Nursery Blog
Spring half term.
We had such as busy half term! We travelled all over the world!
To start off our exciting few weeks, firstly we had to go to ‘Twickenham Travel Agents’. With so many lovely places to choose from, the agents helped us to choose where we wanted to go, how we was going to get there, who we was going with, and what we was going to do when we was there. There were so many brochures to look at, and we also had an iPad to look at holidays online. Lily chose a lovely caravan for her and her family! Isabella was a particularly good travel agent, with Mrs. Stroud booking a 90 day holiday to Disneyland, with free breakfast every day, for just £30! To top her holiday off, she booked a session swimming with the dolphins for only £1.
We needed lots of transport to get us to our holiday destinations. We spent lots of time making cars, airplanes, trains, buses and bikes in the creative area and construction area.
Packing for our holidays was difficult, but we managed to work out what clothes we needed to pack. Some of us had chosen hot countries, some had chosen colder places.
All that was needed now for our travels was our passports! We are all working very hard to learn to write our names so that we can have our own passports.
South America
Our first stop on our journey around the world was South America, which is the part of the world that Kiera’s family is from. It was lovely to see photos of Bolivia and the surrounding areas. We explored all areas of South America, as well as tasting foods and listening to music. The highlight of the week was when Keira's Mum came to do story time with us. She read a story to us in Spanish and in English too! It was very interesting hearing that Keira speaks Spanish at home, and also English too! The story was about the tooth mouse. In South America, they have a tooth mouse instead of a tooth fairy!
Also this week, the shed became a caravan, inspired by Lily’s choice to book a holiday in a caravan. It was so much fun!
Africa
Our next destination was Africa. Darrell’s family is originally from Africa. They speak French at home. We are so clever that not only can we count in English, but we now know some French numbers too!
This week saw us learn French nursery rhymes, eat French food, as well as looking at the globe to see where Africa was.
‘Boogie with Baxter’ has become one of the highlights of the week, with African dancing being the theme this week. Dylan, Tayjon, Darrell and Chace have shown some amazing rhythm as well as a bit of break-dancing!
Italy
Our final trip was to Italy. This week we made our own pizzas for snack time during our ‘cooking it’ sessions. First we had to spread the tomato sauce onto the base, and then we sprinkled on the cheese, and then added toppings such as peppers, chicken, sweetcorn and mushrooms, which we chopped ourselves. We cooked them, and then enjoyed them for our snack.
The travel agents remained popular, with lots of people booking holidays. Where will we go next?
Twickenham-on-Sea
We are all going on a summer holiday! To round of our journey around the world, we packed up our suitcases and went to ‘Twickenham-on Sea’.
It wasn’t that far away, and when we got there, it was amazing!
We had a beach, coconut shy, bouncy castle, face painting, ball pool and a paddling pool. After a lovely picnic lunch and ice-cream, the fun continued, and was topped off with a visit from a donkey! We all enjoyed stroking and brushing Sisco.
It was an amazing way to end our month of holidays!
Week beginning 3rd February
Our journey continued this week, as we stepped into our time machine, which landed in Ancient Egypt.
Our shed had become an Egyptian tomb, with bones buried, hieroglyphs on the wall, and pictures of Egyptian gods. We used the metal detectors to search for treasure, some of which was chocolate! That was fun.
Throughout the week we did lots of activities including painting hieroglyphs, using a hieroglyphic typewriter on the whiteboard to write our names, collaging a picture of Tutankhamen with shiny and special gold paper, and making Scarab Beetles with coloured clay. To the ancient Egyptians, this common beetle symbolised hope and the restoration of life. Over time, the scarab became a sacred symbol.
We ended the week by learned how to dance like an Egyptian, using a just dance programme on the interactive whiteboard.
Where will our journey take us next week?
Week beginning the 27th January
Continuing our journey through the land of make believe, we spent his week looking at mythical characters, dragons, and fantasy.
We searched for dragon eggs in the forest, made protective wooden pendants from wood using the tools. This was to keep the dragons away. If Miss Doody could have got the fire going, we would have used the smoke to scare the dragons away, but the force of the dragon breath blowing, along with the damp wood (one of the dragons was a water dragon) kept putting the fire out. Luckily we all had our pendants to protect us!
This week also saw the celebration of Chinese New Year around the world. To celebrate this in Nursery, we enjoyed Chinese food at snack time, trying to eat noodles with chopsticks was a challenge! We had a Chinese restaurant role play, and made Chinese lanterns. Some of us tried to write our name in Chinese...their letters are very different to ours. To finish off the week we did some Chinese dragon dancing and watched a traditional Chinese New Year parade.
Did you know the children in Nursery were born in the year of the 0x and some in the year of the Tiger.
Week beginning 20th January 2014
Superheroes landed in Nursery to help to save the world! This week saw Nursery transformed into a superheroes paradise, with lots of problems for us to solve and missions to complete.
The ‘Batcave’ created somewhere for all of the superheroes to hang out (not just Batman and Robin), waiting for a phone call from people who need rescuing. There were cats stuck in trees, animals that needed rescuing from the dinosaurs, and things needed saving from the water.
Throughout the week we continued to be superheroes, with a final superhero fancy dress party to celebrate all the magnificent missions we had been on this week. We had Batman, Superman, Ben 10, Tree Fu Tom, Buzz Light Year, and a Ninja Turtle along with lots of Bat Girls, Supergirls, Catgirl, and Power Rangers. We all had a fantastic day, and with all of us having different super powers, together we saved the world!
Week beginning 13th January 2014
After a very busy few weeks before Christmas, with the EYFS Nativity, our trip to Winter Wonderland, and lots of exciting Christmas activities, we returned in January to a very exciting topic…the land of make believe.
The first few days back saw our Nursery turned into a winter wonderland by the Snow Queen. We had a wintry soft play, ice cubes in the water tray, slushy snow in the sand tray, and we made ice-lollies.
When we went to Forest School this week we saw that she had even turned the outdoors into a winter wonderland too! There was ice on the trees, snow on the grass and it felt very cold. We found out that the Snow Queen likes to find places that are smooth and cover them with ice, making them spiky, sharp, rough and prickly. To try to stop her, we found lots of things in the garden that were rough and spiky like bark, sticks, and leaves. We used these to make our camp fire to warm the forest up, scaring the Snow Queen away.
The Snow Queen also froze all of our dinosaurs into blocks of ice! We tried really hard to free them. Ryan thought the sun would melt the ice, Junior poured warm water on his, and Thomas tried to find a radiator. In the end Oshea found that breaking the ice on the floor was most effective, and also the most enjoyable. The trouble was, we came back to nursery the next day to find that the Snow Queen had been back and had done it all again!
Once we had finally freed all of the dinosaurs for the second time, our Nursery was no longer a winter wonderland, but had become a dinosaur park. Shay in particular found this very exciting, but we were all looking forward to seeing what dinosaur park would be like!
Firstly we had a dinosaur hunt, using binoculars and clipboards to record what dinosaurs we could see. Jaycee and Amy were very good at spotting dinosaurs. They found a Pterodactyl in the book corner, a Triceratops by the fish tank, a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the soft play, and a Stegosaurus in the home corner!
During our Forest School session, we went in a time machine back to the land where dinosaurs lived. We searched the area for signs that they had been there. We found footprints, bite marks, and even dinosaur eggs! We made a dinosaur land for them to live in, with a beach, mountains, a forest, a pond and a cave. No dinosaur land would be complete without a volcano, so we used fizzy coke and mints to make an eruption in our dinosaur land. This was amazing to see.
To continue the volcano idea, we made papier mache volcanoes, with a mixture of bicarbonate of soda and vinegar to make it erupt.
We wanted to make sure that the dinosaurs could still be in our Nursery for many years to come, so we made casts of them. We made and imprint of the dinosaurs in play dough, then filled in with plaster of paris. When it was dry, we peeling away the play dough revealing our very own dinosaurs. This was a bit like a fossil.
Now that Dinosaur Park has gone, we look forward to saving the world with our super powers next week!
Week beginning 2nd December
This week has been fantastic!
Firstly we arrived to see that the Jungle had been turned into a winter wonderland, with snowflakes and polar bears. To add to the excitement, the home corner had gone, and in its place was a ‘stable’, with straw, animals, and a baby Jesus. This week we learned all about The Nativity. We already knew a lot about is, as we had been practicing our Christmas play, which is called ‘The First Christmas’. Learning about it in Nursery has really helped us to understand the story.
On Wednesday, we had a Christmas Crafts stay and play, where our families came to make lots of Christmassy things with us. We made Christmas tree decorations, lemon creams, cards, pictures and paper chains. We think our Mums went come covered in more glitter than we did!
On Friday, we learned all about Christingles. Each made one to take home, and will light it on Christmas day. The Orange represented the world, the red ribbon shows God’s love, the candle shows Jesus the light of the world, and the sweets/raisins show God’s creations. It helped us to learn a little bit about Jesus and how some Christians celebrate advent. We have plenty of Christingle things left if you would like to come and make one!
Next week is a very busy week for us...we will soon tell you all about it!
Week beginning 25th November.
Where The Wild Things Are!
This week really captured our imagination! The jungle soft play was amazing...we really were able to become wild things! In the story, Max has lots of adventures with wild things, including ‘rumpus’, which we recreated with our very own wild things disco, with balloons, lights, karaoke, and glow stick! That was so much fun! In forest school, we made ourselves a nice cup of warm soup, and lovely toast on the camp fire, just like Max had waiting for him at the end of the story. We also made hot chocolate, which we decided could also have been something that Max may have had before going to bed.
At the end of the week, we celebrated Hanukkah, a Jewish festival that was celebrated all around the world this week. We learned all about the festival of lights and the Menorah, we created a Jewish house in the home corner, painted the Star of David, made flat breads with the play dough, and had a Jewish food called Latkes for our snack. We also learned a traditional Jewish dance. It was nice to learn about what other people in the world celebrate.
Week beginning 11th November
This week was Peter Pan week!
We had lots of fun doing lots of activities, including roleplay, writing, pirate dances, and finding treasure using treasure maps. Our climbing frame had become an amazing pirate ship, and we had our very own ‘lost boys’ camp, with a real tent!
The week ended with a pirate dressing up day, where we all actually were pirates for the whole day. We had pirate clothes on, played pirate games, ate pirate snacks, and found the hidden treasure that was chocolate gold coins! (Even our teachers were pirates too!)
Dylan thought that the pirate day was “the best ever”
Lexi says “I like being a pirate”
We can’t wait to see what wonderful adventures we will have next week!
Week beginning 4th November 2013
As our first week back stared with Bonfire Night, we spent the day learning about fireworks, making firework pictures, moving like fireworks on the playground, and learning about firework safety. We built hedgehog homes for the hedgehogs to be safe during bonfire night. We finished our day with our first philosophy session, thinking about how we keep safe with fireworks and other ways to keep safe and how to make people feel happy. We enjoyed listening to each other’s ideas and seeing if we agree with them.
We spent the rest of the week learning all about the Hindu festival of Diwali, which took place this week. We looked on Google Earth at where India is, and learned about how Hindus prepare their houses for the festival. We prepared our home corner for a Diwali party, cleaning it, and decorating it with lights. Other activities this week included making rangoli patterns, having an Indian Takeaway role play, decorating our hands with Mendhi patterns using face paints, and learning a Bhangra dance.
Next week is ‘Peter Pan’ week, we can’t wait to come to Nursery dressed as pirates!
Week beginning 21st October 2013
We have now finished our first half term in Nursery. It has been an exciting and very busy 8 weeks. We have all settled well, played with lots of new toys, explored lots of things, and we all now have over 50 new friends!
This week our Mums and Dads came to play with us. We showed them our favourite things to do, and they were able to see our exciting learning spaces.
Even the rain didn’t stop us enjoying a camp fire at forest school this week! We loved cooking popcorn on it; it was very exciting to hear the corn popping when it got hot! It was tasty too.
Our Mums and Dads helped us to carve pumpkins on Monday, but on Wednesday we used the left over pumpkins and enjoyed pumpkin cake! Dylan enjoyed it so much he had 3 slices!
PE this week was so much fun! We were able to use one of our favourite outdoor toys in the hall! He had bike races, practising pedalling and turning and scooting! Ryan was very fast!
Now comes the end of our first half term, we want to share some things that we have enjoyed most:
Tayjon says “I love playing with the bikes”
Lily has loved playing with all her new friends.
Thomas says “I have really enjoyed the forest school, sawing the wood was the best”
McKenzie said the best day in Nursery was when his Mummy came to play
“I loved dressing up as Buzz” said Junior
“I love learning new letters and sounds” said Jaida
Kadi says “the best day at Nursery was when we made bread”
What will next half term bring! We can’t wait!
Week beginning 14th October 2013
Monday started with a show and tell of our favourite toys. We had fun telling everyone about our toys, why they were special and what we liked to do with them. Dayna’s Snow White doll likes playing with the other Barbies! McKenzie’s car is very fast. It’s like the one that he wants to drive when he is older. Lots of children brought their favourite toys in, including dolls, teddies, cars and computers.
On Tuesday we noticed that some of our friends were not at school. This was because they were celebrating Eid. We learned all about it, and then had our own Eid party, trying Indian food like poppadum, curry, rice, and naan bread. It was yummy. We also listened to Bhangra music and did some dancing.
For a lot of the week it was raining outside, but that didn’t stop us, we enjoyed splashing in the puddles with our wellies, and had lots of containers to fill and pour, it took all day for the rain to fill a tiny little jug!
For P.E this week we played parachute games, running underneath, chasing the mouse, and trying to keep the teddy on top. It was fun to learn new games.
Next week is the last week of our first half term in Nursery, so we have invited our Mums and Dads and other people in our family in to play on Monday afternoon. We can’t wait to show them our favourite things to do at Nursery.
Week beginning 7th October
What a busy and eventful week in Nursery!
On Monday we went on our first trip. Our Mums, Dads, Aunts, and Nans came with us on a walk around the area. We walked down Twickenham Road, looking at the things that we can see. We used photos that Mr Tumble left us to help us to spot things in the area. We saw a Doctors Surgery, a shop, hairdressers, takeaway, a post office, post box, dress makers, and McDonalds. We even had chance to stop in the park to listen to all of the sounds in the environment.
At forest school this week we went on a bear hunt. We went through the mud, through water, through the wind and through the forest to find a bear. He was hiding in the cave. We decided that the bear would stay away from our snack circle if we had a fire, so we built a lovely warm camp fire. That was fun. We made sure we didn’t get up off the logs while the fire was lit.
During our ‘Growing It’ session this week, we went in small groups to our bed in the allotment to plant potatoes, onions and broad beans. We used tools to make holes in the soil, and we watered them. We can’t wait to see them starting to grow.
We all loved making porridge for Goldilocks on Thursday. We mixed porridge oats and milk, and heated it until it was just right, like Baby Bears porridge. We made it even better by adding honey or raisins to it. Tayjon said it was delicious!
In PE we played some chasing games including Duck Duck Goose. We were all very good and following instructions to make sure we stayed safe in the hall. All of that running around made our hearts beat really fast.
To finish off our week we all learned a dance. We used the story of We’re going on a Bear Hunt to move to the music, and make actions to different parts of the story. It was brilliant!
We are looking forward to next week now, our topic is ‘Toys’, and it starts with a show ‘Show and Tell’ session, which means we can bring in our favourite toy from home…I wander what we will all bring.
Week beginning 30th September
What another exciting week!!
On Monday, we all dressed as our favourite book characters. Our teachers did too! We hope you enjoy looking at the photos! Please come and ask us all about it! We would love to share our favourite books with you!
Our Forest School session this week was very exciting. We went with Snow White into the woods to her cottage, helped her to find the seven dwarfs, and drilled holes into pieces of wood to make a pretty necklace for her.
The cress we planted last week had grown really well, and it smelt beautiful! We decided to use it to make a sandwich. But we had no bread. The Little Red Hen helped us to learn how to make bread. It smelt lovely when it was cooking. The next day, we used some of the cress along with eggs and our bread to make sandwiches for snack time. They were very yummy! Some of us even had two!
On Thursday we was very lucky to have Anne from the Royal Horticultural Society come to work with us, doing lots of different activities about growing. We investigated lots of interesting and unusual natural objects found in the garden and in the woods. We planted beans, and sorted seeds. It was useful to have an expert there to answer all our questions and teach us some new words.
Thursday afternoon saw us all doing ‘Yoga bugs’ in PE, we did lots of different positions, helping us to stretch our muscles; it was very calm and relaxing!
We look forward to a new week at Nursery next week that starts with a walk around the local area. What will we see? We can’t wait!!
Week beginning 23rd September 2013
We are very lucky in Nursery! This week we have welcomed our new pets into our classroom. When we came to Nursery on Tuesday we had two fish in our tank…Shay was the first to spot them! One is black, the other is orange. We named them Bob and Jim.
When we arrived in Nursery on Thursday, we had a nice surprise waiting for us, Ralf the turtle was sitting in his new home! We have all enjoyed watching them, we feed them before we go home and we are going to learn how to look after them. We already know that we need to be careful not to scare them.
We have also been very lucky to have lots of new ICT equipment in our Nursery. We have metal detectors, remote control cars, and torches, as well as a new listening centre. Tayjon in particular has enjoyed the remote control cars and we have enjoyed the torches when the room is dark. The listening centre means that we can listen to stories anywhere in Nursery.
Our Forest School session this week started with the Gruffalo story. We started by looking for hiding places in the Dragon Garden to hide from theGruffalo. Dylan found the best hiding space behind a tree! We then used lots of things that we found in the garden to make a ‘pongy potion’ to make sure the Gruffalo didn’t want to come into our garden. Did you know he does not like smelly things?
We finished our session by learning how to use secateurs safely to cut some willow to bend into a belt to protect us. Willow will not break when you bend it!
We have also planted cress this week, after learning what plants need to grow. We are hoping that it will grow by next week so we can eat it, yum yum.
Thursday saw us being very grown up and using the apparatus in the hall during PE. We rolled, walked, climbed, jumped and crawled over, under, and through the apparatus to make our way from one side of the hall to the other.
After a very exciting and busy week in Nursery, we are going to spend the weekend sorting out our costumes for our ‘dress as your favourite book character’ day. Look out for photos next week; what will our teachers will dress up as? Wait and see…
Week beginning 16th September.
We have all now settled into Nursery, enjoying lots of different and new activities. We all come into Nursery now like big boys and girls; we know our Mummies and Daddies are coming back later!
This week we have had lots of fun, learning new things and making new friends.
On Monday, NW went into the dragon garden for our first Forest session. We heard a lovely story about a magic tree, and we turned ourselves into leaf boys and girls! We also learned how to use a saw safely, and each cut our own forest cookies. NS enjoyed this activity on Tuesday.
NS visited the allotment for the first time on Monday afternoon. We looked around at all of the exciting vegetables and herbs that are already growing there and talked about what we could grow in our own raised bed. NW had a look on Tuesday. We are all very excited to plant some new seeds!
This week we also had our first PE lesson, learning how to roll, whirl and twirl. We had fun with the hoops and ribbons.
There are lots of toys for us to play with at Nursery. Dayna says “the sand is the best”. The water is very popular too!
We are all now very tired, but look forward to a new week at Nursery; I wonder what amazing new things we will learn next week?