Explorers Nursery

WELCOME TO EXPLORERS NURSERY

If there are any issues or concerns, please feel free to come in and see member of the Nursery teamr or contact the Team Lead, you can do this by email, nhoward@white-rock-primary.torbay.sch.uk or call us.

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ACADEMIC YEAR 2019/2020

Spring Term 2020

Weeks beginning 9th and 16th March

Jack and the Beanstalk

This fortnight our focus story is Jack and the Beanstalk. We are learning the words and some actions to go with them by reading the images. You could use the resources below to have a go with us. There will also be a paper copy in our trays.

Reading Together

Have you seen the lovely selection of books we have in nursery for you to share at home? Please choose a book with your child to take home and share and when you've finished with it just bring it back and swap it for another one. Happy reading together!

Learning Celebration

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our learning celebration. You were a great audience for our storytelling and we loved showing you around our nursery and sharing our learning with you. There is a feedback slip in the entrance foyer if you would like to share your feedback with us.

Matching and Measuring

We have been sorting objects and children by size, type, features and colour and finding things that are long and short, tall and short and the same.

We have built beanstalks as tall as us, tracks as long as us and used different things to measure our bodies and our feet.

Weeks beginning 24th February and 2nd March

World Book Day 2020

We enjoyed talking about our favourite books and hearing lots of different stories. We all looked very exciting in our book character costumes and we were really lucky to have Wrens class come and spend some time reading their own choice of stories to us all.

We have been learning the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Check our trays for a copy of the story map we have made and then ask us to read the story from the map.

PANCAKE DAY!

We had a great time following the recipe, mixing and measuring and then eating our pancakes!

Weeks beginning Monday 3rd February and Monday 10th February 2020

We have had an exciting two weeks based on Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. We found a basket outside the nursery, it had a map of the woods, a bottle of medicine, a cupcake and a get well soon card for Granny inside it. The children worked out it must have been forgotten by Little Red Riding Hood!

Our role play space was transformed in to Grandma's cottage, complete with bed for the wolf to hide in whilst tricking Little Red Riding Hood.

The children have been working hard on their storytelling skills and combined this with lots of mark making. We have made maps of the woods, get well soon cards for Grandma and signs and posters to keep the Big Bad Wolf away!

Weeks beginning Monday 20th January and Monday 27th January 2020

The children have been exploring the story 'Goldilocks and the 3 bears'. They have had the opportunity to take on the role of Goldilocks, Father Bear, Mother Bear and Baby Bear in our 3 Bears role play cottage.

Baby Bears chair is "Just right!"

The children have been busy making porridge and describing its texture. Painting with thick, lumpy paint was lots of fun.

We have been investigating size and comparing amounts of objects in groups.

Weeks Beginning Monday 6th January and Monday 13th January 2020

Week beginning Monday 6th January 2020

Happy New Year! Welcome back to Explorers and a special welcome to our new friends joining us this term. Our learning this term is based on traditional tales. Developing a love of books and reading is so important for young children and this focus will support this alongside developing the children's communication and language skills.

We start this theme looking at the story 'The Gingerbread Man'. The children first became interested in this story just before Christmas as they tasted gingerbread men as part of their Christmas dinner.

The children have listened to the story and discovered that gingerbread people have been running all over the nursery! We will be baking our own gingerbread people.

Weeks beginning Monday 9th December and Monday 16th December 2019

Weeks Beginning Monday 25th November and Monday 2nd December 2019

The children have enjoyed retelling the story 'The Gruffalo's child.' We have tried to get into the woods to explore as often as possible between the wind, rain and cold weather. The children spent time exploring melting ice.

The children have spent lots of time in the Gruffalo's caves inside and outside. The dark den and light box was especially popular. The children were able to take turns and negotiate space between themselves.

Weeks Beginning Monday 11th November and Monday 18th November 2019

Week Beginning Monday 18th November 2019

We continued our learning around Stick Man this week and also discovered Leaf Man. Leaf Man gets blown away on a windy day. The children went out in to the school grounds to find their own leaf people.

Back in the classroom the children used stickers and loose parts to make their own leaf people.

Week beginning Monday 11th November 2019

This week a special visitor arrived at Nursery! Stick Man!

The children have been listening to the story 'Stick Man' and taking parts in lots of learning related to this. The small world family tree play tray has been popular as the children retell the story using small figures.

The children have also enjoyed making stick people using real sticks and playdough.

They have been thinking about their own families and created their own family trees.

Weeks beginning Monday 28th October and Monday 4th November 2019

This fortnight we will be focusing on the story 'Room on the Broom' and looking at Fireworks, Bonfire and Diwali celebrations.

Week Beginning Monday 4th November 2019

This week the children have continued their spooky learning theme alongside an interest in fireworks! The children spoke about their experience seeing and hearing fireworks and they used different art materials to represent them.

Week Beginning Monday 28th October 2019

The children really enjoyed some spooky themed activities this week. The created their own magic potions in the witches den and water trays.

To develop strength, coordination and control in our hands the children have taken part in lots of fine motor activities this week. We scooped out a pumpkin and carved shape faces. The children drew faces on to pumpkin pictures. They used tweezers to catch little spiders.

Week beginning Monday 7th October 2019

Last week the children heard a mysterious noise in the woodlands. They decided it was a dragon! The children's thought about books, films and TV shows they had seen with dragons in them. We read the story of Zog together. The children decided that Zog always tried his best, even though he sometimes made mistakes. They were also interested in the character Princess Pearl and how she wanted to take care of others.

The children enjoyed dressing up as Princess, dragons and knights.

They mixed different items such as rice, flour and lentils in to paint to make different textures of dragon skins.

They added small parts to playdough to make models of dragons.

Week Beginning Monday 30th September 2019

This week the children have been enjoying the story of Elmer. An elephant who is a little bit different. We have been comparing and sorting and matching objects by size and colour. The children have been able to say when something is the same or different.

They also been inspired to use blocks to paint pictures of Elmer using different colours.

Week beginning Monday 23rd September 2019

The children have been listening to the story of Elmer. They have used small world characters to retell the story and spent time looking at the book independently.

Inspired by Elmer's patchwork colours the children have been sorting objects by size and colour.

As Autumn begins we have been making the most of our outside spaces including building with big bricks, cutting and mixing in the kitchen and visiting the school animals.

Week beginning 16th September

This week we have been telling the story of the Grufallo.

We have been out to explore in our woodlands and hunted for Grufallos.

Some of our older children enjoyed joining Reception and Key Stage One in the hall on Tuesday morning for Mrs Howard's assembly where we were thinking all about how we should look after our wonderful world.

The children have started to think about how they have similarities and differences with their new friends. They have been thinking about how they look and what they like. At snack time the children made faces using fruit and vegetables. There was lots of discussion about food likes and dislikes as well as how our faces have the same features (eyes, nose, mouth) but they all look a bit different.