The nursery children have had a fantastic and very busy week! They have continued to enjoy opportunities to explore the nursery, as well as the wider setting and are settling into routines really well. 

Each day, in addition to their free flow, independent learning time, the children have been getting fully involved in small group activities, which have focused on different areas of learning.  These activities have provided lots of opportunities to:

• Develop their listening skills and awareness of sounds in the environment; for example, they enjoyed going on a listening walk with Mrs Edworthy (- communication, language & literacy)
• Focus on walking in different directions and to a variety of speeds; for example, on Tuesday they focused on walking backwards with Mrs Maloney, whilst looking over their shoulder! It was a tricky thing to do, but they did brilliantly! (- physical development: gross motor)
• Develop their fine motor control; for example, using their hands to feel an object in a feely bag and name it without looking, with Mrs Satterly (- physical development: fine motor)
• Find and match objects that are the same; for example, the children went on a bear hunt to find matching bears with Miss Mills (- mathematics)
• Explore making marks on paper using wax crayons with Mrs Saunders (- physical development and art)
• Listen to the story of the week, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The children enjoyed listening to the different character voices and joining in with the repeated phrases, with Miss Bradbury (- communication, language & literacy).

Thinking ahead to next week, we have lots of lovely things planned for our learning but in the meantime, we – the nursery team – wish all our families a lovely weekend.

Wow, what a busy and full week it has been! Your children have all done so well for their first full week at school and we expect they will be very tired!

We have been focusing on the traditional tale of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, which is a very popular story with the children, they enjoyed joining in with familiar phrases and putting on voices for the characters, especially the hungry troll! We have also learnt the Makaton signs for ‘goat’ and ‘walk’ this week.

The children are starting to get used to our routines in school and are trying their best at following our superhero rules. We have also been practising our listening ears and looking eyes when sitting on the carpet. During independent learning, the children are becoming confident with navigating around our indoor and outdoor spaces where they have been cooking a variety of delicious meals in the role-play kitchen, creating stories in our small world play and drawing colourful pictures.

The children are now becoming confident with going to the hall to have their lunch and remembering to say thank you when their food is served. To further support their independence, perhaps you can practise using a knife and fork when they are eating their meals at home.

Please have a look at the home learning that has been attached to find some fun activities to do at home. It links to our story of the week which will be ‘So Much’ by Trish Cooke.

For your information:

This week, we have started the Reception Baseline Assessments (RBA).  The RBA is ‘a short, interactive and practical assessment of your child’s early literacy, communication, language and mathematics skills when they begin school, using materials that most children of your child’s age will be familiar with. It became statutory for all schools from September 2021.’  More information about the RBA can be found using the following weblink: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1074327/2022_Information_for_parents_reception_baseline_assessment.pdf