This week Nursery have been learning about growing and caring for plants through our story âChristopher Nibble in the Dandelion Derring Doo!â 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 donât 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 Wonkaâs 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 âMystery Masked Readersâ. The children listened carefully and had to guess who was hiding behind the masks?
Nursery this week have continued to study the traditional tale of The Gingerbread Man. We have been investigating âHow can we help the Gingerbread Man to cross the River?â 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; âA boatâ, âAn aeroplaneâ, âA bridgeâ, âAnother animalâ, âA frogâ and âA submarineâ.
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!
Nursery have been working hard baking something scrumptious today! Can you guess what our story of the week is?
We hope they donât run off before we have the chance to decorate themâŚ.
PhewâŚ.They didnât! Just look at our beautiful work.
Next Nursery used there cutting and sticking skills to sequence main events within the story. They continued to use the words âFirst, Then and Nextâ to order their ideas and events just like during our baking and decorating.
During the week commencing 19th February Nursery celebrated Pancake day through the story of Mr Wolfâs Pancake’s by Jan Fearnley, linking to our expedition by immersing ourselves in Fairytale characters. This story is an alternative view point of Mr Wolfâs behaviour, as he is portrayed as a kind, polite and reasonable character, whilst the other fairytale characters are not being very kind to him as wouldnât help him in any way to make pancakes, even though he was being kind and polite to them.
The children thought about their own experiences of Pancake Day at home and shared those special memories, thinking about whether or not they were helpful to their families?
Mr Wolf needed a recipe to help him make the pancakes, so Nursery investigated what a recipe is? They shared the recipe for the pancakes during reading crew and looked at the ingredients and equipment needed to make pancakes, just like Mr Wolf. The children then worked in small groups to make pancakes and could choose from various toppings including, Orange and lemon juice, sugar, syrup, honey and chocolate spread. Nursery surprised everyone and tried new things on their pancakes, many choosing Honey. They were yummy!
Nursery also role played the story, working in Old Mother Hubbards Shop and creating pancakes in the play dough and outdoors. Great work!
Over half term the children took part in a sponsored reading event in partnership with Usborne Books. Their challenge was to read as much as possible and in an unusual or exciting place. We have loved sharing their photographs and Miss Tunney chose Pippa Evans as the winning entry. How exciting to read in the cockpit of a plane!
We feel extremely grateful to the children and their families for raising a phenomenal ÂŁ3303!
This money will be used to buy new library books for our schools. Thank you so much!
The week commencing 05/02/24 Nursery were exploring their latest text within our expedition Once upon a Time – Who is hiding in the pages of this book? We were looking a comparison of the traditional tale of âGoldilocks and the Three Bearsâ, through a text titled âGoldy Luck and the Three Pandasâ by Natasha Yim. This story is a celebration of oriental culture made accessible to children through a traditional tale. The Children really enjoyed learning about the differences between the bears in the story, Goldy Luck and Goldilocks and the Chinese culture overall, which made great links for the celebration of Chinese New Year.
Goldy Luck, Mr and Mrs Chen had rice porridge known as Congee in their adaptation of the story, so the children played and investigated rice in the sensory tray. They filled red containers and and practised picking up Pom poms with chop sticks building their fine motor skills in our finger gym.
We then researched Panda Bears by looking at non fiction texts in our Tuesday Reading Crew using the text â A Book of Bearsâ by Katie Viggers. The children learned where Pandas come from, where they live, what they eat and what they look like. We used this information and other stimulus to produce beautiful artwork of Panda faces.
Children experimented with Chinese dining within our role play area, sitting on floor cushions and using tweezers and chop sticks to eat pretend noodles in their role play. Nursery also had a Chinese food tasting crew on Thoughtful Thursday, during which they tried a number of new foods including noodles, Sweet and Sour Sauce and Prawn Crackers. Most of the children liked the noodles 🍜 and had second helpings. Some of the words used to describe the sweet and sour sauce were âSpicyâ, âTinglyâ, âSweetâ and âHotâ.
Nursery explored traditional Chinese dress and took part in their own traditional street parade. The children split into two groups and played a range of instruments and took turns to march and dance, exploring various levels in pairs using Chinese dragons. What beautiful work they produced!
Throughout the week children created various paintings of a Chinese theme including dragons and lanterns as it is officially the year of the dragon, 2024. This got us thinking about the year of the childrenâs birth which was for most the year of the Rat or some the year of the Ox. We watched of short video/puppet show about the ancient myth of how the Chinese calendar came to exist and the order of the animals by year. The children took part in an online tutorial modelled by myself to draw a rat 🐀, representing the year of their birth. The results were awesome, we have some budding artists.
Over the past week Nursery have explored and embedded our story of the week âGoldilocks and the Three Bears.â The children began the week by being fairy tale detectives, as someone had been into Nursery over the previous weekend and broken our dollies chair, bed and left their empty food bowl laying around. The children were very excited and outraged by this, they had lots of different ideas of who this could be including; âthe Trollâ, âA big mouseâ, âthe Gruffaloâ, âa bearâ and âGoldilocksâ herself.
Nursery played in oats, experimenting with filling and emptying containers of three different sizes, using small, medium and large spoons.
They explored and sorted hard and soft materials.
Using their maths skills Nursery measured the Three Bears using unifix cubes and worked hard to count how many cubes tall the bears were, using their fingers to encourage careful counting and 1-2-1 touch counting. The children revisited and used our key vocabulary Large, Medium and Small to describe Daddy, Mummy and Baby Bear.
As part of our Thoughtful Thursday Crews Nursery followed an online drawing tutorial, following step by step instructions and modelling from myself of how to draw a bears head. Our 30 hour children extended this activity to add the bears body using their own imagination.
As part of Flexible Friday Crew, the children all tried Porridge 🥣. For some children this was a new experience for others it was an alternate way to eat their porridge, as we had the option of either Golden Syrup or Sugar with our Porridge. Some children like âJamâ, âNuts, raisins and Honeyâ, âNutellaâ, âRaspberriesâ, âBlueberriesâ and âStrawberriesâ with theirs at home.
Finally to consolidate and bring all of our learning to life, Nursery took part in mini role plays of the story in front of their peers and grown ups. This takes a lot of confidence and most of the children enjoyed and were willing to take part in the experience using lovely story language. Well Done Boys and Girls! Youâre all âGo for it Gorillaâsâ and superstars!
Over the weekend we have had someone in our Nursery! But theyâve not been playing kindlyâŚ. Just look at what they have doneâŚ..I wonder if anyone can guess who it might be?
Theyâve broken our dollyâs bedâŚ.
Theyâve had a snack and left their dirty pots laying aroundâŚ..
AndâŚâŚ Theyâve broken our babyâs chair!! That is most unkind. If anyone has any information, please let us know⌠They mustâve dropped thisâŚ.
Kindest Regards, The Nursery Children, Mrs Winkley, Mrs Mortimer, Miss Kitching and Miss Gill. Xxx
Nursery have been working hard to resolve social conflicts this last week, as part of our first case study âHow can the Goats and the Troll be friends?â This is within our new expedition âOnce upon a timeâ and working towards answering our guiding question âWho is hiding in the pages of this book?â
Nursery have listened to the traditional tale of âThe Three Billy Goats Gruffâ and an alternative version of the story âThe Three Billy Goats Fluffâ by Rachael Mortimer. They have thought hard about the issues of both key characters; in that the Goats would like to eat the juicy, green, lush grass, but unfortunately they have to trip, trap across the bridge to reach it which in turns wakes up the Troll, who is desperate for some sleep, peace and quiet. Mummy Goat made the Billy Goats booties in the alternative story, but we wondered what if you insulated the bridge? So we have tried hard to make a quiet bridge for the Troll to live under using a variety of insulating materials. We tested baking paper, tinfoil, felt and bubble wrap. Hereâs how we got onâŚâŚ
Some of the language and ideas expressed throughout this problem solving was amazing! The children said âthe troll is grumpy because he is tiredâ, âthe troll is frustrated because he wants to sleepâ, âtrip trap, trip trap keeps waking him up, because itâs noisy on the bridgeâ, âThe goats need to be kind and go quieterâ. The children spoke in depth about the materials, carefully using their senses to investigate them, some of the words used were; âShinyâ, âCrunchyâ, âCrinklyâ, âRattlyâ, âSoftâ, âFluffyâ, âFurryâ, âBubblesâ, âPoppingâ, âToo loudâ, âQuietâ, âSilentâ and ânoisyâ.
What beautiful work Nursery – most children either came to the conclusion that the felt was the âquietestâ or âsoftestâ material or that the paper and tin foil were âtoo loudâ or ânoisyâ. Some of the children thought about folding materials into layers to make the bridge even softer and one child thought about using the soft toy troll as a material, as he thought the felt was âstill too noisy and the troll is bouncierâ. Great experimenting!
