Today Nursery had a visit from an expert visitor of an unusual kind….. a therapy dog named Ralph! The children were so excited to meet Ralph and his carer Sarah, who came from the charity Pets are therapy, who kindly agreed to spare what little spare time they have to visit us, as part of our case study “How do people show they care?” Sarah explained about the important work that the pair do in the community and the important job Ralph has to make friends and bring people happiness.
The children looked at photos of different therapy dogs and the kinds of people that they help, including the elderly, children in schools, people in hospital and hospices, as well as adults with learning difficulties and even people in prison. The dogs bring healing to those who are feeling very low, poorly or suffer with anxiety or worry.
The children were so excited to stroke Ralph and ask questions about his job and about what he needs, to care for him, after looking after so many others…. “He likes sausages and cheese best”. They thought he was “very kind”.
Thank you for coming to visit Ralph and Sarah – we very much appreciate your time and kindness.
Last week Nursery and EYFS celebrated a Christian tradition, Harvest Festival by being thankful for the food we eat, grown by farmers from all around the world. Nursery children were excited to join in a whole school assembly hosted by an expert visitor, our local pastor and volunteer/coordinator at Askern Food Bank, Mr West. Some of our children were even brave enough to stand at the front of the assembly and participate in the activities!
In Nursery we explored a little further about what Harvest actually is, by watching a short video about the celebration. The children learned that Harvest is when crops and vegetables are collected and sold to supermarkets. They also learned that a christian tradition is to gather food and donate it to others that maybe in need, through their local church. This fits in perfectly with our case study, “How do people show they care?” We were very grateful to all of our families who donated food, as the children collected the food and have made care packages to send to the local food bank with Mr West.
Another part of our beautiful work last week was also to create a “Corn Dolly”.
The children learned that the Corn Dollies are made from the strands of corn left over in the fields after the Farmers have collected their corn with their combine harvesters. They are made into dollies and then taken to the local church to wish farmers good luck for the year ahead’s crop! Just look at how amazing our corn dollies are!
Last week Nursery were focusing on a text called “Kindess Makes Us Strong” by Sophie Beer as part of our continuing case study “What do stories tell us about being kind?”. Our Kindess Elves brought Nursery another present… but this time it wasn’t the story book! They brought “Kindness Juice” for us all to share! As we read through the story, we realised that “Kindness is a refreshing drink”. We all enjoyed our “fruity” juice together and were very thankful to the elves.
Nursery looked back over our mind maps and thought about what we have learned about ways in which we could be kind. We made our own Kindness Signs which shared our thoughts. Aren’t they beautiful…
We also had lots of fun creating friendship bracelets out of pipe cleaners and beads. We worked hard threading the beads on to the pipe cleaners, counting out up to 10 beads as we threaded them on. We were very kind and gave our bracelets to our friends or took them home for someone special. I wonder if you received one?
We really do have kind hands and hearts! Well Done Nursery.
Nursery this week have been thinking about the kind and right thing to do for others as a continuation of our current case study “What do stories tell us about being kind?” We had another visit from our Kindness Elves, who again brought us another story titled “The Bog Baby” by Jeanne Willis. Through this story the children have thought about what being kind really means as sometimes we all would like to take things “home” to look after or keep safe, as we think we can love them better. However is this always the right and kindest thing to do for that being? The girls in the story find out that this is not the case.
The children listened carefully to the story and thought hard about the kind of environment that the Bog Baby lives in. They explored what a pond and bog actually are. The children had lots of fun putting on their imaginary goggles and pretending to swim in a pond thorough the use of a real life video of under a ponds surface. As the children swam they thought about what they could see through the murky, green water such as mud, stones, plants and creatures that live in and under the pond. They thought about the smell of the pond and their clothes as they got out!
This weeks “Get Smart” tasks were to create a bog of their own in provision using materials and larger loose parts. The children also had lots of fun exploring the pond we had created in the water tray to enhance this weeks provision. The children loved investigating what pond creatures they could find amongst the stones and plants in the green water. As a separate active task the children were asked to observe two tanks of water, one taken from the sea and one from a pond. They were encouraged to go and stand by the tank which they thought the Bog Baby would prefer to live in, thinking about the creatures feelings. The majority of children choose correctly, stating “He likes the green, dirty water best”.
Our beautiful work this week was to create our own Bog Baby’s using salt dough. We closely observed and counted the features of the character and the children then used their wonderful imaginations to create a Bog Baby of their own. They had lots of fun squashing, squelching, moulding, rolling and marking the dough to shape and add details with a tool to their creations. They then enhanced their bog babies using small loose parts to decorate add features to their models. Just look how beautiful they are!
Finally we re-read the story and thought about whether the actions of the girls taking the Bog Baby home in a jam jar to live in their shed was the right and kind thing to do? We discussed this individually and these are some of the children’s responses.
Well done Nursery – another busy but wonderful week!
Nursery once again had a visit from our friends, “The Kindness Elves”, who brought with them a gift in the shape of a book titled “The Hugasaurus” by Rachel Bright. The story follows a little dinosaur who begins school and makes friends, but it’s not long before the young dinosaurs begin to squabble. The Hugasaurus shares a hug with her new friends in a bid to help them self regulate and be kinder. Nursery have thought of ways in which they can be kind and show kindness to each other throughout the week. We began a mind map and added to it as the week progressed.
We have shared Crews throughout the week where the children have played kindness games, focusing on sharing such as; “Bounce the teddy on your knee” (where the children bounce the teddy on their knee to a rhyme and then pass it along to the person next to them when its time “for someone new”) and “The Kit Kat Game” (every other child has a Kit Kat style biscuit and they have to open their biscuit and give one stick to a new friend and keep one for themselves).
We practised being Hugasauruses and gave all of our new friends a hug, which was so lovely!
Our task to get smart this week was to create our own Hugasauruses using coloured shapes. We have produced some beautiful work.
Fabulous week Nursery!! We are understanding what it means to become kind and making new friends.
As part of the close to an amazing hook week, last Friday the children came in their summer clothes and brought in their special soft toys and teddies to share a picnic with their new friends. The children and their families kindly donated food to show an example of how we are kind and share. We all had lots of fun and it was a special end to a very positive first week exploring our new autumn expedition “Be Kind – How do we show we care?”
Over the past eight days of this brand new school year, Nursery have been immersing themselves, exploring and adjusting to their new environment. The children have had lots of fun and have began to make new friendships through Crew and playing together. We have been learning all about what Crew is and how we gather for Crew each day, circling up and sharing information about ourselves. We have taken part in crew challenges where the children have had to work together to play simple games and compete against either Crew Mortimer or Crew Winkley. The children have worked very hard to understand and take part in the games and shown courage when talking in their Crews.
Passing the ball above their heads in their crew line.
Gathering balls and replacing them in the baskets – fastest crew first.
We also had some surprise visitors this week that have helped us to begin to understand how to spread kindness. They were the “Kindness Elves” and they brought with them gifts for the children which were Everywhere Bears for each crew. These bears will be sent home each week with a child from both crews, to have adventures of their own, just like the children from our hook text “The Everywhere Bear” by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb. The children are very excited to have met the elves and have been trying hard to show kindness to each other.
As part of continuing summer expedition, “What happens where the sea meets the shore?” Today the children of Nursery were celebrating “World Ocean Day” by all wearing blue in support of keeping our world’s oceans clean and safe. They also began thinking about their own experiences of the seaside and what there is to see and do at the coast. We were extremely lucky to be able to host our expert visitor Mr Dan, who performed a wonderfully, traditional, seaside favourite; A Punch and Judy Puppet Show for us. The children had a magical time and there was lots of fun, laughter and enjoyment all around.
Today was a memory that the children will remember forever! Such a wonderful treat – Beautiful Work!
Last week Nursery explored positional language, such as; “On top”, “Behind”, “Under” and “In front of” as part of expeditionary learning, whilst exploring the Maths based text “10 Little Pirates” by Mike Brownlow (as part of our ongoing expedition “What happens where the sand meets the shore?”) The children practised counting backwards in the theme of the story and sang along to the song version of the text as a hook into where our friend Pirate Pete maybe hiding. The children used a sentence stem like; “Pirate Pete is on top of the Treasure Chest” to explain his position on the pirates map. Here are a few of the examples….
”Pirate Pete is on top of X marks the spot”.
”Pirate Pete is on top of the big sea shell”. “Pirate Pete is stood on top of the crab”.
”Pirate Pete is behind the Palm tree”. “Pirate Pete is hiding behind the photo”.
”Pirate Pete is behind the Stingray”. “Pirate is laying behind the treasure box”.
“Pirate Pete is under the Mermaids”. “Pirate Pete is under the big sea monster”. “Pirate Pete is swimming under the mermaids”. “Pirate Pete is under the shell.”
”Pirate Pete is in front of the whale.” “Pirate Pete is front of my head”. “Arghh leg”. “Pete is in front of the treasure chest”.
The children also took part in a pirate hunt, finding the pirates which matched the wanted posters at the front of Nursery. When they found a pirate they had to match it to the poster and say how many golden coins their reward would be.
Following a more artistic theme the children were inspired by Reception’s drawing of the “10 Little Pirates” characters in the style of Mike Brownlow and Simon Rickerty. Therefore we followed the same drawing tutorial and created “Wanted” posters of our own. The children did an amazing job.
Beginning in hook week, Nursery began to draw pictures of a Sea Perch carefully chosen for it’s simple and recognisable outline and detailed body. The children first observed only the picture of the Sea Perch and completed their first drafts of the fish. Nursery worked very hard at creating drawings using lines and circles, whilst concentrating on the visual and this activity took quite some time as everyone was trying their best.
Three weeks later our Nursery children attempted a second draft of their fish, but before they began, Nursery watched a short clip about a little boy called Austin, who drew a Butterfly. When Austin drew his first butterfly, despite having the picture in front of him, it looked like the one he visualised in his head. With the critique, help and support of his peers who gave small wonders on how Austin could gradually improve his butterfly to look more like the original picture. (Please check this out on YouTube) Austin produced this butterfly below as his final draft. Our children really responded to the video clip and were amazed at how much Austin’s Butterfly had improved. This gave them a good understanding of how to critique their own work, by just changing one or two things.
Here are some of our drafts for comparison, the children worked very hard to ensure their area of improvement was achieved and we are immensely proud of them. Check this beautiful work out!!
