A rainy, blustery week!

A funny sort of week at nursery, the weather has definitely taken a turn for the worst. We better start thinking about wellies and winter woolies!

Nonetheless, the children have been undeterred to brace the elements. Our outdoor sand pit is now a mud kitchen, we think it is even better now!

This week has seen the launch of the new ‘What to Expect, when?’ document for parents. The purpose of this booklet is to help you as a parent/carer find out more about how your child is learning and developing during their first five years, in relation to the EYFS.

Children develop more rapidly during the first five years of their lives than at any other time. This booklet has been written to help you as a parent know what to expect during these vitally important years by focusing on the seven areas of learning and development which are covered in the EYFS. Click on the button below to find out more.

The children have been loving an old favourite story, Little Rabbit Foo Foo. As promised on the newsletter here is the link to watch the video. I bet the children will be able to join in! Click here for Little Rabbit Foo Foo.

…and now for your favourite part of the blog…

I am pleased to say that Colette will be back at nursery next Wednesday, in the meanwhile Clare has been compiling photos of Colette’s key children.

Clare’s (and Colette’s) blog

This week we have been deepening our learning on our emotions. We each took a group of photos acting out each emotion and discussed when we experience these emotions. These photos are on this blog, see if you can work out which emotion is which! You may want to play acting out each emotion with your child.

Clare

Hannah’s blog

Some very rainy days have given us the chance to explore more of our lovely nursery classroom this week whilst we couldn’t play outside. It has been nice to watch the children be creative with different things! We have had skeleton jigsaws to piece together, magnet creations that crossed the whole length of the nursey when linked up and some fast cars whizzing down ramps that we have built. Lots of us managed to identify that fruits and vegetables were indeed healthy in our shopping basket game, but were a little more puzzled when it came to deciding if fish fingers and ice creams were healthy or treat foods! This has been such a fun game to play with the children whilst we share ideas about which foods are sugary and might not be as good at helping our bodies grow big and strong! We did spot that brushing our teeth is really important too, along with exercise and a good night’s sleep!! Well done everyone on another fun filled week at nursery.

Hannah

The children look so happy and are eager to try lots of new activities.

Worship

This week we have been thanking God for the gift of our oceans. Together we thought of sea animals that live in the ocean and came up with 29 different creatures! You may want to see how many you can name at home.

We also asked the children why Earth is called the blue planet? Please ask your child, as I know they would love to tell you why. We then watched a short video full of sea creatures and thanked God through prayer for his wonderful gift of oceans. Click here to watch the video at home.

Next, I have just a few snippets of important information for you.

Firstly, could we ask that you do not park close the corner of Kenilworth Road junction at drop off and collection times. It makes it difficult for cars turning in and out of the adjoining roads as well as putting children crossing the road at risk. I fully understand that these are busy times and parking is difficult but please help us keep our children safe.

Secondly, this year Tempest photography will be taking individual photographs for all classes (including nursery) on Wednesday 13th October. Unfortunately we are unable to accommodate family groups or children who do not attend nursery on that morning.

Lastly, as you will know all parts of society are struggling with supply and delivery and school catering has not been immune. Over the past two weeks Jacqui, our cook and her team have tried to problem solve as deliveries have been late or have not arrived and I have to say they have done a fantastic job keeping everyone well fed despite the disruption. Going forward Lancashire catering have now introduced a temporary menu until the situation eases. Within school we have decided to try and keep as much variety as we can, including that well loved roast dinner. We will create weekly menus depending on our deliveries. We are so sorry for this inconvenience but please rest assured all children will be fed with tasty food lovingly prepared by our cook Jacqui and the team.

We hope you manage to get out and about this weekend without getting too soggy or blown away. Whatever you have planned stay safe and well and we will see you all on Monday.

Barbara

This week....

A lovely sunny start to the week, but by Thursday there has been a definite Autumnal chill in the air. The leaves are changing colour and beginning to fall from the all the trees in the nursery garden, a bit faster than we can sweep them up some days!

The conkers have also started to fall from our Horse Chestnut tree, the children were very excited about opening each one to reveal the conker inside, some were big, some were small and one or two were really tiny! We have collected them in a large bowl so that we are able to count them and order them according to size.

If you are going for a walk this weekend why not take this leaf spotting checklist with you. Click on the button below.

Our Fabulous Friends display is completed. I am sure you will agree that everyone has worked very hard!

Worship

This term we are celebrating creation. Thanking God for our beautiful planet Earth, which God made as a home for everyone.
This week we have been thanking God for the gift of air. Together we have been taking deep breathes, feeling the air as it tickles our noses. We then thanked God for this wonderful gift.
 You may want to breathe in our lovely clean air with your child and thank God together.

Clare’s blog

This week we have been so very busy.

We decorated our key person books and made it very colourful. We are now excited to fill it full of our learning. We have continued to look deeply at number one, so that we can really understand its value, the children collected one toy and then they took one photo of it all by themselves
We have been rolling balls, balancing, even making a bridge. We enjoyed dressing up as doctors and have also been reading lots of books, your children really love stories!

Clare

Hannah’s blog
 

The children have been busy growing their friendships this week and playing beautifully with one another. A lovely sunny week (in the main) has meant we have had the perfect backdrop for challenging our bodies with lots of climbing and balancing on our obstacle courses. The children have set up the equipment themselves and love the satisfaction of getting from one end of the nursery garden to another! I have enjoyed our story times and the songs we have sang together this week, we really are growing our listening and joining in skills! Lots of super recognition with our friend ‘Number 1’ and many of us have had a look at the sound ‘m’ – have a look at the sound mat that has been sent home … can you remember what the sound looked like?

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Hannah

Colette’s blog

Sadly, Colette has not been at nursery this week. I know you have missed her as much as we have but don’t worry she will be back on Monday.

The children in Colette’s group have been working closely with the rest of the nursery team. Rest assured they have been loved, cared for and have continued on their individual learning journey, as you can see in the photos.

Lastly, it remains for say, have a lovely weekend and we will see you all on Monday for another busy week.

Barbara

This week....

Another fun week at nursery. We have been reading ‘The Colour Monster’ story to try and understand our feelings and emotions. Everyone loves the story, you may have even heard your child saying that they feel yellow or red! Click here to listen to the story and help your child to self- regulate their emotions using colour. Maybe, the children could draw how they are feeling using the corresponding colour…I hope they are all yellow or green!

You will have noticed that we have send home everyone’s Purple Mash log in details this week. Purple Mash is a cloud-based platform for primary-aged (and early years) children. It contains a wide range of age-appropriate, creative software tools for writing, drawing and activities across the early years curriculum. Click here for more information on how to log in. You will notice that I have pinned a quick tutorial video to help you navigate the virtual classroom. I hope you enjoy using it t home. Also, watch our for any activities your key person may have set!

Enjoy!

The children have started their key group ‘Learning together’ floor book. They have been drawing their pictures and have begun to record all the learning they have been doing at nursery.

Some of our families have been asking about Read, Write Inc. Click here to find out more. Please note that in nursery we will be introducing Set 1 speed sounds. Watch the video to see how we pronounce each sound. Also, Alphablocks is a good resource. Click here to watch the Alphablocks song!

Next week we will send home a Read Write Inc sound mat. Keep a lookout for it in your child’s book bag!

And now for the Key person blogs, your favourite bit I expect!

Clare’s blog

This week we have been looking closely at ourselves and talking about our emotions.

We helped our friend the Colour Monster to sort his emotions, he had got them all in a muddle.

He was feeling happy, sad, angry, scared, calm and love all at the same time!

So we connected each emotion with a colour to help him. You may want to ask your child to act out each emotion but be careful as they are very good at the angry emotion!
Over the next few weeks we will be working with the colour monster to better understand our own emotions.

We also painted our own portraits, first we looked at ourselves in the reflection of a mirror, noting all the details we could see, then we set to work painting. The portraits are completed and they are fabulous and we hope to display them soon, we will post a picture of the display here on the blog next week.

The children are all still being wonderful, loving making friends and doing lots and lots of important playing.

Clare

Hannah’s blog

What another wonderful week at nursery! The children are continuing to settle in beautifully and make friendships as they explore the nursery environment. We have been lucky with more lovely sunshine meaning we can enjoy our learning and playing outside. The children have done so well recalling all the mixed up emotions in the story of The Colour Monster and have been recognising these emotions in themselves as we continue to talk about how we feel. It really is so important to understand our feelings and begin to think about how we can then help ourselves and one another if we need to with sad, angry or scared feelings! We have also done some great work with our Numberblock friend ‘Number 1’ and have started to explore healthy eating choices and how we can look after our bodies!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Hannah

Colette’s blog

What another great week in Nursery! The children have been entering Nursery with smiles on their faces, it has been so wonderful to watch them.

We have been very fortunate with the weather too which meant we were able to enjoy that beautiful sunshine whilst we played. The children have been making and building in the garden, we have made some houses for the three little pigs but the big bad wolf was able to blown them down! We better look for some stronger materials next week and make sure they are wolf proof!

There was also time to build an obstacle course, which the children worked together to build. We were able to practise our jumping and landing skills too.

As always, there has been lots and lots of reading inside and outside of nursery, there have been books everywhere!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend together.

Colette.

I must say a big thank you to everyone who took time out of their busy schedule to come along and speak to their key person. It was so lovely to eventually see you in person. Please don’t worry of you have not managed to touch base with you child’s key person yet, just drop them and email and make an appointment.

I have it on good authority (the BBC weather app) that Saturday is going to be a nice day, we must make the most of it!

We will see you all on Monday for another wonderful week of learning.

Barbara

This week...

What a fabulous week. The children are so confident and are accessing all the areas of the continuous provision independently, that’s great!

We have started to introduce the Number 1 . A great resource that you can access at home is Numberblocks. Click here to watch Number 1. At nursery we use the Maths Mastery approach. Maths mastery is a teaching and learning approach that aims for children to develop deep understanding of maths rather than being able to memorise key procedures or resort to rote learning. At this point they are ready to move confidently on to their next stage of maths. So we will be taking our exploration of number slow and steady.

We have also started to discuss and explore healthy practices, starting with healthy foods. Click here to find the NHS Eatwell guide.

This year we are starting a weekly Key Person blog, we hope that you like it.

Clare’s Blog

What an extremely happy start to nursery we have had this year!

The children have been excitedly exploring the nursery environment, keen to play with everything.

Already in the first week at nursery we have been cutting, sticking, painting, lots of painting! Reading so many of our wonderful selection of books, planted sunflower seeds from the flower head. We have made a fairy garden, built ‘Pride Rock’ and have pretended to be firemen, trolls and the Billy Goats Gruff and so much more. The children have had the opportunity to play both inside and out and are already feeling comfortable, confident and secure in the nursery.

The manners and the kind way the children are talking to each other is beautiful, you must all feel so very proud of them all!

Clare

Hannah’s Blog

What a super start to nursery life the children have all made; I cannot believe how well everyone has settled in! There has been so much lovely playing in the garden whilst we enjoy the sunshine and we have all made such an effort to be kind friends to one another. There has been lots of whizzing round on the bikes, splashing in the water and plenty of digging in the sand pit.

I have loved seeing castles and robots being made from building blocks, so many amazing pictures being painted and have particularly been wowed by how many children like to sit attentively and listen to stories! When we have played inside I have seen lots of dinosaur enthusiasts amongst our friends and some fabulous creations with playdough!

Well done everyone on such a super start.

Hannah

Colette’s Blog

The children are beginning to settle in beautifully in to Nursery and are starting to make some lovely friendships.

So far this week we have built a road but then some roadworks appeared…we even had to make our own temporary traffic lights to ease the congestion!

We have read many stories, completed lots of number puzzles (inside and out) and the lovely hot sunshine meant that we could have the big water play out (we did wear our aprons and wellies!)

Have a lovely weekend.

Colette

As you can see the children are all having a splendid time at nursery!

Please note: this week we have emailed everyone to book either a face to face meeting or a telephone meeting with your child’s key person next week. It’s not to late to book an appointment.

Also, a few reminders

  • I will require written consent (an email is fine) giving nursery consent to use images on our webpage, I am still waiting to hear from a few of our families.

  • Please could you put your child’s fruit time snack in their blue book bag not lunch boxes. Please remember that your child will need one piece of fruit for each session they attend (two pieces for a full day).

  • Any items which are likely to be removed during the day should be clearly labelled. The nursery ladies are getting very confused!

Some of our families have been enquiring how to pay for lunches and fees. My apologies it is going to get to next week before the invoices are ready to be sent out. There are not enough hours in the day! Keep checking your emails!

In the meanwhile, if you have any queries please drop me an email or catch me at the end of the day.

I’m not sure if summer has made its final appearance of the year (I hope not) but nonetheless have a fabulous weekend with your loved ones.

Barbara

Welcome to Nursery!

A HUGE welcome to all our children and their families. It has been wonderful to finally meet you all in person.

The children who started nursery this week have really coped well with starting nursery under unusual circumstances. It is such a big ask to expect a small child to come unaccompanied into a new building with nursery ladies they haven’t met in person. I’ve been so impressed with how the children (and grown ups) have dealt with the circumstances. I would not be being honest if I said there hadn’t been the odd tear from one or two of our friends, but they have been short lived and within minutes they were having fun!

As is customary at the being of the year our learning thread will be ‘All about Me’. We will explore families, healthy eating and practices and how our body works. If you click on the button below you will be able to look at the next few weeks planning so you can support learning from home.

As is usual in September are some ‘housekeeping’ reminders, sorry!

  • Could all children’s clothing and belongings be clearly labelled. Also, a spare set of clothing would be useful, just in case of accidents.

  • Everyone should bring with them one piece of fresh fruit or vegetable for each session attended, for example, a full time time should have two pieces. Milk and water are available at nursery.

  • Each child should have an Our Lady’s book bag. These can be purchased from Top Marque on Park St St. Annes. Large back packs make storage tricky.

  • Please remember to send your child to nursery in clothing suitable for the days weather. It is also worth mentioning that the nursery is always well ventilated and therefore an extra layer during cold spells would be a good idea.

    That’s all the reminders for this week but I’m sure I will think of more for next week!

If you click on the buttons below they will display the attachments I emailed home earlier this week.

Finally, from next week we would like to start sharing our learning at nursery by using photos of the children at work and play. I will only be able to upload images of your child if you have sent me a consent email. Don’t worry if you have not had time to reply to my email yet, as long as I receive permission by Wednesday that will be fine.

I hope everyone has a lovely week end and that the sun shines on us all! The nursery ladies look forward to seeing you all on Monday bright eyed and busy tailed, ready for fun and learning.

The Nursery Team

It's party time!!

Such a fun week, culminating with our end of year party on Thursday.

Everyone joined in with the party games, we played musical chairs, statues and bumps, did the conga around the garden, played I wrote a letter to my friend all to some very loud music (Mrs. Gregan set up the loud speakers for us). We chose all our favourite music to play!

I must say we have some fabulous dancers!

We finished the morning with fish and chips (kindly donated St. Annes Fish Restaurant). They were sooo yummy that some the children had seconds and third helpings. We then had ice lollies for after’s. A perfect lunch don’t you think!

In the afternoon we watched the Year 6 production of the Wizard if Oz. As expected it was superb. We spotted lots of budding performers.

Take a look at our party photos.

As always we are sad to see the children leave nursery, but we are certain they will have a have an equally wonderful year in their Reception class.

It has been such a privilege, during such a difficult and unknown time, for you to have entrusted your most precious child into our care. It shows us how much to have trusted us to both keep the children safe and to get them ready for the next stage of their learning journey. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

We will miss you all so very much but we hope you will keep a little piece of nursery safe in your heart forever.

We will see some of you in September but for those of our families who are moving to pastures new, remember you will have left your mark at Our Lady’s Nursery so you belong to us! Please keep in touch.

Please do keep safe and well this summer.

God Bless

Barbara, Clare, Colette, Frances and Hannah

This week...

This week has been an odd sort of week. I feel the children sense we are coming to the end of the year.

We have been spending lots of time preparing the children for the next stage in their learning journey and everyone is really excited, they can’t wait to grow their brain even more!. The children who have another year with us in nursery are looking forward to being the ‘big’ children in September.

A a democracy we asked the children what they would like to learn and find out about this week. As we suspected there was lots of physical activity, messy play, building, music and story telling. The children particularly enjoyed reading Peely Wally with Hannah. They then drew some fabulous pictures (even Hannah)!

Peely Wally was a small bird who lived high up in a tree . . . One day she laid an egg . .

Click here to listen to the story. Perhaps you could draw some of the pictures in the story.

The children also wanted to make tunnels and chutes from large cardboard tubes. We raced the cars to see which went the furthest! Great fun!

We worked out that the cars would not roll if the tubes were flat on the floor so we propped them on the tables and furniture.

We have been practicing our numbers and doing really hard problem solving activities. The children watched the Numberblocks video about when Ten turns up to tell the Numberblocks what it's like to be a perfect ten. Click here to watch at home.

Just in case we had forgotten, we revisited ‘shapes’. We went on a shape hunt to find lots of different shapes and noticed how many sides they had, if they were curved and rolly, how many corners and the length of the sides. Click here to watch the shape song.

Please don’t forget our Leavers Party is on Thursday 9.30- 12.00. All the children are welcome and it’s fish and chips for lunch!!! Mmmmmmmmm!

…and finally a message from Miss. Hornby.

Over the past few days some of you have been asking again about gifts. The first thing I need to say is that please know that everyone in the building already knows just how much they are appreciated. You have already given us the biggest gift of all; the trust to teach your child. We never presume that we will receive gifts; our jobs are jobs of passion. We teach because we love the craft of guiding little minds to actively seek to learn. At Our Lady’s we have the most important mission to help children to become the ‘best versions of themselves’ just as Christ yearns for us.

I do appreciate that no matter how many times I say this, there are those of you who just want to say a personal thank you and please know we never want to offend and seem unappreciative of your kindness. However, we have all been through so much together this year and you have already given us so much. Please can I request that no class collections are asked for as many parents and families are genuinely struggling financially and often feel obliged to contribute, causing distress and anxiety. I do know that beautiful words in a card always give staff a sense of worth and a card or a letter is probably the most appreciated gift of all. During this year, some parents have made donations to charities such as CAFOD on the school’s behalf and have sent us a card in to share this; bringing our mission firmly to life!

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you on Monday for our last week together at nursery.

The Nursery team.

This week...

This week we have been taking advantage of the lovely warm weather. As you can see our learning activities have been varied!

Now we have all learned our letter sounds we tried to make some CVC words ( CVC words are words created using a consonant, vowel, and a consonant. Vowels are the letters A, E, I, O and U, while consonants are all the other letters in the alphabet. Examples of CVC words can include 'new', 'hat', 'cot', 'lit', and 'pit'. You can also create nonsense words that follow the rules of CVC words.) It was a little bit tricky to begin with but we soon got the hang of it.

We have continued with our investigation of mini beasts…still no snails! We have lots of spiders though! We watched ‘Come Outside’ with Auntie Mabel, all about spiders. Click here to watch Warning: may contain spiders!).

The children noticed this week how big the broad beans had grown. We decided to pick the biggest ones and see what they looked like inside. It was really interesting.

On Wednesday there was great excitement as all our butterflies had hatched out of their chrysalis. We had five! We gave them some sliced oranges to feed on and then released them on Thursday. Jacqui from the kitchen came to see them too!

A group of construction mad children made ‘Pride Rock’ for all the animals using the large bricks and boulders. We had to place the bricks and the animals carefully, one false move and the whole ‘rock’ fell down! It was quite spectacular when we had finished.

….and now for our regular feature ‘photos’ of the week! This weeks images range from under the sea world, afternoon tea in the house, making pictures at the workshop and more generally having a fabulous time at nursery!

Lastly, a quick reminder that our leavers party is being held on Thursday 15th July, 9.30- 12.00. All children are invited to attend. Lunch of fish and chips is kindly being provided by St. Annes Fish Restaurant… mmmm we can’t wait!

Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you on Monday, only two weeks left to the end of term, it’s hard to believe it! Where has this year gone!

The Nursery Team

This week...

We have been continuing our investigation of minibeasts. We completed ‘What am I’ description quiz. Everyone was very good at listening to the clues and then working out which minibeast it could be. Click below to have a go at home (you will need a PowerPoint facility to access this).

We looked in all the places where minibeasts could be hiding. We found worms, slugs, earwigs, spiders and one snail! We even got the explorer bags out! I must admit I think all the creatures ran away as they heard us coming! We had to search for ages!

We decided that we could catch some ants and make a formicary (the ants were extremely fast) and a snail house (we found out that snails have hundreds of teeth and we wanted to watch them eating! ! Click here to watch a video about snails eating!

Also, have a look at our beautiful garden!

Carrying on with our Sports’ Day physical activity challenges the children decided to create obstacle courses form the soft shapes and the large wooden bricks. They were really challenging!

I have also added some more photos from Sports’ day.

Our love of books has grown and grown over the years and the children can be found reading EVERYWHERE!

We listened to a video story with lots of minibeasts in it during the week, because we just love minibeasts. Click here to listen at home.

And now for more Photos of the Week!! They range from making a sand café in the garden, a shiny river for all the animals, designing a water filling machine, making snow (a request from Roo) and making wishes with Aladdin’s lamp! Such great fun!

After another packed week of learning at nursery the children may need a rest! Enjoy your weekend and we will see everyone on Monday, bright eyed and bushy tailed!

The Nursery team

Sports' Day Special!

As promised last week here is your Sports’ Day Extravaganza!

I know many of you were disappointed not yo have been able to attend our sporting event of the year but we have taken a huge amount of photos for you to get a ‘feel’ of the day. The children were very excited to be assigned a school ‘House colour’ to compete for.

We had:-

Red- Plessington

Blue- Harcourt

Yellow-Bamber

Everyone was super competitive, each team really wanted to win the cup!

Mrs. Greghan was our compere for the afternoon, the flags were up and we competed to the best sporting music from yesteryear! The scene was set!

Click on the button below to see all the vents we took part in!

Here comes the photos!

Didn’t we have fun! I do hope you manage to get a feel of what was a truly fantastic day. The children all loved joining the main school. In fact they are still talking about it! It was so much more exciting than the Euros!

You will be pleased to know that Miss. Lavelle (the Reception teacher), is as we speak compiling a video of all the Key Stage events from throughout the week (including Nursery). When it is complete I will post it for you all to watch!

Finally, I can announce the overall winner of the whole weeks events….it is Plessington. Well done Plessington!

It remains for me to say to you all, have a lovely, restful weekend. Perhaps you could do a mini Sports’ Day at home? Send me some photos!

The Nursery Team

We are happy to be back together again!

Welcome back! I trust everyone has had a restful break?

We have all hit the ground running this week, blessed with the glorious sunshine.

This half term we will be exploring and investigating the mini beast world. Have a quick look at our plans.

We began our investigation by watching a short video all about ‘What is a mini beast. Click here to watch. We decided that we already knew quite a lot! Everyone thought it would be a good idea to make a display using mini beats resources and factual books. These would help us to learn lots of new facts.

We then took the viewing tubs and magnifying glasses and went on a bug hunt in the garden.

As the weather was so warm we got distracted and hot so we all went paddling to cool down. Wow, that was such good fun, even though we did get very wet!!

To mirror our new learning of ‘lots of water’ Clare suggested painting shells so we could make an under water mermaid lagoon. Fabulous!

You can never have too much water play! Look at our fantastic water machine we made! The children worked so hard to join pieces of tubes and guttering together to direct the flow of water. Once more very wet, but great fun!

The children were very excited when we had a delivery of linking blocks to help with our number work. There are soooo many! We measured each other, made shapes and one friend counted the bricks to 33 all by themselves!

As has become a regular feature here are all the other activities and learning that has taken place at nursery this week. We made a sand café, mark making and picture making (a firm favourite), big building with soft shapes. physical activity practicing for Sports Day and then just having a jolly good time with our friends. I hope you enjoy looking at them.

Two final things to share with you.

Next Monday afternoon is Sports Day 1.30 -3.15 pm. All the children are invited to take part but I am sure you will understand that owing to Covid parents will not be able to attend. Don’t worry, we will take lots of photos. If it is not your usual session, please make sure that your child is in nursery no later than 1.15 pm and then collected promptly at 3.15 pm. Could all children please wear shorts, t-shirt, trainers and lots of sun cream!

Lastly, I would like to say a BIG welcome to Hannah who has joined the nursery team this week. She has been a huge hit with all the children, I’m certain your child will have told you all about her. Hannah will be working in nursery on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and all day Wednesday. When you see her say hello and introduce yourself.

Have a lovely weekend, I hear the weather is going to be fantastic! Fire up the BBQ!

The Nursery Team

This week...

Great news, our butterflies have emerged!! We found out that they are call Painted Lady butterflies. They are very beautiful.

We had to give them some sugary water to drink and pick some flowers for them to get the nectar from. The butterfly's primary source of food is nectar which it gets from plants and flowers

We also found out that Butterflies eat by extending the proboscis deep into a flower to sip nectar. Butterflies also use the proboscis to drink water and juice from rotting fruits.

Before we released the butterflies we managed to hold one on our hand, they felt so lovely. Take a look at our photos

One of our friends even made a butterfly picture using the peg boards. Well done!

Look out for the half term challenge sheets being sent home today….butterfly spotting! Good luck!

If you ten minutes spare click here to watch the The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

It may come as no surprise that hatching caterpillars and waiting for them to emerge as butterflies was fascinating. With that in mind we intend to repeat the cycle again after the holidays as well as expanding our investigative impulses by finding out about other insects and minibeasts. Maybe you could get ahead of the game and explore in your gardens to see what is living there. We’ve already started looking in the nursery garden!

Download the garden spotter sheet to help you out!

The children were excited to find deep at the back of the cupboard a big marble run game. It took us ages to fathom out how it fitted together, but we got there in the end. We have had endless fun experimenting how it works.

We have also been given the most fabulous road and train track, great fun!

Our passion for number is going from strength to strength and this week we had a new number puzzle arrive. We have made it over and over again. We LOVE number challenges!!!

Everyone had a good time playing a rhyming game with lots of fun objects (especially the snake in a box! Arghhh!)

…and now for our photos of the week!! They include balancing, block play, birthday celebrations, garden watering (our strawberries are amazing!), water play and mark making. Have you noticed how well the children are doing forming letters?

I must remind everyone that Sports’ Day will take place on Monday 14th June (Health and Happiness week). Unfortunately, owing to restrictions, we are unable to invite you to join us at this event but rest assured we will take loads of photographs to share with you. Please make sure that you send your child to nursery wearing shorts, t-shirt and trainers on that day. We have their special personally designed t shirts here. All the children are invited to take part, when I know the times I will text everyone!

It is IMPORTANT that before you wash your child’s Sports’ day shirt, you MUST press it for at least three minutes to seal in the colours.

Lastly, can I thank all of you for your wonderful support of nursery and your child’s learning. All the team are very proud of each and everyone’s journey this year, long may it continue. We hope that the sun shines on us over the holidays and you create some magical memories with your loved ones that will last forever.

See you all on Monday 7th June bright eyed and bushy tailed.

The Nursery Team

This week....

Box monster came to nursery this week and scared our socks off! Instead of playing ‘What time is it Mr. Wolf?’ and ‘Trollie, Trollie can we cross your river?’ we changed the name of the games to Box Monster, Box Monster can we cross your river?’ and ‘What time is it Mr. Box Monster?’ We had such good fun!

We also had a special deliver of a dragon. It came complete with instructions on how to care for it, what it ate and if it was friendly or not! We hoped it didn’t breath fire and eat children and nursery ladies! The children decorated the box it arrived in to make sure he had a cosy bed to sleep in.

Have you noticed how good the children are becoming with their mastery of number. We are all very impressed. This week Clare played lots of tricky problem solving number games to try and catch the children out….but she couldn’t. We will have to challenge them even more!

The children have been practicing writing numbers. They were inspired after watching an episode of Numberblocks which explained how to write the numbers using simple rhymes. Click here to watch and have a go!

On Wednesday it was so sunny in the garden that we decided to have a building day. We got out the large bricks, small bricks and the waffle bricks. Everyone worked so very hard. We even found the game ‘Jenga’ to build and play, we were fantastic at choosing the correct brick to take out so that the tower wouldn’t collapse. Although it was fun to shout ‘Jenga’ when it fell down!

We have no news to report with regards to our butterflies yet. We have learnt a new word this week...metamorphosis. Click here to find out what it means.

However, we have been looking all over the garden for insects and mini beasts. We have found woodlice, moths, spiders earwigs and slugs. This is clearly going to have to be explored further after the half term break. Watch this space!

As you already know we are never still at nursery. We see every second as an opportunity to learn, explore, discover more about EVERYTHING! Here is collection of learning which is ongoing, has been triggered by the children’s curiosities and fascinations. As you can see we are all interested in different things so life at nursery is diverse and very exciting!

Finally, I would like to finish this weeks blog by sharing some joyous news with you all. Our lovely Sarah has had her baby! I’m sure you will join us in sending Sarah and Liam huge congratulations as they welcome Baby Jude. Everyone here are soooo excited and hope to meet him very soon. Both Sarah and baby are doing well.

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

The Nursery Team

This week...

Although it has been a short week, we have all managed to cram as much learning in as possible! We continue to search for superhero powers in everyone and everything we do; you would be surprised that no matter how small we all have special gifts that we can use to help others.

We also watched the Alphablocks ‘X’ who is a super hero. We then all had a try at writing ‘x’. We loved it!

Click here to watch and then test the children’s knowledge of ‘x’. You may need your Read, Write Inc. sound mat! The rhyme goes; down the arm and leg and repeat on the other side…easy peasy!

The children noticed when they returned to nursery that our caterpillars had started their transformation into a butterfly and were inside a cocoon. We have been trying to understand the process but it’s rather tricky. We found out that:

Pupa and chrysalis have the same meaning: the transformation stage between the larva and the adult. While pupa can refer to this naked stage in either a butterfly or moth, chrysalis is strictly used for the butterfly pupa. A cocoon is the silk casing that a moth caterpillar spins around it before it turns into a pupa.

We also watched ‘Come Outside’ with Auntie Mabel and Pippin to help us understand more about butterflies; they visited a butterfly house and it looked fabulous. There are so many different kinds of butterflies and moths. We discovered that moths are nocturnal, we love that word.

Click here if you would like to watch at home.

We have also been reading the story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ along with the puppet and all the foods it ate through! Click here to watch. So busy!

Inspired with our chrysalis we decided to explore patterns on butterfly wings. Guess what we found out? They are symmetrical! Mmmm… lots of learning there. We have drawn symmetrical butterflies, painted symmetrical butterflies on the computer, did some string pulling pictures and even made symmetrical butterflies using our giant peg boards. Take a look.

If you remember, last week a shared a new song about the seven continents. I have found the song and a video on YouTube if you would like to listen and watch. Click here and enjoy!

The next item seems to be fast becoming a regular feature. It’s where I share all the other learning and fun we have been having at nursery this week. You will notice that our passion for building obstacle courses hasn’t abated. We have also enjoyed digging in the sand kitchen this week, sorry if we sent the children home a bit grubby but they created some love dishes and wonderful cakes. Watch out Great British Bake Off.

The children also have been practicing their bubble blowing skills. I must say they are getting very good. We had a bubble blowing challenge with Reception, I think we definitely won! Hooray!

If you want to have a go at home all you will need is some washing up liquid and household items with holes. You could be scientists and conduct your own experiments. Send us the pictures we would love to see them.

Remember ‘think big’ – if you want to scale up the recipe, you just need one part washing-up liquid to six parts water. Try making a big bubble mixture in a washing-up bowl – then you can use bigger items, like colanders and slotted spoons, to make bubbles in the garden. Have fun!

Finally, I’m not sure what the weather will be like this weekend (surely it can’t be as bad as the Bank Holiday), but whatever the weather have a fabulous time as a family. We will see everyone on Monday for yet another great week of learning.

Barbara

This week...

A massive well done to everyone who managed to complete last weeks home link challenge. The children have made some wonderful super hero masks. We finished them at nursery by laminating them and adding ties so the children could model their creations

They look fabulous!

The children are continuing their exploration of number and are loving it. They enjoyed playing the dinosaur and dice game, so much so that they can now play independently or in small groups. We feel a bit left out!

The children’s passion for number saw a group of children ( with some help) make a 100 square using the multi link block, wow!

We also measured how many bricks tall the super heroes were in the pictures, again using the multi link blocks. It was tricky but we got there in the end. Good brain growing. Some even decided to could block on their fingers.

To strengthen our hands we made a super hero squirting game. We had to fill a syringe and then squirt the super hero pictures. Such good fun, but we did get a bit carried away and got a bit wet! Ooops!

We had great fun making our own Super Tato using REAL potatoes. Some of our heroes looked a bit odd and a bit funny but we enjoyed it!

I am pleased to announce that the Sports Day t-shirts are finished! Well done Clare. They look FANTASTIC! Take a look!

This week our friend Alfie taught us a song to help us remember all seven continents on our planet Earth. We love it Alfie. Here are the words in case you would like to sing along at home. It is to the tune of 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive.

Here goes!

Asia and Africa,

North and South America,

Antarctica and Europe,

And finally Australia

Enjoy!

As alawya we love building obstacle courses to practice our balancing. Each course is just a little bit more difficult and we love it! This week we got all the soft shapes out and the children got building and designing. It was tricky though because every time we stepped on the they were squishy and changed shape! Keep practicing!

Some friends even tried look at the word from a different angle…upside down!

As always the children have been very busy doing lots of other activities and learning. Here is a collection of other learning which happens daily at nursery.

I am sure you will agree everyone at nursery is in need of a good long rest. Luckily, it’s Bank Holiday weekend. Three days to recharge our batteries for another busy week next week.

I hope you all mange to get some down time and to enjoy just being together with your loved ones. We will see you all on Tuesday.

Barbara


This week...

Another week of super heroes! The children continue to use their imagination and to explore open ended objects, media and materials to support their play.

This weeks mission with Super Croccy was to find baby spider. He kept running away and hiding from mummy and daddy spider. The children had to use their special powers to find him. Sometimes it was in some very unusual places.

Here’s a websites that give ideas for fostering imagination

The Imagination Tree click here

You will be pleased to hear that the Sports Day t-shirts are well underway, well done Clare! They all look fabulous.

The children have continued with their exploration of number six. We have been learning how to mix things up with a dice! Click here to watch.

Here’s and activity to do at home; Maths in the Bath.

Location: Bathroom Materials needed: Your hands.

Aim: This activity will help your child to understand that there are 4 fingers and 1 thumb (5 digits) on each hand and to recognise 1,2,3,4,5 digits without counting.

Ask your child to look at your hand and ask them: “How many fingers am I showing you?” If your child doesn’t say the number just tell them you are showing 4 fingers. Show your child 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 digits in random order. Can your child recognise automatically the number of fingers without counting? If your child doesn’t answer or gives a wrong answer just tell them the correct number without counting.

Or

Maths in Steps

Location: Anywhere Materials needed: Your feet.

Aim: This activity will help your child to count up to 20 steps correctly and to use words such as, more, same, and fewer.

Ask your child to walk from one side of the room to the other. Then ask them “How many steps did you take?” Now you do the same. Ask your child to count your steps as you walk. Then ask them: “How many steps did I take?” Ask your child: “Are the number of the steps the same?”, “Who made more steps?”, “Who made fewer steps?”

Or

Scavenger Hunt

Location: Garden/Green Space/Park

Materials needed: Things you can find in the garden like leaves, stones, flowers, and feathers.

Aim: This activity will help your child to understand and solve additions up to 10.

Ask your child to find 2 groups of objects. For example: Find 5 leaves and 3 stones. How many do you have in total? Find 3 small stones and 1 big leaf. How many do you have in total? Find 6 green leaves and 2 brown leaves. How many do you have in total? What other examples can you think of? If your child counts incorrectly, put all of the objects in a line and count all of them pointing at each one.

Good luck and enjoy!

The children have been using bricks and soft shapes to construct dens (and to have a just a jolly good time). Some of their building defied gravity!

As always in nursery we have been extremely busy. We have been watering the garden, writing to the ‘Poggle’ and looking for ‘Smeech’ who came into nursery garden and left lots of litter! Poor Smeech now gets the blame for anything and everything. Nobody has seen him so we don’t know what he/she/it looks like!

On Wednesday afternoon we had an unexpected visit from the Fire Service…don’t panic all was well. One of the children’s daddy drives the fire engine so he stopped outside the nursery so we could all have a look! It was very exciting!

Last but not least here are some photos of everything else we have been doing at nursery. It’s no wonder we are tired by Friday!

Here are the plans for the next two weeks!

I do hope the good weather stays for weekend and we can all fire up the BBQs. Have a lovely and restful couple of days and we look forward to seeing everyone on Monday.

Barbara

Super heroes assemble!!

A super fabulous start to a the summer term. The children were soooo excited for our new learning thread….super heroes!

We kicked off the week by discussing super powers. Everyone chose their favourite power and shred with the group why they chosen it. X- ray vision was very popular although Clare’s teleportation power took some beating!

We are learning a song all about Amazing super heroes and their super powers: click here to sing along at home! I wonder what would your super power be?

We then decided that we should get our super hero play box out. What fun! We wore cloaks (some of them were invisibility cloaks), masks (some mask could freeze you!) and x-ray vision glasses! Have a look at our photos !

On Tuesday Super Croccy came to nursery. There was huge excitement when the door bell rang! He had a mission for us all to join in with. A puppy had got stuck up the tree in the garden. How would we get it down, what powers would we need? It took us ages to solve the problem.

We then read the story of Super Tato. Click here to listen.

If you fancy getting involved here is a mission for you to do at home! Don’t forget your cloak!

We then thought it would be a great idea to make a HUGE Spiderman web. You had to be very careful not to tough the web in case you woke up the spider in the tree. Arghhhhh!

Next, we made smaller webs on the chair legs for the small world super heroes. Beware of ‘Alligator’.

Clare made a super hero assault course. It was very tricky and we had to be brave and keep trying.

What a week! We are all exhausted! All this on top of our number and sounds work, watering the garden, water painting the walls and generally having a jolly good time at nursery! Phew! You better have a rest over the weekend we have another full on week next week!

May I say a big thank to everyone who has donated items from our wish list. Your support of nursery is greatly appreciated. Also, WELL DONE for firstly remembering to bring your sunflowers back to nursery and for your fabulous nurturing of the seeds. Some have grown very tall. I feel maybe some healthy competition has been afoot. Monty Don would be proud. The seeds we planted in the garden have only just started to germinate! The beans and strawberries are doing well though.

It has been lovely to see the children happy to be back at nursery. As we enter the final term of the year we have noticed how much the children have learnt and grown in confidence. We are so very proud of them all.

Finally, have a lovely weekend, try not to go too mad now the shops, bars….and hairdressers are opening up! Enjoy the sunshine and we will see you all on Monday, but remember to stay safe.

Barbara

COVID-19 reporting and contacts over the Easter holiday

In the first 48 hours (until 3:30pm on Saturday 3rd April) after breaking up we continue to need your support. If your child shows symptoms of Covid-19 within 48 hours of last being in nursery, please can you report this to nursery immediately by emailing b.draper@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk  

Following this, please then seek a test as soon as possible and inform the nursery of the result, as soon as you receive it, even if the result is negative. Again, you can do this by emailing b.draper@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk  

If your child tests positive for Covid-19 having shown symptoms within 48 hours of last being in nursery, we need to be informed immediately so that we can notify any other children in your child's bubble and their families so they can self-isolate for ten days. This will help to prevent the spread of coronavirus in our community.  

If your child develops symptoms after 48 hours of last being in school (after 3:30pm on April 3rd) and then tests positive, then contact tracing should be picked up by the NHS Test and Trace Service. 

Your help with this is greatly appreciated. 

Barbara