NO nuts as ingredients or whole. Grapes and similarly sized foods are cut in half or quarters.

Key People

All children have been assigned a key worker if you are unsure as to who your child's key worker is please come and ask, it may not be the same as any siblings also at nursery. 

Funding 

As of April 2024 2 year old children will be able to get funding if your family fit certain criteria. The Government has released the new funding pledge in stages. The first stage is April 2024 which enables eligible families to access 15 hours of funding to use at childcare providers. This funding will be available the term AFTER the child turns two and needs to be applied for BEFORE the term starts. The Deadline dates for 3 year old 30 hour funding and 2 year 15 hour funding are 31st March, 31st August and the 31st December. 

For more information please look at www.childcarechoices.gov.uk and to check eligibility.  

Please note that the hours you book your child in for at the start of term are what the setting will claim for. Any unused hours a week that are not booked in are lost and cannot be used for adhoc days. Any additional days will be charged as we are unable to claim funding for these. 

Please see the BANES website for more details or speak to Dolly. 

If you are in receipt of some benefits you may be entitled to free school meals. Please check your eligibility at https://www.bathnes.gov.uk/apply-free-school-meals . 

Polite reminder

During school drop off and collection times (8:30- 9:15 and 3:00 - 3:30) the car park can only be used for children being dropped off that are in reception class and above. The car park cannot be used for nursery parents as it is dangerous with so many children on the premises. 

Please use the safer route to school at Valley walk and come in through the back gate.