Nursery | Norton Infant School

Bonfire Night Traditions and Celebrations.

4th November 2023Sarah Winkley

As part of our on-going expedition of “What do stories Tell us about Autumn?” Nursery have continued to learn about autumn life and animals, as well as celebrations that happen in late autumn. This week through our story “It Was a Cold, Dark Night” by Tim Hopgood, Nursery have explored how Hedgehog’s hibernate through the winter. Ned, the Hedgehog in our story was looking for somewhere to live and hibernate. Check out our story via this link…

Nursery were encouraged to explore and investigate how safe the place Ned finds to live, really is? We were thinking about the traditions and celebrations that happen around Bonfire Night. Many people or organisations build bonfires in open spaces, which Hedgehogs might think are a good place to hide and hibernate under the bonfire wood piles. It is our job as a community to check for the Hedgehogs before lighting fires to save the creatures who are just trying to stay warm and cosy.

This led to further thinking about what bonfire night is. Nursery learned all about Guy Fawkes and that that we celebrate the 5th of November to remember the foiling of the Gunpowder plot. Words the children used to explain this were “naughty Guy tried to blow up houses”, “Guy was going to explode” and “Guy got caught by police, put him jail”. To bring the historical figure to life the children made Guy sock puppets. We stuffed socks with straw, glued on goggly eyes, drew on his moustache, face and hat. They did a great job!

As part of our Wise Wednesday Crew Nursery investigated ways in which we can keep ourselves safe during bonfire night by watching a short video of Blippi and exploring a feely bag of protective clothing. They learnt the catch phrase “Fireworks are great, stand back and give them space”.

As part of our Thoughtful Thursday Crew the children passed around and investigated an unused Sparkler. They described it as “Pointy”, “Rough”, “smooth”, “hard” and “bendy”. The teachers then modelled how to safely hold and dispose of a lit sparkler outdoors. There were quite a few of Nursery children who had never seen a sparkler before. It was an exciting experience for them.

Next we all tried a traditional bonfire night food “Parkin”. The children used these words to describe how the parkin tasted…. “Too salty”, “Too Sour”, “Sticky”, “Chocolatey”, “Like Gingerbread men” . Everyone tried it, which was great as it is always nice to try new things.

The children’s homework was to take home a Sparkler to enjoy and experience with their parents and to send in a photo along with any words the children had used to describe their what they saw, heard or felt. Here are the results…..

Words used to describe their experience were; “golden”, “yellow”, “cool”, “sparkling”, “sparkly”, “bright”, “like fire”, “like stars”, “fizzy”, “pshhh!”(when it extinguished in the bucket), “white”, “dangerous”, “burny” and glittery”. Awesome learning Nursery and everyone was very Fire safety conscious too – Well Done!

Celebrating Harvest Festival.

13th October 2023Sarah Winkley

On Thursday 12th October, Nursery celebrated their first Harvest Festival. We have been learning about religious celebrations in Autumn time, as part of our on going expedition “What do stories tell us about Autumn?” We recently made “Gruffalo Crumble” using autumnal ingredients which have been harvested and began our explorations from there. The Children watched a short programme explaining what Harvest Festival is, during their “Thoughtful Thursday” Crew. Nursery parents very kindly donated food to help us celebrate Harvest Festival and we looked at the different kinds of foods that grow in fields and are made from harvested ingredients.

Nursery then read a couple of pages from a non fiction text titled “Festivals through the year – Autumn” by Anita Ganari. This text told us that traditionally Christian’s donated food to decorate the church and feed people who didn’t have enough food. We also found out that there is an ancient farmers tradition, where people would make Corn Dollies with the last pieces of corn from the Harvest. These dollies would be hung in barns and farmers kitchens until the end of the winter and then replanted into the fields the following season as seeds to make more corn and bring good luck. Nursery had a go at making their own corn dollies.

Finally as our celebrations drew to a close, we talked about how we would donate all of the food we had collected to the local food bank in Askern, to help local families within our community. We are very proud of our efforts and grateful for the huge generosity of our families – Thank you for helping us to make this possible. Just look how much food we “harvested” to donate!

World Mental Health Day Crews.

10th October 2023Sarah Winkley

Nursery spent their “Tranquil Tuesday” Crew time outdoors today to mark World Mental Health Day. The children discussed why being outdoors makes us happier and how being happy is good for our brains to keep us healthy. We played “copy me” games, where an action was modelled first by the teacher and then repeated by each child together as a group. Next the children took turns to model and their crew mates copied their actions. We finished our Crew session by singing Nursery rhymes, loud and clear for all to hear!

Thoughtful Thursday – Life skills.

5th October 2023Sarah Winkley

Today Nursery dedicated their “Thoughtful Thursday” Crew to learning the life skill of putting on their own coats. These skills are essential for teaching independence, boosting confidence and developing gross motor skills in young children. We have a special song for doing just this in Nursery, which we practised and then I modelled step by step, just how it was done. The children also learned how to turn their sleeves the correct way after removing their coats, as this is a real issue for little people as they often end up inside out, making it tricky to put it back on. We practised several times.

At “playtime” significantly less help was needed to help the children put on their coats. It is a skill which we will continue to practise in school and I hope the children are encouraged to do this idependently at home also. Well Done Nursery! You are “Go for it Gorillas” and “Persevering Parrots” also.

We are Gruffalo’s, Gruffalo’s, Gruffalo’s!

4th October 2023Sarah Winkley

This week Nursery have been creating Gruffalo’s hats, (as part of our second case study “What do you see if you take a stroll in autumn?”) using a variety of 2d shapes. Nursery have been learning about matching shapes and using language such as “Pairs” and “The same”. The children have thought hard about the names of the shapes and how many of each shape they will need when creating their Gruffalo’s faces to match the model… They have done a wonderful job so far, here are a few!

Woodland Animal Hunt.

4th October 2023Sarah Winkley

Last week the Nursery children were learning about the different kinds of animals that live in woodlands, through our story “The Brave Little Owl” written by Penny Little and Sean Jullian. We are very fortunate to have a beautiful wooded area within our school grounds, just behind Nursery. So we went to explore the woods and see if we could spot any autumnal animals on a woodland animal hunt.

Children checked off the animals from their list and named them. We also found some natural treasures within the woodland such as feathers and dandelions which sparked some curiosity and interesting questions. Well Done Nursery.

Bird Feeders.

29th September 2023Sarah Winkley

As part of our expedition of “What do stories tell us about Autumn?” The Nursery children have been thinking about wildlife and how the birds will feed as the weather changes. Nursery have made their own bird feeders using their fine motor skills, threading cereal onto pipe cleaners. We then hung them onto the trees and bushes around Nursery. During our Thoughtful Thursday Crew we have also examined bird seed and filled up see through bird feeders to hang in Nursery’s garden, so we can watch the birds feed.

Nursery are Crew!

13th September 2023Sarah Winkley

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!

National Read a Book Day.

6th September 2023Sarah Winkley

Today Nursery sat and shared a story with their teddies and friends to acknowledge National Read a Book day. The story was titled “Bunny Loves to Read”. In our story Bunny shared his love of reading and teaches all of his friends that you can travel to different worlds, even when you can’t go anywhere due to the rain! Bunnie’s friends realise how exciting reading is and when the rain stops they play games like the characters from their stories.

Boat building

6th June 2023Sarah Winkley

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!