Best start in life
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has written a letter to parents with a focus on ensuring children have the best start in life. It signposts parents to the best start in life website – there’s information on Best Start Family Hubs and support with your child’s early health and learning.
Welcome to Nursery
Hello everyone!
We’ve been busy this week meeting some of our new children at their home visits. It’s been lovely finding out about you all and what you like to do. We’re looking forward to getting to know you more when we welcome you to Nursery next week.
We are looking forward to welcoming back our returning children. We can’t wait see see how much you have grown and to find out about your summer holidays.
Nursery is now ready for the new school year. Have a look at the photos to see what you might like to play with next week. We’ve tried to make sure that there’s something for everyone to enjoy, including some of your favourite things that you told us about on home visits. We’ve got Paw Patrol, a farm, diggers, The Gruffalo and our mud kitchen bikes ready for you to come and play.
Where will you play?
A few reminders from home visits: what your child will need every day…
- A waterproof coat (named)
- A pair of wellies (named)
- A change of clothes (top, trousers/ leggings, underwear, socks)
- A filled water bottle (named)
Packed Lunches
Does your child have a packed lunch at school? If so, please download our Guide to Healthy Packed Lunches.
Did you know that popcorn is a choking hazard for children under 5? Lot’s of people don’t! The Food Standards Agency. has published the following advice on how to prepare food safely for your young child.
Getting to know you!
Happy Holidays
We say it every year, but we can’t quite believe it’s already the end of term!
Thank you for all of your kind words, cards and gifts this week. We hope that you all have a great Summer holiday and we’ll look forward to seeing some of you in Nursery in September and some of you, next door in Reception! We’d also like to say good bye to those children that are moving to other schools – we hope that you love your new school and make lots of new friends
Don’t forget Nursery opens for our returning children on Monday 08 September 9 -12 ( please follow the information in your transition letter)
Have a fantastic summer holiday.
Nursery team
Harvest time
You may remember back at the beginning of the summer term when the children helped to prepare the soil so that they could plant beans, carrots, strawberries and peas in the nursery garden.
Over the last few months they have watered and watched the seeds develop and this week it was harvest time for some of the crops.
The carrots had grown so big, the children really enjoyed pulling them up. They looked carefully at the roots and noticed that some of the carrots were longer than others. They washed and scrubbed the carrots, enjoying tasting them at snack time.
The strawberries had also ripened and were juicy and red.
The peas were growing fast too. We are hoping to be able to enjoy popping some pods before we break up for summer next week.
The children have really enjoyed nurturing these plants and have been checking on their progress daily.
Thank you for all of your “bean updates” too. It’s great to see how many of you will have some green beans to enjoy very soon.
We really have had ” green fingers” in nursery this summer.
What a busy week!
We enjoyed sharing our story What the Ladybird Heard at the Seaside, there were lots of conversations in Nursery about the differences between the seaside and the countryside.
“There is sand at the seaside”
“I can see fields in the countryside”
” That’s the sea or the ocean”
The children enjoyed developing their cutting skills this week, snipping paper in the creative area and making long snakes to snip in the dough. We talked about using scissors carefully.
Outside the children were very busy using their imagination and creativity, gathering all the natural resources they needed to create their own dinosaur worlds.
Finding the ingredients they needed for potions and stirring them carefully.
Creating amazing tracks using ramps, crates, tyres and stands. What great team work!
More tracks were devised using shapes with the children balancing carefully along.
This week our Story of the week
Commotion in the Ocean
Our Nursery Rhyme of the week
1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive
During maths group times this week, we’re learning about positional language.
Help at home: Try to use positional language in your day to day conversations and during play. For example -Can you put your teddy underneath the box? The car is behind the garage. The monkey is on top of the tree. Put your shoes next to the cupboard. As you look at illustrations in a story, ask questions such as ‘Where is the cat hiding?’ or ‘What can you see in front of the fence?’
Reminders
Please ensure that your child has a complete change of clothes at Nursery every day ( including socks)
If your child is returning to Nursery in September can you please ensure that your child’s returners paperwork is handed into the school office by Monday 30th June.
Hot and Cold Countries
Following on from our discussions about journeys and holidays, we looked at some photographs of hot and cold countries. We talked about the weather and thought about which animals live in hot places and which live in colder areas. The children enjoyed using the small world area to sort the animals.
In the creative area we used the “hot colours” red, orange and yellow to create our art work.
Children loved using the remote controlled cars this week and were able to move them backwards and forwards between the obstacles. It was lots of fun!
Our Maths focus this week has been capacity. We have been using the mathematical vocabulary of capacity full, empty, half-full.
In group time we filled our cups with pasta, making sure they were half-full was tricky.
We also practised our skills in the sensory area, pouring the sand carefully into the tubes and bottles. We had to concentrate really hard.
Help at home
Can you use the language of capacity at home ? Is the cup half-full yet? My cup is full ? Can you empty the box?
Next week our story of the week is
Our Nursery rhyme of the week is
A Sailor went to Sea.
Sun safety
As the weather gets warmer this week, here are a few reminders from our previous communications.
Sun safe reminders
- Bring a named sunhat every day.
- Ensure your child has a full water bottle (named) at nursery every day.
- Parents and carers must apply cream before nursery.
- Please put your child’s name on their sun cream.
- Put sun cream in your child’s group basket if you want it applying at lunchtime. Please don’t leave it in their bag.
- Collect your child’s sun cream at the end of the day.
- Help us out by using ‘All day’ cream and applying at home
Thankyou for your continued support.
Transport
We continued our interest in transport this week using the ramps inside. The children used ramps and tubes to see how far their cars could go. We used a number track to check which car went the furthest, first to 5 and then to 10.
We learnt how to fold paper to create our own paper aeroplanes. It was quite difficult but we kept trying and were really pleased that we did. Outside we tested out our planes from various places. We wondered if they would go further if we set them off from the top of the slide?
Outside this week we practised our throwing, we aimed for some number on a target with the bean bags. We recorded our scores with tally marks on paper.
We used team work skills and our fiddly fingers to create some bridges, balancing the lolly sticks on the paper cups. We then tried to balance small figures on top. It was really tricky but we got better at it each time we tried.
Help at home
This weeks maths focus has been talking about our daily activities and using words to describe when things happen such day, night, morning or afternoon. We looked at our daily routines and tried to sequence the events. Try to use some of this language at home, too. What happens in your house in the morning? What do you do as part of your bedtime routine? What comes first, next, last? What day is it today? Do you go to Nursery tomorrow?
Reminders
- Our Nursery registration closes at 9.10am. Please ensure that you arrive to Nursery between 9-9.10am to allow us to begin our learning activities on time. Thank you.
- Please send your child with a rain coat to Nursery everyday; the weather is very changeable at the moment.
- We have lots of water bottles that don’t have children’s names on – remember to check that your child’s hasn’t worn off. You may also want to check cardigans and jumpers, too.
- Please ensure that your child’s sun cream is in their group basket if you would like it applying at lunchtime.