Author: Mrs Pollard

We have had a lovely week welcoming parents/carers into the nursery to spend some time with us. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed your visit.

In nursery we spend lots of time talking about and learning to recognise our emotions and how to deal with them. Like the school we use the zones of regulation to help us understand how different emotions make us feel. This week we have had an extra focus on activities which can help us feel positive and improve our mental health. We already know that exercise and fresh air make us feel better so we have spent lots of time outside playing on an obstacle course, we have been gardening and preparing our vegetable bed for planting. We have done yoga both inside and outside and we have been learning about breathing techniques.

At the end of January the RSPB held their Big Garden Bird Watch event, which we joined in with. We set up a den in the nursery office with blacked out windows and used binoculars to see how many birds we could spot. We made bird feeders to hang from the trees to encourage the birds. We took it in turns to watch out of the window and record our findings first on our own sheet and then on the whole nursery bird board. This experience helped us with our sorting and counting skills. It helped us learn how to handle data by recording the birds we spotted. Our vocabulary grew as we explored the names of different species of birds and we then shared our new information with adults and other children. Our interest in birds led to nests being built in the garden, birds being made in our creative area. We also used water colours to reproduce a picture of a Blue Tit.

The children enjoyed searching for signs of spring in our nursery garden. They were delighted with the newly emerging daffodils and the birds nest in our tree.

The yellow group were helping to prepare snack. They helped make the food, write the menus, empty the dishwasher and ring the bell.

The whole nursery sat together to enjoy a burn supper of haggis, neeps and tatties. As you can see from the pictures, it was met with a mixed reception!

We were very excited to arrive at nursery and find the cold weather had produced lots of ice. We used it to explore mark making, compare sizes and how to assess risk.

While nursery is closed for the day, here are a few activities you may wish to try.

Activity 1

Nursery Rhymes – spend some time singing nursery rhymes with your child, here are some familiar ones.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are

When the blazing sun is gone
When he nothing shines upon
Then you show your little light
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
couldn’t put Humpty together again. (x3)

One, Two, Three, Four, Five

One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive,
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let it go again
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on the right

Baa baa black sheep

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
One for the master, one for the dame,
And one for the little boy who lives down the lane

Activity 2

Write out numerals from 0-10 and ask you child which ones they recognise, can they sort them into the correct order. If you hide one number can your child tell you which one is missing?

Activity 3

Use lego or coloured building blocks to practice making patterns.

Activity 4

Collect items from around the house and make up stories together. Can your child draw a picture to accompany the story?

Activity 5

This week we have been working on our fine motor skills and drawing faces with detail. We used Mrs Willison’s mirror to study our faces before drawing our self-portrait.