Beatrix Potter (Nursery)

We have been extremely busy here in Nursery.  Please read our newsletters and look at our photos to see what we have been up to!

Summer term 2023

Community involvement

West bank residential home invited the nursery children to come and visit the home and decorate some crown biscuits to celebrate the King's coronation. We sang songs with them and the children chatted to the residents. 

New beginnings:

We were very lucky to be able to meet some baby chicks. The children all stroked them really gently and some of the children had a turn at holding them. We talked about what they need when they are little and how big they will grow. 

Spring term 2023

Technology

We provide a range of digital equipment and cause and effect toys to promote the appropriate use of technology in Early Years. The children have fun communicating with their friends using the walkie talkies, turning on and using the interactive whiteboard and taking pictures on the ipad's. 

Building confidence and sense of self

We encourage the children to share news from home and bring things in to talk about during show and tell. This enables the children to show us things they are proud of and helps build their confidence in talking to others in small groups. 

Little Play world

Role play is so important in Early Years. We had a special treat for the children during 'Aspirations week.' Little play world set up 5 different role play areas for the children to explore: Hairdressers, emergency services, cafe, vets and a construction area. 

Special visitors from West bank residential home

We had some very special ladies come and visit from the local residential home. Their faces lit up when they saw the children playing and the children were so good at welcoming them into their play. They showed them around and played with the playdough, oats and in the role play area making lots of cups of tea for the ladies!

World book day!

To celebrate world book day we dressed up as characters from our favourite books and shared them together at circle time. We completed a book 'scavenger hunt'; finding the objects hiding in the books. 

Reading and sharing books is vital for early child development and incorporates all the areas of learning, especially Communication and language and Literacy. We share books together through out every day here at Nursery.

Ross community gardens: Stick man trail

The Oakleaves loved exploring Ross community gardens and completing the stick man trail. 

We followed the trail, collecting sticks to make our own stick man to take home. We looked for and talked about different signs of Spring and loved looking at the new flowers sprouting up from the ground. 

Our Nursery rules

The children and the staff came up with our nursery rules together. We discussed how we can make nursery a happy place and how we can show kindness to others. These rules are now displayed in our nursery so we can use them as a reminder of positive behaviour.

Music and rhyme

We have varied, daily music sessions in nursery. This is great for early reading as it encourages the children to join in with repeated patterns, actions and singing. We used the claves to tap out simple patterns for the children to copy and repeat.

Pencil control

The Oakleaves have been practicing their pencil control: holding the pencil correctly and having a go at the pencil control sheets. They have also been trying hard to write their name.

Measure

This half term, our math's focus is 'measure.' We have been exploring differences in size and length using sticks and counting camels. The children have also been exploring weight and capacity by filling and emptying the scales to get them to balance. 

New puppets for Nursery!

The children were very excited to receive some new animal and multi cultural puppets from the money we all raised. Puppets are excellent for communication and language skills as well as social interaction and imaginative play. 

Autumn Term 2022

Snow day!

We spend lots of time outside at nursery and the children are often looking out for the changes in the seasons. They loved putting on their coats, hats and gloves and playing in the snow! 

Nursery and school partnership

The Nursery children often share in activities with the school. We watch class assemblies, join in with special celebrations and enjoy a yearly Christmas lunch with the school children. This helps the children transition into school as they are already familiar with the school surroundings, teaching staff and peers. 

Christmas craft activities

The children had the opportunity to make Christmas cards, calenders and tree decorations to take home. They used their name cards to try to write their names inside the cards. 

I Spy Christmas! 

We are so proud of all the nursery children who took part in our nativity play. They joined in with the singing and actions and looked very cute in their outfits! Well done children - A wonderful performance!

'Edward Lears Dream'

We all thoroughly enjoyed the puppet show 'Edward Lears Dream.' The children sat beautifully and listened to the story come to life before them. 

Advent

Each week during advent we carry out a nursery advent assembly. We talk about celebrating Jesus' birthday and add a candle to our advent wreath and say our prayers. Every day, we open a new door on our advent board and we have been singing lots of Christmas songs and decorating the nursery.

Inaginative play

We change our role play areas every few weeks and this week the children have loved working in  the 'Christmas post office.' They have been developing their early writing skills to write their letters to santa and take it in turns to post them in the post box. We have also enjoyed lots of tea parties with our friends: developing imaginative and communication skills as well as building relationships with peers.

Math's in action

The Math's focus for this half term has been number. We have been learning to count and recognize numerals through play; puzzles, counting objects and painting with the numicon. Some of the children have been trying to count as far as they can go! :-)

Children in need!

The children loved dressing up to support children in need. We talked about why we help to raise money for children who are less fortunate than ourselves and talked about being kind. We played Children in need bingo and I Spy!

Christmas baking!

The children have been busy making salt dough Christmas decorations. They helped to weigh out the ingredients; stir and kneed the mixture. They rolled out the dough and used the cutters to shape their decorations. They had fun painting them after :-) 

Developing ICT skills

The children used a digital camera to take photographs of their friends. We showed them how to view their pictures on the camera. The older children then helped to load them onto the computer and we looked through our photo's on the big screen. This shows the children how to operate simple ICT equipment and how to retrieve information from digital devices. 

Remembrance assembly

The children made poppies and we had a lovely nursery remembrance assembly. The children placed their poppies onto the prayer table and we said a thank you prayer. We also had a minutes silence. 

Friendship colour mixing

In order to build relationships with special people, the children chose a friend to paint their hand. They then held hands to mix the colours and printed their new, combined colours onto paper. 

Music and Rhyme

We offer lots of opportunities for the children to join in with singing, dancing and exploring different instruments. We do this through planned, daily, music sessions and our weekly 'little swallows' music group. The children love sleeping bunnies and wind the bobbin up: joining in with actions and words. 

Fine motor skills, measure and spatial awareness

To explore capacity we provide lots of opportunities for the children to fill and empty containers using various messy play activities including pasta, sand and rice. The use of tweezers and scissors also helps with their fine motor skills. 

Early writing and shape

We found the shapes hidden in the shaving foam and the children used their fingers to draw the shapes in the foam. We talked about what the shapes looked like and how many sides they had. They enjoy making marks on different media and are beginning to distinguish between the different marks they make. 

Tiny Town!

We had a wonderful nursery trip to Tiny Town in Hereford. The children explored all the different role play areas, including a cafe, grocery shop and post office. The children played alongside, and with each other; the different areas providing the children with rich language opportunities to speak with other adults and children. 

Forest school

The children are really enjoying their Friday afternoon forest school sessions. We have been encouraging the children to show curiosity in the environment and talk about the things they are observing. We have done this through nature walks and bug hunts. 

Outdoor maths

To encourage number recognition through sensory play we have been exploring our new textured number stones in the sand. We have been tracing the number stones with our fingers and trying to put the numbers in order. 

To improve fine motor skills and encourage counting skills, we used tweezers to put pasta into numbered pots. 

All About Me

We have had a fantastic start to the term - learning all about each other, our families and our feelings; encouraging play with others and thinking about how others might be feeling.

We loved making biscuit faces and some children bought in photo's of their families to show their friends. We used out ICT skills to look around the nursery, taking photo's using the Ipad of all our favourite toys.

Autumn 2022

End of term water fight!

This certainly cooled everyone down on the last day of term :-) The children loved running around the forest school area in the shade squirting each other and all the teachers!

The Oakleaves have been working really hard on their scissor skills: Cutting around the different fruits and vegetables.

Whilst learning about what we can do to be healthy, the children sorted foods into three groups: Foods we should eat a lot of, foods we should eat sometimes and foods we should only eat occasionally.

Raglan Farm Park

We had a wonderful time at Raglan farm park for our summer term trip. We met all the animals: goats, alpaca'a, sheep, horses, donkeys and more! The children loved playing in the numerous play areas both indoors and outdoors and we enjoyed a picnic lunch altogether. 

Ross Community Gardens Visit

The children had a wonderful time exploring the wild life and pond life at the gardens. We searched for bee's and bugs, planted pea seeds and had a grea time running in and out of the willow dragon. 

International neighbours week

We celebrated international neighbours week by learning how to say hello in 15 different languages, listening to music from around the world and we made our own stepping stones to be laid on the field. 

Art with Miss. Jenn

The children dipped string into different coloured paints and used big arm movements to create lines and patterns on their paper.

Maths in Nursery this week:

We made sand castles using numicon dipped in paint and the children made shape boats for the display. We went fishing for numbered fish and had a competition to see who could catch the most fish! 

Celebrating our similarities and differences.

We talked about things that make us similar and different to each other, and to children all around the world. We talked about our families, what we looked like and our unique abilities. 

Move up Morning!

The Oakleaves enjoyed their morning in the reception class; meeting their teacher Miss. Sadler, exploring all the learning areas and having lunch in the school hall.

Read, Write, Inc

The Oakleaves have enjoyed learning some of their sounds over the past few weeks. We have been playing Fred games and learning the sounds m,a,s,d,t,i,n,p,g and o. We have also been having a go at writing these sounds in shaving foam, sand and paint. 

Our senses: Smell and taste.

We have been using our sense of smell and taste this week. We have tried lots of different fruits at snack time and used our sense of smell to play a 'Do you like that smell' game. The children used thumbs up or thumbs down to let us know if they liked the smells or not, chocolate was a favourite! 

We also used our sense of smell during art with Miss. Jenn; we created a picture by painting with different spices. 

Caterpillars!
We welcomed lots of new little friends to Nursery this week: Some tiny, but very hungry, Caterpillars! We are going to watch them grow, spin their cocoons and turn into butterfly's!

Eid El Fitr

This week we celebrated the Muslim feast festival Eid el fitr. We looked at pictures of how they celebrate; what they wear, how they pray, and at snack time, we tasted some of the foods they eat during this festival.

Little Swallows!

We had our first music and movement session with little swallows on Wednesday and the children loved it!

Physical development

This week we have been focusing on our physical development outside. We have been pedaling bikes, moving along on scooters and climbing and balancing on the trim trail. 

Spring Term 2022

Easter Maths!

We used tweezers to pick up the little coloured eggs and place them into the numbered pots. Some children recognised the numerals and were able to put in 'one more.' 

Easter cards!

We practiced our scissor skills; cutting around our decorated egg shapes. The children also had a go at copying their names onto the card.

Planting tuff tray

The children had a go at planting different flowers in pots and compost using gardening tools before getting to work on the raised beds :-) 

Palm Sunday Assembly

During our Palm Sunday assembly, we read the story of Eli the donkey. Then we role played Jesus and the donkey walking through Jerusalum and used our home made palm leaves to wave at them and cheer. 

Maths in action this week...

We have been making 'worms' using playdough and putting them in size order. Outside, we have been filling and emptying containers of rice and using the weighing scales.

ICT

The children have been developing their photography skills this week; using the Ipad's to take photo's of the signs of Spring and uploading them to the computer. 

Bilingual storytime.

The children enjoyed the story 'Goldilocks and the three bears' read in Lithuanian by Herefordshire EAL team this week. 

The Oakleaves have been trying really hard to copy their names for their mother days cards :-) 

Gardening

We watched the tree planting on the field to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee. 

The children have enjoyed doing some weeding and watering in our Nursery garden.

P.E and Yoga

The children are really enjoying their weekly P.E lessons with Corey and yoga lessons with Mrs. Derrett.

Art with Miss. Jenn

We made some lovely Mothers day presents for Mothering Sunday with Miss. Jenn in Art club. The children decorated boxed with different materials and filled them with lovely smelling dried flowers. :-) 

British science week: Growth

The children enjoyed taking part in lots of experiments during British science week. We watched skittles turn the water rainbow coloured, explored what happened when we mixed bicarb and paint to make pictures and melted Ice with warm water to free the trapped animals! 

The children also planted cress seeds, we watered them and watched them grow over a week, then sent them home for the children to enjoy!