This week...

Worship

This week we have concluded our branch ‘To the Ends of the Earth’. Our key words this week were celebrate, God’s children and family.

We looked at the early Christian community and the ‘Good news of Jesus’. Fellowship means being good friends and helping each other. We spoke about all the ways we are kind and help each other in Nursery.

As the first Christian community was being formed, many miracles and wonders were being done through the apostles, and everyone was filled with awe.  All the believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their belongings with one another.

They would sell their property and possessions, and distribute the money among all, according to what each one needed.

Day after day they met as a group in the Temple, and they had their meals together in their homes, eating with glad and humble hearts, praising God, and enjoying the good will of all the people.  And every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.

We watched this video to help us to understand: Click here.

We continued our Worship by watching this video about what a church looks like. Click here. . After this we went to our chapel in school to see if we could spot anything similar. We discussed going to church with our families and what we saw/did while we were there.

Silly hat and sock week!

A fabulous Silly Hat and Sock week!!! It has been great fun seeing everyone wearing their inventive hats and socks. Thank you everyone for joining in the silliness whilst raising funds for charity.

Learning Landscape

This week in our learning landscape we have:

• started to make Fathers Day surprises! You are in for a treat daddies.

• completed number challenges

• made hundred squares using numicon

• played on the swing that Mrs. Tierney has let us borrow.

• made a HUGE spider web to crawl under, over, and in between.

• started to Fred talk…we have completed the sound fort his year, we just need to practise.

• threaded small beads to practise fine motor skills.

  and best of all…had a jolly good time at nursery.

On the first week back don’t forget it is Sports Day (Wednesday 10th, be in before 9am) and the Gym Jam Jog (Friday 12th 8am- details are on your sponsor form). Please note: the children remain your responsibility until they are signed in to nursery as usual).

Lastly, have a great couple of weeks off and recharge your batteries in readiness for a REALLY busy last half term of the year!

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week we have continued our branch ‘To the Ends of the Earth’. Our key words this week were Christian, community and Sunday. Our child-led worship on Thursday focused on Ascension and Pentecost.

We looked at a picture of some people with flames above their head. The children said the words disciple, Jesus and fire. One child also said, ‘Jesus went up to Heaven’ which led us into our discussion about Jesus going back to Heaven, and the start of the Christian church. We heard that Pentecost was the ‘birthday of the Church’. After Jesus returned to Heaven a rushing wind and tongues of fire appeared, filling them with joy and courage to spread good news.

We watched this video: click here.

We started to make people in the workshop area to look just like ourselves. We thought about our eye colour and what we like to wear. We discussed how we are all God’s children and connected in God’s family. We all look different but God loves us all. We are going to attach them around our picture of the world, holding hands to show how we share God’s love with one another, just like the first Christians.

This week we have been having prayer and liturgy in the chapel too!

Learning Landscape

A different sort of week. To help our wonderful Year 6 children have quiet and stillness during SATs week we have been exploring the rest of the school and all our shared spaces.

We have:

• held prayer and liturgy each day in the chapel

• practised our climbing, crawling and balancing skills on the trim trail

• had outdoor PE with Mr. Nay, where we have been getting ready for Sports Day!

• played and did our learning in after school club…we loved it!

• visited Forest School, which we always love. Mrs. Tierney put out lots of activities for us to do

• continued our learning adventures in nursery too

• discussed David Attenborough’s 100th birthday and created some collage animals for our display. We even had our picture taken with him!

• for the month of Mary we have all made Mary decorations and a giant Rosary for our Worship area.

Sports Day

On last weeks blog I mistakenly said that Sports Day was on June 3rd…we are on holiday then, oops, sorry. Sports Day is in fact on June 10th 9.15 am. All children to be in nursery no later than 9 am! If it is not your usual session please collect your child immediately afterwards. Please make sure your child is wearing shorts, t-shirt, trainers and has a water bottle and sun hat!

Silly Hat and Sock week is next week!

Have you got your hats and socks ready! Remember that everyone can pay £1 (or more) for each day you attend nursery and come dressed in outrageously silly hats and socks. We are hoping to raise lots of money for the Lymphoedema Support Network, please help us.

Can you help out?

Next half term we are hoping to create art using natural resources. We would welcome donations of any picture frames (minus the glass) to make the designs we make more ‘professional’. Thank you in anticipation.

Half Term

Don’t forget that we break for the half term holiday Friday 22nd May until Monday 8th June.

Have a fabulous weekend and hopefully the sunshine will make and appearance!

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week we have continued our branch ‘To the Ends of the Earth’. Our key words this week were parish family, Holy Spirit and Pentecost.

We continued talking about Pentecost, looking at some clues to see what we could retrieve from our learning last week:

I am bright but not the sun, I flicker, dance, and warm everyone. At Pentecost, on heads I came, can you guess my fiery name? Flame

I dance in the trees and make kites fly, you cannot see me, but I rush by. At Pentecost, I blew so strong, bringing the Spirit to everyone! I am… Wind

We then watched Little Liturgies from The Mark 10 Mission, all about Pentecost: Click here.

Our child led worship this week was about ‘Mary Queen of Heaven’. May is traditionally dedicated as the Month of Mary. We had a look at different images from different countries showing Mary and Jesus. They were all different but the children still recognised them as Mary and Jesus.

We watched this video all about The Queenship of Mary: Click here We ended our Worship session in our prayer garden, using our Rosary beads to say the Our Father, Hail Mary and the Glory Be.

We watched this video all about The Queenship of Mary: Click here . We ended our Worship session in our prayer garden, using our Rosary beads to say the Our Father, Hail Mary and the Glory Be.

Learning Landscape

A shorter week but no less learning!! We have:

• made an ice cream parlour

• explored 3D shapes- cone, cube, cuboid and sphere!

• played ‘what’s my number’ with numicon patterns

• made ‘what’s my number’ with number blocks

• been exploring with our explorer bags!

• visited forest school and made wind socks

• made Mary, Queen of Heaven paper models as well as paper flowers for the school worship area

• made the biggest rosary ever!!!

• built and balanced sparkle bricks to make a castle for our fairy tale people

  and so much more…all in four days!!!!

Nursery sundries donation

Could everyone please ensure that your termly £10 sundries donation is paid for via Parent Pay and not with your nursery fees. Thank you for your cooperation.

Upcoming dates for your diary!

Silly hat and sock week week commencing 18th May. Come to nursery everyday wearing silly socks and a silly hat and pay £1 each day. All proceeds to Lymphoedema Support Network. Let’s make our charity event a huge success!

Half Term holidays. School closes Friday 22nd May until Monday 8th June

Sports day Wednesday 10th June 9.15 am. All children to be in nursery no later than 9 am! If it is not your usual session please collect your child immediately afterwards. Please make sure your child is wearing shorts, t-shirt, trainers and has a water bottle and sun hat!

Have a lovely weekend everyone and I will see you all on Monday.

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week we have continued our branch ‘To the Ends of the Earth’. Our key words this week were parish, Holy Spirit and Pentecost.

We began by watching a video all about Pentecost Click here.

The Holy Spirit came to the disciples at Pentecost.  It looked like flames and sounded like the wind. We had a picture of the 12 disciples and 12 flames with numbers on them. We worked hard and put the numbers in the correct order above their heads.

Our child led worship this week focused on the Holy Spirit. We had a picture to look at – the Holy Spirit was represented by a dove. We spoke about how we cannot see the Holy Spirit but we can feel it inside us. We also noticed that we say ‘the Holy Spirit’ when we make the sign of the cross. We watched this video, click here to watch at home.

Our prayer leaders led us beautifully in prayer and we finished by saying the Hail Mary.

Learning landscape

This week we have been busy bees exploring 2D ‘shapes’ We have:

• talked about each shape and what makes them that shape as well as their names; corners, curved sides, straight sides, short sides and long sides

• been on a shape hunt

• sorted shapes and joined them together to make different shapes

• drawn each shape

• visited forest school- we love going to forest school

• met numbers beyond ten…tricky!

• continued designing our Sports Day t-shirts. They are looking fabulous!

• played in the garden; going on bug hunts, using the big outdoor water play, making a cafe in the sand, checking on the tadpoles and the snail hotel

• …and most importantly have had lots of fun in the sun!

Silly Hat and Sock Week!

Don’t forget that Silly Hat and Sock week is coming up, get your hats and socks ready! Let’s make this a fantastic week!

Sports day

EYFS Sports Day is being held on Wednesday 10th June at 9.15 am. Please make sure you child is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, trainers, sun cream and a hat as well as bringing a bottle of water with them. Each child will have their bespoke t-shirt ready to change into when they arrive at nursery.

This event is open to all the children but please can you let us know if your child is unable to attend or you feel they may be unsettled as it is a very busy and loud event.

Finally, I’ve got the BBQ fired up and I am hoping for a relaxing Bank Holiday Weekend! I hope you are too!

Have fun and stay safe.

God Bless

Barbara

This week...

What a week! The sun has been shining and we have been taking full advantage of it! It is so lovely to be able to shed some layers of clothing!

Worship

This week we have continued our branch ‘To the Ends of the Earth’. Our key words this week were parish, Holy Spirit and family.

We spoke about how we can be like Jesus and be a good friend. Who are your friends?  How do they look after you?

We worked together to make a Friendship jar. We discussed the recipe - this recipe shows us what we need to put into a friendship to make it happy and strong. We had 6 word cards with friendship qualities on them – kindness, sharing, listening, saying sorry, helping others and taking turns. We also added special gems, crosses and coloured pom poms. We all had a go and adding an ingredient and mixing it up, discussing how we can be a good friend.

• “What’s the most important thing you’d put in a friendship?”

• “How does it feel when someone is kind or shares with you?”

• “What can you do if a friend forgets one of these ingredients, like taking turns?”

• “Where do Christians meet their friends and pray to God?” The parish church.

Our child led worship on Thursday was about the Ascension. After looking at our image, the children knew it showed Jesus ‘going up’ or ‘rising to heaven’. In the words of the Gospel we heard that the people worshipped Jesus and felt great joy. In the video we heard that Jesus ‘will always be with us’. We are like Jesus each and every day. Click here to watch at home.

Learning Landscape

In keeping with the glorious weather that God has sent us this week we have:

• been planting sunflowers/meadow seeds to make our garden a rainbow of colours in the summer!

• readying the garden by pulling up weeds and watering the plants

• looking for minibeasts, especially snails for our snail hotel

• keeping a close eye on the tadpoles…they are getting so big but no sign of back legs yet

• visiting Forest School to finish making our flower light catchers

• playing with the parachute on the school field

• using the BIG outside waterplay! We have have made waterfalls with umbrellas, found out how to make the water wheel work without touching it, used the hose pipes and cascade planks to create a water system.

• made road signs for our roads and roundabouts…we even made a petrol pump (don’t get excited it’s doesn’t dispense fuel!)

In our indoor learning landscape we have:

• been following postitional language instructions. Positional language (prepositions) refers to the place where something or someone is, often in relation to other things, such as over, under, beside, or beneath. Teaching the children to use positional words will build their ability to follow and give directions and use language accurately. We played some great games!

• learnt some new sounds x, z, qu, nk and ng…amazing!

• been using number to solve problems

• experimenting with shape

• using cards to tell our own stories. The children are getting really good at this

• been making stretchy goo

• creating symmetrical ladybirds from playdough, buttons and straws

As you can see we have been even busier than usual. Enjoy the sunshine this weekend and we will see you on Monday for another busy week!

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Welcome back to the final term of the year, the year is flying by!

The children have started the new term with the same enthusiasm that they left the Spring term with. Everyone is eager to learn and have lots of new adventures. This half term we will be fining out about ‘Mini Beasts. We have already started to root around the nursery garden and forest school to see which creatures we can find! The children want to make a snail hotel; so we are on the hunt for snails. I think they disappear when they hear us coming!

Worship

This week we have started our new branch ‘To the Ends of the Earth’. Our key words this week were Friend, God and Father.

We spoke about how Jesus returned to his Father. One of the friends said Jesus went to heaven and said Jesus is also the Holy Spirit. We watched this video about the Ascension: Click here to watch at home.

When someone welcomes the Holy Spirit into their heart, they are close to God.  His love surrounds them. We spoke about they key words we had heard – Father, God, Holy Spirit and friend. We added these to our Worship display and will add to this as we learn more over the next few weeks. We attached them to a cloud. We thought that heaven was in the clouds, and what a peaceful place it must be.

We heard that Jesus promised to always look after everyone and send a special friend, the Holy Spirit. This led into our child led worship on Thursday, where we learnt about the parable of the faithful servant. (Matthew 24:42). We had a look at some images and one of them had a picture of someone giving someone some food. We discussed how Jesus came to serve us, help us and teach us and we must now do the same. We serve others and Jesus by being ready, responsible, making good choices, being kind and good. We should make these good choices even when nobody is watching.

Learning Landscape

Nursery looks a little different this week…there are minibeasts everywhere! We have:

• Made a minibeast exploring table

• Played a describing minibeast quiz game. Some of the clues were a bit tricky but we got there in the end.

• Told stories by sequencing cards. We even made up our own silly stories!

• Explored numbers to 10! We found out which numbers we can put together to make ten, using number rods. Watch this video to have a go at home. I must say the children were ahead of the game with their number bond work! Fantastic!

• Visited forest school and made sun catchers.

Home Link activity bags

Each week we have been sending home hand strengthening activity sacks to help prepare your children for mark making and writing. We currently have three sacks which have not been returned. This means that other children cannot play the games. If you receive a bag could you keep it for one night and then return the bag the following day for another child to take home. Thank you for your understanding.

Silly Hat and Sock Week

Every year nursery raises funds for a charity that is close to our hearts. This year we have chosen the Lymphoedema Support Network. ‘The Lymphoedema Support Network (LSN) is a registered charity and the UK’s national patient support charity for those living with or affected by lymphoedema.’

The Lymphoedema Support Network takes the lead role in supporting and empowering people with lymphoedema by providing a high standard of information and promoting self-help. Since its inception in 1991, when there was very little information or help available for patients, the LSN has evolved into an independent and influential charity. As a charity run by people with lymphoedema, the LSN has a real understanding of the lived experience of the condition which it uses to inform its work.

We really want to help raise money for this charity as we currently have a child in nursery with childhood lymphoedema and we would like to say thank you to the LSN who have supported the family. Please get in volved and lets make lots of money! All details are on the poster below.

The sillier the better!!!!!

Looking forward to more fun and learning next week. Have a great weekend everyone and we will see you on Monday.

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

Holy Week

It has been a sombre yet joyful week at nursery. We have joined the whole school in the Holy Week assemblies. Together, we have walked alongside Jesus from His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to His final hours on the cross and then the culmination of Holy Week, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The older children have depicted this using words dance drama so very beautifully you couldn’t help but be moved emotionally.

Learning Landscape

The children have had a fun packed week full of Easter celebration activities. We have:

• played pin the tail on the bunny (that was great fun!)

• sang Easter songs

• created using Easter craft resources

• joined Reception for an Easter Egg Hunt!

• joined in the Easter egg raffle

• met the chicks that Year 2 have hatched

• joined a hot cross bun gathering with Reception

• played hot potato/mashed potato!

• …and had a jolly good time!

This term has been the most amazing twelve weeks. The children’s learning has been off the scale! They have started to demonstrate everything we have been learning since September. When we return after the Easter break we will be pushing forward to achieve even greater things! I would like to thank you all for your support of nursery and all the hard work you put in at home to help your child’s learning at school It is greatly appreciated.

I hope you all have a Happy and Holy Easter, not too many eggs!

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week we have continued our ‘Desert to Garden’ topic with ‘Easter Sunday’. Our key words this week were HOLY WEEK, EASTER SUNDAY and NEW LIFE.

We began with a video, ‘God gave us Easter’ Click here. 

We are all great at re – telling the Easter story and talking about how sad Jesus and the people must have felt.

In our child led worship on Thursday we had pictures to look at. They represented the 14 stations of the cross. Some of us remembered going around school and seeing the stations of the cross that the children had made, and some of us said we had seen them in church. We watched this video, click here to watch at home.

The video had questions to really make us think about how Jesus felt and how we might face the same challenges in our life. ‘How do you think Jesus felt when he didn’t have any of his friends around him?’, ‘Have you ever had to do something that was really hard?’, ‘What helped you when you felt like quitting?’, ‘What do you think Jesus felt when he fell in front of all those people?’.

Learning Landscape

An exciting week at nursery. Mrs. Tierney brought us some frog spawn! We have been finding out how to care for the tadpoles that will emerge and eventually grow into frogs! It does take a long time though, we must be patient. We have made a small pond in the nursery garden to watch for any changes. We will keep you posted!

Also, Mrs. Hotchkiss in YR2 has hatched some chicks, we can’t wait to meet them.

Nursery has lots of Easter challenges for the coming week. We have been:

• filling and matching eggs (to make them whole) in the special Easter sand

• carefully picking up Easter hens and placing them carefully in egg cups…mmm I wonder how many hens there are?

• creating Easter pictures using all our Easter crafts

• bunny counting and looking carefully for similarities and differences…this was a bit tricky we had to look very carefully

• meeting Number 10!!!! We have lots of fun with 10. Everyone has been making number bonds to ten, our learning is on fire!!

• counting how many parts there are in the magnetic apples

• visiting Forest School. We particularly enjoy swinging in the hammock!

• climbing and jumping on the apparatus in the hall

• and much much more….take a look at the photos

Easter Egg Raffle

Raffle tickets are now on sale in nursery for £1 a strip. Just send in the correct amount and we will do the rest!

Lenten Boxes

Can everyone please send in your filled Lenten boxes so we can get everything totaled up! We are hoping for a bumper amount this year.

Cafod Walk to Nigeria Sponsor forms

Could you also send any donations and monies regarding Cafods Walk to Nigeria in to school next week. Nursery have been walking daily around the field and have collectively walked 126.6 miles!!!! Wow!!

Finally, have a lovely weekend everyone and a big thank you for all your support with all our Lenten charity events and almsgiving. It is very much appreciated.

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week we have continued our ‘Desert to Garden’ topic with ‘Holy Week’. Our key words this week were HOLY WEEK, JESUS and GOOD FRIDAY.

During our lessons this week we discussed Holy Week and how Jesus must have felt. We watched this video, click here, that showed us a simplified version of key events in Holy Week, in particular Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

We also watched this video all about Holy Week: click here and looked at some images to help us discuss key points to remember.

Our child led worship this week focussed on Good Friday. We spoke about how it was such a sad time. The children remembered that Jesus had a crown of thorns, they saw the blood on his hands and also remembered that Jesus died and was placed in a tomb. We thought about the questions,

Who helped Jesus to carry His cross?

Which day did Jesus die?

Where did they place Jesus’ body?

We finished our worship session listening to  a hymn click here to listen.

The children said they found this one calming, and one child said it made them think of Jesus and being sad.

Learning Landscape

A week full of sunshine, fun and learning. We started the week by finding out about the artist Monet. We watched a short Powerpoint to find out some key facts. Click on the button to watch at home.

We then recreated his style using a computer programme and also paint1 take a look at our display.

Inspired by Monet

We have also been very busy designing a Guatemalan carpet for Holy week

Completing some extremely tricky puzzles…they really did need some fathoming out

Practising our sounds AND writing them!

Visited Forest School

Making Easter cards

Growing flowers on the Touch TV

Practising numbers on the IPad

Fairy filling using tiny bottles and spoons

Replicating Monets garden using our flower building game

and much much more!

Own Clothes Day and bring and Easter Egg

Monday 23rd of March is own clothes day where you choose your clothes (nothing too extreme please) and donate an egg to our Easter Raffle!

Easter Pottery Event

Also, don’t forget next Thursday (26th) is Easter pottery event at 3.30pm. Each piece of pottery is £10. You will need to complete your order form on Mrs. Gregan’s blog and then payement will be on Parent Pay.

I’m really hopeful that this glorious sunshine stays for the weekend, I may even fire up the BBQ!

Have fun!

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week we have continued our ‘Desert to Garden’ topic with ‘Lent around the World. Our key words this week were CARE, LENT and WORLD.

We were very excited to open up some letters this week! We had 4 letters to open that told us all about how different people celebrate Lent around the World. We heard from Luca in Italy, Sean from Ireland, Anaya from India and Sofia from South America. It was so interesting to hear about the things they did.

Our final letter was from South America. Sofia told us all about what they do at the end of Lent, just before Easter. They make beautiful flower carpets using colourful flowers, leaves and dyed sawdust and work together to make beautiful pictures in the streets. We also watched a video that showed us the Holy Week processions in Guatemala. Click here to watch.

We made our own beautiful carpets in Nursery. They look amazing! The children really enjoyed choosing different colours and adding flowers.

Our child led worship this week was about Palm Sunday. The children remembered lots of our previous discussions and knew that the people waved palms, shouted Hosanna and one of our friends even remembered that we use the palms to make the ashes for next year!

We used our little people and set up Jesus’ procession through the people on his donkey.  We all said, Hosanna! Hosanna! Finishing with singing ‘Sing Hosanna!’. We love this song! We spoke about how joyous it must have been when Jesus arrived on his donkey. 

Learning landscape

Another week of finding out and experimenting.

We have continued with our investigation of heavy and light using balance scales, we are get good at predicting what will happen and how to rectify problems

We have been exploring ‘capacity by using lots of different sizes containers and jugs to measure water from one container to another, using the words full, empty, nearly full and nearly empty . The children have also been designing their own boats and testing them to see if they float or sing in the large water trough (with mixed results!).

As always we have enjoyed our number work! I am amazed at the mathematicians we have in nursery! I have really tried to trick them with some difficult games, but I can’t.

Mummies I hope you liked you Mothers Day card and biscuits. The children have been very eager to give them to you.

In the garden we have started to plant seeds ready to create a array of colourful flowers in our garden this summer.

The children that visited Forest School with Emma made some beautiful threaded hanging decorations.

To accompany our theme of growing we have made a fruit and veg shop…it’s rather expensive though…hundreds of pounds for an apple!

Food bank donations for March - Biscuits. The foodbank have seen a significant surge in demand at their food bank over the past few weeks, making it increasingly challenging to meet the needs of those who rely on their services. Let’s help where we can!

Easter Events in School

Easter will soon be upon us and in traditional Our Lady’s style we have a new event for the occasion, as well as our Easter Egg Raffle.

On Thursday 26th March we have organised another Pottery Event after school where you will have the opportunity to paint Easter themed pottery. There will be refreshements too. Just like Christmas, it is £10 per person. Please complete the form below booking for this event.

On Monday 23rd March, it is own clothes day but to bring an Easter Egg for the raffle!

Lastly, I think everyone has earned a good rest this weekend! Enjoy the time you spend with your loved ones.

Stay safe and God bless.

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week in Worship we have continued our ‘Desert to Garden’ topic. Our key words this week were CARE, LENT and GROW.

Our first session began with a lovely story called ‘Penguin and Pinecone’ Click here to watch. In the story Penguin shows love and care by planting Pinecone in a place where it can grow. Over time, Penguin’s love helped the Pinecone grow into a big, strong tree. We have continued this theme by planting seeds in our garden and adding playdough blossom to twigs…new life!

We then saw some photos of a baby – can you remember who the baby in the photos was? Just like Penguin, this grew big and strong because of the love and care from her family. It was Barbara!

Lent is a special time to care for others with kindness and love. When we help someone, share things or say kind words, our love grows, just like Pinecone grew into a tree and Barbara grew into a caring and loving nursery lady!

Lent reminds us that when we care for others, we grow closer to Jesus and help make the world more loving.

Our second session this week we heard about the Good Samaritan. Lent is a time to care for others, and we can help and be kind to everyone. Jesus said, “Be like the Samaritan. Love others and help them when they need you.”

We also heard about ‘Jesus and the woman of Samaria’. We saw a picture of the woman with Jesus at a well, and had a think about what they may be doing there. We heard words from the Gospel (John 4:42), “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the World”. We thought about and discussed the question, ‘How can you show Jesus’ love to others through your actions this week?’

We have concluded our sessions this week by praying in our prayer garden around our statue of Mary. Some of us have chosen to this ourselves as well throughout the day. It was so lovely and peaceful.

Throughout the week we have been collecting steps towards Cafod’s Big Lent Walk. Each day we have been walking around the school field. The CAFOD Big Lent Walk 2026 invites individuals, schools, and parishes to walk 200km during the 40 days of Lent to raise funds for fighting poverty, including projects supporting communities in Nigeria. Funds raised help combat widespread poverty, conflict, and climate issues, while supporting water access and empowering women and girls.

The stations of the cross

This week we all went on a pilgrimage around school to visit the stations of the cross. At each station we discussed what we saw which helped us to understand more about Jesus’ journey to the cross. The children were so moved they haven’t stopped talking about it.

Learning landscape

A week full of experiments with questions such as; what will happen if? what do you think? can you tell me? We have been:

• balancing objects using balance scales using words like heavy, light, and balance.

• predicting which objects will sink or float?

• following instructions to recreate images using magnetic tiles

• using number patterns to 9 to fill the numicon boards. Yes, nine a new number! The children were sooooo excited. We are now finding out about number 9

• following cue cards to build flowers

• using the iPad to complete matching games

  and next week we will be learning some new letter sounds!

World Book Day

A great day at nursery! Everyone came dressed as their favourite book character…well done everyone! Take a look at our pictures!

Lastly, have the most wonderful weekend, fingers crossed the sunny weather will continue.

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week in Worship we have started our ‘Desert to Garden’ topic. Our key words this week were LENT, SORRY and ASHES.

Our first session began with a story about a tree and the changing seasons. We looked at the trees outside and whether they had any leaves on them yet. We also went on a spring walk and discovered all the things that are changing.

Just like trees change through the seasons to grow and get ready for new leaves, the season of Lent helps us change and get ready for new beginnings with Jesus at Easter.

Our child led worship on Thursday was about Ash Wednesday. In our worship bag we had a picture of some ashes and we thought about what they could be. Some of us thought they looked like smoke and some of us remembered going to church and having ashes on our head. Here is a video we watched: Click here.

The ashes were holy ashes and they are God’s blessings. The ashes marked the start of Lent. We spoke about Lent being a time to say sorry and think about how we can be kind to each other in Lent. We made our Lenten promise – we listed all the ways we are going to be good in Lent around our big heart – kindness, loving, sharing, forgiving. If we do these things we will get a smiley stamp in our heart. Lets see if we can fill it by Easter! We’ve already got a lot!

We have loved learning a new song this week – Sing Hosanna! Here it is so you can play it home. We loved it! Click here.

We have also been focusing on Jesus’ cross. We have recreated different versions out of resources we have in nursery…and even our bodies! Take a look at our pictures!

On Monday and Tuesday the children visited Forest school to look for signs of new life, we spotted the trees budding, Spring flowers (crocus, snowdrops, daffodils).

On Wednesday we swapped our Lenten boxes with year three. All we have to do now are multiple acts of kindness for donations! Last year the school raised £1000…no pressure!

Learning Landscape

Such wonderful week. Everyone has returned to nursery full of life and raring to go!

In our learning landscape this week we have been:

• Painting Nigerian art in readiness for the World Day of Prayer next Friday.

• Planned that we will be walking once around the field in the morning and the afternoon to collect miles for Cafod’s Big Lent Walk. Between the whole school we would like to walk 4,200 miles! Look our for the sponsor form which was sent home this week.

• Played guess my number, a game show where you don't count, you see the amount! Join the Numberblocks and learn how to recognise numbers of things without counting them. Have a try at home, maybe using different objects click here

• Played the ribbon box game where we had to predict if the ribbons thatw ere pulled from the box were ‘long’ or short’, that was great fun!!

• Played Silly Soup (a rhyming game), matched the rhyming objects from a sack and even rhymed our names to make nonsense names. We are getting good at rhyming…have a play at home, its fun!

• Practised our numbers to eight and the sounds we have learnt so far. Keep a look out for the QR codes coming home so that you can practise at home too!

• Used the ten frame for the first time. We found out that 4 and 4 added together makes 8, as well as 6 add 2, 5 add 3 and 8 ones’!

As always a busy week. We have been so busy we haven’t managed to do everything that we planned. Have a rest this weekend next week will be even busier!

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week in Worship we have concluded our ‘Galilee to Jerusalem’ topic. Our key words this week were WELCOME, JESUS and CARE.

We began by recapping our story from last week, about Jesus feeding the 5000. Jesus loves and cares for everyone. He welcomed everyone and taught us to share what we have with others. We showed how well we know the story by working out the missing parts and ordered the pictures in the correct order.

You could have a think about these questions at home –

‘When Jesus shared his food with his friends, how was he showing love?’

 ‘How do you feel when you help someone?’

‘How can we show love to someone we don’t know very well?’

Our child led worship on Thursday also focused on loving others. We heard words from John 3:18 – ‘Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth’. We spoke about how we can show love through our actions. We can be kind, loving, we can share. We passed a hug around our circle – this made us all smile! How can you share your love at home?

We finished with the song ‘My Lighthouse’ – why not play it at home and see if your child can remember the actions – we love it! Click here

Lenten boxes

We soon will be starting our journey to the cross, preparing ourselves for a time of solemnity and self-reflection where we recognise our failings and resolve to live a more godly life based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. During Lent, we are going to be focused on "almsgiving," which means donating money or goods to the poor and performing other acts of charity.

As in previous years we ask that each child decorate a Lenten box which they can swap with a child from our partner class (yr3). Then, during the Lenten period your child can perform acts of kindness, helpfulness and generosity for a donation into their box. We will then return them to school and donate the money to Cafod.

It is important that each child decorates and brings in a Lenten box to ensure that each child in year three will receive a box. Thank you as always for your support.

Please bring you decorated box back to nursery straight after the holidays for swapping

Learning Landscape

Another busy week!

In our learning landscape this week we have been:

Practising numbers to 8

Practising our sounds AND learning some new ones, e, l, h, sh and r. Some children have also started to Fred Talk using the sounds that they have already learnt! Fantastic!!!

Reading a Bubbly Troubly story and decided to make lots of bubbles and use soap to see if they would ‘pop’ and disappear! The recipe in the book was ‘bubbles + (block) soap = pop’! We did make lots and lots of bubbles but…..they didn’t pop! They just made more bubbles!

Begun to notice the start of new life in our garden everyone has painted a observation painting of some daffodils

Using the iPad and Touch TV to complete matching, number and pairs challenges

Don’t forget nursery and school will be closed next week. We return on Monday 23rd February. Have the most wonderful half term.

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week in Worship we have continued our ‘Galilee to Jerusalem’ topic. Our key words this week were LOAVES AND FISH, BASKET and JESUS.

We listened to the story of Feeding the 5000, John 6: 1-14. The story reminds us that Jesus wanted everyone to be fed, not just His friends. We passed round a basket of paper fish to represent Jesus feeding us all and then decorated our fish for our worship book. We remembered our word from last week – miracle. It was a miracle that there was enough food for everyone.

Our child led worship focused on looking at an image of Jesus. We noticed that Jesus was with some children. Some of us said that Jesus looked like he was helping the children. We thought about the question – ‘What do I want to say to God?’. Some of us thanked Him for family and friends, another child asked Him to look after the world. We also asked the question – ‘What scripture does the image remind you of?’ I explained that scripture is words from the Bible and teachings about God. The children said, Amen, The name of the Father, love and caring for each other.

Learning Landscape

A fun week at nursery. We have:

• made gooey slime-sorry is your child came home messy and sticky, but it was good fun. We made up our own recipe!!

• been completing tricky puzzles, we even did some on the Touch TV (space themed of course)

• visited forest school for more water colour paintings

• completed our Alien display

• had a sneaky peek at our new set of phonemes….ooooh it is so exciting, we can’t wait!

• completed lots of number and shape challenges

• wriiten our own story all about and alien called Jessie, ask your child all about it!

• and met number 8!!! Numberland is rocked by the arrival of superblock Eight, known to his friends and fans as Octoblock. Click here to watch. For an extra challenge discover ways to make eight with the Numberblocks. In the video the terribly naughty Terrible Twos are making custard pies and Octoblock is all tied up. Can his friends save the day? Click here.

Lenten boxes

We soon will be starting our journey to the cross, preparing ourselves for a time of solemnity and self-reflection where we recognise our failings and resolve to live a more godly life based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. During Lent, we are going to be focused on "almsgiving," which means donating money or goods to the poor and performing other acts of charity.

As in previous years we ask that each child decorate a Lenten box which they can swap with a child from our partner class (yr3). Then, during the Lenten period your child can perform acts of kindness, helpfulness and generosity for a donation into their box. We will then return them to school and donate the money to Cafod.

It is important that each child decorates and brings in a Lenten box to ensure that each child in year three will receive a box. Thank you as always for your support.

I fear its going to be wet and chilly this weekend so wrap warm and get those wellies on!

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week in Worship we have continued our ‘Galilee to Jerusalem’ topic. Our key words this week were BLESS, GLORY, EARTH and PRAY.

We heard the story of how Jesus welcomes the little children. You can watch it here: Jesus welcomes everyone, and we can be like Jesus by being kind to everyone we meet. We looked at some pictures and spoke about the meaning behind them:

Jesus in a manger –This highlights that Jesus was born into humble circumstances and visited by people from different backgrounds.

Star – A shining star in the night sky. The star guided the wise men to Jesus, symbolising that His birth was for everyone, even those from distant lands.

Children around the world – Representing the idea that Jesus was born for all people, regardless of where they come from.

Jesus with open arms – Symbolising His love and acceptance of everyone, showing that He is the Son of God who welcomes all.

The children remembered this story when we came together for child led worship on Thursday. We had a picture of Jesus with many people and the children thought it might be Jesus with the children. We then took out 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread and we realised it was a different story from the Bible. We discussed if it would be possible for Jesus to feed lots of people with just that amount of food? We listened to the story and Jesus made the food feed 5000 people! We spoke about a new word – miracle! Jesus performed a miracle! Jesus thanked God when he did this, just like we do before we eat our lunch at Nursery. How can you help people just like Jesus did?

Learning landscape

Wow, what a week! We have had great fun doing our numbers and exploring shape space and measure! We have:

• used our funky fingers to help astronauts escape the tangle of wool, we found this difficult

• used number patterns to seven to fill the numicon boards…this is getting easier

• used tweezers and pom poms to complete number boards to 7

• practiced our writing of sounds and numbers

• painted all kinds of aliens. We have made a fabulous display, take a look when you come to parents’day!

• made gloop (cornflour and water) and had messy hands moments…great.

• groups of children joined story dough and made aliens

• made alien words and sounds using the kareoke microphones…very funny

• started to write our very own alien story

• danced with the cherry tots in the hall. This week we were quick and slow cherries

Parents’ Day

Don’t forget Parents’ Day on Friday 13th February! Have you booked time slot yet?

Jewellery

In line with school policy, could you please make sure that your child is not wearing any jewellery for nursery please.

Neli to build children’s vocabulary, listening and storytelling skills

It has come to my attention that Coastal Community Hub are offering ‘Story Explorers’ sessions - The Short Sighted Giraffe will be held at Park View 4U on February 4th. Suitable for ages 2+, take an interactive walk around the park, crafting, discovering and singing! Message The Coastal Collective page or email Sarah.schofield@thecoastalcollective.org.uk for bookings or more details. Check availability as it gets booked up quickly!

We start a new book today at Neli Preschool Storytime! Posy is invited for a sleepover at Pip's house, but has she forgotten to pack anything important? Monday, 1 till 3, Park View Pod. Suitable for preschoolers and older toddlers.

All our community activities are free of charge! We'd love to see you there!

World Book Day

2026 is the National Year of Readin with every child knowing their reading identity- what is it that makes them excited about reading?

For World Book Day your child can come to nursery dressed as their reader identity. Your favourite book or character…you choose your reading super power!!

Also, that week we will be having a Julia Donaldson story week, lots of rhyming and lots of fun!

Snacks

I know that a hot snack on a cold day is a great thing but we have noticed that some of the children are struggling to eat their lunches. If your child has a small appetite it may be an idea just to provide fruit, i will leave the decision up to you!

Book Bags

A quick reminder that it would be useful if yopur child had an Our Lady Star of the Sea blue book bags. It is becoming increasingly difficult to store back packs and they are a tripping hazard.

I thinks thta’s everything for this week. Have a great weekend and see you on Monday

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week in Worship we have continued our ‘Galilee to Jerusalem’ topic. Our key words this week were WELCOME, LOVE and JESUS. This week was the story of Jesus welcoming the children. The session began with asking the children to consider the ways they might welcome a new child into their class e.g. smile, offer to play, sit next to them. This was such a lovely way to begin the week as we have welcomed new children into our nursery – we are so happy to have some new friends!

We listened to the story of Jesus welcoming the children and discussed how Jesus loves everyone and came to Earth for us all. This fed into our child led worship on Thursday where we discussed Jesus being the light of the world. We thought about how we can be followers of Jesus – being kind, helpful, looking after our family and friends. In our floor book we drew ourselves around a picture of Jesus to visually represent Jesus welcoming everyone. We added our ideas of how we can follow Jesus, linking to the idea that we, too, can show love and welcome others in our words and actions.

Learning landscape

A fun week!

• We have been building rockets using magnetic shapes; we had to follow instructions which was tricky!

• We have visited forest school and have used water colours to capture the natural environment.

• We have complete tasks at Story Dough time, we made jumping giants!!! Story Dough is a sensory medium to develop oral storytelling, vocabulary, imagination, and fine motor skills in young children; acting as a playful, "pop-up" literacy activity full of joy, adventure, and nonsense.

• We have had fun counting and learning how to make sevens with the Numberblocks. We watched a short video in which we met the fluffies! One finds a friendly furball, two of them tickle Two and soon Numberland is full of fun and fluffies! Click here to watch at home and see if you can make ‘sevens’ at home. We used the numicon to practice making sevens.

• Lots of ICT this week. We have used paint programmes to design a shape rocket and the IPad to play rocket number games.

• We have also been practicing writing ‘a’ (round the apple and down the leaf) and number 1 (one line down like a stick makes a 1, that was quick). Don’t forget your duck fingers everyone!

Parents Day

Parents Day is being held on Friday 13th February. It is your opportunity to come along to nursery and speak to your child’s key person or Barbara (Senco). The interview sheets will be available from next week to book your time slot. If you are struggling to come along on that date please let us know. We look forward to seeing you.

Have to most wonderful weekend

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara

This week...

Worship

This week we discussed the gifts that the Three Wise Men brought to Jesus. To show how special Jesus was, the Wise Men gave Him three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These were very special presents that showed they believed Jesus was a king and very important.

The first gift was gold. Gold is shiny and precious, like a crown for a king. This was to show that Jesus would be a special king.

The second gift was frankincense. Frankincense is something that smells really nice, like a candle or perfume. They gave this to show that Jesus was very special and that people would pray to Him.

The last gift was myrrh. Myrrh was something people used when someone was very sick or had died. This gift showed that one day Jesus would die to show His love for us.

We then played ‘Pass the Love game’. We passed the love all around our circle of friends

Learning landscape

A great week exploring and finding our.

We continued our investigation of triangles…all different types of triangles. We played a game using triangle to make lots of different shapes, great fun and some odd looking shapes.

Our interest in space passion has not abated and this week. When talking about the moon we discovered that there is less gravity on the moon! and that:

Gravity Pulls Things Down: Even on the Moon, things don't float away because gravity still pulls them.

Moon is Smaller: The Moon is smaller than Earth, so its gravity is weaker, like a gentle tug instead of a strong pull.

Feeling Lighter: Because the pull is weaker, you weigh less on the Moon (about 1/6th your Earth weight), so you can jump much higher and take giant, slow-motion steps.

Earth vs. Moon: On Earth, a ball falls quickly; on the Moon, it would float down slowly. 

This led us to explore forces such as magnetism, and material properties, using lots of magnetic resources to explore pushing, pulling, attraction, and repulsion. We found lots of objects around nursery and in the school hall!

We have learnt five new sounds c, k, u, b and f. We are spotting them everywhere. Can you see them when you are out and about at the weekend? At nursery we have been doing a shape sort!

Our maths concept has introduced a new word…more and fewer. We have been looking at objects in a jar and comparing if there are more or fewer objects in the jar. It was a bit tricky at first but we are getting there…fewer is a new word.

Blue Our Lady book bags.

Owing to a shortage of space in our entrance could you please ensure that your child brings a school books bag and not a back pack. They are becoming a tripping hazard as they often do not fit in our storage box. Thank you for your support.

Have a restful weekend and see you on Monday.

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara

This week...

Welcome back everyone and a Happy New Year!

Worship

We started the week by finding out about some special people who wanted to celebrate Jesus’ birth. We listened to a story called ‘A very Noisy Christmas’. Click here to watch at home. We all made lots of noise to cheer, sing and shout for Jesus! Jesus was born as a gift to all, symbolising hope, love, and salvation for everyone. Christians around the world celebrate Christmas to remember this, mirroring the joy of the angels, shepherds, and wise men who came together in Bethlehem to witness and rejoice Jesus’ birth.

On Tuesday we celebrated the Feast Day of Epiphany. Using our worship sack we all chose an object which would help us understand the scripture Matthew 2:1-12, which refers to the Magi from the East; foreign astrologers who followed a star to find and worship the newborn Jesus, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Learning Landscape

This half term our ‘Learning Landscape’ has changed…we are learning all about space and our Solar System! We have already started to learn the names of the eight planets and some of their properties! We know that the sun is a hot star and planet earth only has one moon! We are well underway creating a wall display to show everything we are leaning about.

We have recreated the moon landing in one of our sand trays and also made a reading rocket planetarium, we have to use torches to see and there are stars twinkling in the darkness!

We have also been learning about ‘more’ or ‘fewer’. We have been playing a tricky game where the children have to say is Sam or Pat have more or fewer objects…we are finding the word fewer difficult to grasp but just like Sadie Spider we keep trying!

This week we have explored the shape ‘triangle’. We have been trying to tessellate lots of triangle shapes joining and fitting them to gether. One friend noticed he had made a hexagon! WOW!

Everyone has been practising their pencil hold and have been writing patterns we are getting so good…keep going everyone.

Meet Lucky Number 7

On Wednesday we met number 7! We watched the video before we started our exploration of the number.

• We experienced the relationship between 7 and the other Numberblocks.

• Practised counting numbers to 7 and started to use ordinal number names (first, second, third).

• We noticed that 7 is also related to the number of the colours of the rainbow and the days of the week.

• As with previous numbers, seven is created through adding one to the previous number, combining six and one. Each consecutive number is one more than the previous number.
  

I am sure you will agree that 2026 has started with some gusto! Next week will be even busier!

Have a lovely weekend everyone and I will see you all on Monday!

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

It's party time!!

A week full of Christmas party fun! We are all exhausted. We kicked off with the Christmas Raffle with LOADS of prizes. Well done to the lucky winners!

The Christmas party on Thursday was FANTASTIC! We all came dressed in our finery and played party games and had a jolly good dance. We even had a visit from Father Christmas…he also brought us a little gift because we were all on the good list…yay!

At snack time we had Christmas buns to celebrate Baby Jesus’ birthday. We sang happy birthday and gave Him three ‘quiet’ cheers.

For party day afternoon we joined KS1 for a movie afternoon in the hall

Take a look at our wonderful photos.

The fun continued on Friday with the annual staff panto! It’s the children’s favourite even of the year. It’s the best have looked all year!

On behalf of all the nursery team may I say a HUGE thank you for all your kind words and generous gifts this Christmas. It is truly overwhelming. Thank you.

All the staff love your children so much and it is a privilege to be able to play a part at the start of their education journey. The fact that each one of you trust us implicitly with the care of your child is a reward in itself.

This term has been joyous and full of challenges and learning. Each and everyone of us have grown our brain and I for one cannot wait for 2026, to see where our learning will take us

Have the the most wonderful Christmas and New Year.

May God bless you and keep you safe.

Barbara