Since the return to school nearly two weeks ago, Nursery have been working hard on becoming familiar with each other and staff, learning new routines and settling into school life – we have all done superbly well. However Nursery needed to learn what a Crew actually means, as it is their first time in school; we had to learn “What is a Crew?”

Through the modelling and explanation of our HOWL’s the children have discovered that we are all expected to Be Kind, Work Hard and Get Smart. Children have been building relationships with both staff and their crews through crew games and activities. Everyone tried hard to be collaborative and inclusive, working as a team, sharing and being kind to each other. We have learned how to form a Crew Circle using song, as that’s always a good way to make routines fun! Check out our Crew building activities:

We played “Fill Up the Bucket” where each Crew had to pass coloured balls, backwards along the line and place them in the bucket with their final crew member. The children loved this game and enjoyed racing to see which crew could empty their starting circles first. We also changed positions to allow children to adopt different roles in the game.

We brought in our own special soft toys from home and began to celebrate how we are all different and like different things. We told our crew members all about our toys and then played a game of “Bounce the Teddy” encouraging the children to pass their special toy on to a friend and understand that sharing is caring and to trust their crew mate with their treasured toy. The children really enjoyed this activity and did very well in sharing and understanding that their toy would be safe and looked after.

We finished our crew weeks with celebration parties from Mr Dan. He made us all feel good and laugh. The children loved his tricks and learnt how to spin a plate! We have had the most amazing two weeks and have enjoyed getting to know each other better. We are Crew!

As part of Nurseries on going investigations into our current expedition, ”Would you travel by wheels, wings or other things?” This week we are exploring boats. We began by reading the text “The Boy Who Sailed the World” by Julia Green. We have learned about lots of different types of vehicles that move on water including; sail boats, cruise ships, ferries, hovercrafts, submarines and canoes.

We have began to create our own boats from recycled pop bottles, with sails made from recycled paper, just like the boy in our story. The children have independently constructed their boats and secured the sails using play dough. They have then predicted whether their boat would float or sink?

Nursery then tested them in the water tray. Some of the boats floated, whilst others sank as they “tipped”. Some of the words the children used to describe why, they thought the boats had tipped were ; ”Sail is wonky”, ”it’s (sail) too big”, ”it’s not a right shape (sail)” and ”the play dough was too heavy and tipped it”. Great investigations, I’m looking forward to seeing more throughout the week!

P.s. Check out our flashing Torpedo’s too! They are great fun, they light up and glide through the water, lets hope they don’t blow up our boats!

Nursery were visited on Wednesday 24th May by an expert visitor, Holly, from the Yorkshire Air Ambulance charity. Holly talked to the children about the role of the Air Ambulance and it’s Crew, whilst telling us interesting facts such as; it travels at 160mph, the helicopter costs £19,000 per day to run, there are two of them across the region and patients are treated on board just like a regular ambulance.

Nursery created their own air ambulance land art today, (after modelling and the use of a photo as a stimulus) using large loose parts in the outdoor area. They worked as a team to decide which materials to choose and which materials were most suitable in terms of shape, colour and size.

I think you’ll all agree the children have created some amazing land art in the shape and tones of the Air Ambulance. Such beautiful work! They have also learned key words such as Landing Skids, Propellers, Rotors and Ambulance body.

As part of our expedition on Transport this term we have been looking at maps. Today during a maths related activity, Nursery were exploring a familiar route. First they learned about what a route is and then they used a map to guide them and thought hard about positional language including; forward, left and right. They walked the route and then explained how they got back to Nursery talking about familiar landmarks and beginning to use key words above. Well Done to our little Orienteers!