Nursery - Chestnut
Welcome to Nursery!
We will use this page to share information about out topics and activities. It is a great way to start conversations with your child about what they are learning and who they like to play with.
Nursery staff:
Mrs Jameson - Nursery Class Teacher
Mrs Smith - Nursery Class Teaching Assistant
Mrs Hough - Teaching Assistant
Mrs Hart - Lunchtime Supervisor
A message from Mrs Evans, English and Creative Arts Leader:
It’s important for children to rest and recharge over the summer holidays. But whether you’re taking a trip or staying home, there are lots of ways you can encourage your child to practise their reading, writing and communication skills over the long break. This will help children boost their literacy skills over the holidays, and prevent the learning loss that can happen when they’re not at school.
A message from Mr Roycroft, Assistant Head and Maths Leader
There are also countless opportunities to incorporate maths into the summer break. Here are some tips for parents that may prove useful:
Summer 2, Week 6: P.E. with Mr Peate!
Summer 2, Week 6
Some giant webs appeared in our outdoor area this week and our favourite minibeasts were trapped! How lucky that these brave Nursery children came to their rescue, using tongs and pegs to carefully pick out all the creatures one by one.
Summer 2, Week 5
It has been such a busy week! Here are some of the highlights:
The butterflies took a while to decide whether they wanted to be free! Whilst we waited for them to be ready, we sang every song we knew about caterpillars and butterflies... and some that we made up on the spot! We also examined the empty cocoons.
Acting out the life-cycle of the butterfly:
Egg
Caterpillar
Chrysalis
Butterfly
Caterpillar watch
Ladybirds
Caterpillar watch
"They will eat and eat and eat and then they'll build a little house and turn into butterflies."
"They are eating all the food. It makes them really big… then they will be butterflies. And we eat lots of food and grow.”
"A caterpillar's got a cocoon!"
"There's four cocoons... The baby caterpillar didn't make one because he didn't know how."
"It will burst out and be a butterfly."
"It might lay another egg and then there'll be another caterpillar and another cocoon and another butterfly and another egg!"
Summer 2, Week 4: Hides
Mrs Jameson wondered whether Nursery could build hides to use for minibeast-spotting. The children rose to the challenge, choosing materials from the loose parts shed and construction areas, and considering the places that minibeasts are most likely to be found. Our new alien friend, Evo, helped us to evaluate each hide using criteria such as 'not falling down' and 'seeing minibeasts'.
Sports Day
Well done, Nursery! And thank you to all the parents who joined us for our picnic lunch and helped to make it feel special.
Summer 2, Week 3: Caterpillars
We are reading the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and observing our own caterpillars every day. We are also using an information book and some models to learn about life-cycles.
Summer 2, Week 2: Bees!
We have planted seeds in the outdoor area and painted bright, colourful designs for more bee gardens.
Summer 2, Week 1: Stick insects!
Nursery would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Smith's son, Reece, who allowed his stick insects to spend the whole week in our classroom. The children have been fascinated by these minibeasts and some have spent entire mornings observing them. We even saw one shedding his skin. It has been an amazing start to our new Minibeasts topic.
Summer 1, week 6
Nursery have really enjoyed this half-term's work on travel and transport. This week we thought about the reasons people use different types of transport in different countries and communities. It was fabulous to hear the children make links between climate and terrain and what people need when they travel. We also used the Kagan Rally Robin strategy to share key vocabulary learned this half-term.
Summer 1, week 5: Messy Day!
Messy Day was a great success. Thank you to Mrs Smith, Mrs Warrington and Mrs Slater for organising all the exciting new activities. Here are just a few photographs of the fun that was had.
Summer 1, Week 4: Travelling in the outdoor area
How can you travel? Which parts of your body are moving? Are any parts of your body touching the floor?
Summer 1, Week 3:
Cycling
Whilst some of our older children went to watch the Tour de Yorkshire Women's Race pass through Barwick, Nursery and Reception children took part in the less well-publicised 'Tour de Top Playground' - photos to follow! Thank you to Miss Leeman and Mr Smith for organising this event.
Lambs!
A huge thank you to Mrs Fraser, who brought the lambs back to school especially to spend time with Nursery in the Outdoor Area. Everyone had fun meeting Maisie and Marshmallow.
Summer 1, Week 2: How do we travel?
We are talking about lots of different ways to travel, recognising and naming a wide range of transport types and saying how we can travel on land, by air and across water. We would love more photographs of children travelling in different ways to add to our new door display. Please bring in your pictures or upload them to Tapestry.
Making buses
Summer 1, Week 1
What a great start to the new term! Please apply once-a-day sunscreen before school and remember to bring a sunhat!
Happy Easter!
Easter Bunny
There was lots of excitement throughout school when mysterious footprints appeared on the last day of term. Several Nursery children were convinced a dinosaur had been to visit, as the footprints were far too big for a rabbit! The discovery of chocolate eggs in our Easter baskets convinced most of the children that the Easter Bunny had called... but there are still a few who will be telling everyone about the day a dinosaur came to school!
World Down Syndrome Day 2018
#lotsofsocks for World Down Syndrome Day!
Spring 2, Week 4 - Easter Bonnets
There were some fabulous Easter Bonnets brought in for the competition at the Spring Fayre.
Spring 2, Week 3 - Monkey Puzzle
This week we have been reading, "Monkey Puzzle" by Julia Donaldson. We wondered what we would say if our mums were lost and Butterfly was helping us to find them.
Do you recognise any of these mums?
Spring 2, Week 3 - A Squash and a Squeeze!
We acted out one of our favourite stories.
Spring 2, Week 1 - The Gruffalo
This half-term, we will be reading and retelling stories by one of our favourite authors, Julia Donaldson.
Spring 1, Week 6
Spring 1, Week 5
Each week, we have tried different resources as 'snow' in a habitat tray for the arctic animals. This week we have shaving foam!
Spring 1, Week 4 - Arctic fun
The children have been very interested in the different animals that live in the Arctic. We have been experimenting with different types of 'snow' in our Arctic small world and making icebergs out of papier-maché. Here are a few snapshots of our Arctic-inspired play.
Spring 1, Week 3 - The great snowman experiment!
The children made little snowmen from real snow and from playdough. As they played, they chatted about which ones would melt. This led to the great Nursery snowman experiment!
Spring 1, Week 2
We enjoyed the frosty weather earlier in the week and were able to link it to our interest in animals that live in snowy places.
Spring 1, Week 1
Happy new year!
Autumn 2, Week 7
We have had a very busy week getting ready for Christmas. Please ask your child to tell you the story of how Baby Jesus came to be born in a stable in Bethlehem!
We had a very special visitor during the Christmas party on Wednesday...
Autumn 2, Week 6: Reindeer Races!
Autumn 2, Week 5: Post Office
Our Christmas Post Office has prompted lots of mark-making and writing this week. We also have lots of very keen postal workers!
Autumn 2, Week 4: Triangles
Can you spot these triangles in our outdoor area? Nursery children can!
Autumn 2, Week 3: Children in Need
Huge thanks to Mrs Firth, who baked lots of buns for us in Nursery! The children loved setting up their own cake shop. They enjoyed being shop assistants and customers and, once they had sold all the real buns, they continued for the rest of the afternoon using play food from the home corner.
Autumn 2, Week 2: The Hair Salon
Following the children's interest in playing hairdressers, we have set up a salon in the role-play area! The children have loved being stylists and clients and have been more excited than ever to have visitors who can spare five minutes to be 'pampered'!
Autumn 2, Week 1
This week we have been consolidating our work on numbers 1 and 2. Next week, it will be "All about the number 3!"
Autumn 1, Week 7
We have begun to explore some of the changes happening in the outdoor area. After half-term, we will be asking, "What changes in Autumn and Winter?"
Autumn 1, Week 6
Our latest Supertato story features Gloria, the robot watermelon! We decided to find out what is really inside a watermelon:
Autumn 1, Weeks 4 and 5
Everyone is loving the Supertato stories! Nursery was invaded by evil peas and the children worked tirelessly to capture them...
Autumn 1, Weeks 2 and 3
We have really enjoyed welcoming our new starters to Nursery. We have created a 'Kindness Garden' to celebrate examples of kind hands and friendly faces.
Welcome back to Nursery! September 2017
It has been lovely to welcome back our returning Nursery children this week. Everyone has enjoyed exploring the new Outdoor Area and we are looking forward to welcoming our new starters.