Welcome to Tanworth-in-Arden Nursery

For information, bookings and viewings, please call:

Tel School Office: 01564 742284

E-mail: tanworthnursery@welearn365.com

We are Ofsted rated to provide care for 38 children within our dedicated nursery facilities.

We'd be delighted to show you around our facilities and introduce you to a fantastic environment for your child's early years.

If you are interested in a place at our nursery please contact the nursery office on 01564 742284 to make an appointment.

Our Nursery Staff

EYFS Lead

Mrs Shelley Bamford

Nursery Managers

Emma Gidley and Jade Wheildon 

Deputy Manager

Louise Stephens

Nursery Assistants

Gayle Paterson

Rachel Speight

Abigail Ashmore

Dawn Eade

For 'Nursery News' 2023/2024 please visit our new class page. Select the tab 'Children' at the top of the home page, select 'Class pages' and then select 'Nursery'. You will now find all our recent updates, exciting news and photographs uploaded regularly on there. 

Nursery News (Week beginning 10th July)

This week following on from thinking about the sea and sea creatures the children took us in the direction of thinking about mermaids and mermen. Our story of the week was 'There's no such thing as mermaids' by Lucy Rowland, it told a tale of a little sister proving to her big sister that there are such things as mermaids. The children thoroughly enjoyed joining in with the story and spotting the mermaid hiding on each page (they were quicker than me to find her each time!). Throughout the week the children have enjoyed creating their own mer people using small world characters, play dough and the all important gems, they have made sea foam using whisks, they have made clam shell biscuits including rolling their own pearl and they have created egg box treasure chests. Also using the kind donations of recycling the children created loo roll mer people. On Tuesday the 'Little Dots' van could be seen very early outside the church setting up for our special end of year treat. The children arrived so excited, going over to the church allowed them to feel like we were on a real school trip. They played and explored beautifully at the session showing exemplary behaviour which wowed the Little Dots staff. Back at Nursery we had a wonderful discussion about each of the children's favourite parts of the morning.   

Nursery life (Week beginning 3rd July) 

This week as we have discovered all about the ocean the children enjoyed our story of the week ‘Dolphinella’ this lead them to taking all about their own dreams that they have at night time. We enjoyed spending time watch sea creatures using our big screen, seeing them move through the sea. Our particular favourites were the giant sea turtle, the giant octopus and the jelly fish. Thought the week the children enjoyed partaking in a range of ocean activities, including creating their own octopus, seaweed painting and painting their favourite sea creatures. During PE we went on an under water adventure as the children moved around the apparatus. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 26th June) 

This week we have enjoyed thinking about holidays supported by our hilarious story of the week ‘You can’t take an elephant on holiday’ by Patricia Cleveland-Peck. We have enjoyed lots of exciting activities including making our own edible beaches, crushing chosen cereal to make sand and dying yoghurt to make the sea. The children also enjoyed a very special treat when they made their own real ice cream cones adding toppings of their choice. Over at Forest School the children made Forest School wands, adding special treasures found around the site. The children then used them as magic wands, one even turned me into a frog! This week the pre school children have continued with their play sessions in Reception class, the teachers commented on how well the sessions had gone and how impressed they were with the behaviour of our children. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 19th June) 

This week we focused on summer! Talking about the season and all the things we enjoy during the summer. The children enjoyed making ice creams from shaving foam in the tough tray. Going on adventures as we talked about the different ways in which we can travel when we go on holiday. However most importantly this week we loved preparing for sports day, it gave us lots of opportunity to spend time down on the field. On Friday we were thrilled to see so many Nursery children join us for sports day. The children were all absolute superstars in their races making us all very proud. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 12th June)

This week we have been celebrating Father's Day, making cards, painting portraits and generally talking about our Daddy's. Our story of the week is 'My Dad' by Susan Quinn this discusses all the reasons why the main characters Dad is really great. This has prompted lots of lovely discussions in group about why our own Daddy's are so special to us. Alongside our Father's Day focus we also thought about healthy eating this week. Fruit and vegetable printing, making our own healthy ice lollies and fruit kebabs and painting some beautiful fruit portraits. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 5th June) 

It was wonderful to welcome back the children from half term this week. We loved to hear of all the adventures they had over the previous week. The conversations about trips to the park and beach lead us beautifully into talking about the summer. We have talked about how the weather is changing becoming hotter and the sun is shining more. The weather was on our side as we had these discussions, we talked a lot about wearing our hats and putting sun cream on to protect our skin. We enjoyed taking part in lots of sunny craft activities. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 22nd May) 

This week our week has been a combination of fun with fire engines and maps! On Monday we were so excited to welcome a visit from some fire fighters who arrived in their fire engine. The Nursery children had the opportunity to look around the engine, ask questions, spray the hose, feel the fan, try on a real helmet and sit in the engine. Later in the week we used the book ‘What the ladybird heard’ by Julia Donaldson to support our learning. The children loved the map in the story and we used this as an opportunity to go on an adventure around the school following a map to find the ladybird from the story. The children have also loved creating their own spontaneous maps and creating their own maps of forest school.  

Nursery life (Week beginning 15th May) 

This week we have been thinking about our emotions, how we feel at different times and enjoying lots of mindful activities to support our mental health. Our story of the week has been ‘My many coloured days’ by Dr Seuss. This story has helped the children to understand their emotions through colour and we have spent lots of group time discussing which colour we are feeling and why each day. Over at Forest School the children used their senses to really focus and explore the environment sense by sense. On Wednesday afternoon we had a lovely visit from Louise the Warwickshire road safety officer, she and Warwick the bear taught us how to safely cross the road by holding hands. They children were lucky enough to get to take home their own little Warwick Bear and copy of the accompanying story. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 9th May) 

This week we have been celebrating our families and the differences in different families. So support our understanding our story of the week has been ‘My friends and me’ by Stephanie Stansbie. We have loved looking through the family photographs everyone sent in, the children have thoroughly enjoyed using them to draw their own portraits of their families. Over at Forest School we managed to dodge the rain and had a wonderful morning mixing powder paints and experimenting with creating some large scale art. We will continue to have a fun week painting our houses, talking about our families and enjoying plenty of sensory activities in the tough tray. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 1st May) 

This week felt very strange coming back on a Tuesday. We hope everyone thoroughly enjoyed the first bank holiday Monday of the month. Our week is consumed by preparing for and celebrating the Kings coronation. Our story of the week had been ‘The Kings pants’, this is a hilarious story about all the different pants owned by the King. Due to this choice in story, that is why you received a very strange request for the children to bring an old pair of pants into Nursery. On Wednesday afternoon the children along with Mrs Gidley thoroughly enjoyed designing their own pants out in the sunshine, followed by posing for some photographs in their new designs. We are looking forward to joining the whole school celebrations on Friday over on the field. Please feel free to join everyone on the field from 12pm even if Friday is not your usual Nursery day.  

Nursery life (Week beginning 24th April)

This week we celebrated St George’s day, to support us with this our story of the week was ‘George and the dragon’ by Chris Wormell. This story taught us all about a mighty dragon who was scared of tiny mice, the children found this hilarious and loved to read the dragons facial expression on each page. 
Throughout the week we looked at our England flag, recreating this through collage, in biscuit form and over at Forest School we mixed our own paint so we could do some large scale painting of the red cross. We also created our own shields, completed knight training during our PE session and enjoyed building many castles throughout the week. 
Also this week we have some special visitors when two baby lambs came to visit. We joined Reception class in their classroom to enjoy watching the lambs and asking Mrs Dicken all about how she takes care of them back at her farm. 
 

Nursery life (Week beginning 17th April) 

This week It has been wonderful to welcome back the children from the Easter break. We have thoroughly enjoyed hearing all about their adventures while they were away from Nursery. The adventures have included beach trips, ice cream, caravan stays, park visits and lots and LOTS of chocolate eggs! 
This week we are thinking about the Muslim celebration of Eid. Our story of the week has been ‘The most exciting Eid’ by Zeba Talkhani. This story has taught us so much about the traditions, celebrations and values behind Eid. The Nursery children have enjoyed exploring activities within Nursery to support our learning of Eid. 

Science week (Week beginning 13th March)

This week in Nursery we joined whole school science week, jumping into the biscuit dunking investigation. We based our week around the story of ‘The Gingerbread man’, the children have loved joining in with telling the story adding “Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m a gingerbread man.” as a whole group. Throughout the week the children have enjoyed dunking biscuits, tasting biscuits, taking part in a happy smells investigation and making their own gingerbread men. They have thoroughly enjoyed using ginger incorporated throughout their play including ginger play dough and using ginger in the mud kitchen cooking over at Forest School. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 6th March) 

We began the week by celebrating colour and rainbows as our story of the week was ‘The rainbow fish’ by Markus Pfister. Children enjoyed making their own sparkly fish scales, making rainbows from play dough, experimenting with colour mixing and colour matching. Over at Forest School children enjoyed blowing bubbles, carefully looking at the coloured rainbows created inside the bubbles. However our colourful week was interrupted by a big flurry of snow making Nursery very difficult to get to. We hope you managed to enjoy some snow fun at home, we look forward to hearing all about it from the children next week. Fingers crossed this week for the return of the spring time weather. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 27th February) 

This week we welcomed back the children from half term and enjoyed hearing all about their adventures during their week at home. Our focus this week has been ‘Save our planet’ and our story of the week has been ‘Somebody swallowed Stanley’ by Sarah Roberts. This is a lovely story teaching us the importance of looking after our seas and therefore it’s creatures. It also touches on up cycling our rubbish to create something new. The children took to this idea with great enthusiasm, spending much of the week junk modelling and up cycling mountains of recycling. The children also showed us their brilliant understanding of recycling and how and why we do it during a sorting game. 
Forest School this week fell on St David’s day, we took some leeks over to the mud kitchen to use in creating some muddy kitchen leek soup. The children made many wonderful creations and included these in their play. We had an exciting surprise while over investigating Forest School, we discovered new frogs spawn in the ponds. Miss Ashmore kindly collected us a little into the fish tank for us to take back to Nursery to watch it change and develop. 

Nursery news (Week beginning 13th February) 

After a lovely week last week talking out our feelings and engaging with ‘Children’s mental health week’, we developed this into thinking about love this week. Thinking about who we love in our lives, why these people are so important to us. The children have loved talking about their families, extended families, friends and even pets. We have enjoyed lots of lovely sensory play including making potions, moulding play dough and decorating biscuits. On Tuesday we also enjoy making our own biscuits to take home to our families, in addition to this at snack time we enjoyed a special heart shaped snack. 
Finally we would like to thank all of our families for their support over this last half term and wish you all a lovely restful week ahead. See everyone from the week beginning Monday 27th February. 

Nursery news (Week beginning 6th February) 

This week we have focused on ‘Children’s mental health week’, thinking about our feelings and doing mindful activities which make us feel calm and happy. Our story of the week has been ‘Ruby’s worry’ by Tom Percival, the children really engaged with this story and could see how Ruby was feeling throughout. They could quickly tell me that the best way to get a worry to go away is to talk about it. Throughout the week we enjoyed many mindful activities, water play, play dough squishing, yoga, baking and painting. Over at Forest School we enjoyed blowing bubbles and rolling down the sides of the dragon. Children also had the opportunity to paint a self portrait, expressing their feel into a mirror before painting. 

Nursery news (Week beginning 30th January)

This week has been ‘National story telling’ week, in Nursery we decided to focus on traditional tales. We find the children engage in traditional tales particularly well and can be seen retelling the story the story independently throughout the Nursery within their play. This week we took a snapshot look at a different story each day, giving the children the opportunity to be immersed into a whole new experience each day. We also took part in a wide range of activities throughout the week to support the different stories, painting, creating, building cutting and moulding. During our Forest School session children searched for natural items ordering them into small, medium and large to represent the three billy goats. On Thursday during the PE session children used the apparatus to navigate their way to Grandma’s house through the hall. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 23rd January)

This week we have had great fun celebrating Chinese New Year with the children. They have loved gaining an understanding of how the new year is celebrated in China. They remembered that the lucky colour was red and we found out that this year is the year of the rabbit. Throughout the week we shared some new experiences together including tasting some of the Chinese food and taking part in the dragon dance during our PE session in the hall. The children have also enjoyed sensory play in rice and noodles. Practiced doing some Chinese writing and made lots of decorations to decorate the Nursery for the celebration. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 16th January) 

This week we continued with our Winter theme and the weather was definitely on our side. After reading our story of the week ‘Jack Frost’ by Sharon Peters the children couldn’t wait to get their hats, coats and gloves on and get outside to see if Jack Frost himself had paid us a visit. They were thrilled to find frozen leaves, frosty ground and plenty of ice in the mud kitchen. In the story Jack Frost leaves frozen marks on the window of the little boys house, we used the easel and and some shaving foam to have a go at creating the same effect. The children were also thrilled to experience ice inside the tough tray as they tried to free some of the arctic animals. The icy fun continued all week, including a very frosty Forest School. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 9th December)

We have welcomed in the new year at Nursery, with the new year we have also welcomed 6 new Nursery children. These children have begun to settle in amazingly well and have been enjoying exploring the nursery environment. 
Our focus this week has been winter and our story of the week has been the much loved ‘Gruffalo’s child’. The children were delighted to see this book and enjoyed joining in as we read the story together throughout the week. The children have enjoyed painting characters from the story, exploring ice and how it melts, making paper snowflakes and snowflake biscuits. Thank you for all the kind donations of plastic bottles, the children have loved creating their own penguins with Miss Stephens. We will continue in our Winter theme next week. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 12th December) 

we had a wonderful final week of the Autumn term. We celebrated Christmas with a Christmas dinner, party and plenty of Christmas activities. We would like to wish all of our families a Merry Christmas and a very happy new year. All the Nursery staff would also like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you for all the cards, gifts and kind messages that we received for Christmas. See you all in the new year ready to welcome some new little faces in Nursery. We will return to Nursery on Wednesday 4th January 2023. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 5th December) 

Such a fun packed Christmas week this week. It all began on Monday when Mrs Bamford called us to say a very special visitor would be popping into Nursery. It was magical to see the children’s faces when Father Christmas came through Nursery. Some of the Pre school children also had the opportunity to watch the Reception class nativity, Miss Stephens was so impressed with their behaviour in the hall when watching. Fun continued on Monday when we received our second visitor, Eleanor’s Mummy who came to teach us all about Christmas in Germany. The week continued in this way as we received our welly full of treats from St Nicholas, left at Eleanor’s house for us. On Wednesday we hosted festive Forest School. We were lucky enough for Mrs Ashmore to return for the session and set up a camp fire for us. We were overwhelmed by how many families came to support this session, it made it incredibly special for all the children. Further into the week ‘Little ones’ came to Nursery and hosted a Christmas session, it was wonderful to hear the children singing along with Mr Lindsey and Mary. Overall it has been an incredibly magical week at Nursery, the staff and children alike have loved every moment. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 28th November) 

This week we have thinking all about the ‘World cup’ which is being played at the moment. We have enjoyed plenty of time outside, using our large gross motor skills when practicing kicking the footballs. We enjoyed taking the footballs over to Forest School, but what really sparked the children’s interest was was practicing scoring goals in the football nets down on the field just like the big children do. We also enjoyed some small world football in the tough tray, it was lovely to see children working together as little teams. Our story of the week was ‘Spinderella’ by Julia Donaldson. Not only did this introduce us to the idea of playing football, but encourages lots of counting throughout the story. Just like the children in the story, we practiced counting to 20 as a group. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 21st November) 

This week we have had a lovely mixed week. We spent the beginning of the week focusing on our last couple of Nursery rhymes after our enjoyment of ‘World Nursery Rhyme week’, followed by the end of the week thinking about the important topic of road safety following the whole school focus. Our Nursery rhymes at the beginning of the week were ‘We went to the animal fair’ and ‘Miss Polly had a dolly’, these are two of the children’s all time favourites rhymes. They enjoyed making animal masks, caring for the dollies and becoming doctors and nurses. We didn’t go to Forest School on Wednesday due to the heavy rain, but this didn’t stop us jumping straight into our road safety topic. We set up roads with traffic lights, created a zebra crossing for children to practice crossing the road and even made our own set of traffic lights. There were so many lovely conversations about how to safely cross the road, and how children cross the road safely out and about with their families. 

Nursery Life (Week beginning 14th November) 

This week Nursery has been celebrating 'World Nursery Rhyme Week', each day we focused on a different Nursery Rhyme. Our adult led activities related to the daily rhyme as did the sensory play and child initiated tasks. On Monday we sand '1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive', they children had the opportunity to make fish shaped biscuits. On Tuesday we sang 'Twinkle twinkle', the children had the chance to make a star prop to use during our singing. On Wednesday we sang '5 Little speckled frog' and we went over to Forest School to look for frogs. On Thursday we sang 'The big ship sails' and the children enjoyed engaging in some water play with the boats. Finally on Friday we enjoyed wearing our own clothes, supporting 'Children in need' and singing 'B I N G O', enjoying modelling dogs from play dough. We have had so much fun with Nursery Rhymes this week we have decided to continue it into part of next week, allowing us to explore even more rhymes.  

Nursery life (Week beginning 7th January)

This week in Nursery we joined the school in a focus on remembrance before our traditional remembrance service on the green on Friday. Our story of the week was ‘Detective Dog’ by Julia Donaldson, this allowed us to think about caring for people and animals and also showing compassion for someone when they really need it. 
During the week we discussed the poppy and the significance of it as it helps us to remember people who have helped us. Some children brought money in over the past two weeks and enjoyed a trip into school to select and purchase their own poppy. Within nursery we used the poppy as inspiration to inspire lots of our activities, painting, crafting, collaging, water play, shape and number work, the list goes on. It was lovely to see some of our Nursery children over on the green for the service on Friday, we couldn’t be more proud of them as they stood sensibly and paid their respects with the rest of the school. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 31.10.22)

It has been wonderful to welcome back the children this week after half term. As always it has been lovely to hear all about what they have been up to, the adventures this time ranged from visiting princesses to going to the chocolate factory, hosting dressing up parties and everything else in between. As bonfire night approaches us at the weekend our focus this week has been fireworks and rockets. Our story of the week was 'Poppy cat's sparkly night' by Lara Jones. The children have loved creating firework art, building 2D and 3D shape rockets and mark making in the glitter. Our week has been particularly glitter filled this week, we took glitter over to Forest School on Wednesday to introduce into the mud kitchen. The children enjoyed creating a range or sparkly recipes. 

Nursery Life (Week beginning 17th October)

This week we explored a very well loved story 'The smartest giant in town' by Julia Donaldson. It was wonderful to see the children's face light up as many of them recognised this book from their collection at home, they eagerly told me about their copies at home and who read this story with them. Throughout the week the children became more and more confident with the text, eventually joining in with the repeated phrases. We used this story as an opportunity to investigate and talk about size, measuring things against each other and using some wonderful early mathematical language. The children also designed a tie for the giant and some children even took the opportunity to paint their own version of the giant onto giant paper. A very special shout out to Eleanor this week who painted the most wonderful 'scruffy giant'.

Nursery life (Week beginning 10th October) 

This week as we continued in the theme of Autumn, our story of the week was ‘The leaf thief’ by Alice Hemming. This story taught us what happens to the leaves in autumn and why, the children loved to hear how the squirrel was tricked by the weather into thinking there was a leaf thief. This week we went on colour hunts for the autumn colours in our beautiful school grounds. We built ramps and tunnels to roll conkers. Thank you to all those families who donated us some autumn treasure from their weekend walks. We used these in many ways, including creating abstract pictures using the loose parts and printing the different shapes and textures into the play dough.  

Nursery life (Week beginning 3rd October) 

This week we embraced the new season of Autumn, this lead our learning to exploring conkers, acorns, leaves and everything else that autumn brings. We also had the school photographer in this week, taking individual and sibling photos. Considering we are only a few weeks into the new year I was so impressed with how patient the children were as they waited for their turn in front of the photographer. Our story of the week was ‘Don’t wake the bear’ by Jill Newton, here the children learned why it is so important that we have Autumn and the animals prepare to sleep. Without this quiet time in nature nothing would have time to regrow and regenerate ready for the spring. We used some of our autumn treasure in our play, particularly in the mud kitchen and using some of the construction equipment to create a rolling activity. We also used the leaves we had collected on our welly walk to print beautiful leaf prints onto our windows. Next week we look forward to another week of autumn fun! 

Nursery life (week beginning 26th September) 

This week we have continued to discover all about ourselves, this includes us, our families and our homes. They children have enjoyed a wide range of activities including drawing ourselves and our families, taking part in a pen disco and building our homes in the construction area. We have also enjoyed plenty of sensory play involving conkers, cereal and even cutting some spaghetti hair. On Wednesday we went for our welly walk, we were amazed to see how many conkers had dropped from the tree since last week. The children excitedly collected them up, managing to fill the bottom of our large Forest School trolley. It has been wonderful this week to hear the children talking about their homes and their families. Thank you to those of you who have sent in pictures of your child with their home, these have ignited lots of conversation and contributed towards a lovely display in out curiosity home corner. 

Welcome back to Nursery. 
 

Over the last two weeks we have enjoyed welcoming back our existing children and also welcoming some of our new members for the first time. It was wonderful to reconnect with our existing children in the first week, discussing their holidays, adventures and how much each of them had grown while they had been away from Nursery. They enjoyed coming in and exploring the environment and getting themselves settled back in. Last we we then began to welcome our newest Tanworth-In-Arden Nursery members, it was lovely to see some new faces and get to know some new little personalities. Parents got the opportunity to pop in and see the setting during the settling in period and it was very reassuring to get some lovely feedback from them. Our new children had fun exploring, making connections and even trying out the lunch hall for some lunch. Myself and the staff look forward to a wonderful year ahead as we see all of the children form new friendships, grow and develop. Next week we will be focusing on ‘All about me’ this will give children a further opportunity to teach us about themselves. 

Nursery news (Week beginning 11th July) 

Little Dots Play village came to visit...
 

On Tuesday Nursery had the pleasure of 'Little Dots play village' coming to visit and set up in the school hall. It was wonderful to see the surprise and joy on the children's faces as we entered the hall to see if transformed into a play village. The staff and children thoroughly enjoyed the morning emersed in role play, dressing up and going on imaginative adventures. Aime the play leader commented multiple times on how impressed she was with our children's behaviour, manners and how grown up they were. Well done children, a very well deserved end of year treat.  

Nursery life (Week beginning 27th June) 

This week has been another wonderful week in Nursery. As the summer holidays approach we have begun talking about holidays, the beach and ways of travelling. Children have loved telling us all about their holiday experiences with family and friends. It was amazing to see some of the detailed drawings done by our preschool children and the in depth discussions which had taken place during these drawings recorded by staff. Painting a beach scene with sand was a big hit and the children loved to investigate the sandy paint.
On Tuesday we embarked upon our sponsored ‘Big fancy dress walk’, the children were amazing and all completed the challenge with huge smiles on their faces. We walked the whole of the school grounds including both fields, playgrounds and a walk through the length of school. The children looked amazing in their outfits, as did the adults. We can’t thank family and friends who sponsored the children enough, we look forward to letting you know what we purchase for the Nursery with the money. 
Finally a big well done to the pre school children who have completed their final play and stay sessions in Reception class this week, they have all loved their time in there and have come back full of excitement. They are now throughly looking forward to moving up in September. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 20th June) 

This week has been a fun packed sporty week. We have spent lots of time down on the field getting to know our three races, learning to cheer out friends and most importantly trying to stay in our lanes! The children have loved being on the field enjoying a running race, obstacle course and most importantly the teddy bear race. It was wonderful to see all the children cheering on their friends and clapping for each other’s successes. Inside Nursery children have been making medals, having their own small world races and engaging in lots of water play due to the hot weather. 

This week the pre school children began their play and stay session in Reception class, Mrs Blatchley was so impressed by how happy and confident the children were to be in Reception class. They came backs even happier with their all important ‘smelly stickers’!

Finally on Friday our school sports day took place, we were so proud of the Nursery children who did an amazing job of taking part in the races. It was lovely to see so many non Friday children join Us for the races too. Also a big thank you to those who came to support us on our ‘hook a duck’ stall. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 13th June)

This week we have begun preparing for Father's Day. The children have been busy creating their cards and telling us all about why their Daddy is special to them. Our story of the week was 'Don't wake Dad' by Eden Wells, the bear cubs threw a party for their dad to show him how much he meant to them. The children enjoyed comparing their own Daddy to the Daddy bear in the story. Our wonderful artists also created some wonderful portraits for their Dads using both the paints and the colouring pencils. Towards the end of the week the children came to school in their pyjamas, we would like to say a huge thank you for all the tombola and hamper donations. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend celebrating Father's Day. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 6th June) 

It was great to welcome back the children back from half term on Tuesday. Lovely hearing all about what they got up to last week and the the Jubilee celebrations that they enjoyed. This week we have been thinking all about the season on summer. Our story of the week was ‘Sam grows a sunflower’ by Kate Petty. The children engaged so well with this book, quickly being able to tell me how to grow a sunflower. They were also able to tell me what happens to the sunflower when it dies, beginning to understand the life cycle of the sunflower. Naturally the children were excited to plant their own sunflower seeds this week and we eagerly anticipate seeing some growth happening in our pots. Once we have seen some growth happening, the children will bring home their sunflower to continue to grow at home. This week we also enjoyed using compost in the tough tray to engage in imaginative planting. We have painted sunflowers and made them from play dough, plus much more free imaginative and investigative play. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 23rd May) 

This week was all about celebrating the Queen and the forthcoming diamond jubilee. Our story of the week was ‘The Queen’s knickers’ by Nicholas Allan. The children had a wonderful time designing their own knickers, painting portraits of the Queen and engaging in lots of red, white and blue sensory play. We even had some knickers in the role play area which the children enjoyed trying on over their clothes, we even had some knickers big enough for the grown ups to try on over their clothes. We changed our interest table this week in keeping with our jubilee celebrations, this meant finally saying goodbye to our tadpoles as they returned to Forest School before half term. Finally on Friday we joined the school to celebrate in style with our Jubilee picnic. It was wonderful to see so many families joining us on the field. The Nursery children and staff looked fabulous dressed as royalty for the occasion. Wishing everyone a brilliant half term break, including some further wonderful Jubilee celebrations. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 16th May) 

This week as we continued on our under the sea journey, our story of the week was ‘Commotion in the ocean’ by Giles Andreae. We used this story to help us to discover a wide variety of sea creatures. Thinking about what they look like and what they do when they are under the sea. The story also aided us in thinking about rhyme, words which rhyme with each other and playing a rhyming game. On Tuesday it was class photo day, the children stood/sat so smartly and sensibly when it was our turn. Luckily we had ours taken first before all the messy play began. During the week the children also took party in some under the sea yoga, made jelly fish and discovered what happened after water was accidentally added to their playground chalk pictures. Wednesday night we were delighted to finally invite parents inside the Nursery to host our face to face parents meetings, it was a hive of activity around the nursery and a wonderful atmosphere as parents and key workers happily chatted together. Thank you to all those parents who could make it to the session. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 9th May) 

This week our sea theme lead us into the world of sharks. Our story of the week was the fabulous ‘Shark in the park’ by Nick Sharratt. The children engaged with this story so well, including actions and reading along with the adult. They also loved having the chance to research different species of shark, finding out how they look different to each other. The hammerhead was a particular favourite and this inspired lots of lovely paintings. Our busy week also involved a visit from Warwick the bear to talk to us about road safety. Louise who accompanied Warwick was so impressed with our children’s behaviour, manners and enthusiasm to be involved in the activities. The children even got to bring home their very own baby Warwick and mini story to teach their families at home the rules of crossing the road. We also had an extra special birthday in Nursery this week as Mrs Gidley turned 40. The children loved singing to her, making a fuss of her and presenting her with cards, presents and flowers. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 2nd May)

This week in Nursery we have continued on our pirate adventure. Our story of the week was ‘Pirates in the supermarket’ by Tim Kapman. Naturally we had to open our own pirate supermarket, the children loved to take turns serving and purchasing food in the supermarket. We also made shopping lists, pirate parrots, did pirate yoga and enjoyed lots of pirate sensory play. Forest school started as a rainy one this week, but this didn’t deter us. We went over and enjoyed exploring and discovering where all the rain had been captured to incorporate into our muddy cooking. Later in the week we put our cooking skills to use and made fruit pirate ships, it was

lovely to see some of the more unsure children taking the plunge and tasting the fruit. 

Nursery news (Week beginning 25th April) 

It was lovely to welcome everyone back from the Easter break, great to hear all about holidays, Easter egg hunts and all the other adventures that the children had been on. We have also welcomed some new children into Nursery this week, it was lovely to see our existing children taking them under their wing and showing them the nursery ropes. We have launched ourselves into a pirate theme this week, which was prompted by the children’s interests in maps and treasure last half term. Therefore this week we have been making pirates hats, walking the plank and digging for treasure. We even made pirate party sandwiches for ourselves to celebrate our story of the week ‘Captain Beastlie’s Pirate Party’, we were lucky enough to enjoy these outside picnic style in the sunshine. 

Nursery news (Week beginning 4th April) 

This week has been none stop Easter fun. We began the week with the story ‘We’re going on an egg hunt’ by Laura Hughes, the children loved joining in counting the eggs and discovering the naughty wolf. As the week went on we have embraced Easter crafts, cooking, sensory play and even some egg and spoon races during our weekly PE session. Over at Forest School we had a jam packed time with not only an Easter hunt, but hot cross buns for toasting on the camp fire. Thank you so much to Mrs Ashmore for making this possible. Finally we rounded up the week with the annual Tanworth-in-Arden Easter bonnet parade around the village, it was so nice to be back embracing this tradition with the full school and Nursery out in their Easter bonnets. I cannot tell you how proud I was of the Nursery children, they walked proudly round the village wearing their bonnets (little legs trying to keep up with the year 6’s) and they were not a bit phased by the supporters and family members. Well done what a brilliant way to end a fabulous term. Wishing everyone a wonderful Easter and we will see you on the week beginning Monday 24th. 

Nursery news (Week beginning 28th March) 

This week out focus has been the life cycle of a frog as we eagerly watch out little tadpoles grow and develop. Our supporting story was ‘Growing Frogs’ by Vivian French, this story really shows the children the journey that the frogs go on throughout their cycle of change. All told by a little girl just like them. They really engaged with this story, helping to tell it throughout the week, remembering what comes next in the life cycle of the frog. We have also enjoyed lots of sensory play this week, including exploring frozen peas, jelly and bubble painting.  Outside the children have been keen to spend time in the construction area, creating cars, beds and other large items to involve in their role play games. It is wonderful to see the, working together and sharing their imagination to create their desired effect. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 21st March) 

This week has been all about celebrating our wonderful Mummy’s. We have been busy using our creative skills to prepare some lovely surprises to take home ready for Mothering Sunday. On Tuesday we also made some ‘Mummy and me’ biscuits to take home to share with Mummy. I chuckled to see who would be getting the bigger ‘Mummy’ biscuits, it seemed the children were in favour of keeping those ones for themselves. Our story of the week showed us how busy our Mummy’s are being real superhero’s. ‘Superhero Mum’ by Timothy Knapman. The children loved to share at group time why their Mummy is a superhero. We have also throughly enjoyed the wonderful weather this week and the children have chosen to spend nearly all of their time outside. At times even insisting that we take register and eat our snack outside on the grass. Long may the beautiful weather continue. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 14th March)

This week we have been lead by the beautiful weather and all the natural changes happening outside, we have been celebrating spring. We began by reading the beautiful story ‘Spring’ by Jo Lindley. This taught us about how Winter passes the weather crown to Spring, and the friends work together to make the changes for the new season happen. We have made our own weather crowns and the children wore them to have an adventure out of the field where they had the opportunity to run in the breeze, roll down the hill and look for signs of spring. The children have also enjoyed exploring daffodils this week, taking the time to draw and paint them. The daffodils have been out on the tables all week in water for the children to access and it had been wonderful to see how the children have treated the, with so much care and respect. Also this week our frogspawn has hatched and we now have some lovely little tadpoles on our interest table, it is wonderful to see the children come in each day and check on how they are and their progress. Finally this week we have had ‘Crazy hair day’ it was brilliant to see the effort made, the children and staff looked great! 

Nursery news (Week beginning 7th March)

This week in Nursery we have had a brilliant science week. We began the week by introducing the children to our story of the week ‘Ada Twist scientist’ by Andrea Beaty. The children loved the idea of Ada becoming a scientist when she was three, just like them. They were excited to become scientists themselves as we completed our experiments each day. Throughout the week we experimented with melting, making ice gardens, magnets, filter jars, colour mixing and more. It has been lovely to see the children so engaged and excited about what they are doing. Asking lots of important questions, giving us the opportunity to find out the answers together.
Over at Forest School Mrs Ashmore gave us the opportunity to have a camp fire, the children made us proud with their sensible behaviour around the fire. We loved toasting and eating our marshmallows. We also loved watching the fire and seeing the flames move in the wind. 
Before we left Forest School we collected some frogspawn for our fish tank in the Nursery, we look forward to seeing it develop and following the life cycle of a frog. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 28th February)

This week we welcomed back our lovely Nursery children and enjoyed hearing all about their half term adventures. We also welcomed two new children and it was wonderful to see how our children took them under their wing and showed them the nursery ropes in such a kind and caring way. We had a very busy week, beginning with celebrating pancake day! This was supported by the fabulous story ‘Mr wolfs pancakes’ by Jan Fearnley. This story taught us so many skills from, list writing, recipe reading to kindness and independence. We were invited by reception class to take part in some playground pancake races. This as so much fun and the children enjoyed taking part and also watching reception class take part. The fun this week continued as we celebrated ‘World book day’ on Thursday, it was wonderful to see all the children (and staff) dressed up as their favourite characters. We had so much fun with lots of activities inspired by the fairy tale characters included in our story of the week. 

Nursery news (Week beginning 14th February)

This week we continued with our theme of love, this time focusing on friendship and how we can we a good friend. We had a great example of how to be a good friend when Leo the lion showed us how to be strong and kind in our story of the week 'The lion who wanted to love' by Giles Andreae. To celebrate friendship we made friendship flowers and bracelets this week. Over at Forest School the children very much enjoyed the mud which had been left behind by the wet weather. We had some wonderful mud bathing going on, it was brilliant to see the children fully immersed in their natural environment. As the week continued we painted, engaged in sensory activities and built bridges in the tough tray. On Friday we said a very fond goodbye to Mrs Pullen who the children are very used to seeing in the lunch hall every day. This gave some of the pre school children their first opportunity to attend an assembly in the hall. 

Finally we would like to wish you all a wonderful half term break, see you all on the week beginning Monday 28th February. 

Nursery Life (Week beginning 7th February) 

This week love has been in the air. Our story has been ‘I’ll always love you’ by Paeony Lewis. This taught us that the little bear would always be loved even if he made a little mistake. It was a great opener into us discussing our own feelings, talking about what love is, how it makes us feel and who is special to us in our lives. The children thought so carefully about their answers to these questions and it was wonderful to see them carefully tapping into their feelings. We also talked a lot about the heart shape and enjoyed using this lots in our craft activities. At Forest School the children even showed their loved to the birds as they made and hung some heart themed bird feeders. In the tough tray we had sensory play and potion making, which was very popular with everyone. 

 Nursery life (Week beginning 31st January)

It was absolutely wonderful to all be back together this week in Nursery. Thank you again for being so understanding during our very difficult previous week. This week we were celebrating Chinese New Year, our supporting book was ‘Peppa’s Chinese new year’. We have celebrated with food, decorations and dancing. The children have loved exploring different elements in the tough tray, particularly getting to grips with the chop sticks. They have also taken a keen interest in the Chinese symbols, having a go at writing some of them for themselves. You can see some of these proudly displayed on our Nursery door. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 17th January)

As we continue to think about Winter this week we moved on to focusing on animals who live in cold places. The story ‘Lost and found’ by Oliver Jeffers led us into the world of penguins and thinking about where they live and what it might be like there. The children were thrilled to do some research on penguins using the interactive white board in nursery, watching how the penguins move, how they hatch from eggs and learning all about what they eat. We were most impressed with their fast swimming and watching them zoom through the water. Throughout the week we embraced lots of small world penguin play, the children enjoyed junk modelling their own boats like the one from our story for a penguin and boy to travel in. The children also collaged some umbrellas, just like the one that the penguin uses to sail in. You might see some of these in the Nursery porch. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 10th January)

This week our story of the week was a much loved favourite 'The Gruffalo's Child' by Julia Donaldson. The children engaged with this story so well at group times, joining in with the repeated phrases and guessing the which animal the Gruffalo's child might have found next by using the clues given in the story. We talked about the different trails made within the story and the children were keen to make their own trails when playing in the tough tray. Following this during Forest School on Wednesday the children looked for real trails left by creatures and people. One of our adult led activities this week was to create a hot drink mug in the creative area, this led to lots of talk about hot chocolate. We had to take this opportunity to have a lovely warm hot chocolate at snack time with the all important marshmallow on the side! 

Nursery life (Week beginning 3rd January)

We were so pleased to welcome back the children and hear all about their wonderful Christmas times this week. Although the week may have been short, we definitely squeezed in lots of fun. We kicked off our winter topic with a fabulous story of the week ‘Stickman’ by Julia Donaldson. The weather was on our side for our topic as we headed over to Forest School in the ice. The children loved exploring the ice in all areas of Forest School and finding sticks to create lots of mark making. They went on a stick hunt to find stick man, later using their sticks to bring their stick men to life in the creative area. It has been wonderful to hear the children retelling the story and using it their play across the Nursery environment. 

A sneak peek for everyone of our beautiful Nursery environment...

Nursery life (Week beginning 13th December)

This week has been all about having none stop Christmas fun. It has been so wonderful to see the children getting excited for the big day as we count down the days on our Nursery advent calendar. We began the week by reading an impromptu Christmas themed story called 'The Stinky Sprouts' by Rosie Greening, the children thought this book was hilarious and really connected to it. This therefore prompted a little change to our planned activities as we took the children's lead and introduced sprouts in to our environment. Children enjoyed rolling them, taking them on adventures and giving them names and characters just like they have in the story. Our busy week continued on Wednesday with a Christmas hunt at Forest School, followed by Christmas dinner in the lunch hall, finally followed by some dancing and party games back home in the Nursery. Also this week we were very privileged to receive a very special visitor, he popped in to say hello and drop off some gifts before he had to head back to the North Pole. I can safely say staff and children alike have had a fun packed and Christmas filled week. 

Finally from everyone at Nursery we would like to wish you a very happy and healthy Christmas and we will see you in the new year.  

Nursery life (Week beginning 6th December)

This week we have delved into Christmas, beginning by exploring the traditional Christmas Nativity story. We haven't stuck to just one book this week instead focusing on the story and enjoying it in lots of different versions through different books and mediums. The Nursery has been transformed and our Christmas tree and decorations stand proudly in the curiosity home corner. Our interest table holds a lovely wooden nativity set which the children have been using for small world play throughout the week. 

On Wednesday we held our Christmas family Forest School, when I woke at 6am and listened to the weather I was having huge doubts about it being able to go ahead. However Nursery children showed that they are made of tough stuff and despite the wind and cold we had a wonderful time at Forest School welcoming parents are grandparents to have some Christmas fun with us. Thank you to all those who came, you made it really special for all the children there as they proudly showed you round their beloved Forest School. We look forward to holding many more family sessions in the future. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 29th November) 

This week has been such a busy and exciting one in Nursery. Following the children’s interest about outside and the dark we have spent a week focusing on this, supported by the story ‘Boo to the who in the dark’ by Joyce Dunbar. This story allowed us to express and explore our differing feelings about the dark. Feelings ranged from scared, to excited, to cosy. It was lovely to hear the children’s different stories of their experiences in the dark.

We were also sidetracked this week from our topic this week by the weather. Snow first, followed by ice allowed us some very exciting mornings exploring the outdoor area. The children enjoyed mark making in the ice and Snow, experimenting with using warm water to melt it and finally using it to cook with in the mud kitchen. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 22nd November) 

With everyone being so excited by all the dinosaur fun last week in Nursery we decided to follow these interests and continue with our dinosaurs this week. Our focus book this week was ‘Ten little dinosaurs’ by Mike Brownlow this is a wonderful story which not only incorporates rhyme but also counting and number recognition. We used our local surroundings this week to collect resources to make a dinosaur swamp. The children were particularly enthusiastic to collect the mud left for us by a cheeky mole. We also painted dinosaurs, measured them and gave them a soapy bubble bath among much much more. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 15th November) 

This week as we continued to think about celebrations we focused on birthdays, the book ‘Harry and the dinosaurs have a happy birthday’ by Ian Whybrow helped to support our learning. The book also sent us off on a definite dinosaur path, as we delved into lots of dinosaur small world play. We also got into the party spirt by making party masks, party hats for the dinosaurs, birthday cards and having a wonderful dance party with the balloons. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 8th November)

This week has been an incredibly busy one in Nursery. We began by introducing the children to the idea of Remembrance day with a local walk into the village to visit the memorial and see where we would be standing on Thursday for the Remembrance service. Back in nursery and Forest School we embraced poppies, painting them, finger painting them, making them from play dough, biscuits and using our deconstructed resources to create poppies. On Thursday we were so proud of our Pre school children as they joined the whole school on the village green for the remembrance service. They wowed everyone with how sensible and respectful they were, even managing to stay quiet for the full two minutes silence. 

On Tuesday we were very excited to get into our fancy dress clothes and welcome princesses, superheros, pirates and a vet to name a few. We did this to support 'Crackerjacks Children's Trust', the children were thrilled to show off their outfits on our outdoor stage and tell us all about their character. Later in the afternoon we enjoyed some dancing and party games. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 1st November)

This week it was lovely to have the children return after half term, they were full of exciting tales of their week at home. We began a week of celebrations this week as we celebrated Bonfire night and Diwali. We supported our celebrations by reading all about Elmer the elephant and his celebrations by David McKee. The children loved exploring colour and fireworks, they created fireworks using paint, spray bottles and craft supplies. In the tough tray children were able to mark make in the glitter using their finger to create firework shapes. They also had a chance to design their own henna patterns on a hand cut out. Plus as always much much more! 

Nursery life (Week beginning 18th October) 

After the children took a keen interest in spiders last week we decided to have a mini focus on spiders this week. Our story of the week was ‘Walter’s Wonderful Web’ by Tim Hopgood. We learned about Walter’s determination to make a strong web, he tried all different shapes to find the best. The children wowed us with their 2D shape knowledge and we practiced how to show eight legs on your fingers and make your own Walter. The children also spent time making Walter using different mediums, craft, paint, playdough. They also enjoyed making spider web biscuits and throughly enjoyed eating them. We had a great Forest School investigating mud, pumpkins and bubbles. Finally to end the week we enjoyed ‘Pink day’ for charity, dressing up in pink, making pink biscuits, moulding pink dough and playing in pink water. Wishing everyone a very happy half term. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 11th October) 

This week we have enjoyed the story ‘Stone soup’ by Tony Bonning, thank you to all the families who have donated stones and squash vegetables this week. The children have thoroughly enjoyed making stone soup using the large cooking pots and mixing the vegetables and stones together. It was lovely to hear them talk about the story and characters as they added their ingredients and played out the tale. We found the children were so interested in the vegetables and making ‘soup’ that we decided to make some real soup. The children assisted in peeling and chopping the vegetables, before having the opportunity to taste the soup at snack time. We were wowed by how many children tasted and really enjoyed the soup. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 4th October) 

This week in Nursery we continued to celebrate the season of Autumn, our focus was the story of ‘The leaf thief’ by Alice Hemming. It was amazing to see how the children listened carefully to the story, putting the clues together to work out who the leaf thief was before it was revealed in the story. Over at Forest School the leaf thief (the wind) visited us while we were in base camp and the children immediately recalled the story. We made leaf crowns this week, created nature pictures using our own nature picture frames, all resources collected on our Autumn walk. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 27th October) 

The cooler weather came perfectly timed for us this week as we began to think about Autumn and the changes that we are beginning to see around us. During a welly walk and our Forest School session this week we embarked upon Autumn hunts. Spotting signs that Autumn has arrived and collecting some of the treats nature provides us with at this time of year. Our story of the week ‘Leaf man’ by Lois Ehlert showed us the journey Autumn leaves go on and immersed us in the beautiful Autumn colours. We used our knowledge of colours and collection of leaves we had found to create leaf prints, make our own leaf men and to engage in sensory play. The children also loved exploring our new Autumn table and curiosity cube. We are looking forward to lots more Autumn fun next week. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 20th September) 

For many of our children this week has consisted of them completing their first full days at Nursery. To enable the settling process and to get to know all of our children even better this week we have had a focus on ourselves. Thank you to all those who sent in photos of your child with their family, this opened up some beautiful conversations about children’s families and their place within the family. This in turn led to us discussing children’s pets and hearing all about the animals that children care for at home. Using a lovely book called ‘All the things I love about me’ by Trace Moroney we talked about all the things that we are good at and what makes us love ourselves. The book also led us into conversations about what the children would like to be when they grow up and I very much look forward to seeing all the circus clowns and astronauts in our future! 

Nursery life (Week beginning 13th September)

This week we have had a brilliant week settling in our new Nursery children. It was lovely to see some new faces in Nursery, giving our existing children a chance to ‘show them the ropes’ and begin to create some new friendships. The new children have done extraordinarily well, coming in with very little support and already getting to know our routine. We are extremely proud of all of them. All children have continued to enjoy the new environment at nursery as they explore and play in each of the areas. We were very grateful again this week for our new covered area when Tuesday offered us rain all day, this meant the children could still get outside. Under our covered area we have a mark marking area, sand, water, small world and dressing up which the children can access in every weather. 

Nursery Life (Week beginning 6th September)

This week we had a wonderful week welcoming back all of our existing Nursery children. We have marvelled at how much they had all grown in both size and personality. With the sun shining brightly we have been very grateful for our new outdoor covered area as it provided us with lots more much needed shade. 

This week we allowed the children time to settle in to begin to explore new friendships and to explore the environment. They showed particular interest in out new curiosity style home corner.

This area has been developed over the summer thank you to lots of generous donations from both Nursery and school families and the sheer determination and dedication of Miss Stephens who has been scouring car boot sales and market place in hot pursuit of all our desired items. We are so pleased with the results, seeing the children's happy faces exploring in there confirmed to us that this was the right direction to go in for our setting.  

Nursery life (Week beginning 19th July) 

we have had the most lovely last three days of term, the weather has been exceptional and we have spent the majority of the week outside involved in various water play activities to cool ourselves off. The pre school children have all been excitedly talking about going up to big school. Although we as staff and parents are a little sad to see them leave Nursery, the children are definitely feeling pure excitement for their new chapter which has been just wonderful to see. On Wednesday we had our final Forest School of the term and kindly Mrs Ashmore let us use a shady spot to return to with our picnic. This was a lovely way to end the term. 
Myself and the rest of the staff feel absolutely overwhelmed by the kind words and gifts that we have received from parents, we would like to thanks everyone profusely. During what had been another tricky year for many I think I can speak for everyone when I say we have been incredibly grateful to continue to come to Nursery to do what we love. Wishing everyone a happy, safe and sunny summer holiday. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 12th July) 

This week was all about colour and rainbows. Our story of the week was ‘Red Rockets and Rainbow Jelly’ by Sue Heap. This story was full of colour, but it also helped us to understand how two people can be friends and also have similar and different interests. The children loved putting their hand up to vote for their favourite items on each page. We began our rainbow week by going on a colour hunt around school grounds, children worked in partners and used a clipboard to mark off each colour that they found. We were amazed by how well they worked in partnerships. During our walk we also discovered the first baby conkers which had fallen which led us into an impromptu baby conker hunt. As the week progressed we enjoyed colour mixing with water, painting rainbows, creating rainbow names and much more. With a big thank you to Mrs Ashmore we were able to enjoy our final camp fire of the year, which was lovely in the sunshine. Finally on Friday the children enjoyed their picnic alongside the whole school. 
 

Nursery life (Week beginning 5th July) 

This week with our focus turning back to science we have been exploring bubbles and colours. Our story of the week has been ‘My many coloured days’ by Dr Seuss this has given the children a brilliant opportunity to think about how they are feeling and explore their feelings through colour. We have enjoyed lots of bubble are work with bubble painting and creating bubble mosaic pictures. The children have also enjoyed using the bubbles to give the babies a good bath and they also took the time to wash all the babies clothes and hang them out to dry on a washing line. We explored school and the grounds on a circle hunt, and were amazed by the amount of circles we found. Finally on Friday the children throughly enjoyed coming into school dressed to support the football this weekend. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 28th June) 

This week we have enjoyed a wonderfully active and exciting ‘Sports week‘, rather than the traditional sports day. This meant all of our Nursery children would have an opportunity to join the fun. We kicked off on rainy Monday with some indoor climbing, sliding and hockey. Later in the week we embarked upon a mini marathon, Forest School relay races and obstacle races. Alongside this children made their own medals, checkered finish flags and a giant trophy. It was a joy to see the children pushing themselves in the races to meet their own goals  and it was also very special to see children cheering on their peers. 
It was another great week for our preschool children as they went off for their second visit to Reception class. They all returned with beaming smiles on their faces, telling us all about their new classroom and outdoor area. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 21st June) 

This week we ventured into the world of mini beasts, our story of the week was ‘Ants in your pants’ By Julia Jarman. The children loved thinking about mini beasts, what they look like and how many legs they’ve got. They enjoyed researching these facts in our big non fiction book of mini beasts. They also enjoyed a mini beast hunt in Forest School, making a bee bar for the buzzy bees and working together to make huge spider web in the tough tray. One of the most popular activities this week was winding wool to make a spider, the children affectionately named their spiders Mr Skinny Legs. 
This week was a big week for our Preschool children as they took their first visits to Reception class, they used their very best behaviour and manners and blew Mrs Blatchly and Miss Chambers away. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 14th June) 

Continuing with out lovely summer sub topic we focused on the story ‘Sharing a shell’ by Julia Donaldson. This story has led to lots of lovely conversations about sharing and also about holidays and the children’s experiences of the beach. We have a beautiful new display inside Nursery, showing a large rock pool with the three characters from the story created by the children. Children have also made their own mini paper plate rock pools. Over at Forest School everyone had the opportunity to plant a sunflower seed and we have now transported them back to Nursery to tend to them and watch them grow. Finally we have been very busy creating some very special surprise cards ready for some important people this Sunday. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 7th June)

Well what a wonderful sunny week we have has this week. It has been brilliant  to hear what a lovely half term all the children have had. We began the new half term by looking at the season on Summer. The children have enjoyed a wide variety of of activities including making shaving foam ice creams, using the painting rollers to paint a sun, planting sunflowers, painting sunflowers and much much more. Over at Forest School on Wednesday the children used beautiful colourful ribbon to create a rainbow tree. On Wednesday afternoon when we were all a bit hot, the children enjoyed spraying each other with water using the spray bottles.
Finally after being fed over half term by Mrs Ashmore and returning to Nursery on Monday, the froglets had developed their jumping ability and were jumping around the tank. Therefore we thought it was just the right time for them to return to the pond, the children loved seeing them jump from the net to the pond. We will still be checking in on them each week at Forest School. 
 

Nursery Life (Week beginning 24th May) 

This week to finalise our transitional tales topic we spent the week with the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, the children thoroughly enjoyed this tale and were quickly able to join me in retelling the story in the correct order. In the spirt of Jack and his magic bean we also planted our own magic beans (thank you to everyone for all the yoghurt pot donations), children loved the idea of growing their own bean at home and were thinking about a sunny spot to put their pot when they get home. We would love to see updates on Tapestry of any successful beanstalks. We also did an exciting experiment with jelly beans to see what would happen when you put them into different liquids. Over at Forest School it was clear the sun was out because all the mini beasts were venturing out too, we were very lucky to see a Maybug emerging from the mud. 
 

Finally we all wish you a lovely and hopefully sunny half term. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 17th May) 

This week we have had a magical week exploring the story of ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’. The children have particularly enjoyed the home corner being made into a shoe shop/workshop. You could really see their real life experiences come though as they fitted shoes on each other, checked the toes and practiced walking in their new shoes. Children also had the opportunity to design their own shoes and some very sparkly designs were created. Taking on the role of the elves we used our strong muscles to use the hammer to tap holes through some shoe templates. Over at Forest School we then took on this role again when hammering leaves and flowers onto fabric to create a new fabric design. Finally the children decorated some elf/fairy doors and placed them around the Nursery in the hope that we would have some little visitors just like the shoemaker and his wife. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 10th May)

This week we have had a wonderful week of exploring the story 'Little Red Riding Hood', the children have taken on the roles of the characters in all areas of the Nursery. They particularly like being the wolf dressed as Grandma and lying in the bed ready to trick Little Red. It has been wonderful to hear the children story telling as they take on their character role, "Oh what big eyes you have Grandma!" We also enjoyed exploring the treats that Little Red Riding Hood would have had in her basket. We made pear crumble and everyone tried it! We independently made our own sandwiches to eat at snack time. The children also made some extra special salt dough cakes and biscuits and painted them ready to put into Red Riding Hoods basket in the role play area. Update on the tadpoles, they have had another lovely clean out by Mrs Ashmore and are now enjoying some cucumber treats back in Nursery. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 3rd May) 

This week our adventures have been all about ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’. The children have loved the concept of the three different sized bowls, chairs and spoons. They have spent lots of time arranging different things into three different sizes. They have also enjoyed taking on the role of Daddy bear, Mummy bear or Baby bear and adapting their voice to demonstrate which character they are. The Nursery smelled wonderful when we baked our own bear biscuits ready for the Teddy bear picnic. After a lovely and unexpectedly dry Forest school where they children enjoyed a camp fire they came back just in time before the hail came down. Although we had dreamed of an outdoor picnic, it made no difference to the children’s  excitement when we sat down in a huge picnic circle inside the Nursery. They enjoyed their picnic lunches chattering with their friends, it was fabulous. 

Preschool children only.

During our parents meetings many asked what they can be doing at home to get their preschool children ready for school in September. Here is a handy list of skills you can work on at home to support children for being ready for Reception class. You will also receieve a paper copy this week along with your child's 'Bookstart' reading folder. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 26th April) 

This week has been all about exploring the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. The children have loved this story and it had been lovely to see them retelling the story in their own way in different areas of the nursery, tough tray area, small world and outdoor construction. I love hearing them repeat the familiar story phrases for example “Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge” As part of our story telling the children have also enjoyed constructing lots of bridges this week, and testing them out. They loved using their imagination to close their eyes and think about what the troll would look like in their own story. The children came up with so many interesting  ideas and loved putting these down on paper when they painted their troll. Finally we had a very exciting visit from the Year 4 chicks on Tuesday morning, the children were fascinated in watching them and were thrilled to be able to have a cuddle. 

Tadpole update 

This week at Forest School we took our tadpoles for a visit and Mrs Ashmore helped us to clean out their tank. We found a lot of tadpole poo in there and the children were fascinated by this! They now have a sparkly clean tank and can see how much they’ve grown. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 19th April)

Hoping everyone had a lovely restful Easter break and managed to get out into the sunshine. This week we have begun our new topic 'Traditional tales', we began by exploring the story of 'The three little pigs'. Over the Easter break the role play area was transformed, allowing children the opportunity to become one of the three little pigs or of cause the big bad wolf. We have enjoyed the sunshine this week and have moved most of our focused work outdoors to where the children love to be. We have even been taking the register outside! Children have enjoyed a range of activities, exploring the materials that the three pigs used to build with, crafting with them and blowing them during a science experiment. They also tried their hand at being builders, mixing their own cement (sand and water) and laying some bricks in the tough tray. 

The tadpoles were very well behaved over Easter for Mrs Ashmore and they have certainly grown. We have now brought them back into Nursery and will continue to care for a feed them for a while longer.  

Nursery life (Week beginning 26th March) 

This week has been all about Easter and with all of the unexpected sunshine, we moved all of our activities out into the garden and spent so much time out there having fun. The children have enjoyed copious amounts of water play, time in the mud kitchen and a special Easter hunt at Forest School with an Easter treat at the end. In addition to this there have been lots more Easter activities including making bunny biscuits, designing Easter eggs and potato printing eggs. Our story of the week was ‘We’re going on an egg hunt’ by Martha Mumford. 
 

We have been carefully watching and feeding the tadpoles and they have definitely grown. Mrs Ashmore will be taking good care of them over the Easter break. 
 

Wishing everyone a very happy and healthy Easter. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 22nd March) 

This week as we continued with our focus of ‘Spring’ and began to think about the life cycle of a butterfly. The natural choice for story of the week was ‘The very hungry caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. The children have thoroughly enjoyed this story and have shown a great understanding of the life cycle of a butterfly when telling us which life stage will happen next. 
In celebration of the food loving caterpillar a fruit and veg stall popped up in the role play area where children could buy and sell all the caterpillars favourite treats. In addition to this children have been involved in butterfly symmetry painting, caterpillar maths work, making fruit caterpillar snacks and much much more. 

We were also very excited this week to see that our frogspawn had hatched and we now have lots of lovely little tadpoles swimming around in the tank. The children are absolutely fascinated with them and keep returning to observe them. 
 

Nursery life (Week beginning 15th March) 

This week we have began thinking about signs of spring. We have had some lovely walks around the school grounds spotting, buds, flowers and baby animals. We took the children’s lead and interest this week and focused our planning on the life cycle of the frog. Last week the children took such a keen interest in the frogs in the pond and this interest has continued to grow and blossom this week. With thanks going to Mrs Ashmore we have now welcomed our own frogspawn into the Nursery, placed on the interest table for children to observe. We will watch this develop over the coming weeks and once our tadpoles hatch we will release them back into the Forest School pond. 

Nursery life (Week beginning 8th March) 

This week as we continue to think about ‘People who help us’ we began to think a little more about the emergency services, who they are and how they help us. We also quickly learned the three numbers we need to dial if we need to call them for help. So far this week the children have enjoyed being police officers in the role play area and in their police car. They have also been outside being firefighters and fighting ‘fires’ using the water spray bottles. In a nod to science week the children did a special experiment to make their own fire extinguisher foam.
However what the Nursery children have enjoyed most this week is having their siblings back in school, being able to see and wave to the in the garden and in the lunch hall. 

World Book Day 2021

This year to celebrate World Book Day we focused on the book ‘Supertato’ by Sue Hendra. Children enjoyed a variety of exciting activities throughout the day including designing their own superhero potato character, counting and mashing the evil peas, creating the evil pea from a paper plate, rescuing vegetables in the outdoor area and much much more. 

Nursery life (WB 1st March) 

This week we have continued our ‘People who help us’ topic by focusing on real super hero’s. To support our learning, our story of the week has been ‘Real superheroes’ by Julia seal. This story has helped the children to reflect on how we are helped and saved by real people around us every day. The children have produced some lovely drawings showing which of the real superheroes they would like to be when they grow up. They have also been spending lots of time in the baby clinic, making the babies better, bathing them and caring for them. We even saw a pop up teddy bear clinic come to Forest School for any of the injured bears over there. 

Nursery life (WB 22nd February) 

Firstly I hope everyone had a lovely half term.
This week we have begun a new topic ‘People who help us’. We have had lots of lovely group discussions about the people who help us in our lives and what they do to help us. We have kickstarted the ‘People who help us’ topic with a mini focus on hairdressers. Children have enjoyed visiting as customers and working as hairdressers in our nursery salon within the role play area. The grown up have enjoyed visiting too! Children have also enjoyed designing their own hair styles, blow painting hair, creating wigs and washing the hair of the babies at the baby washing station. 
Our letter focus of the week in the writing area has continued with ‘q’, we continued to think of things which began with this letter. We also sang lots of nursery rhymes to practice our singing and rhyming skills. 

Nursery life (WB 8th February ) 

This week our focus has been all about Chinese New Year (Friday 12th February ). We have thoroughly enjoyed exploring all things Chinese, including food tasting, having a go at Chinese writing, watching dragon dances, creating our own dragon, making Chinese lanterns, opening a Chinese restaurant in the role play area and creating races in the hall to represent ‘The great race’ of the animals. Plus much much more. 
We were also blessed with some snow and lots of ice at Forest school this week. Although cold, the children found exploring Forest school in these conditions fascinating. 
Our letter focus of the week in the writing area was ‘q’, we began to think of things which began with this letter, we will continue with this letter after half term. We also sang lots of nursery rhymes to practice our singing and rhyming skills. 
 

Finally wishing everyone a very happy half term! 

Nursery life (WB 1st February) 

This week our story of the week has been one of our all time favourites ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, I will share a link of the story being read below. 

We have had so much fun retelling the story in different ways. We have made collages of the different areas, made sensory bottles, created story spoons, gone on a bare foot walk, made paper plate bears and gone on a bear hunt around the hall during our PE session to name just a few of the activities.  However my favourite moment of the week was seeing the children on their feet reading the whole story along with me including full actions and plenty of enthusiasm. 

Nursery Life (WB 25th Jan) 

We were so pleased to see lots of the lovely little nursery faces return this week. We understand that some children are still isolating at home so I will be adding lots of photos each week so you can see what we are up to in nursery and if you want to replicate any of the activities or stories  at home then you can. Please share on Tapestry as we love to see everyone playing and learning at home. 
 

This week as you know from the video below our story of the week was ‘Alan’s Big Scary Teeth’ by Jarvis, this prompted lots of alligator filled activities. We have painted pictures of Alan the alligator, built a 3D model of Alan, taken part in jungle yoga, been vets in the role play area, created play dough alligators and much much more spontaneous play and learning.  Plus we had the best time playing in the snow and having a fire at forest school.  

Welcome Back!

Myself and the Nursery staff are very much looking forward to welcoming you all back this week.

To get us all started for the week ahead I have recorded our new story of the week 'Alan's Big Scary Teeth' for you to watch below. We will be exploring more jungle animal filled activities throughout the week in Nursery.

However in true early early style we feel it is very important to be spontaneous and explore nature at every opportunity. So for our activities today we suggest you wrap up warm and explore the snow and ice outside in your garden. It is also very important to cuddle back up inside afterwards with a hot chocolate and a biscuit. So enjoy, have fun together and we will see you from Tuesday onwards. (Please continue to share photos on Tapestry, it has been lovely to see all the 'Dear Zoo' fun that everyone has had.) 

Monday activities, 'Snow and ice fun'

We have found so many fun ways to use the snow in our garden, making a snow bear, having a snowball fight, making snow ice creams and filling the sand tray with snow to create some snow castles. We have also saved some snow in the freezer to use later this afternoon. We will be using this inside in the tough tray with some small world people and props. 

Hello from isolation

Hello all from myself and the nursery team, we hope you are all keeping well at home and we look forward to seeing you back at Nursery very soon. 

To support you at home during this coming week I have added a video of myself reading the story of the week 'Dear zoo'. 

I will also add two activity ideas each evening ready for the following day. Please feel no pressure to follow these activities but use them if you wish. Rest assured the ideas will be very simple and easy to set up partly because I know everyone has an extremely busy home life at the moment with working, home schooling and everything else and partly because like you, I only have access to the resources I already have at home. However the activities will be fun and engaging with a 'Dear zoo' theme. 

If your little one does enjoy any of the activities or any other activities at home please share with us on Tapestry as we love to see what they are up to. Finally if you would like me to share any photos for everyone to see on the website please email them to me at beattie.j1@welearn365.com 

Most of all have fun and enjoy the time together. 

Monday activity 1, 'Zoo Play Dough' 

After sharing the story 'Dear zoo' together, we found some of the animals from the story and explored the play dough with them. We used pre made play dough but you can also very easily make your own and I will add a recipe if you wish to try this. 

The play began by making some cages for the animals using play dough and lolly pop sticks, this led to some small world play where the animals were fed and tended to. 

Following this we made some play dough snakes, adding googly eyes. This led to lots of vocabulary about how long each of the snakes were and we measured them using some wooden beads. 

Monday activity 2, 'Animal painting'

After looking carefully at each of the animals in the story we talked about the animal names and researched real photos of these animals. Following this we painted pictures of some of the animals. This activity led to conversations about which colours to select and what shapes to paint. 

Tuesday activity 1, 'Animal foot prints'

Using our zoo animals, we pressed their feet into paint to create foot prints across the paper. This led to lots of conversation about colour, pattern and size of different animal foot prints. We then went on to count how many steps each animal took as they crossed he paper. Finally after having such fun in the paint it was decided that the animals would need a bubble bath. 

Tuesday activity 2, 'Animal biscuits'

We made some animal themed biscuits following a simple recipe which I will include in a link. 

Baking allowed us to practice lots of skills, measuring, pouring, mixing, rolling, cutting and most importantly eating. The biscuits were thoroughly by the whole house. 

Wednesday activity 1, 'Measuring animals'

After reading though our story of the week 'Dear zoo' again, we found all the animals to match the story. Following this we placed each animal in order of their appearance in the story. We then used cubes to place alongside each animal to measure their height. In order to find out the tallest and the smallest animal we then progressed to counting each tower of cubes and placed a number card near them representing the amount of cubes. 

Wednesday activity 2, 'Zoo tough tray'

As Wednesday would be our Forest school day we decided to get out into the fresh air and create a zoo themed tough tray. Using some toys from inside we set up different areas in the tray for different animals. We used a variety of resources we found around the house, pasta, oats, sand and water but you could use any dry ingredients to create different textures. This activity led to lots of lovely small world play, creating habitats for the different animals, arranging food and water for them. However please don't be under any illusion that the tray stayed perfectly placed or that the play remained 'on topic', before long a large bowl or porridge had been created and a porridge shop was opened. 

Thursday activity 1, 'Pasta snakes'

We began the activity by painting some tube shaped pasta with poster paint. This activity could be equally as nice without painting the pasta. We then allowed the paint to dry and continued with our snakes in the afternoon. Once dry we threaded the pasta onto different length pieces of string, this created conversation about then different length snakes ("Mummy, Daddy and baby"), we were then able to order the snakes by length and count how many pieces of pasta long each snake was.  

Thursday activity 2, 'Zoo or farm animal sorting'

Using photographs of animals and sorting sheets we turned over one photo at a time, talked about which animal it was and then decided if this animal lives at the zoo or in the farm. This then developed into us making our own zoo and farm using construction toys. We then sorted the small world animals by selecting them out of a bag (pillow case) and deciding if they should live in our farm or our zoo. We also snatched a little opportunity for writing practice when we made a sign for the farm. 

Friday activity 1, 'Dear zoo letter writing'

We decided to write to the zoo ourselves to ask for a pet. Ivy dictated to me what she wanted to say in her letter, she then wrote her own name by tracing over her letters. This developed an interest in name writing and we set up a sensory writing tray with some simple line and shape cards to copy by mark making with your finger. 

Friday activity 2, 'Cosmic yoga jungle safari' 

We completed a yoga jungle safari which was so much fun, it was lovely to do some physical activity. It was also a brilliant opportunity for us to watch, listen and follow instructions carefully.  

Christmas dinner day
 

All nursery Children thoroughly enjoyed trying their Christmas lunch, especially when a special visitor came to see us. 

Christmas songs 

As the festive season quickly approaches, we thought we would take the opportunity to share the Christmas songs we are learning in Nursery. Please enjoy having a sing song together at home. This will support children to learn the songs and have confidence when singing in Nursery.  

All about me

After a wonderful couple of weeks welcoming back existing children and getting to know all our new members of Nursery, we are disappointed not to spending the next week with everyone. However we thought we would use this opportunity to share with you what we would have been doing at nursery this week and then perhaps you could join in with some of these activities over the next week. Please share with us what you have been up to on Tapestry, we love to see all the fun you are having at home. 

September Nursery fun

This is just a small glimpse of the fun we’ve been having in Nursery since returning from the summer. It has been wonderful to observe the children exploring and engaging in the new environment. 

Welcome back to Nursery. 
 

We are so pleased to welcome you all back to Nursery both existing friends and new. We have missed you all so much! 
We spent lots of time at Nursery last week getting everything ready for you and I thought we would give you a sneak preview of how Nursery and the garden will look. 
However we found it much too quiet without you all, so we are excited to see everyone return over the next couple of weeks.