Autumn 2022

Autumn 2 Week 7

This week we explored the story 'We're Going on an Elf Chase'.

We even went on our own 'elf chase' around the hall! We went on the same journey as in the story, travelling in these ways - waddling like a penguin, tiptoeing past the robins, crawling underneath the polar bears' cave and clip-clopping like a reindeer.

We also had a special visitor in Nursery this week!...

Autumn 2 Week 6

On Monday we arrived to a surprise - our classroom had been decorated with Christmas decorations!

This week we have shared the story 'Dear Santa' and tried to join in with retelling it using words and actions.

Our activities this week have been Christmas-themed, including decorating a real Christmas tree, making a playdough Christmas tree, thinking about/drawing what we would like to receive inside a present, role-play in the Christmas dressing up clothes and building a sleigh for Santa. In Snappy Maths, we have continued and created lots of different Christmas-themed repeating colour patterns.

Autumn 2 Week 5

This week we have begun to explore the theme of 'Christmas'. We shared the story 'Is It Christmas?' by David Prater and choose from some Christmas-themed activities such as creating snowman and Christmas tree pictures and making decorations for our classroom. Each family group has an advent calendar and we have been taking turns to open one door on it each morning.

Our Maths focus this week has been to continue a simple repeating colour pattern. Some of us have been able to copy and continue a pattern using the cubes.

Autumn 2 Week 4

This week we shared the story of 'Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs Go To School'. We explored the theme of 'dinosaurs' through our child-initiated activities; making dinosaur models, drawing, cutting, printing and painting pictures of dinosaurs, moving like a dinosaur, etc. We learnt to sing and sign the 'Finger Family' rhyme, which also had a dinosaur twist!

In the story, Harry's bucket was 'full' of dinosaurs. In Snappy Maths this week, we explored capacity. We learnt about empty, half full and full.

Autumn 2 Week 3

This week we shared the story 'Dinosaur Roar!' which is about the differences between dinosaurs. We used actions to help us to recall the opposites in the story (e.g. short and long) and to help us understand some unfamiliar words within the story (e.g. 'meek' and 'fierce'). In our Snappy Maths sessions, we compared the sizes of some toy dinosaurs, using the vocabulary 'little'/'small' and 'big'/'large'.

In our child-initiated activities, we explored our dinosaur theme in lots of ways, such as...

- Small world/construction: Building a home for a dinosaur

- Creative: Painting and collaging pictures of different dinosaurs

- Playdough: Making dinosaur prints and footprints

- Puppet Theatre: Making the dinosaur toys move and talk, making up stories with the dinosaur toys

- Mark-making: Drawing dinosaurs using pencils, pens, chalks and in the glitter tray

- Physical development: Moving like different dinosaurs do

Autumn 2 Week 1

On Monday it was Halloween so our nursery rhyme this week has been 'Incy Wincy Spider'. Lots of our child-initiated activities have been linked to spiders and cobwebs, as you can see in our photos:

Autumn 1 Week 7

Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week has been 'Jack and Jill' and we have sang and signed it throughout the week. During our Family Group Time, we have sorted objects by colours or shape into Jack's 'pails' (buckets) and compared which bucket has 'more' objects and which has 'fewer'.

During our 'Choosing Time' we have explored activities linked to Jack and Jill:

- Going 'down the hill' with the cars and ramps

- Making a 'full' bucket by matching coloured counters or counting scoops of sand

- Creating a Jack or Jill face using 2D shapes

- Drawing and mark-making pictures from the rhyme

This week we have also been reflecting on the nursery rhymes we have learnt so far and talking about which is our favourite. We have also learnt about the celebration of Diwali, which will happen during the half term break.

Autumn 1 Week 6

Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week has been 'Hickory Dickory Dock'. We practised singing the rhyme and, with a little help from Mr Tumble (see link below), we learnt and practised the Makaton signs too!

CBeebies: Something Special - Hickory Dickory Dock - Nursery Rhyme - YouTube

Lots of our activities this week have linked to 'Hickory Dickory Dock' - matching numerals 1-12 onto a clockface, using the instruments to make music to accompany our singing of the rhyme, choosing a variety of materials and colours to collage pictures of mice, using large and small construction toys to build our own grandfather clocks. Lots of us really enjoyed playing 'What's the Time, Mr Wolf?!' with the teachers - we practised recognising the numerals 1-12 on the flashcards and counting out that amount of steps. Some of us then took turns to be the wolf!

We have had an exciting addition to our outdoor resources this week... some real tyres! The adults checked that the tyres were safe and then lots of us helped to clean the tyres. The tyres have been VERY popular so far! We have used them in lots of ways - rolling, stacking, climbing and balancing!

Autumn 1 Week 5

This week we learnt to sing and sign our Nursery Rhyme of the Week - Baa Baa Black Sheep.

We explored the nursery rhyme through our play - colouring and collaging sheep, drawing sheep, using tweezers to create a cotton wool sheep and exploring 'full' (three bags full) in the sandpit and outside using the giant Numicon shapes. We also practised singing the rhyme on our own, using the musical instruments.

Our Reading Spine book this week was 'Dear Zoo'. We talked about why each animal wasn't a suitable pet and some of us talked about pets that we have ourselves at home.

Autumn 1 Week 4

This week our activities have been linked to our Nursery Rhyme of the Week - I Can Sing a Rainbow.

We practised recognising and matching the colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink. We created rainbows in a variety of ways, indoors and outdoors, using colouring pens/crayons, chalk and construction toys. In the sandpit, we practised making rainbow (arch) shapes using different tools.

We also read the story of 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?' in which we saw many different colours of animals. The sentences in the story repeat, which helped us to try to join in with retelling the story together.

Autumn 1 Week 3

This week we have been exploring activities linked to our Nursery Rhyme of the Week - Pat a Cake.

We learnt to sing and sign Pat a Cake. Then we designed our own cakes, built cakes, mixed cake mixture in the sandpit and used musical instruments to practise singing Pat a Cake by ourselves.