This week in the classroom...
Friday 14th February 2025
This week was our final bear week!
We have embraced the text ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ this week in PE. We looked at how we can go over, under and through different pieces of equipment.
The children also discussed hibernation with the help of the class texts: Bear Snores On and Big Brown Bear. In both stories, the bear sleep in the colder months so this week during forest school, we took our class bear into the woods and created a cosy home for him to hibernate in. The children collected moss, leaves and twigs and created a very comfy home for a bear.
The children have enjoyed using wipe boards and pens this week to mark make, as well as using their name labels to try and write their own name. The 'Wow Work' wall is now ready and the first things to be displayed are the children’s beautiful self-portraits - we can’t wait to show you!
In maths, the children have been looking at the numeral 4 and they have looked at how a square and rectangle is associated with the numeral 4! The children could identify that they both have 4 sides and 4 corners. Some children noticed the rectangle has 2 short sides and 2 long sides. The children have been using their fingers to make numeral 4 in a variety of ways.
In phonics, we focused on the phoneme 'g'.
The nursery team have sent all children home with their very own bear for over half term. We want you to enjoy your bear and if possible, take your bear out and about with you and send pictures to Mrs Whiteway. This will make a great talking focus for the first week back.
ccso@sandbach-pri.cheshire.sch.uk
We hope you all have a wonderful week with your families.
Happy Half Term!
Friday 7th January 2025
What a very busy week nursery have had, this week!
We started the week building dens, going on bear hunts and finding Goldilocks and the Three Bears eating porridge in the woods! We then explored shadows. We noticed the dinosaurs in the garden were casting shadows on our playground, so we drew around the shapes and observed the change to the shadows throughout the morning. We then made bear puppets and created a dark bear cave inside the classroom and used torches to cast bear shadows. The children soon realised we could make shadows using our hands and bodies, which they thoroughly enjoyed exploring.
We celebrated Children's Mental Health week this week and used the text 'Colour Monster' to explore a range of emotions and associated the emotions to a colour. The children made a large Colour Monster and used him as a target to throw coloured beanbags into his mouth, whilst labelling the emotion. The children created beautiful breathing wands to support regulation. We used them during our My Happy Mind Happy breathing sessions; the children particularly love Rainbow Breathing! The children also took part in a Colour Monster music lesson this week. They listened to various pieces of music and associated the music to an emotion.
Sadness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3MHeNt6Yjs
Calmness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CdAJ1YjytU
Happiness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLhNg6RcWw
Anger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuyV37WQo2k
Fear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McSzB_5_AmQ
The younger children explored the text Postman Bear this week and enjoyed receiving letters through the post from the bear and replying to the bear using our class post box. The Postman Bear invited all the children to a party on Friday.
The older children continued to focus on their text: Bear Snores On. The children came up with actions for some of the verbs in the text and used alliteration to name the animals that visit the bear cave (Mason Mouse/Ryver Rabbit).
In phonics, we focused on the grapheme 'd' and worked hard on blending. The children love playing our action game. Mrs Whiteway will say: 'touch your ch i n' and the children blend together the word chin and touch their chin.
In maths, we have started to explore number 4 and focused on some shapes that have 4 sides (square and rectangle)
We also read some very special books for National Storytelling Week and discussed what we liked about the text and worked hard to describe in detail why we liked it.
The Wonder by Fate Hanson and I Follow the Fox by Rob Biddulph.
Friday 31st January 2025
This week we have started to explore our bear topic.
The children took a walk to the woods on Tuesday to find some bears in the trees, the children looked high and low. Bears have been popping up around the classroom this week and they have asked the children to make them dens to hibernate in over Winter time. The children made bears out of playdough and used buttons and loose parts for eyes. We have been exploring our new bear rhymes and beginning to look at our new bear texts. The children have been scooping green rice and pasta into bear cups this week using a variety of sized spoons. The children also made bear mask by tearing tissue paper and sticking on paper plates.
This week, the children have enjoyed celebrating and learning about Chinese New Year. The children enjoyed messy play at the beginning of the week. They explored with wiggly noodles and were encouraged to use chopsticks to transfer the noodles into bowls. The mud kitchen also had yummy noodles, takeaway packages and chopsticks. The staff really enjoyed visiting the Chinese restaurant! The children listened to traditional Chinese music, read stories, watched a dragon parade, created lucky red envelopes, learnt lots of new Chinese rhymes and songs and ended the celebrations with their very own dragon dance and tasted some delicious noodles, which they tried to eat using chopsticks. The children have good knowledge of the celebration and were able to make links to celebrations of their own by discussing similarities like decorating their house for Christmas and fireworks for New Year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/chinese-new-year
The pre-school children focused on numeral 3 this week and enjoyed several number hunts around the provision. They continued to focus on ‘m’ and towards the end of the week we introduced ‘d’.
The staff have witnessed lots of children playing cooperatively and using their very kind/sharing hands this week.
Have a lovely weekend everyone.
Friday 24th January 2025
We have had a fun filled week in nursery this week!
Outside the children worked together to make an incredibly long train track! They decided to roll tyres down the hill and as a team they placed planks of wood on the hill making it easier to roll items down.
During our forest school sessions this week, the children took our new large compost bin to the forest and placed their snack left overs in. The children will be able to do this each week and watch the food decomposing and begin to produce compost.
This week the class have continued to focus on our behaviours for learning. So far, the children have been introduced to Cooperative Caterpillar, Determined Dragonfly and this week they met Focused Firefly. The characters visit the children around the classroom to ensure the behaviours are being embedded. The children have shown amazing cooperation recently and fantastic determination, even when they have found things difficult. The children have loved to create large scale characters for display and are confident at telling others what the characters help them to learn! Please take a look at our 'Meet Our Learning Powers' page for more information.
We have also focused on our 'My Happy Mind' lessons this week and the children have loved spending time with Berty and Betty. The children find it extremely relaxing to do happy breathing and their favourite is Rainbow Breathing. If you haven't already downloaded the free app, please scan the QR code on the poster displayed at our external classroom door and type in the unique code, also displayed on the poster. It is a great way to support regulation!
In our music lesson this week we continued to focus on weather. The children listened to a piece of music by Claude Debussy - Nuages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRN8RA5Vph8
Whilst listening, the children looked at cloud pictures and explored a variety of materials such as cotton wool, cotton, wool, foam... The children then created some cloud pictures using the cotton wool. The children explained what they felt or imagined at various points during the piece of music. One child said: 'I can see happy clouds dancing in the sky'. We love our music lessons in nursery!
Next week we will be starting our reading for pleaseure books to take home, more information reguarding this will be send out via an email.
Have a lovely weekend everyone.
Friday 17th January 2025
Our nursery children have been very busy this week!
It was Big Schools Birdwatch 2025 this week, so the children made bird feeders, put on their binoculars and headed out with their clip boards and bird tick sheet to hunt for birds. The children worked as a team to decide where to hang the feeders and sat very still, quiet and patient waiting for a glimpse.
The children have continued their ice explorer theme this week and learned more about how penguins behave and how they support each other like our Cooperative Caterpillar'.
The 2 year olds have explorerd the text: 'That's not my Penguin' through a variety of senses this week and together they made a large scale penguin using different materials, some children have begun to read the story to the group!
The 3 year olds have acted out their text: 'Little Penguin Lost' by sliding penguins down tubes and into the water. They have explored different feelings of the characters and made sensible guesses as to what new words meant.
The pre-school children have explored different emotions throughout their book: 'I Can Fly' and acted out the different characters so well. They are looking closely at speech bubbles and how we read from right to left.
In phonics the younger children have been focusing on penguin rhymes and the pre-school children have been exploring the grapheme 'n' this week for net.
In maths the younger children continued to focus on prepositions on, in and under and the pre-school children worked on finding the mistake in the repeating patterns.
Outside the children loved scooping the blue rice and feeding the penguin cups, building walls, creating delicious meals in the Penguin Cafe out of coloured water, potatoes and carrots and we ended the week cleaning our cars at the car wash.
Friday 10th January 2025
Happy New Year to all our families!
It has been wonderful to be back in the classroom and exploring our whole provision again, now the school is back to normal.
Due to the weather conditions, we have started our 'Ice Explorers' adventures in the classroom. We have explored ice through a variety of ways: painting ice, freezing penguins in ice and rolling them down long pieces of guttering, breaking ice using a variety of materials, sliding penguins to each other and watching our penguin ice eggs melt freeing the penguins inside!
Our texts this week have been:
I Can Fly by Fifi Kuo and Say Goodnight Little Penguin.
The children have been making igloos and staff have been focusing on prepositions: on, in and under.
The Pre- school children have been focusing on patterns. They made patterns using coloured cubes and teddy bear counters, as well as with natural materials.
Our phonics focus this week has been 'i' for iguana.
The children have created penguins using forks and white paint (look out for the finished results next week)
We are very excited for what we have planned for next week.
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Friday 13th December 2024
We have had a wonderful week of festivities this week!
We held our very first stay and play of the year. We were so happy to see so many of you enjoying what our provision has to offer and making happy memories with your little ones. The staff team thoroughly enjoyed talking to you all and explaining how we ensure learning through play. The children had been working so hard to learn their Christmas songs and did us all proud. We hope you enjoyed exploring our newly set up environment and understand a little more of how the children access their learning. We will be inviting you all again soon to come and join in the fun, so watch this space!
The children have been busy making lots of Christmas surprises for you at home that we will be finishing next week ready to send home.
The children went on an elf hunt in the forest this week after reading a beautiful book called: 'Theres an Elf in Your Book' by Tom Fletcher. The children love his series and find it very exciting to go on hunts for the characters around our provision.
The children had a PE lesson with the B2 Coaching team again this week. The children experienced a full range of climbing apparatus as well as balancing beams and mats to jump on. Please remember the children have PE every Tuesday morning so need to come dressed appropriately with sensible footwear.
In maths we have been subitising with 2 this week, earlier in the week we sent home a sheet explaining activities that you can do at home to support learning.
In English, we have mapped out our Little Robin Red Vest story and put actions to the story sequence and in phoncs this week we continued to focus on the phoneme 'p' and worked on rhyming sentence strings: The perfect penguin pretended to be a princess.
The younger children focused on attention grabbing activities such as Christmas matching cards, what's in the bag and picture hunts around the provision, as well as rhyme time and shared stories.
We are very excited for the week ahead, as it is full of glitter and sparkles.
Friday 6th December 2024
Hello everyone,
We have had a fun filled week this week!
Our classroom kitchen changed into Mrs Claus's kitchen and the writing area is now a post office. We have had such fun writing letters and posting them into the post box. We have had some keen bakers making gingerbread in the kitchen as well. We have had our classroom filled with the spirit of Christmas this week and the children are all keen explorers.
This week we all stopped what we were doing when a huge crane arrived on our playground. We were incredibly luckily that the builders allowed us to stand and look at the crane, from a safe distance, when it was turned off. The children loved seeing the big arm move and swing in the air.
Outside in the mud kitchen we had fresh oranges, cranberries and cinnamon which the children made delicious potions with. We also really enjoyed using the pipetts to squeeze and create patterns on cotton pads. The cotton pads were in the shape of a Christmas tree. They children noticed that the colour changes when two or more colours mix together.
We have begun creating some amazing Christmas craft items and we are looking forward to you seeing the end results soon.
Our pre school children have been focusing on the phoneme 'p' this week and the children are becoming increasingly aware of recognising initial sounds in words. We have also been learning about number 2 and how we can identify whether it is number 2.
The younger children have been participating in many turn taking activities, Dough Disco, speaking and listening games and opening presents that link to their text Dear Santa.
We ended the week watching a fabulous Pantomime and wearing our festive jumpers.
We are incredibly excited to welcoming you into our newly updated Nursery classroom next Tuesday where we will do many Christmas activities, singing and story.
Many thanks for your continued support.
29th November 2024
It has been another jam-packed week in nursery this week!
We started the week with lots of sensory play using shaving foam and scented porridge oats in our tuff trays.
We have all enjoyed coming together to start learning our Christmas songs that we will be performing to you all during our Christmas Stay and Play event.
The pre school children have been focusing on the phoneme 't' this week. We played a game of what's in the box and we made up rhymes with objects that begin with the phoneme 't'. We sent home a pack full of ideas for you to do at home, as well as our rhyme of the week: 1 finger, 1 thumb.
In maths we were focusing on the number 1. We made number 1 happy by only finding him 1 object, he was sad when we gave him more than 1. We also looked at number 1 in a variety of ways, on dice, on doors, on phone numbers etc. We also baked flapjacks with the help of number one, they were delicious!
The 2-year-olds loved acting out their story of Oops Owl using their puppets. They looked at one bigger and one smaller owl and compared the two. They also enjoyed lots of different owl stories and rhymes. They practiced print painting this week by paining half the owl and folding the paper over to create a mirror image on the other side. They also enjoyed some Dough Disco!
The weather went very frosty again this week, so we all took a stroll over the crisp, white field. They children looked closely at the shapes on the frost. We found some blocks of ice, that we brought back into the provision and watched it change from a solid to a liquid in the warm room.
We ended the week with a lovely educational visit from a member of the RSPCA who explained what they do and how they care for the animals. We explored some of her equipment and learnt about some animals.
22nd November 2024
What an exciting week the Nursery class have had!
It has been a week of snow, ice and investigating. The children had a lot of walks in the snow exploring how it felt under our feet and how it sounded under our feet. We walked through the forest and noticed there was no snow and it was a great opportunity to learn about how the trees shelter us from the weather. The children noticed some of our mud kitchen items had frozen in water and we couldn't pick them up or move them. The children had the biggest smiles on their faces running through the snow-covered field and it was a joy to see.
Inside the classroom, the 2-3 year olds have continued to enjoy their text; Owl Babies. They have created owls in many different ways and they will be bringing these home this week for you to see. They are working hard to sit on the carpet and engage in short activities as a group. This week we have introduced a tray game where we put two items on the tray, cover it over and take one item away. The children then have to guess what item is missing. This is a great game to play at home which supports your child's attention and listening skills.
The 3-4 year olds have continued their 'Tuning into Sounds' journey. This week our phoneme of the week was 'a'. The children were incredibly engaged during the sessions embraced the challenges we had out in provision linked to our phoneme of the week. In maths, the children have continued to sort objects but this week we focused on sorting using the features of toys: toys that have wheels, toys that don't have wheels, toys that make a noise, toys that don't make a noise. This is a game you could play during tidy up time at home using two baskets.
This week was also Road Safety Week. The children learned to: Stop, Look, Listen and Wait! Due to the weather, we made a pedestrian crossing inside our classroom and the children practised crossing the road safely. They also looked at road signs they may see when out waking and discussed why we should all wear bright coloured clothes when it is dark.
15th November 2024
What an extremely busy week the nursery children have had this week. We started the week with Remembrance Day. The children painted beautiful poppies to take home, made poppies using different coloured playdough, used a spray bottle to paint a large poppy collaboratively and sorted maths objects onto the correct place on a poppy picture. The children joined together with Reception to watch a beautiful animation called Poppies on CBeebies which supported the children to take part in the two minutes silence at 11am.
This week has been Anti Bullying Week. In nursery we focused on kindness and how we can show kindness in a range of ways. The children have been focusing on using kind hands, kind words, listening, sharing and working cooperatively.
Tuesday was Odd Socks Day. The children looked amazing in their odd socks and they loved showing them off. We read the text Happy To Be Me and celebrated what made us unique and special. We coloured our very own odd socks, matched pairs of socks and hung them on the washing line.
Wednesday was Kindness Day. The children read the stories: The Ugly Ducking and The Smartest Giant in Town. Both stories made great talking points about how kindness can make other people feel. The children made kindness hand prints which were brought together to form a class heart.
Thursday was World Diabetes Day. The children wore blue and watched a story called 'How to Manage a Mammoth' This explained how to manage diabetes in a child friendly way.
We ended the week having fun whilst raising money for children in need. We made Pudsey faces using loose parts, decorated Pudsey biscuits and created yellow bears using playdough.
The pre-school children started their 'Tuning Into Sounds' lessons this week, we will be sending home some parental information on how you can help at home next week. They also focused on sorting in maths. They sorted objects via colour, size and function.
We are looking forward to an owl filled week next week!
8th November 2024
It has been wonderful to welcome all of the children back in to nursery this week.
We have had a fantastic week learning all about bonfire night and Diwali. The children have created some beautiful firework art work and have learned about Guy Fawkes. The children have really enjoyed learning about Diwali. The children have read stories and learned all about the things that happen during Diwali. The children have made their own rangoli patterns, created their own bowls and hand prints and have tried on some traditional clothing. The children also enjoyed their PE session with B2 Coaching on Tuesday. The children will have this each Tuesday morning now.
We have also enjoyed continuing to explore Autumn and the changes that occur in this season. We have been down to the woods and explored what has changed and we have also investigated and enjoyed playing in all of the autumn leaves that have fallen from the trees.
As always our nursery children have amazed us with their positivity and enthusiasm towards their learning. Well done everyone!
