Nursery

Welcome to Nursery

Mrs Fearby is your Nursery teacher. 

Mrs Garside is your Early Years Practitioner.

Week Beginning 10th July 2023

Nursery Graduation, Mini Sports, and a Teddy Bear's Picnic!

Wow, what a busy week, Nursery are really packing it all in before the end of term!

In Literacy this week, we learned about the story Handa's Surprise. We talked about the difference between hot and cold places to live, and how children in different places would live in different houses, and eat different foods to us. We renacted the walk of Handa with puppets, and we tasted all of the fruits that she took to her friend Akeyo, in the order that they were stolen by the animals. Some of them we liked, some of them we did not!

In Maths this week we have starting linking our mathematical thinking to recording, drawing pictures and making marks, and also practising writing numerals. We challenged each other to make marks to show the amounts we had, and took turns to draw and write on the board.

We had a lovely walk down to the Hetton Centre - what a lovely resource for the community, we then went to the cafe afterwards and had a cupcake and a drink together, such a nice time together. I will upload the events for the Summer on to Class Dojo as they have regular sessions that you can join in with as well as free stay and plays together - also please keep checking our school Facebook page for community events over the summer.

The children who are moving up to Reception in September spent time with their new classmates in the Reception garden this week, and they took part in a Teddy Bear's Picnic, with food and games, and lots of fun playing together outside. Reception is going to be amazing!

The children also took part in a celebration assembly to look back at all of our time together in Nursery, complete with a full graduation ceremony, and a video, the link is below for the video, and photos to follow, remember your tissues before you watch the video and look at the photos...

On the same day we completed a multi sports session, and tried out lots of different sports, the Year Five children helped us with the sports and took us round the obstacles in different groups. In the afternoon session we also played Hungry Hippos and raced each other - we had a great time! Thank you to the parents who attended, it's always amazing to have our families into school, and we will have a lot more opportunities coming up!

It is our last week next week, it us our last day on Thursday, and we have our parent drop in on Monday from 3:30pm until 4:30pm if you have anything you would like to discuss. 

Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside.

The link to our video: Nursery Graduation 2023: Unstoppable!

Week beginning 3rd July 2023

”I’m Unstoppable!”

As we approach the final weeks of this Nursery year, we are becoming more inventive in our play. Our communication and language skills have developed, and our physical skills are being pushed to the limit.

The children created their own gym this week, following on from their interests last week they made their own barbell, with sticks and small tyres, completing deadlifts and overhead presses…we are so strong!

We also created our own farm shop together, deciding on prices, writing shopping lists, negotiating deals, talking about money, transporting our shopping…some of us tasted the raw onions and radishes, we weren’t sure about them raw!

For literacy this week, the children investigated a strange package of African themed fabrics, and some small world African animal toys…I wonder what story we will be reading this week?

In Maths we continued with identifying shapes in our environment, and talking about their features, we went on shape hunts and cut out, painted and printed with shapes.

This was all in addition to some amazing play opportunities we had both indoors and outdoors, dress up, role play, art, music, dance, obstacle courses, and using the vehicles to move, we have been so busy learning, and we have another busy two weeks coming up!

Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside.

Week beginning 26th June 2023

This week in Nursery we have been busy looking back across the time we have had, by looking through our floor book and talking to each other about what we have got up to across the year.
We have also been looking forward to our move to Reception by spending time in there, as well as some time with our brand new Reception friends! The children that aren’t moving up have also had some time with their new teacher, Miss Redpath, so all in all it has been a lovely week.

We never stop learning, and this week we have learned the story of Little Red Riding Hood off by heart. In Maths we have learned all about the names and features of ‘flat’ 2D shapes, we learned new ways to describe them such as side, point, curve, straight, then we explored shape in our play. In the mud kitchen, cutting shapes in play dough, and in our indoor environment. See what shapes your child can spot at home.

Some of the Nursery children have shown an interest in challenging themselves and each other to lift heavy objects, so we introduced a weight training belt, some stretchy bands and some weights. They all agreed the belt helped them to lift heavier things, and the children investigated how heavy the furniture was!  We love to look after our health and our physical activity, so we are going to develop a gym in our outdoor area: Muscle Beach!

We are heading into the last three weeks of term and it is very busy with lots of opportunities to come into school and spend time with us. We have sporting events and our summer fair, we are also going to the Hetton Centre on 12th July if you would like to come along, and Nursery are hoping to have a ‘graduation’ event which I will keep you all posted about.

Exciting times! Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside.

Week beginning 12th June 2023

We have really made the most of the weather this week in our Nursery Class, the children have been very interested in water and how it moves, so we have been working with pipes for transporting, exploring floating and sinking, and on one of our really hot days we filled 100 water balloons and practised our throwing skills! When we ran out of balloons we started filling and emptying bowls and jugs…everyone was wet, including all of the staff, and a great time was had!

In literacy this week we helped Fred the Frog blend words again, and we have learned what the sounds M A and S look like when they are written down. We are so interested in mark making and practising what we have learned, so we have been developing our fine motor skills with play dough and building blocks, to get ready for writing.

In Maths this week we have been learning about how the number 4 is made up of smaller numbers. We used Numicon tiles to explore that 3 and 1, and 2 and 2 go into 4, and we decided that we liked the the combination of 2 and 2 the best! We used beanbags and hula hoops as part of a game to show that even when you have some outside the hoop, and some inside the hoop, you still have 4. We then immersed ourselves in the number 4, we sang happy birthday to everyone that is already 4, we looked for shapes with 4 sides, we jumped, we clapped, and we showed 4 in lots of different ways, we are really good at Maths in Nursery!

We have all been planning ways to make our Nursery garden beautiful, and attract more mini beasts and butterflies. After having lots of conversations and discussion, the children decided they wanted to plant some ‘smelly plants’, so we painted our pallets and created a herb garden planter. Next we will be creating a bug hotel in the far corner, and placing a shade to attract the busy insects for this time of year.

Thank You for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside

Week beginning 3rd June 2023

A busy start to the second (and last) half of our summer term!
This week, Nursery started learning a little more about the initial sounds of words, and practising listening for the initial sound of anything we could find, including our friend’s names, and we played games with a friendly frog called Fred, who only speaks in sounds. We played iSpy, and giving instructions in sound talk. We also began to learn about what the sounds we hear look like when they are written down. We focused on saying the sound ‘mmm’, and learned about things that had the initial sound ‘m’, such as moon, mountain, mouse and mirror. In Literacy this week we have focused on creating a story map for our focus story ‘Sam Planted a Seed.’

As a result of our new learning, we have become very interested in making our own marks in our play, and we have tried different ways to do it, with mud, sand in our brand new giant indoor sand pit, pens, on the floor on cardboard, on paper, on cling film easels with paint outside. Some of us had a go at writing the letter ‘m’ and some of us even had a go at drawing our very own story maps!
We have been keeping a close eye on our sunflowers and they are almost ready to be planted outside, everyone has a shoot, and we have been able to see the roots spreading in the see through cups we planted our seeds in. This has made us so interested in growing things, how to do it, what can we grow, do growing things smell nice, and can we grow things to eat? So we have decided to plants herbs and vegetables next week, keep an eye on the website for pictures of us planting!

We opened Hetton Bike and Car Wash this week, after noticing our vehicles had grown dusty and dry, the children decided how they would set it all up, they decided on the pricing, and the services they would offer. They then decided that a garage was needed for when the tyres and paint needed work on our bikes, we are getting so confident with our physical development!

Maths this week has been all about following and creating patterns, we learned a new song about making a pattern, and we used practical objects then moved on to pictures to create our own patterns. We were even clever enough to spot when Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside made a mistake.

Stay tuned for more fun and learning next week.

Thank you for your continuing support, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside.

Week beginning 15th May 2023

This week Nursery have enjoyed National Numeracy Day, playing with fluffies and matching numerals to amounts from 1 to 5, we have done a great job with this this week!

We also started our ‘Sunflower Challenge’, we talked about what we already knew about sunflowers, and we decided what we wanted to learn together, then we planted our seeds.
 

Then we listened to a non fiction book called ‘from sunflower to seed’ which told us lots of facts about how to plant and grow a sunflower, and how to take care of it. We used our listening skills and remembered almost everything about how to do it, by ourselves.

Every day we are going to check to see if any shoots have started, and we are going to measure how tall the plants become when they grow. We are really excited! 
 

To enhance our physical development we have practised blowing bubbles, looking at the shape of our friends’ mouths, and then counting and chasing the bubbles around our outdoor area, so much fun and learning.

Thank you for your continued support, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside.

! Nursery enjoy National Numeracy Day 17th May 2023 !

🔻 You can see our exciting activities below 🔻

Staff and children enjoying dancing with Katya and Number One!

Week beginning 8th May 2023

Stars of the stage, outdoor challenges, and asking for more!

Even though we have had a shorter week this week, Nursery have been as busy as ever. As well as exploring our new stage area, dressing up and singing and dancing, we planned what we wanted to challenge ourselves with by drawing it all out and then creating obstacle courses. Our physical development is even better than ever! 
In literacy this week we have continued to learn about stories relating to Jack and the Beanstalk. We learned about Jim and the Beanstalk, and used measuring tapes to measure each other, and we learned about Jack and the incredibly mean stalk, and talked about how to be kind to our friends. Our memory of stories is really growing, we know that there is a beginning, a middle and an end.

In maths this week we learned how to change an amount by adding more, we played a game rolling dice to see how many more blocks we should add to our tower, the some of us chose to play the game with a friend during our child led play time. We are also going back over matching numerals to amounts, up to 5. We are mathematicians!

Thank you for all of your continued support, next week we are growing and planting with our new book ‘Sunflower to Seed.’

Love from Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside

Week beginning 1st May 2023

Hairdressing, Afternoon Tea, and a

Right Royal Celebration!

This week we enjoyed a visit to the hairdresser in Hetton to find out more about what happens at a hair and nail salon. We had an amazing time talking to the staff and customers, having a go in the chairs, and the weather for out walk back was beautiful. We saw lots of signs of Summer and learned a lot about our local area. 
The week was taken over by a very special occasion, of course, we made crowns, practised our singing, and enjoyed spending time with the residents of Primrose Care Home having afternoon tea and creating crafts, all for the coronation of our new King Charles III! 

Week beginning 24th April 2023

Giants, Bears, and building muscles!

In Nursery we know how important it is to learn through play, and we support our learning by following our interests. We have been fascinated by the outdoor garden and some new equipment that we had delivered, and we enjoyed developing our essential large muscle skills with some heavy work by building, stacking, digging, and rolling our friends up the hill in a giant tube…only in Early Years! Imagine our surprise when we then found a GIANT footprint in the grass! The Nursery children remembered how we have been comparing in Maths, and used the footprint to see if it matched any of the children or grown up’s feet…we found that it was much bigger, and decided it must have been a giant visiting us, hopefully it is a tall friendly one!
 

This week in literacy we have linked our interests in giants and all things BIG to Bears! We enjoyed listening to the story ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen, some of us remembered this story from earlier in the year and joined in really well. As we are learning about positional language in maths, we went into the hall and re-enacted the story, crawling under, climbing over, and stomping through. We were very surprised to find a bear inside the ‘cave’ and filled the hall with screams and laughter as we ran back through the snowstorm, the forest, the river, the mud and the long, wavy grass, to get back home, but we FORGOT TO LOCK THE DOOR! Lots of fun with one of our favourite stories, which we then re-enacted in our play back in Nursery.

To develop our communication and language and our literacy skills we have also been continuing to read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk together. We are learning it by heart by drawing a story map and making up our own actions to help us remember - watch this space next week for the video of us telling the story out loud!

We wish all of our parents and carers a wonderful bank holiday weekend, we hope you have a safe and happy time and we are looking forward to seeing you for an exciting week full of festivities, and at our coronation celebration on Friday afternoon. All are welcome.

Thank you for your continuing support, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside

Week beginning 17th April 2023.
Summer Term is here! Let’s Think…

BIG!

This week in Nursery we came back with a bang, and we learned all about a new story…one with a small boy, five magic beans, and a GIANT…

We have started to learn actions and draw a map for our story, so that we can learn it by heart, this will help us to hold the structure of the story in our heads for a long time.

In our adult led maths sessions, the giant left us some giant clothing to compare to our own clothes, and then we arranged ourselves in height order to find out who was the tallest and who was the shortest, in our key groups! 

In our play we explored our small world which was set up like the story Jack and the Beanstalk, and we had our own ideas to build towers and compare how tall we could make them. As always, we have enjoyed an extensive amount of time outdoors, and we have learned a lot about plants and flowers, having a go at planting, and exploring the parts of a plant, chopping and mixing in our mud kitchen. We also planned and built our own obstacle courses, and we have been so resilient this week, taking chances and keeping on trying. 
In our role play, we have enjoyed setting up our new indoor sand pit area and our hairdressing salon, check out the photos below to see how much fun we had developing our communication and language, and our imagination.
Next week, we are learning more about our focus story, learning more actions to remember the story, and about positional language in maths.

Week Beginning 27th March 2023 - Easter has arrived!

Easter well and truly came to Nursery this week! We have decorated cards, rolled, eggs, made collages, and had a fantastic time with our grown ups when they came in to make Easter crafts with us, followed by an Easter Egg hunt to find some treats that the Easter bunny had left. We even had a giant chick help us with our Easter crafts - what a week!

In our Maths this week we learned all about the language of size in group time - long, short, tall, high, length, we also learned how to 'compare' two things to see if they were the same, or different, we then used our new vocabulary in our play, comparing how far we could roll the cable reels, and rolling eggs to see who could get theirs the furthest!

In literacy this week our focus story was 'Supertato and the Great Eggscape'. We learned about what happened at the beginning, middle and end of our story, and we had a go at predicting what was going to happen when the veggies were kidnapped! If you'd like to watch and listen to a readalong of the story, here is a handy link:

https://youtu.be/30RUlO3eLbc

We have also been learning about how to differentiate different sounds, using instruments, and also about how to listen to our feelings and emotions, using peer massage as a way to build relationships with our friends and learn about kind hands.

All in all we have had an amazing term with lots of new experiences and learning, we are looking forward to next term when we will be learning about growing, and all things BIG!

Thank you for all of your support, have a happy and safe Easter holiday,

with love from Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside

Week beginning 20th March 2023

Another incredibly busy time for our Nursery children! We took part in a whole school music festival, and had a visit from the Police (just to tell us about their good work, we’ve been good, we promise!). We also spent lots of time outdoors, using the school Timber Trail to develop our balancing and gross motor skills. In Maths we have been learning about matching and sorting, and talking about why what we have looks the same, or different. We also learned about our daily routine, and how the time of day affects what we do. During our play we acted in our Hetton Health Centre, looking after each other, bandaging, injecting, and caring for our babies. Next week lots of Easter fun to be had, with our exciting craft days and our Easter Egg hunt.

🐣🧆 Thank you, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside 🐣🧆

Week beginning 6th March 2023

Nursery have had a great week this week, full of learning and laughter, which was made even better by the appearance of two special things, the arrival of eggs in Reception, and SNOW!
 

We have enjoyed playing and learning in the snow, in our Nursery garden and on our big yard, thanks to Mrs Garside for loaning us the sledge. 

Maths this week has been all about capacity and the words we use when talking about filling and emptying - full, empty, half full, and when to stop pouring…that was a very tricky part! We love to get hands on when we are learning in Maths.

With the help of Julia Donaldson we have been learning how to describe our features, pulling a funny face and drawing ourselves after looking in the mirror - “move your eyes and nose and mouth all over the place!”

If you’d like to check out what we’ve been singing along to to help us pull our funny faces, you can follow this link…

https://www.facebook.com/Booktopia/videos/pull-a-funny-face-with-julia-donaldson/583162868988928/

Not to forget National Science Week, our whole school are learning about fingerprints, and Nursery decided to learn about different animal prints, which inspired us to paint our small world animal toy feet and print to try and get our friends to guess which animal made the print!

We finished the week with ‘Helicopter Stories’. After telling Mrs F and Mrs G an original story, two of our children directed the other children to act out their story in our session on Friday morning. A fantastic way to develop our literacy skills, we will be creating and writing more stories together in the next few weeks, and we will post them on our website each week.

Remember we have our dentist visit next week, please let us know on Class Dojo if you’d like to come along.

💙 Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside 💙

SNOW DAY!!! 9th March 2023

Week beginning 27th February 2023

What a busy week Nursery have had this week! As well as learning all about heavy and light in maths - the concept that not everything that is bigger is heavier blew our minds - we learned how to use balance scales to work out which object is the heavy one and which is the light one. We also learned about community helpers this week, and enjoyed playing in our police station, we arrested several members of the staff team, who just looked like they were up to no good! We chased them down, booked them in, ticked off the equipment we used, and placed them in jail. Remembering to feed them and make them comfortable, of course, we are a very caring bunch in Nursery! Next week we will learn more about how the Police help us, and also other people in our community help us, such as bus drivers, dentists and cleaners.
World Book Day was AMAZING, thank you to all of the parents for visiting Nursery and dressing your children up, your children looked superb, and we read books together all morning. As well as surprise visits from a Very Hungry Headteacher Caterpillar, and a Deputy Head Teacher Tiger looking for some tea, Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma, the Woodcutter and the BIG BAD WOLF showed up, and we joined in with the whole school parade in the hall, it was a great day and a fantastic way to reinforce our love of stories and books!

We are expecting some frostier weather next week, but Nursery go outdoors whatever the weather, and this week was no exception…we have been making chalk masterpieces using chalk and water, digging, climbing, rolling tyres, and so much more, to support our physical development and our wellbeing.

We are looking forward to another amazing week next week, when we will be taking part in National Science Week, thank you for your support, Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside, and the Nursery children.

Week beginning 13th February 2023

Well done to the children for last half term, they had a busy one joining in with Valentine’s Day festivities, and celebrating their role play by ordering their own pizza! We hope you have had a lovely half term holiday, and we can’t wait to see everyone back to Nursery after a well deserved break. We will be learning all about shape, space and measures in maths this half term, and also all about Community Helpers.

Just a few reminders, the Nursery doors are open at 8:45am and we start our welcome time prompt at 9am with the children so please make sure you are here before this time. If anyone needs support with uniform please let us know as we have lots spare! The children should be wearing a white polo shirt and blue jumper or cardigan for Nursery.
Thank you for your continuing support, from Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside.

Week beginning 6th February 2023

This week in Nursery has been all about new beginnings. We said hello to our new Nursery teacher Mrs Fearby, and we planned to change the areas in our Nursery, see if you can spot our exciting new learning opportunities! 
In Literacy, we finished off our focus story of The Three Little Pigs with a story map, and we learned the actions to support our memory of the story. That Big, Bad Wolf keeps creeping up on us!
In Maths this week we continued to learn about 5, and how 5 is made up of smaller groups of numbers, such as 3 and 5, or 4 and 1. We also learned how to represent the numbers to 5 with objects, matching amounts to numerals.

As usual, we had Ashleigh visit for our music and movement sessions, and Lauren from Active Families, we had so much fun.

Don’t forget about the toddler music and movement time with Lauren on a Wednesday at 9am if you’d like to come along.
We started learning about our local area of Hetton and looked at pictures of the centre, we thought it would be a good idea to go for a walk around with the grown ups.

We have spent lots of time outside this week, exploring our resources and deciding what new things we might need to help us learn and develop our physical skills.
As part of Mental Health Awareness week, Nursery were feeling the love and giving each other (and the staff!) lots of compliments, check out the photos below to see what we think of our friends.
We loved digging this week, rolling down the hills, and we decided that a pirate had visited us, and decided to draw and label our very own pirate treasure maps, keep an eye out for any pirates this weekend…or any treasure!

A busy week for Nursery, with lots to look forward to next week.

Have a happy and safe weekend, with love from Mrs Fearby and Mrs Garside 😊

W/b Monday 30th January- The Three Little Pigs

This week, our story of the week was the traditional tale, 'The Three Little Pigs.'

We read the story each day and by Friday, we were able to retell the whole story. We love acting as the pigs and the wolf and putting on our story voices. We made a wolf face using glue and triangles and circles and we drew our own pig faces. We also spoke about what different houses are like around the world and tried to build our own houses out of straw, sticks and bricks. We found it was so tricky to build a house out of straw and sticks but much easier to build a house out of bricks. We discussed whether they were strong or weak. 

In Maths, we have been using a roll, count and build game to match numerals with their amounts. We also learnt about the number 5. We did a number 5 hunt, practised writing the numeral 5 and even looked at a tricky shape with 5 sides called a Pentagon. We also used a 5 frame for the first time and no we know that when a 5 frame is full, it means there are 5 counters altogether. We practised counting our counters 1-1 to be certain and then showed the number on our fingers. Please help us to count our fingers to 5 one at a time at home and make sure to give us lots of high 5s for working hard! 

W/b Monday 23rd January- Chinese New Year

Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year! 

This week, we have been celebrating and learning all about Chinese New Year. We compared the celebration to our New Year celebrations by saying what was the same and what was different. We turned our home corner into a Chinese restaurant and role played being a customer eating noodles with chopsticks, serving as a waiter or waitress and cooking food like a chef. We even tried our own Chinese food and tried to eat it with chopsticks. We thought it was delicious! To improve our creativity, we have had a very arty week! We have practised our cutting skills to make lanterns, painted a whole class Chinese dragon, painted rabbits for the Year of the Rabbit and painted our own plum blossom trees.

In Maths, we have continued to learn about the number 4. We have practised counting out 4 and separated them to find out what makes 4 e.g. 1 and 3 make 4. We did this by using 4 frogs on a log, dots on a ladybird and throwing 4 bean bags into a hoop. We also explored filling containers using rice. We used the words full, empty, half full, more, less etc. to describe how much rice we had in our container. 

We have worked on our Physical Development, we used stretchy fabric and played in the ball pit in our sensory room. We also completed a Dragon Cosmic Yoga! Yoga is our new favourite thing to do! It keeps us calm and helps stretch our bodies.

W/b Monday 16th January- Snowy Day

This week, we have continued our Winter topic. Our story of the week was Snowy Day. We also had our own snowy day which was perfect timing! We focused on answering 'w' questions about our story e.g. Where did the snow fall on Peter's body? What did Peter do with the stick? Why could Peter not play with the older children? We also had our own fake snow in a tuff tray and explored what it felt like and what we could make with it. 

We continued to talk about igloos and made them with sugar cubes this week. We also had our very own igloo in our reading area. We dressed in winter clothes and took puppets and books inside to cosy up with! We noticed lots of ice outside in our garden but sometimes it was too cold to stay out so we brought the ice inside. We helped our adults fill up bowls and ice cube trays and put them in the freezer to create our own ice. 

In Maths, we have been learning all about the number 4! We went on a number hunt and we found lots of the numeral 4 and groups of 4 objects. We practised writing the numeral 4 on the IWB and in our Maths area. We also looked at squares and rectangles! We learnt they both have 4 sides but a rectangle has 2 long sides and 2 short sides. Please help us watch out for the number 4, squares and rectangles. 

W/b Monday 9th January- How To Dress In Winter

This week, our topic has been, 'How To Dress In Winter' and we have focused on the story, 'Under My Hood, I Have A Hat'. We read the story each day and created our own story map to follow. We have loved acting out the story in class and would love to show you at home. Here's the link for the Youtube version. Under My Hood I Have a Hat - Stories for Kids - YouTube. We continued to dress up in Winter and Summer clothes this week and we also painted a person and painted on winter clothing just like in the story. We also spoke about how people keep warm when they live in a snowy climate. We discovered that some people live in igloos and not a house like ours so we tried to build our own igloos using marshmallows. We found our igloos were wobbly so next week we are going to use sugar cubes because they are cubes just like the real bricks on an igloo. 

In Maths, we have gone 3 crazy! We have been counting out 3 items from our shop for Baby Bear. We have been subitising 3 and exploring what we need to make 3 e.g. 2 and 1 makes 3 by playing a game with 3 bean bags and a hoop. We discovered that 3 can sometimes look different so we went on a number 3 hunt to find lots of different types of 3. We loved this and next week we are going to hunt for different numbers at the same time! After this, we decided to practise writing 3 in the writing area and on our IWB. Take a look at what fantastic writers we are.

W/b Wednesday 4th January- Our First Week Back

Before the holidays, we loved indulging in our Christmas treats and role playing sweet shops so we set up our very own sweet shop/bakery. We made salt dough pasties, sausage rolls, cake, buns and bread and painted them ourselves. We have loved playing in our sweet shop and charging our customers lots of money! 
This week, we have also talked about winter clothing and how to dress appropriately in the cold. We dressed our own characters in winter clothes and also dressed ourselves in winter and summer clothes. We are super at describing what to wear in the winter and summer and explaining why. 
We agreed we need to keep our bodies healthy and fit after Christmas and all year round. We decided to take a walk around the school and practised walking up and down the stairs. We worked on changing legs to step up each step one at a time. We also spoke about holding onto the banister to help us. We are grower stronger and stronger! 

Monday 12th December to Christmas Holidays

We have had so much fun doing our nativity this week! Check out our costumes!

We practised so hard for it so we hope you were proud. In Nursery, it is an objective to be able to sing familiar nursery rhymes and songs and we smashed it! 
 

This week, our story was Aliens Love Panta Claus. On Monday, we came into our classroom to find pants all over. We thought it was our cheeky elf but now we think it was the cheeky aliens out of our story. We decided to design our own pants in hope that the aliens would take them instead of decorating our classroom with theirs. We have done a lot of mark making whilst designing different pants.

In Maths, we have explored patterns further. We tried to fix patterns that had a mistake and we created lots of patterns in our classroom. We made a patterned dance floor using grey and brown bricks and then we created a repeating pattern with our ‘disco lights’. We ordered them tall, small, tall, small.

We have also had a lot of fun with different Christmas activities indoors and outdoors. We decorated a Christmas tree with felt baubles and we decorated a tree using screw on lids to help us with our finger and hand strength. We also had a nativity scene with little nativity characters to help us act out the Christmas story. We finished our Christmas cards, made our calendars and made our own salt dough baubles too. We even had stinky sprouts in the classroom and we had to make different routes using tubes for the sprouts to roll down.

W/b Monday 5th December- Christmas Countdown

The Christmas festivities have begun! This week, we have made and decorated snowmen and Christmas trees using moon dough. We started making our Christmas cards using glitter and sequins. We also explored making green paint for a Christmas tree by mixing blue and yellow. Then, we used yoghurt pouch lids to decorate our tree with baubles. We also made our own lists for Santa. We used scissors to cut out toys from catalogue pages and then stuck them on to a piece of card using glue. On Thursday, it was Christmas Jumper Day and we had Christmas Lunch together. It was delicious! 

In Maths, we learnt how to continue an AB pattern using colours e.g. red, blue, red, blue. We also used real and natural objects to create AB patterns. On Friday, we then looked at patterns through movement and dance e.g. clap, jump, clap, jump.

Thursday was a busy day. We also planted trees! Our school planted over 800 trees. In Nursery, we planted 1 tree each and called it our tree baby. Each time, we planted a new tree we shouted, 'We've got another tree baby!'. We learnt so much about trees from our tree expert. We worked so hard to follow instructions carefully so that our tree babies survive and grow into a forest!  

W/b Monday 28th November- Daddy Bear’s Birthday 

This week, our topic has been celebrations. We decided to take a look at birthdays in particular and we celebrated Daddy Bear’s birthday, we decorated our home corner, role played a birthday party using a birthday cake and party food. We decorated cupcakes, made party hats, wrote birthday cards and wrapped presents. We also learnt how to make a cake using the story, ‘It’s My Birthday’ by Helen Oxenbury, wrote shopping lists and practised making our own cakes.

In Maths, we continued to explore and understand the number 2. We practised finding 2 objects in the classroom with our friends. 

We have enjoyed being bricklayers outside. We used Playdough and bricklaying tools to spread the diy cement over the blocks so that we could build our own walls, towers and houses. We had to discuss which tools to use for each job with our friends and adults.

W/b Monday 21st November- Owl Babies 

This week, we started reading a new story, Owl Babies.

Mother owl and her babies arrived in our classroom on Monday and we had to help feed worms to the baby owls. We used tweezers to pick up the worms to help strengthen our fine motor skills.  We really liked the pattern on the last page in the book so we tried to recreate it using feathers and paint. We also painted our own owls using pegs and pom poms. 

Wow! Monday was cold! That didn’t stop us though, we wrapped up warm and adventured into the garden. We had so much fun exploring the frost and ice using our senses. 

Last week, we showed lots of interest in mark making so we now have a huge whiteboard outside so that we can use big arm movements to paint. We have also enjoyed having a roll of paper on the floor and choosing our own medium to make marks. We have enjoyed doing this during Squiggle While You Wiggle too. 

In Maths, we have been learning all about the number 2. We enjoyed finding the dice face and rocks that showed the number 2 amongst a group and we know that it doesn’t matter what size the dots are, it’s just important to count each one at a time. Please can you help us find and count 2 at home?

W/b Monday 14th November- Autumn, Anti-Bullying Week and Children In Need

This week was Anti-bullying Week and was all about celebrating difference. We wore odd socks all week! On Monday, we read the story Elmer and The Hippos and discussed how it’s OK to be friends with people who look different to us. Then, we created our own Elmer using different coloured tissue paper. We also spoke about everyone having different hair types, colours and styles. We explored this by creating our own hairstyles using PlayDough.

On Friday, it was Children In Need day. We had a big surprise and Pudsey Bear came to visit us! We were so happy to see him. For CIN, we cooked flapjacks in our Maths lesson and sold them to our families to raise money for Children In Need. They were delicious! We also made spotty biscuits with smarties for ourselves. Afterwards, we used our sink in our home area to wash up the dishes we used. We did such a good job! 

This week, we also went on a rainy Autumnal walk. We collected sticks, leaves and flowers and spoke about what they looked like. We realised they were all a mixture of red, orange, yellow and brown and little bits of green. On our walk we loved jumping in puddles! It was so much fun and we kept toasty and dry under our suits. When we got back to school we decided to make leaf biscuits to match the colorful leaves that we found. We also did observational drawings of the objects that we found. 

W/b Monday 7th November- The Enormous Turnip

This week, we started our new topic The Enormous Turnip. We read the story, The Enormous Turnip and created our own story map. We made our own vegetable patch in our tuft tray. We focused on holding scissors correctly to cut along the lines on lettuce leaves. We also used tissue paper and glue to create our own turnips. We used our figures in our small world to role play the story. Towards the end of the week, we noticed we were confused between fruit and vegetables so we looked at how fruit has seeds and we explored some of our own fruit. We enjoyed counting the seeds and discussed what they smelt like, felt like and looked like.
 

We had Remembrance Day on Friday and we spoke about how people fought in a war for our country so we wear poppies to remember them. We made our own poppies using peppers and paint and we also made poppies using biscuits, raisins and icing. They were delicious! We also tried hard to mark the spots on poppies using bingo dabbers. 
 

This week, we had Ashleigh in on Tuesday. We especially loved the little rabbit in a cabbage she brought along. He gave us a hug or a tickle. We giggled the whole time! 
 

W/b Monday 31st October- Exploring Our New Nursery

This week, we have loved exploring our new classroom and outdoor area. On Wednesday morning, we were a little overwhelmed at how big our classroom was and how much had changed. However as the day went on, we got very excited and had a fantastic time exploring our new room the following days.

This week, we have spent lots of time seeing how many of us can fit into our new bay window. We have curled up in our tipi and reading cave. We've had our dancing shoes on and dressed up and danced on our new stage. We have made Playdough in our new kitchen and played with it in our outdoor messy area. We have whizzed around the garden on our new balance bikes. Some of us have spent time in our new Quiet Room where there are lots of stimulating resources such as lights, colours and different textures. We have also spent a lot of time on our new interactive board, mark making and using it in our Maths lessons. 

In Maths, we have been sorting into groups by colour, shape and size. Please practise this with us at home so that we can be expert sorters like Santa's elves. We have also been singing the song, '5 Currant Buns' and practising counting to 5, taking away 1 each time and counting to see how many we have left each time.

W/b Monday 10th October- Goodbye Old Hetton Primary

W/b Monday 3rd October- NO-BOT

This week, we continued our topic NO-BOT and created a story map to help us retell the story. We built our own robots using junk modelling and painted and built a class NO-BOT together. We enjoyed playing in our NO-BOT small world and acting out the story with our friends. Last week, we began to explore paint further and mixed our colours so we decided to practise mixing lots of different colours together to create new colors. We created orange, purple and pink. 

In Maths, we have been learning how to match. Firstly, we matched buttons using their colours and shapes. Then, we matched shoes checking carefully for colours or small patterns. Lastly, we matched Duplo towers and even tried to create our own matching towers. We used our new Maths word, ‘match’ lots of times when discussing our learning. 
 

Since our time at Hetton Primary School (the old school) is nearly over, we took a picture and wrote a letter to be placed inside a time capsule. We can’t wait for it to be found by our friends in the future. 
 

On Friday, we made crowns in preparation for the Houghton Feast Parade and we walked it on Saturday. We had such a good day and will treasure the memories forever.

W/b Monday 26th September- NO-BOT

We’ve had a busy week. On Monday, we had a visit from ZooLab. We were so brave and got to hold and touch the animals. We even learnt lots of amazing facts about the animals and how to care for them too. On Tuesday, we met our new singing teacher Ashleigh who will be joining us with her ukulele fortnightly. On Wednesday, we had Lauren come in and do our usual dancing with us.

The rest of the week has been spent reading our story, ‘No-Bot’. We had fun painting No-Bot, creating him using squares and rectangles and creating our own robots using real loose parts etc. 

In Maths, we have been exploring the colours purple and green and then had fun matching colours in lots of different ways. We learnt there are many different shades of a colour. Sometimes we get confused with purple and pink so please help us with this at home. We love playing, ‘I spy something that is the colour…’

W/b Monday 19th September- Goldilocks and The Three Bears

This week, we have continued our Goldilocks and The Three Bears topic. After writing a letter to Goldilocks, we had a very special surprise on Friday. When we arrived at school, we noticed there was a broken chair and spilt porridge around our classroom. We decided to follow the trail of porridge and bear foot prints. We were a little scared because we thought we would find the bears but to our relief it was cheeky Goldilocks sat eating porridge in a cupboard. She gave us a chocolate bear and told us why she went to The Three Bears' house. She promised to never do it again! 

The rest of the week, we have explored with porridge oats. We have made dry and wet porridge and used it to role-play with Daddy Bear, Mammy Bear and Baby Bear. We have also been practising our observational drawings by painting a picture of Goldilocks. 

We have also been learning how to pick our pencil up correctly and have been practising our colouring skills. We would love to colour in at home, it really helps our fingers grow stronger. 

In Maths, we having been exploring the colours red, blue and yellow. We went on hunts around the class and found different shades of each colour.

In our garden, we have enjoyed building obstacle courses and building our own buses and cars.

This week, we have been working on putting our coats on and off ourselves and hanging our coats and bags up ourselves. We have been getting speedier at independently changing our shoes and wellies too. Please help us practise this at home. 

Next week, we are learning all about robots and will be exploring the story NO-BOT.