Spring 1

Through the theme of 'Traditional Tales', we have explored a variety of beloved stories, engaging children’s imaginations and helping to build essential skills like creativity, problem-solving, and language development.

One of the highlights was the mystery of the Gingerbread Man, who was loose around the school! The children loved tracking him down, and our teachers and support staff put on a special show to bring the story to life, engaging the children in a fun, interactive way.

We also explored building and construction through The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Little Pigs. These stories provided a foundation for learning about different materials like wood, straw, brick etc. The children experimented with various materials, discussing their uses, and enjoyed building bridges and structures. 

In addition, we explored Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children acted out the story in costumes, re-telling it in their own words and expanding their vocabulary. They enjoyed learning new words and phrases while acting out the plot, enhancing their speaking and listening skills.

A big highlight was We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. By the end of the week, the children were able to re-tell the story without the book! They loved making binoculars to “hunt” for bears and taking part in sensory experiences, like walking through paint, mud, and water. This activity encouraged exploration, imagination, and physical activity, all while deepening their connection to the story.

Throughout these activities, we focused on developing language skills, including vocabulary, listening, and expression. The children also worked together, collaborating and using creativity to bring the stories to life.

In Maths, we have focused on representing, identifying and ordering numbers 1, 2, 3. We also used our love of Numberblocks characters to embed this knowledge and had a whole week of maths based around Numberblocks with a special focus on subitising and composition of numbers up to 5.

Autumn 2

What a wonderful half-term we have had in nursery learning about different celebrations through our topic 'we are celebrating'. We returned to Nursery in October to a week of learning around the book 'room on the broom' by Julia Donaldson. We finished the week with a dress-up day of all the characters! 

This half-term we also started a new experience of 'outdoor learning Friday's, where we walked to our local Ainslie Wood and had a learning focus each week. Initially, it was to keep safe outside of school and then one week we went on a hunt looking for signs of winter. The next week we looked for the characters around the woods from our book 'One Snowy Night' by Nick Butterworth, they were hiding high and low!

Other celebrations covered were Diwali, Bonfire Night, Remembrance Day, Thanksgiving, new babies, weddings, winter and our favourite one...celebrating birthdays! We decorated our class-room, made invitations, cards and cakes and hosted a big birthday party for Miss B who was celebrating a special birthday that week. We came to school in party clothes and played party games. A really magical day!

Finally, we have ended the half-term focusing on celebrating Christmas and new year. We performed spectacularly in the EYFS Nativity show. We were lovely little angels, helping Reception with their songs and singing our own song 'Twinkle Twinkle' and '10 little angels'. 

In Math's, our learning has covered counting out loud forwards and backwards through singing Nursery Rhymes, positional language, 2D shapes, building with 3D shapes and subitising to 5. 

Autumn 1

The Nursery children have had a wonderful start to the year. This half-term, our focus has been on building strong relationships with each child and getting to know them and their needs. Throughout Autumn 1, we’ve explored a few themes to help the children feel a sense of belonging and safety. We've based many activities and play on the children's interests, which they've shared with us, including superheroes, Peppa Pig, dogs, and dinosaurs.

In addition to this, we’ve centred some of our learning around books. We began with the book Owl Babies, which helped the children understand that, just like in the story, their mummies always come back. We made puppets, went bird-watching, and created bird feeders for our nursery garden. Next, we explored the book So Much to learn about each other and our unique families. The children enjoyed dressing up in costumes and props to retell the story. Each child brought in a family photo to share with the class, which we compiled into a special "Our Family" book that now lives in our book corner for us to access whenever we like.

To celebrate Black History Month, we watched some African folktales and discussed how they have been passed down through generations. We particularly focused on the story Beautiful Blackbird, and the children painted blackbirds using feathers as brushes. We now love singing and performing the song “Che Che Kule", one day we practised singing it whilst playing African drums.

In the final week of the half-term, the circus came to town! Our learning was linked to this fun and magical theme, and we had a go at being circus performers ourselves by creating a circus school in the hall. We practised juggling, balancing, jumping ("flying"), crawling, and stilt-walking. When we went to see the circus, we needed our very own tickets and even got popcorn—just like at a real show!

In Maths, we have covered learning such as comparing quantities using the terms “more,” “less,” and “the same,” as well as colour recognition and early counting.