Explorers Nursery

Welcome to Explorers nursery

Explorers are inquisitive and imaginative, creative and curious, brave and endlessly busy!

We are exploring our world, making relationships and always hungry to find out more! We have amazing ideas, hatch awesome plans and have action-packed adventures- and all before lunch!

Meet the team

Mrs Virgo is the nursery teacher and is supported by Mrs Harris, Miss Western, Mrs Barnes, Miss Mullen, Mrs Morris, Mrs Brough, Mrs Ashton and Miss Ward.

Get in touch

If you have any issues or concerns, please feel free to get in touch and speak to a member of the Nursery team, alternatively you can contact the Nursery teacher,

Mrs Kassia Virgo: kvirgo@white-rock-primary.torbay.sch.uk

Up coming events:

Start of term - 25th April

Last day of Summer 1 term - 27th May

Non-pupil day - Monday 6th June

First day of Summer 2 term - Tuesday 7th June

Transition day - Thursday 7th July

Explorers sports day - Friday 15th July

Last day of term - Monday 25th July

Nursery closed to all children - Tuesday 26th July

Curriculum map Summer 2022

This terms theme

Be Curious...

Week beginning 27th June

We have continued to look at the beach and have introduced the RNLI and lifeguards as people that can help us on the beach and in swimming pools. The children have made patterns in the playdough with shells and used collage materials to make a large fish. We have started to practise some games and races to get us ready for sports day.

Week beginning 20th June

The Explorers have used the warmer weather as inspiration and have gone to the beach. The small world became our own beach to explore and talk about and we sold ice creams by the dozen. In smaller groups we talked about how to stay safe on the beach and the children were great at remembering their sun cream, hat, drink and staying close to a grown up. Ours maths focus has been capacity and our water trays were very busy and full of sea life.

Week beginning 13th June

The Explorers have been continuing to look at the numbers 1-5 in maths and in our phonics we have been singing our favourite nursery rhymes and learning our voice sounds, I wonder who can practise these at home? With our special cards finished and ready to go home we used the same technique to look at stained glass windows. The Explorers looked at different churches and made their own colourful designs. In the home corner we have been cleaning and the Explorers have been playing with gloop and water to experience the textures.

Week beginning 7th June

The children all settled back into Explorers quickly and were very excited to talk about their own celebrations over the half term. We used good scissor control to cut pieces of coloured paper to make a special card to go home next week. The children have been showing the many different ways they can count and matching the correct number to the amount. In the woodlands the children collected flowers and leaves to mix together with water.

Week beginning 23rd May

The children continued to learn about the Queen this week and talked about how she was going to celebrate with a special party soon. The children made their own bunting using painted handprints and glitter, decorated crowns with sequins and gems and wrote invitations. On Friday the children joined the rest of the school for a garden party, eating lunch together outside.

Week beginning 16th May

We are learning all about the Queen in nursery. We read The Queen's Hat by Steve Antony and learned the names of some of the London landmarks like 'Buckingham Palace and the 'London Eye'. The children painted Union Jack flags with fingerprints and made red, white and blue collages. As the Queen is having a special celebration soon we have all joined in with a tea party, sharing with friends.

Week beginning 9th May

The busy Explorers became vets this week and started to think about how to look after different animals. They bandaged paws, gave injections and gave a 'check up' to lots of the poorly animals in nursery. We also read the story Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins and thought about our own journeys into nursery. The children certainly see a lot of interesting things on their way in.

Week beginning 3rd May

The children have all practised using a knife to cut up fruits and vegetables. They made fruit kebabs for their snacks and tasted lots of different foods. In maths we compared amounts using words like 'more than' and 'less than'. We made the most of the good weather by using the woodlands for lots of our learning.

Week beginning 25th April

All of the Explorers and some new friends quickly settled back into life at nursery following the Easter break. Our tadpoles are getting quite big now.

We met Mrs Virgo's friend Pete the dragon who had bad toothache. The children all knew what Pete had to do - brush his teeth. The children practised brushing a set of large teeth, telling the teachers about how they brush their own at home with some help from grown ups. We played games of throw and catch with different size balls and used the woodlands to practise some maths. We also looked at mixing two colours together in the paint to see what happens.

Upcoming Events

Wednesday 5th January 2021 - Start of term

Friday 18th February - Last day of half term

Monday 28th February - First day back

Friday 8th April - Last day of term

Monday 25th April - First day of Summer term

Curriculum map Spring 2022

This terms theme

One World One Heart

Paddleboat theatre company visit 24th March

Some of the Explorers were so lucky today to have the Paddleboat Theatre Company come in to share their performance of 'Margo and Mr Whatsit'. It was about a girl called Sophia, who has an imaginary friend called Mr Whatsit. No matter where Sophia finds herself living, he's always there with a new joke to tell and a new game to play! We listened really well and had so much fun watching this. Thank you Paddleboat!

Week commencing 21th March

The Explorers have been busy watching some frog spawn that we have been given. We have talked about what is going to happen to the eggs and how to look after them. The children have shown great care towards the frogspawn and were very excited when some of them hatched into tadpoles. We have been playing games like hopscotch to keep practising our counting 1-5 outside. The children began exploring the paint using their hands, they made patterns and swirls in the colours and this was made into a pond and five frogs for display.

Week commencing 14th March

We read the story of a cat called Jaspers who planted his own bean seed. Jasper got a little bit inpatient and dug the bean up before it had a chance to grow. The Explorers decorated their own pots and then planted a seed each, they took them home and had to look after them and wait for them to grow. In nursery we planted more seeds and cared for them, the children knew they needed sun and water to grow. The children also painted flowers in bright colours of their choice and explored a duck pond. We sang songs about the ducks and frogs, looking at the numbers 1-5.

Weeks commencing 28th February and 7th March.

We have been busy reading the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and exploring the lifecycle of the butterfly. The children used the different fruits from the story to help us to count 1-5 and we played lots of turn taking and sharing games that used a die. With some brighter weather the children have also enjoyed more time in the woodlands.

World Book Day

The Explorers came in to nursery dressed up and brought their favourite books to share. We read in groups throughout the day and enjoyed stories with all of the nursery teachers. The year 5 teachers came to visit and show off their fantastic costumes and in the afternoon the Magpies class came to share stories with us. We sat and listened to the older children reading and asked lots of interesting questions about the books.

Weeks commencing 7th and 14th February

The Explorers have been reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This helped us to continue looking at the numbers 1, 2 and 3 and practise our counting in order. The children wrote cards to Baby Bear, thinking about how to make him happy again after Goldilocks had made him sad. Some wonderful friends came to our picnic in nursery - some very big bears, a few dinosaurs, a penguin, a unicorn and many more. The children told the teachers all about their favourite toys and some drew them. In the house we learned how to make our own porridge and chose a topping before eating it.

Weeks commencing 24th and 31st January

"Run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread man". We used the Gingerbread man story as our learning focus, we rolled dough and used the cutters in the home corner. We counted the number of eyes and buttons on our own Gingerbread man and ate yummy biscuits that Mrs Harris made. The children used paints to make their own picture and explored the woodlands.

Weeks commencing 10th and 17th January 2022

The Explorers have been reading, writing and re telling the story of the three little pigs. In maths they have been subitising up to the number 3 and playing number games to get to know what 1, 2 and 3 look like. The children explored swirls in paints by mixing a few colours. First we looked at the painting 'The Starry Night' by Van Gogh and then we made our own. With the cold weather outside we felt ice and went on frosty walks. This opened discussions about snow mobiles, penguins and polar bears and we looked at these too.

Week commencing 5th January 2022

We have had a busy week returning to nursery and welcoming new friends too. The Explorers have read the story of The Three Little Pigs and have been building houses using blocks, sticks and bricks.

Curriculum map Autumn 2022

This terms theme

Free to be me!

Christmas lunch 2021

The Explorers enjoyed their Christmas lunch with festive music and crackers. The hot lunch was quickly eaten up by all of the children as they wore their sparkly Christmas crowns.

Weeks beginning 6th and 13th December

The children have been busy elves wrapping presents up and delivering them to friends around the nursery, this was tricky as they had to wrap the box and cut the sticky tape! Everyone helped to decorate the nursery Christmas tree, adding baubles and tinsel also making paper chains by looping paper. We had lots of picnics and parties in the home corner, with the children sharing out the food.

Weeks beginning 22nd and 29th November

The Gruffalo has been spotted in the woodlands by a teacher and the children are determined to find it. They went on walks and spotted lots of clues that the Gruffalo may have been around so they made some Gruffalo crumble to hopefully entice it closer. In phonics we have been looking at quiet and loud sounds and our maths focus has been the number 1 and 2.

Week beginning 15th November

Kicking off the week with Odd Sock day for Anti-Bullying week we listened and danced to Andy and the Oddsocks song. We thought about one kind word each day that we could say to each other to make our friends and family happy and smile. We read the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and looked at how the woodlands are different now than the summer. We made our own Leaf people and went for wellie walks in the woods. The children collected different leaves and we used them to print patterns. We have continued looking at shapes and found lots at our snack times in our food.

On Friday we celebrated Children in Need by dressing up in our Pudsey and Blush clothing and some of the children put the donations on loose change onto the Pudsey spots in main school.

Outdoor learning day

November 4th 2021

In Explorers we always access our outdoor learning environment with free flow access to the outside area and regular visits to the woodlands and the school grounds.

For outdoor learning day the children went on a shape hunt in the woodlands, sang songs and nursery rhymes around a campfire and went on a listening walk across the field.

Weeks beginning 2nd and 8th November

We have been looking at light festivals and the way people celebrate them. We learnt that a man called Guy Fawkes is the reason we watch fire works and to celebrate Diwali people decorate their doorsteps and houses with lights and patterns. We created lots of our own artwork and decorated outside the nursery too. Our maths focus has been looking at shape names and using them in our building and in phonics we have been singing Twinkle twinkle little star and finding rhyming words. For remembrance day the children watched the cbeebies animation 'Poppies' and we painted our own poppies.

Weeks beginning 11th and 18th October

We have been looking at and exploring patterns in many ways starting with the texts My mum and dad make me laugh by Nick Sharratt and Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell. The children looked at different patterns on animals and their own clothing. To get our bodies moving we used the instruments and created simple body movements for each instrument, trying hard to remember the pattern. We started to look at repeated patterns in the woodlands with pinecones, sticks, leaves and other things we found. We also used coloured pasta and duplo blocks.

Weeks beginning 27th September and 4th October

Bill the baby owl got lost and we found him in nursery, so the Explorers have been going for listening walks to try to find his mum, brother and sister. We have been looking at the kind of home Bill lives in from the book Owl Babies and talking about our own homes. Our maths focus has been counting 1-5 and lots of children have been making their own games up with the large die outside, adding spikes to playdough dinosaurs and building towers with the blocks. For messy play we had a dinosaur swamp, the children gave the dinosaurs names and fed them the food they like as we are learning about our friends and teachers too.

Week beginning 20th September

Recycling week

This week we have been learning about how to re use some of the things we might normally throw away. The children made musical shakers using old plastic bottles and hand puppets from odd socks. With all of the recycling we also started to look at the properties of plastic and cardboard. We squashed it and pulled it to see if we could sort them apart - some items were tricky.

Weeks beginning 8th and 13th September

The Explorers have been busy getting to know their friends, teachers and some nursery routines. Can anyone remember what to do when the chimes ring? Each morning we are practising the good morning song and using makaton signs. We are learning about sharing and taking turns in small groups and through our play. There has been lots of discussion about how we are all different and what makes us special.