As our hook week has rolled out, Nursery have had lots of fun exploring and immersing themselves in all things lurking beneath the surface of the sea, underpinned by our hook text, “Commotion in the Ocean” By Giles Andreas. The children have searched around Nursery for clues of what they may find in the sea? They have learned about how these sea creatures survive and their anatomical features such as; gills, scales, fins and flippers.

The children then created fabulous sea creatures of their own using various craft materials, mediums and techniques. These include jiggling Jellyfish, Octopuses and shimmering Fishes – just look at our beautiful work!

Finally the children have worked hard on beginning to understand and explore our guiding question for our new exciting summer expedition “What happens when the sea meets the shore?”

As part of our Thoughtful Thursday Crew the children used their own experiences to draw pictures of what they recall visually about the seaside and talked about, What does the sand feel like? How does it look on the beach? Their ideas were collected in crews to form spider diagrams.

We then practically explored how the sand and water make the shore by creating sensory sea bottles using sand and blue coloured water. The children were thrilled to experiment and see how the sand and water mixed and then settled separately, creating their own beach in a bottle. It was a fabulous experience for all.

At the beginning of the week Nursery read “We’re going on an Egg Hunt” by Laura Hughes. The story explores fun themes of bunnies finding Easter eggs and encountering various springtime animals along the way. Nursery then began to explore the real meaning of celebrating Easter, learning about the crucifixion of Jesus and that Easter Sunday is not just the day that we all enjoy chocolate eggs, but is traditionally known as the day that Jesus rose from death and appeared to his friends and mother. The children grappled with the child friendly version of the story and explored themes of Jesus having “magic spiritual powers”. We played pass the parcel to consolidate the children’s understanding of the story and to see what they could remember using biblical props such as coins, fish, bread and a cross as the prizes inside the bag.

Both Nursery groups did very well at remembering and responding to the story, showing great empathy and compassion towards Jesus. Well Done, beautiful work!

Nursery have been mini scientists recently growing cress heads to help them learn about nurturing and tending to plants to understand what they need to grow. The children have been watering them and observing the shoots over the past week. They will be thrilled to see the huge growth over the weekend! Beautiful Work!!

What a beautiful day Nursery have had sharing all of their learning about our current expedition titled, “Once Upon a Time”. They have been exploring various texts to answer our guiding question “Who is hiding in the pages of this book?”

The children performed both of the songs that they have learned during this expedition; “Trip, Trip Trap” and “The Gingerbread Man Song”. One of which will be embedded within a QR code that will live inside storybooks gifted to the children and the local Askern Medical Practices as a legacy to our expedition. These books will be available for children to use and read for pleasure with their parents whilst waiting for their appointment at either surgery.

The children then shared their Learning Journeys with their parents and carers, who were encouraged to have a stay and play. We enjoyed buns and biscuits to celebrate all of our hard work and our parents and the children were very proud of their achievements. Well Done Nursery! Next stop…. Summer Expedition! Exciting times.

This week Nursery have been learning about growing and caring for plants through our story “Christopher Nibble in the Dandelion Derring Doo!” By Charlotte Middleton. In the text Christopher and the other Guinea Pigs eat all of the dandelions in Dandeville and are forced to eat cabbage as a result. The guinea pigs don’t really like cabbage, so we thought we would offer help by growing them some Cress Heads!

The children enjoyed scooping the compost and sprinkling the seeds into their pots, before using the watering can to water their seeds.

Some of the earliest planters cress from during the week have already began to sprout! The children will continue to care and nurture their plants in Nursery until the end of the term, watering them and changing their position for the most sunlight. Hopefully they will grow into big cress heads, fit enough for the Guinea Pigs to eat (or humans 😉), be lovely on a Dandelion Salad!

Nursery had the most wonderfully fun Wonka themed World Book Day! There were visits from Willy Wonka himself, who sang and dished out chocolate bars to all! Two lucky children even won a golden ticket to choose a prize from Wonka’s Chocolate factory. The children arrived in their beautiful story inspired costumes and what a range we had! A fantastic effort from everyone.

Nursery explored and played with special book themed play trays, including popular stories and nursery rhymes. They also coloured traditional tale colouring sheets of some familiar characters from our recent expedition.

Nursery also had lots of DEAR (Drop everything and read) time with grown ups sharing our favourite stories that children had brought in and some of our own, including two special stories from “Mystery Masked Readers”. The children listened carefully and had to guess who was hiding behind the masks?

We really did have the best World Book Day yet!

Nursery this week have continued to study the traditional tale of The Gingerbread Man. We have been investigating “How can we help the Gingerbread Man to cross the River?” We noticed the point in the story, in which the Gingerbread Man runs into trouble; having to cross the water whilst everyone is chasing him. Some of the suggestions given by the children were; “A boat”, “An aeroplane”, “A bridge”, “Another animal”, “A frog” and “A submarine”.

The children used photos of various types of bridges from around the world as inspiration and material to create the water. They then constructed their bridges either alone or in small groups working collaboratively and added their own details. Just look at our beautiful work! The story language which the children used as they tested out the bridge with a Gingerbread Man, was amazing!