Book Festival Day 2024

New outdoor play equipment

The children have really enjoyed exploring our new outdoor climbing equipment this week. They have had lots of fun while developing their climbing, balancing and gross motor skills.

4.3.24 Mother’s Day

Look at our fantastic artwork that we made for Mother’s Day!

6.3.24 World Book Day

We celebrated World Book Day with lots of reading of our favourite books. Some children dressed up as their favourite story characters and there were some fantastic costumes. One of our very talented parents made us a wonderful story sack for ‘Room on the Broom’ and the children thoroughly enjoyed picking the characters and props out of the bag to help to tell the story. We were very lucky to have a visit from the children in Year 3 and 4 who came to share a book with the Nursery children. We enjoyed story times with our teachers who dressed up and shared their favourite stories with us ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ and ‘Supertato.’

February 2024

26.2.24 Polar animals

This week we read the book ‘The Penguin who Wanted to Fly.’ The children played with the Polar animals in a sensory tray of ice and shiny materials. They used snowflake shapes to make patterns in the blue play dough. At group time we investigated different ways to melt the ice and rescue to polar animals frozen inside of ice cubes. Some children created snow and ice scenes using white and shiny collage materials. We also mixed different shades of blue using blue and white paint to create arctic sea scenes.

Vehicles and ramps

Lots of children in Caterpillars enjoy playing with the vehicles and making ramps so we decided to make our own road track for the vehicles and had lots of fun.

Early mark making

We love to paint

12.2.24 Valentine’s Day

This week we read the story ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ and talked about the people we love. We made Valentine’s cards to take home and give to our loved ones. At snack time we decorated our own biscuits with pink icing and sprinkles. We used different techniques to make heart pictures such as collage and painting. We rolled different sized balls into paint to make a marble effect by putting the balls and our paper into a box and shaking them in different coloured paint. We made heart shaped sun catchers to display on the window and have enjoyed watching the spring time sun shining through the different colours. On our Valentine’s display is a giant heart which we stuck patterned hearts onto and named someone that we love. At group time we practised using scissors safely to cut patterned hearts to create a heart collage. In the sensory tray we made love potions with water scented with petals.

We love to read

Last week our story of the week was Nobot the Robot. This week the children are still enjoying looking at these books together. They have heard the story lots of times so now they can use the pictures to retell some of the story independently.

5.2.24 Chinese New Year

This week we found out about Chinese New Year. We used red and gold collage materials to create Chinese lanterns and dragon masks. In the sensory tray we explored coloured rice with chopsticks. We listened to and danced to Chinese dragon music. Some children used repeating colour patterns to make shape dragons. At snack time we tasted Chinese food and talked about our likes and dislikes.

January 2024

Sensory spaghetti

Some of the children found some worms outside while digging in the wet mud. The next day we explored the spaghetti in the sensory tray. The children used lots of language to describe how the spaghetti looked and felt. They used their hands or the tweezers to handle the spaghetti.

Vehicles and ramps

The children have enjoyed using the vehicles and putting them down the wooden ramps to see which would go the fastest. Next we decided to roll the vehicles in the paint and observe the patterns they made on the ramps.

Process art – Bubble wrap painting

The children had lots of fun using the paint to paint the bubble wrap. It felt bumpy and sometimes it make a popping noise as we painted it!

Learning through play

Well done to all of our January new starters who have settled really well into their new Nursery. We are very proud of you!

Where’s My Teddy?

This week we read the story ‘Where’s My Teddy?’ We had lots of fun using circle shapes to make teddies using different media. The children made teddy bear masks, teddy collages and even used rice cakes, bananas and raisons to make their own teddy bear snacks.

Kipper’s Toybox

This week we read the story ‘Kipper’s Toybox.’ We talked about our favourite toys and looked at some old toys. We made collage pictures of toys such as teddies and dolls.

Nobot the Robot

This week we read the story Nobot the Robot. We used different media such as junk materials, construction and paper shapes to create Robot models and pictures. We practised programming the bee-bots to make them move to a partner or under a wooden bridge without knocking it over. We also explored other mechanisms to make toys move such as push and pull vehicles. At group time we used magnets and sorted objects into magnetic and non-magnetic groups. We used magnetic tiles to create 3D models and made patterns and pictures with magnetic shapes onto metal baking trays and tins.

PE

We have been practising our climbing, jumping and balancing skills to travel over, along, under and off the climbing apparatus. We are learning to be brave and have a go at new things and also how to climb carefully to keep ourselves safe.

Melting ice

It has been very cold and icy this week. We investigated what happens to ice when it melts. We sprinkled salt and dropped water onto the frozen ice and observed what happened.

July 2023

Sports Week

We had a great week and lots of fun exploring different sporting activities. We used a variety of different bats and balls, we used bean bags to practice throwing, used the larger balls with the netted hoop and had lots of different races.

21/6/23

Dinosaur Week

We have loved exploring dinosaurs in various ways, we have created fossils, created dinosaur pictures using pasta and painted our representation of a dinosaur.

The highlight of learning about the dinosaurs has got to be our visit from dinosaur man Mark and meeting the baby T-Rex Dexter.

May 2023

Climbing Frame

We love exploring the climbing frame in various ways, developing our gross motor skills.

22/5/2023

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

One of our favourite stories in Caterpillar nursery.

15/5/2023

The Teeny Weeny Tadpole

We enjoyed reading the story and beginning to show some understanding that we can do something if we keep trying.

8/5/2023

The Very Greedy Bee

We have been reading the story ‘The Very Greedy Bee’ in which the bee over slurps. We have been talking about what bees need to survive and how we can help them. We create pictures using tissue paper, creating a simple repeated pattern. We continue the bee theme outside and create more pictures using natural materials, using yellow flowers to create the bees stripes on black paper.

1/5/2023

The Kings Coronation

We celebrated across the week making crowns to wear, ribbon sticks to wave and had a little party/picnic with some special treats.

24/4/2023

The Tiny Seed

We have been looking at growing and differences when things grow such as flowers and beans/seeds. The children have been looking at flowers, we talk about their stem, leaves and petals and create a representation of how they see the flower when painting it for themselves.

We have been talking a lot about seeds and what they need to grow and in the story it tells us about the different things that can affect seeds as they try to grow. We plant some tiny cress seeds in cotton wool instead of soil like in the past, to see how they grow, we keep the cotton wool damp and watch as cress appears.

17/4/2023

Jack and the Beanstalk

This week we read the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. We planted beans and know that we will need to water them to help them grow, placing them in the green house, waiting and watching for them to grow. In group time we explored height and measured each other and placed ourselves into order from tallest to shortest. We also enjoyed a different kind of beans, enjoying beans on toast for snack.

27/3/2023

Easter

We had lots of fun this Easter. We went on egg hunt outside and found lots of eggs that the Easter bunny had hidden. We melted chocolate and mixed it with cereal to make delicious Easter nests. We found out about the tradition of egg rolling, we decorated hard boiled eggs and had lots of fun rolling eggs down the hill to see which egg rolled the furthest.

Hope everyone has a lovely Easter Break.

20/3/2023

No-bot the Robot

This week we read ‘No-Bot the Robot’ and we created robot heads using crackers, soft cheese and vegetables for the face features, these were very yummy when we enjoyed them at snack time.

13/3/2023

Whatever Next!

This week we read the story ‘Whatever Next!’ is which baby bear makes a rocket and takes a trip to the moon, we create a rocket using 2D shapes. Baby bear takes sandwiches for a snack to the moon  and we enjoy making some jam sandwiches for snack just like in the story.

1/3/2023

World Book Day

This week we celebrated World Book Day, the staff and the children were invited to come to the Nursery dressed as characters from a story and there were some excellent costumes. We had lots of story times and read some of our favourite books independently, with an adult or in small groups and had story time in the hall, lying on the mats under a blanket. We had some special visitors from the older children who came to the nursery to read us some stories.

27/2/2023

Where’s My Teddy?

We have been reading the story ‘Where’s My Teddy?’ in which the bear and boy lose their favourite teddies. During free mark making the children are asked if they would like to draw a picture of their favourite teddy or toy that they have at home. The children are prompted with questions such as “what is your favourite?”, ” what is it called?” and “how does it make you feel?”. The children then draw their representation of their toy or teddy.

13/2/2023

The Treasure of Pirate Frank

This week we read the story ‘The Treasure of Pirate Frank’ we drew our own pirate maps and dyed the paper with tea bags to make them look old. We also had a go at drawing a map to show our journey from home to nursery. We talked about the things that we see on our journey and in a small group we worked together to create a big map.

6/2/2023

We’re Going On A Bear Hunt

Chinese New Year 2023

This week we are finding out about Chinese New Year. We made hand print dragons, paper lanterns and colourful rice shakers. We listened to traditional music and used colourful material to dance and move along to. At snack time we tasted some prawn crackers with different sauces. We developed our fine motor skills, using tweezers to remove pom poms from cotton wool length imagining they were noddles and using our fingers we copied traditional symbols in fine sand.

23/1/2023

Lost and Found

This week we are reading the story ‘Lost and Found’  where a boy helps a penguin to find his way home to the south pole. We create penguin pictures using a template, giving the tummy different textures like in the ‘That’s not my,’ stories.  We explored different ways of breaking and melting ice to recuse the small world animals from the blocks of ice.

9/1/2023

Commotion In The Ocean

The children created an under the sea picture, we used various tools such as spongers, roller, brushes and added tissue paper for texture. We then created fish to add to the artwork making the colourful with pencils and felt tip pens.  We also created bright coloured jelly fish using paper plates and tissue paper.

January 2023

We have loved returning to nursery after our Christmas break, being back with our friends having lots of fun.

December 2022

Merry Christmas

November 2022

Stick Man

October 2022

Colour Mixing

We have been exploring colours and mixing them to make a new colour. We paint each hand a different colour printing them onto the paper and then mixing them together by rubbing our hand together and print the new hand print. We talk about what we think might happen when we mix the colours, what colours we have made and what it feels like on our hands.

The children enjoy the activity and show great excitement and surprise when they create a new colour, the children used lovely language during the activity some naming the different colours, some needing a little help but beginning to show some good understanding.

Putting on Coat

Please find a short video of one of our Caterpillar children demonstrating how they are taught to put their coat on.

1. The children are asked to put their hoods in front of their toes.

2. Then guide the children, helping to put their hands into the top part of the coat sleeves.

3. Once their hands are in the base of the coat sleeves, they swing their arms over their head. At this point their arms should fit into the sleeves of their coat leaving the coat in a position to fasten.

Please can you help your children to do this at home, we would really appreciate it.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask a member of staff.

Thank you,

The Caterpillar team.

September

This September our Caterpillar children have enjoyed taking part in lots of different learning activities.

We have explored the outdoors finding pine cones, acorns and leaves, we have painted lovely pictures and colour mixed using our hands with different coloured paints, made pizzas and so much more.

Enjoy looking at the pictures to see our adventures.