Nursery Unit: What an extremely busy term it has been.
The children have all settled well into nursery life;
forming new friendships and exploring new adventures
such as Forest School and sports hall where they have
enjoyed both physical and mental challenges. Tree
climbing, pine cone & conker collecting/counting have
been some of the favourite activities, not forgetting
learning about the safety rules within the Forest School
…… all together now! ‘DON’T TOUCH THE FUNGI OR YOU
MIGHT GET A POORLY TUMMY’
We have studied various topics this term with
‘Autumn & Halloween being a firm favourite. The
children enjoyed exploring the nursery grounds
during an autumn walk; collecting various
autumnal objects. As well as our walk children
brought in many autumnal objects from home to
share with the class. The children really engaged
with the topic and now, even many weeks after,
are still making observations and comments about
autumn.
Our weekly sports hall sessions
continue to be a great
favourite; children relish the
opportunity to run, skip, jump,
hop and move freely in the
large hall. Many activities are
enjoyed during our visits such
as obstacle courses, parachute
games and lots of dancing and
ring games.
Lots of fun was had during our Halloween
topic; beautiful artwork was created as
well as some wonderful pumpkin carving.
A big ‘thank you’ to Leo and his family for
growing a huge pumpkin and giving it to us
to carve. The children really enjoyed
exploring the pumpkins and in particular
the messy job of spooning out the stringy
insides and using shapes to create faces.
Halloween week culminated in a fancy dress
party with amazing costumes, apple
bobbing, pumpkin decorating and ‘pin the
broom on the witch ‘and ‘pin the smile on
the pumpkin’ games.
‘Friendship week’was a lovely week with children
sharing their thoughts and feelings about each other,
taking photo’s of their special friends and explaining
why they are friends. The main intention was to
explainthat while we have special orclose friends, we
are ‘all friends together’and therefore we must all be
kind to each other and allow everyone to play our
games. Please feel free to look at our ‘friendship
display’on the carpet area with the the childrens photo’s
and adorable comments
Lots of other topics have been explored this term with ‘fire
safety week’ being a real success with the children exploring
sparklers, discussing safety issues and learning new fire safety
songs. Henry also came to show the children some of his
extensive collection of musical instruments such as the
melodeon, guitar, mandolin, snare drum, rain-stick and
glockenspiel. The children loved playing them and listening to
the sounds. Henry also showed them written musical notes and
looked at ‘high’ and ‘low’ sounds.
Our term has concluded with our performance of the
Nativity; introducing children to the story of
Christmas and learning new songs before putting it all
together to form our performance at the sports hall
on December 18th for parents and family members.
This year has been more of a challenge than usual as
we have much younger children in the group but they
really rose to the occasion. They performed and
behaved wonderfully well giving us one of the best
Christmas performances we have had.
A really big ‘thank you’ to all the parents and families
who turned out to support us; it really was a ‘full
house’ and we hope you all enjoyed it as much as we
did.
Well done! the Nursery Unit children.
Parallel Unit
We started the Autumn Term by welcoming everybody;
settling in was a bit difficult to start with but before long
everyone was settled and happy and some good relationships
have been formed.
During Mark-Making week we explored different materials
such as ‘gloop’ pens, pencils, dabbers and paints. We included
such activities as ‘wheel painting’: looking at the shapes of the
tracks the wheels left. We used large sheets of paper to draw
on and also did gluing and sticking at the easel
.
We had a week of
‘messy play’ activities;
we explored trays of
oats & water, flour &
water, ‘gloop’ and
paint. We were
learning to explore the
sensory feel and
encourage the use of
language by trying to
describe our
experiences.
In Halloween week we had pumpkin carving, colouring pumpkins and making salt-dough cutouts. We learnt that our movements can leave marks and explored lots of different colours.
We made 3D fireworks to hang in our room and the children chose the materials and colours
that they wanted to use. The glittery foam was a favourite choice. We also made firework
pictures during which the children learnt to pass an object from one hand to the other without
dropping it.
Toddler Unit: At the beginning of
the term children enjoyed
exploring different sensory
materials such as ‘Gloop’, water,
ice castles, bubbles and paint. A
favourite activity was body
painting where the children spent
long periods of time exploring the
texture of paint and learning to
notice the different marks they
made.
Another big interest has been
stories/books particularly
‘Animal Boogie’ and ‘Walking
Through the Jungle’. Children
will often try to repeat familiar
words from the stories and are
beginning to fill in the gaps in
short sentences.
A very popular theme this term has
been Disney’s ‘Frozen’. The children
have loved dressing up, especially in
the princess dresses and dancing
along to the music from the film.
They will often request the ‘Frozen’
CD; some children will even join in
with singing the songs
For the second half of the
term we learnt about
different festivals. The
children loved carving a
pumpkin for Halloween
and creating firework
pictures by ‘flick-painting
to celebrate Bonfire
night.
All of the children love playing outside on the physical equipment, especially riding the bikes, cars and
scooters. The children have also enjoyed visiting the top activity complex where they have been learning
to climb and pull themselves up onto the play equipment.
We have welcomed two new additions to the Toddler Unit during the autumn: Fairy and Black the
goldfish - please come and say hello to them.
Baby Unit: All of the children
settled well in the Baby unit
and have formed strong
relationships with their
practitioners. This term we
have been focusing on the
children’s routines; they have
adapted well to sleeping in the
prams, drinking their milk and
enjoying the nursery meals.
The older children are
beginning to learn to feed
themselves.
The children have shown a particular interest in music;
they like making banging and shaking sounds with the
musical instruments. During singing activities the children
are beginning to join in by bouncing their bodies to the
rhythm of the music and independently clapping.
Throughout the term the
children have participated
in a variety of creative
activities such as drawing,
splashing in the water,
exploring the ‘gloop’ and
making marks in paint.
The Health & Safety Bit
We have mentioned this before but make no apology for doing so again as recent events highlight this
as an ongoing problem.
http://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2014-04-16/toddler-swallows-lithium-battery/
There is a serious and increasing issue with button cell batteries. As more compact electronic devices
appear in the home, young children face a greater risk of serious injury or death from the small button
cell batteries that power these devices. If a young child or baby swallows a lithium battery, due to a
chemical reaction with the saliva, within as little as an hour it can leak acid and cause such a severe
trauma as to burn a hole in throat or stomach, causing further damage to other internal organs.
Ensure your child does not have access to devices if the battery compartment is not secure, make
certain that spare batteries are locked away, and used batteries are disposed of correctly. If your child
does swallow a button cell battery, seek medical advice immediately.
Babies love to explore the world with their mouths. These young children will come upon something
interesting, and then put it in their mouths to sample. Most of these episodes are nothing more than
happy parts of growing up. Sometimes, however, the attractive object can poison or choke the child.
And choking is the most common cause of accidental death in children under the age of one.
Please be battery aware