Mrs Hatton - Teaching assistant (am) and lunch club lead
Mrs Corker - Teaching assistant (pm and lunch club)
Mrs Turner - PPA cover
Mrs Quickenden - Lunch club teaching assistant
Miss Baxter - LSA
Mrs Osborn - LSA
Mrs Guest - LSA
Welcome to the new school year at Kingshill Nursery!
We are excited to share your child's journey with both them and you, and look forward to working together throughout the year.
Our class is called 'Armstrong' class after the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. We will be learning all about him later in the year. You can access photos of the childrens' learning both here and through their individual learning journals on Tapestry. We would love you to share your photos with us on Tapestry too.
We have been learning about Neil Armstrong - the man our class is named after. We have enjoyed finding out who he is and what he is famous for. We made our own space station in the role play area and have enjoyed taking on the role of an astronaut, heading on adventures into space.
Our space learning
using loose parts
Loose part rockets
loose part spaceman
Role play astronauts
Teamwork to make a large rocket
off on a space adventure
Our space knowledge
using non-fiction books
Nurse visit to Nursery class
Learning about our internal organs
listening to our heart beats
learning about our skeleton and bones
Oral health
Exploring the resources
Keeping our teeth healthy
our internal organs
learning about our bodies
Harvest festival
During Harvest festival we learnt how the crops are harvested then some our turned into flour to make bread. We saw the wheat harvested then taken to a factory to be ground in large machines. We then compared this to an original water mill which had a large water wheel to power the grinding stones. We explored all these things ourselves during child initiated learning.
Harvest festival
Grinding corn and wheat into flour
Using large stones to grind the wheat
Wheat and corn grains
Grinding the grain
Learning about how the water wheel turns
Exploring flour
Using our natural objects to make faces
Autumn walk - looking for changes
Settling in and exploring the new environment. Making new friends 😎
2021-2022 cohort
Growing and changing
We looked at Sunflowers and their seeds. The children planted seeds and we watched them grow. We made our own flowers from craft materials and also from loose parts. Here are some photos of our learning.
IEYC Topic - The Brilliant Bug Ball
As part of our Brilliant Bug Ball topic we have been learning about worms, ladybirds, caterpillars, butterflies and bees.
We had a delivery of 5 tiny caterpillars that we nurtured and observed throughout their lifecycle, finally releasing them as butterflies several weeks later.
We are also learning how bees help us by making honey and by pollinating the plants and the flowers as they collect their nectar. We followed this by making honey sandwiches ready to eat at our minibeast party.
On Friday we all dressed up as minibeasts to have Brilliant Bug Ball. We had lots of fun dancing and eating our honey sandwiches.
A selection of our mini beast learning photos.
A visit from Garg and his animal friends - we loved to feel all their different skin and fur
Our minibeast hunt in the nursery garden.
IEYC topic - Dinosaur detectives
Nursery and Reception classes had a fabulous day out for their end of topic exit point. We visited Paradise park to see the dinosaurs and then visit the animals. The children were excited after learning lots of information about dinosaurs over the past few weeks. There were lots of questions asked and discussions had about what they could see and the children were able to recall lots of their prior learning from the topic.
Exit point - trip to Paradise Park
Dinosaur learning Spring term 2
We have a new topic - 'dinosaur detectives', and the children have been busy going on a dinosaur hunt and exploring our jungle role play. They found footprints and eggs belonging to dinosaurs and have been trying to work out which dinosaur might have left them.
In PE we have been making shapes with our bodies and practising using these shapes whilst using apparatus. The children have been highly engaged and persevered to make the shapes.
World Book Day - dressing up and sharing our favourite books.
Chinese New Year celebrations
As part of our Chinese New Year celebrations the children have looked at where China is on a globe compared to the UK. They have heard about Chinese New Year celebrations from one of their classmates and watched video clips of lion dancing and other preparations. We then made our own mixed media Tiger masks for the year of the Tiger and a large Dragon to dance with in PE. The children took turns to use the Dragon as well as play instruments, and wave streamers to music. For snack the children tasted noodles and prawn crackers. The children have also enjoyed playing in our Chinese restaurant role play area, making food for each other and trying to use chopsticks. We have practiced Chinese writing of special words and numerals in our Child Initiated Learning (CIL) and explored amounts with lucky red envelopes containing counters.
Chinese New Year Celebrations
Once Upon a Time - IEYC topic
We have been enjoying some traditional tales as part of our IEYC topic, 'Once upon a time'.
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
Tasting porridge like Goldilocks
Acting out the story
Taking on a role
Exploring porridge
We added water to the oats - it turned very slimy!
The Gingerbread Man
Making a story map
creating gingerbread men from playdough
acting out the story
Making gingerbread biscuits
measuring the ingredients
weighing the flour
Taking turns to mix
Check the recipe...have we got everything?
Mixing the ingredients
Rolling it out
Kneading and rolling
Cutting out the shapes
Whilst learning about the story of the Hare and the Tortoise, we used the internet to find out how to care for a real tortoise and how they hibernate in Winter. We also had our own races to be fast like the Hare, and made obstacle courses to be slow and steady like the Tortoise.
The Hare and the Tortoise.
Introducing the characters
Moving over, under and through equipment
obstacle courses to control our bodies in a slow and steady way
using shapes to make a tortoise
We used puppets, masks and figures to retell stories, recalling key events and repeated refrains with our friends. We also used construction resources to build bridges for the goats and the troll in the 3 Billy Goats Gruff story, and explored a range of vegetables after hearing The enormous Turnip.
The 3 Billy Goats Gruff
Building bridges to cross the river
building bridges with small construction resources
Acting out the story with friends
building bridges outside
The Enormous Turnip
Exploring vegetables
Retelling the story
cutting vegatables
We know we have to use use tools safely
Choosing our characters
Creating our story
Spring Term 2022
Happy New Year
We hope you had a lovely Christmas break.
We will be starting PE this week on a Wednesday. We will be learning and practising lots of physical skills and also developing our independence skills - taking off and putting on our shoes and socks.
This half term our new IEYC topic is Once upon a time. We had our entry point on Monday when we met a storyteller and made our own stories in groups. We are making them into a book with lots of illustrations to share in our class.
Autumn Term 2021 - Armstrong Class
Welcome to the start of a new school year. Our Nursery class has a new name - Armstrong class, after the astronaut Neil Armstrong. We will be learning about him later this term.
On this page you will see some photos and stories of things the children have been learning. We hope you like them.
Remembrance day - drawing poppies to help us remember the soldiers
This week we learnt about Diwali - the Hindu Festival of Light
Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely half term break. We have enjoyed seeing your photos on Tapestry.
This week we have been learning about Neil Armstrong - the man our class is named after. We found information about Neil Armstrong and some other famous Astronauts, Uri Gagarin and Tim Peake. We made rockets from flat shapes and also from boxes, thinking carefully about the properties of the objects we were using. We read the story of whatever next and acted it out using props in our playing and learning time. Below are some photos of the learning we have done.
Who is Neil Armstrong and what did he do?
Our first half term has flown by!
We have been busy exploring lots of natural objects, using magnifying glasses and our senses of sight and touch.
We have enjoyed playing with pumpkins, weighing, comparing sizes and cutting them open to explore what is inside. We found lots of seeds and were able to notice small groups of 1,2 and 3 using our subitising skills.
We also used lots of natural objects to make faces. We explored the objects, thinking about their properties then chose things to represent different facial features. We looked for objects which had similarities such as curved objects for our eyes, and long or short objects for our hair. We have made a display in Nursery and have some photos here to show you how busy we have been.