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

Nursery Manager

Jade Wheildon 

Deputy Manager

Louise Stephens

Nursery Assistants

Gayle Paterson

Abigail Ashmore

Dawn Eade

Nursery Administrator

Joanne Finnegan

For 'Nursery News' 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 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.