Dig Dig Digger

This week's story has been all about vehicles and what they do.  We have discussed what the children see on their way to school and what their favourite vehicle is.  We worked on our counting and number recognition and pencil control.  In phonics, we have been exploring what sounds our body can make, so there has been lots of clapping of hands, stomping of feet and attempting to click our fingers. 

The beautiful British weather has kept us on our toes. One day it was sun hats and the next raincoats!  But as ever the outside areas have been very popular.

            

         

Spot the Dog

This week the children have enjoyed stories based around the adventures of Spot the Dog.  We have had discussions about friendships, as Spot spends a lot of time with his friends Helen, Tom and Steve. We had a very exciting visit from the school dog Ted and the children shared their knowledge of how they think Mr Andrews looked after Ted.  I was very impressed with what they shared. 

With the glorious weather finally arriving, Plum Trees enjoyed the sunshine and the outdoor areas, and we even had an opportunity to visit the large sandpit at the other end of the school!

       

        

Meg and Mog

We have been reading all about Meg the witch and her cat Mogs' adventures this week. The children have enjoyed these stories and we have had lots of conversations around Halloween and whether the children dressed up as witches, demonstrating their recall of events in their lives.

They loved potion making in the water trays and wand making in the art areas, as well as running around casting spells.

      

   

The Wheels on the Bus

This week we have focused on the song the Wheels on the bus.  The children loved adding new verses and making new noises along the way.  We have been counting the wheels on the bus, looked at bus journeys and had discussions about travelling on buses and where they have been.  

The children have embraced phonics this week, which has been all around songs and the noises we make with our bodies.  

During child initated the children have been looking at shapes, working on their pencil control, exploring the musical instruments and testing their physical skills on the large play equipment.

        

         

Term 5

Row Row your Boat

A warm welcome back to all our families and our new starters

The song of the week is Row Row your Boat and the children have really enjoyed it. We have sung the original version and the children have come up with some funny extras to add on, which has really encouraged their imaginations! 

The children have settled back into nursery life well and had fun going on a bug hunt in the sand pit, making potions in the water tray, using their physical skills in the gardens and making pizzas from the playdough.

        

The Gingerbread Man

The final book of the term is the Gingerbread man.  The children enjoyed learning the story and then making their very own Gingerbread man. They used their gross motor skills to knead the dough and then fine motor to decorate them.

During child initiated time we have spent a lot of time outside, digging and investigating our garden, trying to find mini beasts. 

The children are loving the dressing up and this had led to some lovely role playing and adventures to the beach and shops. 

          

Five Minutes Peace

The book this week is all about the Large family and the Mummy having the chance to have a bit of peace and quiet. 

The children have loved looking at their family photos that you kindly sent in and discussing who lives in their home with them and counting how many members of the family they have. The story has been re-enacted in the book corner, using props and the children have loved it! 

In child initiated we have embraced the warmer weather and had lots of fun in the garden painting, building, making ice creams in the sand tray and washing the cars in the car wash

        

         

 

This is the Bear 

The children loved this book.  It's a rhyming story about a bear's adventure when he gets mistakenly put in the rubbish. 

The children were invited to bring a teddy in and have a teddy bear picnic.  They made their own sandwich and enjoyed sharing it with their bear. The children shared stories with bears and each other, worked on their cutting skills and rescued the bears from the maze.

            

        

10 Little Pirates

Book of the week this week was 10 Little Pirates. We loved learning all about the mischief that these little pirates got into. We dug for treasure, learnt the very important pirate "Argh" and walked the plank.

During child initiated the children have done pirate art work, rescued the ships from the sinking sand, danced like a pirate and enjoyed making the pirates dinner!

      

    

Baa Baa Black Sheep

This week's focus has been the song Baa Baa Black Sheep.  The children enjoyed learning the song and adding new colours to the lyrics.  As a class we spoke about where the wool comes from for some of our clothes and watched a clip on a sheep being sheared.  We also did some work on colours and counting the 3 bags full.

During child initiated time, the children have been busy with the dressing up, they have loved cooking dinners with the pasta and fresh herbs, sharing stories together and working on their fine motor using the chalks and smaller building blocks.

        

  

Term 4

Old MacDonald had a Farm

What a busy first week we have had in Plum Tree class.  The children have all settled in really well and got back into the swing of things. 

This week we have focused on the song Old MacDonald had a farm. 

The children have enjoyed learning the song, thinking of animals and the sounds they make.  We have played "Guess the animal" sound game and had fun moving like farm animals.

During our child initated times we have embraced the great British weather and done lots of outdoor learning, mud pies were a big hit!  We have had tea and coffee making too. Lots of constuction and working on our cutting skills as well

        

    

 

The focus over the last 2 weeks has been around the books Dear Zoo and Poo in the Zoo

The children have loved these books and learning all about zoo animals. We have looked at the animals in their natural habitats too.  Poo in the Zoo was a very funny read!!

The children have been busy during Child Intitated time in both indoor and outdoor environments.  Making use of all the space we have. 

      

      

This week's focus has been the 2 songs Incy Wincy Spider and 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.

The children loved learning the words to these songs and the actions.  We spoke about the various weather mentioned in the Incy Wincy song, and then we did some simple counting to support the 5 little monkeys song. 

During child initiated we have been very busy, making the most of the dry weather and spending a lot of time in the gardens and on the bikes

      

    

This week we have learnt all about "The Three Little Pigs".

The children loved the story and bought it to life using our story spoons. They especially enjoyed learning about the phrase "I'll huff and I'll puff and blow your house down!"

It has been very chilly this week so the children wrapped up warm and enjoyed investigating the ice trays we all made.

Lots of painting and working on our scissor skills too

    

        

  

A warm welcome back Plum Tree class and a warm welcome to our new families

We settled back into nursery life and read the book Fox's Socks.

The children enjoyed the rhyming of the words and trying to guess what word was coming next. 

We have been crafting, investigating and had a PE lesson too.

       

      

It's Christmas!

Plum Tree class has been busy celebrating Christmas and having all sorts of fun.  It was lovely to see so many parents coming for the Christmas workshop. The children had great fun at the Christmas Fayre and meeting Father Christmas.  Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and New Year Plum Tree Class 

      

  

This week the focus has been the story of "The Brave Little Penguin".  This is a story about a penguin who has to overcome her fears to rescue her brother.  The children really enjoyed it, and we discussed what they might be nervous about and how we could be braver when we are a little worried. We also spoke about it being OK if we are worried and that we can help each other feel braver.

The children made penguin pictures, icy pictures, investigated the bubbly water to discover the arctic creatures and had fun investigating the blue ice. 

We also had a really exciting visitor from the ZooLab!  The children had the opportunity to meet all kinds of creatures including a corn snake, a frog, a giant land snail and a cockroach!  The children were very brave.

 

 

 

 

This week we have focused on the songs "Wind the Bobbin up" and "Humpty Dumpty". You may have heard these at home.  All the children have picked up the songs and actions well.

We had a busy week during our learning times and made the most of all the areas available to us.  The children loved colour mixing in the garden, investigating the sandpit and seeing what they could bury.  There have been some lovely teamwork moments, where the children have worked together to achieve their goals.

The great British weather has meant lots of rain, so there has been lots of puddle jumping and investigating.

We also managed to squeeze in a PE lesson where we worked on our colours and ball skills and baked some yummy cupcakes too!

 

This week's focus book has been the classic Three Billy Goats Gruff.  

The children really enjoyed it, they loved the repetition of each goat trip trapping over the bridge and the troll popping up!  

We spoke about sizes and counted the goats.  We looked at the features of the troll and whether he was friendly or not.  The children loved re-enacting the story using our small world too. We also learnt that goats eat everything!  The children loved using some of what the goats might eat on the art table.

The children have done a dough disco to work on their finger muscles and had a great time learning inside and outside.

This week's book has been Titch.  A beautiful story with the message that you don't have to be big to make a big impact! 

We chose activities linked to the book, created kites using a mix of techniques, planted cress and compared sizes. There has been lots of construction this week too, using a variety of resources.  The children have been busy in our outdoor spaces too, enjoying the autumnal sunshine. The children loved having a huge box to investigate too, climbing in, drawing on, sparking lots of imagination! And we had PE with Mr Copeland, what a busy week!!

We marked Remembrance Day too with art work and watching a short, age-appropriate program. 

Welcome back Plum Tree Class, I hope you have had a fun week off and are ready to begin an exciting new term.

This weeks focus has been on the lovely book 'Guess How Much I love You' The children have enjoyed listening to the story and joining in with the actions of stretching their arms wide and reaching up high and also telling me how much they love the people who are important to them. We had a spooky filled day on Tuesday for Halloween, the children loved scooping out the slimy contents of the pumpkins, having pumpkin seeds in the sensory tray and making masks.  In Peach Trees they loved making spooky spider crispy cakes and finding the eyeballs in red spaghetti. On Friday we spoke about Bonfire night and made rockets and watched some firework displays! What a fun filled week!

 

For our final week we have been learning the song 'If you are happy and you know it....' and spoke about what make us happy.  We had lots of lovely answers including Mummy or Daddy cuddles, sweets, going to the park and chocolate! The children loved having a go at making Gingerbread men this week, they listened so well to the instructions and followed what was said. I hope they enjoyed eating them as much as they enjoyed creating them!  Looking forward to seeing what amazing learning happens next term. Have a great break! 

This weeks focus has been the story of the Ugly Duckling.  We spoke about being kind to each other and how sad the little duckling must have felt when everyone was mean to him.  This led to lots of speaking about how we can be kind to our friends and what makes us happy.  The children enjoyed collaging and painting on duck pictures, making eggs from the playdough and putting them into egg boxes.  The new muddy area has been very popular, as has the indoor sandpit. There has been lots of creative building, using large and small blocks and the children have love being outside in the large shared area.

We carried on the dinosaur theme this week and looked at a book called 'That's not my dinosaur'.  This encouraged lots of talking about different textures.  The children enjoyed investigating a treasure basket and found it very exciting to have a go and see what they could pull out from underneath the blanket!  The children loved the playdough this week too, we added fresh basil to it and encouraged the children to practice their scissor skills to cut their own, they were very sensible.  Although the weather wasn't the best, we managed to get outside in our wet weather gear and enjoy the rain!

This weeks focus has been on the book 'Hugasaurus', all about a little dinosaur who starts school and wants to help his friends sort out their differences.  We spoke about the importance of being kind to each other and helping our friends.  So this week there has been some lovely sharing, looking after each other and being kind.  The children have spent a lot of time outside and using the large equipment in the bigger garden too.  Another busy week!

 

This week we have been reading the book 'Hug', all about a monkey looking for his hug and seeing all the other jungle animals hugging.  We spoke about who lives in the jungle and learnt the '5 little monkeys swinging in the tree song', which the children loved!  The children had their first PE session this week too, which they all loved.  We worked on how to follow instructions and then different ways to warm up or bodies and then moved onto ball skills!  

We have been learning a new song this week, and it was 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'.  You may have heard this at home too.  The children have been very enthusiastic about it, and we have sung it many ways, including loudly, quietly, fast and slowly.  They picked up the dance moves and added a few of their own.  The children enjoyed building train tracks, investigating the lentils by tipping and pouring them, we used musical instruments and spent time outside in the garden using our muscles to move the tyres.

Welcome to all the new children joining us and to our returning children.  It has been a very busy first week and the children have all settled well into their new routines.  There has been lots of investigating of the resources available and even though the weather has been very warm, there has been lots of opportunities to learn outside.  We even managed to have an ice cream for snack too cool down.  I am looking forward to seeing all the amazing learning that is going to happen over the next term.