Nursery

This week in Nursery we have been sharing the story The Squirrels Who Squabbled by Rachel Bright and Jim Field.

The children really enjoyed meeting the cheeky squirrels, Cyril and Bruce, and learning about their autumn adventure! Together we looked closely at the different parts of the book — the title on the front cover, the blurb on the back, and the spine that holds all the pages together. We also talked about the important jobs of the author, who writes the words, and the illustrator, who creates the pictures.

As we read the story, the children began to recognise rhyming words, such as stop and plop, and loved joining in with the rhythm of the story. They listened carefully to the patterns in the language and enjoyed predicting which words might rhyme next.

The children were fascinated by the beautiful illustrations in the story and loved linking what they saw to the world around them. We noticed the changing autumn leaves, the windy weather, and the warm colours that filled each page. Out in the garden, we continued this theme by observing nature — spotting magpies collecting shiny treasures and pretending to be squirrels gathering food for the winter.

Our autumnal tuff tray was a big hit! The children explored a variety of textures, colours and smells using natural materials such as leaves, conkers, pinecones, aniseeds and cinnamon sticks. There was lots of wonderful language as the children described what they could see and feel — “crunchy,” “spiky,” “smooth” and “smelly like cake!”

In maths, we have been practising matching numbers to numerals. The children helped to give our poor legless spiders the correct number of legs — a fun and slightly creepy challenge that had everyone counting carefully!

We are also very proud of our ongoing Clarice Cliff art project. The children have been learning about her bold patterns and bright colours, and their creations are almost finished. We can’t wait to display the final pieces for everyone to enjoy!

How you can help at home:

Go on an autumn walk – collect leaves, acorns or conkers and talk about their shapes, colours and textures.

Share a favourite story together – look at the cover, find the title and talk about who the author and illustrator are. Listen out for any rhyming words as you read!

Practise counting at home – count toys, steps or snacks together, helping your child to match quantities to written numerals.

It’s been a busy and exciting week in Nursery — full of learning, laughter and lovely autumn discoveries!

We hope you have a very relaxed and restful weekend,

Best wishes,

The Nursery team xx

This week in Nursery, we have been fully embracing the wonderful changes that autumn brings. The children have been noticing the change in the weather each day, checking our weather chart carefully and recording what they could see and feel outside. This has helped us think about how the weather can change very quickly and what signs of autumn we can spot around  us.

One of our favourite activities has been exploring the forest area, where we looked closely at the changing leaves. The children collected a variety of colourful leaves and practised their fine motor skills by threading them together. They showed great concentration and perseverance, and their finished leaf strings looked beautiful!

In our outdoor kitchen, the children created their very own “Autumn Stew.” Using playdough, chickpeas, pasta and conkers, they stirred, poured and mixed, showing fantastic imaginative play. We also explored our autumnal tuff tray, which was full of treasures to spark curiosity. The children demonstrated wonderful observation skills, noticing textures, colours, and shapes.

We also enjoyed listening to the story Stick and Stone, which taught us the importance of kindness and looking after our friends. After the story, the children had fun collecting stones in the playground as we continued our hunt for Stick and Pinecone! This gave them a chance to retell parts of the story in their own play.

In maths, we have been working really hard on counting objects from 1 to 5 with accuracy, as well as beginning to recognise numerals. The children have been so enthusiastic about learning our number formation song, which has been helping them remember how to write their numbers. Perhaps you could try singing the song together at home to practise!

https://youtu.be/pzmB0GoEKkA?si=rKcXDglg_IaTPfpw

How you can help at home:

Ask your child what the weather is like during the weekend. Encourage them to use words such as sunny, cloudy, windy, or rainy. You could even keep a little chart together at home.

Try to collect some Autumn leaves on a walk. At home, use them for a collage and talk about the different colours, shapes and textures they have found.

Practice their number formation song.

It has been such a busy and exciting week, full of learning, creativity and fun. We are looking forward to more autumn adventures next week!

We hope you have a fantastic weekend!

The Nursery Team  x

  What a fun-filled and busy week we’ve had in Nursery! (more…)

Due to technical issues we have been unable to upload photographs this week.

This week in Nursery, we have been exploring the magical world of books! We looked closely at different book covers to see if we could guess what the story might be about. The children learned where to find the title, and we talked about the illustrations on the front cover. Then we looked at the back cover and read the blurb. Everyone loved sharing their ideas and making predictions about the stories – there were some very creative guesses!

In Maths, we became pattern detectives! We learned that a pattern is something we do again and again. The children had so much fun making their own patterns with sounds, movements, shapes and colours. It was wonderful to see them spotting patterns everywhere and showing off their creative ideas.

We also talked about the importance of washing our hands to keep germs away. The children were amazed during our “glitter germs” experiment. Just a little glitter spread to everyone so quickly! It was fascinating for them to see how easily germs can travel. When we washed our hands with soap, the glitter moved away as if by magic – showing the children just how important it is to wash their hands properly.

It has been a week full of learning, fun, and discovery, and the children have shown curiosity and excitement in everything we did!

How you can help at home:

Can your child collect different objects while on a walk that illustrate the change in season?  Can they use some of the crunchy leaves and conkers to make their own repeating patterns?

When your child gets ready for bed, can they pick a book and predict what it might be about by looking at the picture?  Can they try to find the title of the book on the front cover?

We hope you have a lovely lovely weekend.

x The Nursery team

Wow, I almost can’t believe that the children have completed their first week in Nursery!

As can be expected, the first few days in a new setting  there a couple of wobbly lips in the mornings (from mums and children) but as the week progressed we are greeted with beautiful smiley, happy faces!  Settling in will look different for every child, so please be patient and POSITIVE and you will soon have a confident little person running into Nursery without a backwards glance.

The children have done incredibly well, getting used to the adults in the room, exploring in the different areas and having loads of fun while not even realising how much they have already learned!

We have explored our features in mirrors and used loose parts to recreate our portraits.

In maths we started learning about repeating patterns and enjoyed making patterns with loose parts we found in the class.

They have enjoyed painting their ducklings with a range of techniques and had fun decorating them to give them their own personalities.

How you can help at home:

Look for patterns around your house? Can they find a striped T-shirt?
Play I spy with numbers when you are out and about – what numbers can your child recognise?
Play listening games where your child needs to try and identify sounds they hear in the environment – can they hear an aeroplane, a knock on the door or children laughing in the park?

As this year draws to an end, we would like to say a fond farewell to those children leaving Merry Hill and moving to new schools. We wish them lots of luck settling in and making new friendships – we will miss you all!

We have had the most wonderful time this year; watching the children grow in confidence, developing their skills and forging friendships. It has been a delight to have each and every child in Nursery and we wish them all lots of luck as they continue their journey in Nursery or begin the next part of their journey in Reception. We are pleased that we will still see the majority of them in the Early Years and look forward to watching them bloom further!

There are too many wonderful experiences to name them all but some of our favourite things have been our visit to Ruislip Lido, nurturing and watching our duck eggs hatch, exploring the forest, learning lots of new skills in PE, having parents and carers teach us some dancing or reading us stories, taking part in sports day, creating houses for the Three Little Pigs, learning to retell stories, write our names and performing in our first Nativity show! Here are some of the highlights of our year:

We would like to take this opportunity to say a very big thank you to all the families for their support this year, it really does make a huge difference to your child’s learning and experiences. They love having their grown ups share their achievements on WOW cards, coming in to share special festivals and celebrations, reading stories with our surprise readers and having familiar faces on our school trip!

The Nursery Team would also like to say thank you for your kind words, cards and gifts. We wish you all a restful summer break with your families and look forward to seeing lots of you in September.

Please enjoy a summer full of adventures, fun and memory making. Remember to stay safe, keep learning and check your uniform is labelled before we next see you!

How you can help at home:

• Go on adventures and explore the natural world – forest walks, climbing trees, splashing in puddles.
• Talk about your day – narrate what you are doing or what you can see on your walks or car journeys.
• Share the social story together so that your child is excited and has some familiar things to look out for in September.
• Encourage your child to be as independent as possible – peeling their own fruit, getting dressed and undressed, helping to pack their bag, putting on their own shoes and coat.
• Read as much as you can and visit the local library – your child came home with a bookmark detailing the summer reading challenge which is free and fun to take part in!
• Check your child has the correct uniform, including PE kit and that everything is named clearly.
• Continue working on writing your name!
• You might like to write a ‘postcard’ about your holiday adventures.
• Encourage your child to spot numbers and sounds in the environment – you might like to try playing I Spy, naming the initial sound for objects you can see.

We are nearly at the end of a fantastic year in Nursery,  during which the staff have had a wonderful time getting to know your children and watching them grow into independent learners. They have all made huge progress this year and we are immensely proud of them.
We look forward to seeing the children next week for their final few days in Nursery (a reminder that Nursery’s last day is Thursday 17th July).
Keep an eye out for the blog next week when we will be making some suggestions of activities you may want to try during the summer holidays to prepare your child for starting Reception or as they continue their learning in Nursery in September.

On Monday we went to Ruislip Lido. We had a fantastic time!
We went on a coach and were so sensible staying in our seats and wearing our seatbelts.
When we got to Ruislip Lido, we caught a little train that took us for a ride through the forest and then stopped at the station near the beach.
We washed our hands and then we ate our lovely picnic lunches that our grown ups had made made for us.
After that we had some time to build sandcastles and play on the climbing frames and swings, which were so much fun!
Then it was time to go back on the little train and the coach was ready to take us back to school. Some of us were a little bit tired on the coach and fell fast asleep!
We had such a good day and we would like to say a big thank you to all the grown ups who came and helped us!

This week we have been spending lots of time in our forest. We are very fortunate to have this facility at Merry Hill as it generates a range of fantastic learning experiences for our children and enables us to cover the Early Years Curriculum in different and exciting ways.

For this week’s forest sessions, we began by reading the well loved story, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. We talked about the life cycle of a caterpillar and how it wraps itself into a cocoon  until it is ready to emerge as a beautiful butterfly. We then used the different coloured leaves in the forest to create our own very hungry caterpillars!

Next Monday is our trip to Ruislip Lido, which we are very excited about! This week we have been making flags to put on top of our sandcastles at the lido beach.
Please read the email which was sent out on Wednesday,  which has some reminders about the trip.

How you can help at home

• Go for a walk with your child and encourage them to collect natural resources such as sticks, leaves etc and then use them to create their own picture.
• In preparation for our trip, please talk to your child about keeping themselves safe at Ruislip Lido. Please emphasise how important it is that they keep with the adult who is leading their group and that they listen carefully to instructions – and above all, emphasise how important it is that they enjoy their day!

We have been thoroughly enjoying learning about our healthy body this week in Nursery. We have loved exploring the book ‘Look inside Your Body’ because it has a lot of interesting facts about your body.

We generated some of our own questions and have been working hard to find out the answer to some of them!

This week’s learning tied in really well with Sports Day! We know why exercise is important for our bodies and that we need to drink lots of water to keep us hydrated when the weather is hot and when we do exercise. We also learned about the importance of good sleep to enable our brain to rest and grow too! We also enjoyed making our friend and labelling parts of their body. We used our amazing phonics knowledge to help us.

It has been a very hot week this week, so we decided to do some of our daily exercise inside. We loved copying the yoga poses  and following a story. We had a lot of fun! We had a wonderful sports day where we took part in team games as well as some more competitive races! We also loved seeing some of our grown ups taking part in the races and had a lot of fun cheering them on!

We have been very busy little bees in Nursery this week! After discovering a bee hive in our forest, this sparked our interest and we have been enjoying exploring lots of bee related activities. We have been practising our fine motor skills, sharing and taking turns as well as working like a team of bumblebees!

Edward Saidi Tingtinga

This week we have learned some new facts about a special artist that came from Tanzania. We learned all about how Tingatinga used bicycle paint and ceiling tiles to create his artwork. We have been looking at examples of his work and have started to create some of our own work in the same style. Watch this space to find out more!

This week we have had a focus on trying to write all of the sounds we have been learning in phonics. We are trying really hard to ‘pinch our pen’ so that we can hold it in a tripod grip as this helps us to have good control over our writing.

This week’s sound is

How you can help at home:

• Practise saying the sounds we have taught so far – you might want to say them in front of a mirror so that you can really focus on your mouth shapes as you say them
• Try giving your child instructions using sounds e.g. put your coat on the p-e-g.
• Go on a mini beast hunt
• Practise  throwing and catching skills

It has been lovely to welcome the children back after half term, ready for our final seven weeks of Nursery!
We have a lot happening over the next few weeks, and we are particularly looking forward to Sports Day and our trip to Ruislip Lido.

This week we started a new story called ‘Sharing a Shell’ by Julia Donaldson. The story focuses on how important it is to share with our friends, and how much happier we can be when we do share. We have been thinking about how we can share when we are playing with the toys in Nursery and how we can share our learning with our family and friends.

During our child initiated activities, we have been looking at some of the illustrations in the story. One of our favourite illustrations is the rock pool and we have been using full sentences to talk about what we can see in the picture.  We started to create our own rockpool  collage and we will be adding to it over the next two weeks. We also started to explore shells as well as creating seaside scenes in our Nursery garden.

How you can help at home:

Use the link below to watch the story of ‘Sharing a Shell’.  Encourage your child to join in with the story and use adjectives (describing words) to talk about the characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ6SvbrEhvI