Run, Run as Fast as you can….

21st May 2025Sarah Winkley

This week Nursery have began case study two of our expedition “ Who is hiding in the pages of this book?” We have been immersed in our new text The Gingerbread Man. To hook the children into their learning they were detectives on a hunt for character body parts in our outdoor area. When they found all of the characters parts the children put them back together again revealing what our key text of the week would be. They were very excited for it to be The Gingerbread Man!

We modelled role play of the Baker and the Gingerbread Man to the children. The Gingerbread Man was apologising for running away and asked if he could help to make more Gingerbread to show how sorry he was. But how would he do this? The children hot seated the Baker and were encouraged to think about the ingredients that the Gingerbread Man may need. The Baker explained that they would need follow a recipe and a method, showing this to the children.

The children have had lots of fun role playing with the masks themselves in provision.

We then of course baked Gingerbread Men, following the Bakers recipe and instructions. The children were encouraged to think about first, next and then sequencing whilst they were baking. They also learned about different forces which they were using to make the gingerbread men as they mixed, rolled and pulled the rolling pin through the dough or pressed their Gingerbread Man shapes out with the cutter. These are pushes and pulls!

Luckily none of our gingerbread men tried to make a run for it! Great work Nursery.

Who’s that Trip, trapping over my bridge?

21st May 2025Sarah Winkley

Last week Nursery continued to be geographers as they explored the final part of our first case study “Where in the world will this story take us?” The children explored rivers, comparing our local river in Norton; the River Went to the River Congo in Africa.

To hook the children into their learning and help them explore their local area they observed the “Adventures of our Everywhere Bear”, as he sent them a special dojo message with photos of his trek to the River Went, through the magical forest. They loved to see their special class mascot out on his own adventuring and exploring around our village. Many of the children recognising key landmarks on his journey.

The Everywhere Bear beginning his adventure.

The Everywhere Bears adventures led us to our key text of The Three Billy Goats Gruff as we immersed ourselves into the story, due to it being set over a river. The children enjoyed learning about the characters in the story and identified that the Big Billy Goat Gruff was a hero and the wicked troll a villain. They were delighted when the troll was tossed into the river! Here are a few of our representations of the Troll and the Billy Goats Gruff from our maths learning this week focusing on triangles and rectangles.

This got us thinking about how deep the river might be? We then compared the River Went to a much deeper and wider river – the River Congo. The children took a gallery walk of photos of the river, noting differences and similarities between the Congo and the River Went.

We then boarded our imaginary canoes in groups of three, dressed with our binoculars and went on a virtual tour of the River Congo. Thinking about and imagining what we would be able to see, hear, smell and feel. We were very surprised when we were chased by crocodiles and sea snakes! We had to paddle fast! It was very scary and exciting. Not something you’d usually see or encounter at the River Went, thankfully.

The children had so much fun and used the imaginary experience to talk about what they may sense by a river. Beautiful work Nursery and something which you may get to experience for real sooner than you know as part of our fieldwork – shhh!!

VE Day Celebrations!

9th May 2025Sarah Winkley

Yesterday Nursery had brief history lessson, learning what VE Day is and why we celebrate it? The children joined the whole school for a special VE Day assembly and we had Crew’s dedicated to the celebrations where the children watched red arrow displays and VE Day parades. We all looked beautiful in our red, white and blue clothing with our lovely flags and home made accessories.

The children enjoyed colouring VE Day posters and celebrating with special red, white, blue buns kindly made by our school cooks – they tasted amazing!

Here are a few of our posters!

If you go down in the woods….

30th April 2025Sarah Winkley

This week began with Nursery taking a trip into the woods (within school grounds) to explore and experience what it would be like to be inside a forest as part of our first case study; Where in the world will this story take you? Our first anchor text of this case study is the classic fairytale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children were so excited to go on an adventure and were also a little bit nervous about who or what they would find in the woods, as they explored using their senses.

Once inside the woods the children were relieved to find there weren’t any wolves, bears or Gruffalo’s! We used our senses to think about what we could see, hear, smell and feel with both our hands and feet. The children were read the story inside the woods to set the scene and bring the story to life. They really enjoyed it and listened attentively whilst holding their sticks, leaves, flowers and ferns.

Once back in the classroom the children shared thoughts of their experience and completed a class sense map, noting down ideas of what they could see, hear, smell and feel. There were some beautiful thoughts and sentences that were communicated from the adventure which really helped the children to understand what a forest is. We have used this knowledge and experience to inspire large scale pieces of artwork, which will be part of our final product in terms of creating a story setting. The children also watched a short video of a virtual tour through Sherwood Forest, in Nottingham, where they tried to spot Robin Hood! They then compared that to the experience of our school woods in Norton and talked about what was the same and what was different? They soon realised that forests were much bigger with larger trees, thicker bushes and more undergrowth. They also learnt that not only animals but people could also possibly live in a forest like in olden times. You have been great geographers Nursery! Here’s a sneak peak of our artwork…

Easter Celebrations

21st April 2025Sarah Winkley

Nursery have had a wonderful time over the past week celebrating Easter. We began the week with a puppet show telling the traditional easter story of Jesus. The children listened carefully and were encouraged to ask questions after the show or explain their feelings or opinions about the story. Some of which were; “I think it’s sad because Jesus died” and “It was mean, because they made him carry that cross up the big hill”.

During their free play we captured some of the children creating their own puppet shows about Jesus, showing they were embedding their learning in their play.

The children baked and decorated their own easter themed biscuits, using flour, sugar, butter and an egg. They carefully took turns to weigh out ingredients with support and followed instructions to mix, beat, roll and cut out their dough. The children each chose their own easter time shape cutter and colour icing along with decorations to make their biscuits extra yummy!

We also had an egg-stra special visit from the Easter Bunny himself, who had heard about how hard we have been working and how kind we have all been, so decided to bring some of our treats early! He brought us an Easter Egg and we all had cuddles or high fives! There were some very excited children and grown ups….

At home we have been working hard and collaboratively with our parents to design and create a decorated boiled egg. Some entries were a single egg whilst others were a whole scene of egg themed characters. They were all absolutely amazing, so much effort and time had been spent working together. The winners of our EYFS competition in Nursery were chosen by the Reception children, who judged and voted for all of the entries (an extremely tough job). The winners were Willow from Am Nursery for her egg filled bonnet and Jenny from Pm Nursery for her Leonardo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Well done girls! However a huge thank you and well done to everyone, as all of the entries were outstanding, such beautiful work and the children were so proud. Here they are…

We finished our week with lots of fun in the sunshine including an Easter Egg Hunt, the children had lots of fun.