Headteacher: Anna Moss

Forest School Activity

Scarecrows

Harry and Betty are all ready to go on show tomorrow as you have all worked hard with Mrs Allen to create the Early Years contribution to the festival.  We look forward to seeing lots of you there as you follow the trail to see what characters Blackwell has to offer.

Write Dance

(Gross Motor)

Row the Boat

We have been picking up our oars and rowing with them with straight and bent arms.  Adding in the forward and backward action with our bodies was the “challenge”.  Our favourite part was definitely rowing in a “two-person” boat whilst sitting opposite a friend.  

Listening Game

Bubbles and Tickle sticks

It has been all about practising sitting still this week as we played musical bumps.  When the music stopped, you showed us your best sitting – legs crossed, hands in laps.  You were far too good and so Mrs Allen and I dug out the bubbles and tickle sticks to make you wriggle and move.

Maths

Two or not Two

Balancing

As we all joined from Forest School, we played a sorting game of “two or not two”.  This was a chance for us to begin working on our “subitising” skills.  Subitising is seeing the number without the need to count.  Nursery children should be able to see 1,2,3 with just their eyes and we will begin this next week with a subitising song (everything has a song!).  We also enjoyed some outdoor learning with the planks/blocks as we tried to make the scales balance and find out which friend was heavier.

Communication and Language

Pumpkin Soup

A gorgeous story about a squirrel, a duck and a cat as they tried to work together to make some pumpkin soup.  Mrs Allen brought in her own pumpkin and you had a chance to take a look inside.  You enjoyed role playing the story with the soft toy animals too.

Forest School Game

A Tisket, A Tasket

A twist on last week’s song as we placed our letter into a green and yellow basket.  The “postie” continued to be careless as they travelled around the circle and kept on dropping that letter.  We think they need to change their job!  We sang along to the song – enjoy it this weekend.  A Tisket, A Tasket - Nursery Rhyme Song for Preschoolers and Toddlers - YouTube

Dough Disco

(Fine Motor)

Agadoo, Black Lace

We said Good Morning to Colin and Alan (in a photograph) every morning as we enjoyed Harriet’s favourite disco song.  It was funny to hear the stories last night of the children trying to tell you which song it was through clues.  Every day we talk about the artist, the song and where they come from by looking at their flag before we move our dough to the song.  We have tried our hardest to keep up with this fast paced song this week with an added dough difficulty.  Time to move on (!) to a three-day recap on songs next week.

A message for parents – it was lovely to meet most of you this week and have a chance to chat about how their first half term has gone.  The targets set are for us all to work on and any way you can help with these at home would help us.  The Prime areas – PSED, C&L and Physical – are key for all children of all ages and will be an excellent grounding as they begin BIG school next year.

Mrs Mander, Mrs Allen and Mrs Franklin X

Forest School Activity

Scarecrows

In preparation for the Blackwell Scarecrow Festival, you have all been working with Mrs Allen to create our very own Nursery story character scarecrow.  It was hard to imagine at the beginning of the week that wrapping two sticks in a cross position would end up looking like he does today.  We hope you all have the chance to come and visit him and his beautiful wife next Saturday 21st…..

Write Dance

(Gross Motor)

Wheels on the Bus

Our shoulders have been given a workout this week as we have been doing some “big arm” movements with circles, side-to-side and a two-hand push forward.  We talked about how wheels, windscreens and horns on buses need a lot more movement than a smaller vehicle – this has helped us to work harder with our Write Dance arms.  

Listening Game

Kim’s Game

Being able to spot objects, people that are missing from a row of up to five when our eyes are closed has been fun.  We started the week with some of our favourite soft toy animals on the five frame.  It made my heart bigger when I spotted Freya and Harriet playing the game with a friend’s face during Indoor Play and I stole (Mrs Allen says “magpied”) the idea and we enjoyed playing with my friends’ faces – can you remember who my friends were?  One you meet every morning when you arrive.

Maths

Pattern Parrot

The pattern parrot has finally arrived and the song becomes a loop in your head!  Pattern parrot is always a popular nursery song as he likes making patterns with two objects, actions, colours.  As we all arrived from Forest School, you had a chance to make a two-colour repeating pattern and the pattern parrot checked it!  We started to spot to “pattern parrot patterns” on our clothes and have decided we would like a stripe week next week.  Dig out those stripy clothes and wear them every day and pattern parrot can check!

Communication and Language

Scarecrows Wedding

Well we couldn’t make scarecrows without sharing our favourite scarecrow story could we?  You had fun with Mrs Allen making paper flowers for Betty’s dress and getting a wedding list ready as part of your story activity.

Forest School Game

I wrote a letter to my love

We continued our “postie” theme as we took it in turns to write a letter to our loves and take a walk following the path around our friends.  Dropping the letter and hoping a friend hears the sounds and rescues it for us was fun.  Who would you choose to write a letter to?

Dough Disco

(Fine Motor)

Ready for the Ride, Oh Hush and Jeff Lewis

Thank you Lily!  Lots of us hadn’t heard of this song but a great choice for a disco song!  We have learnt two new dough actions of pinching the dough flat into a pancake, popping onto our frying pans (our hands) and passing it.  Flattening the dough with just our fingers and thumbs when it is cold (it lives in the fridge) is an excellent workout for those handwriting fingers! 

A message for parents – the children might be coming home with a few new French words on their vocabulary.  French is our Blackwell modern foreign language and we start as early as we can so it becomes part of our everyday speech.  French club begins after half term for nursery and reception children with Mrs Wilson and Mrs Mander.  It takes place on Wednesday after school (3.15-4.00) and is a popular early years’ club.  Letters on how to sign up will be coming out on parentapp and in bags next week.

Mrs Mander, Mrs Allen and Mrs Franklin X

Forest School Activity

Autumn Art

As we move into our second topic of the term Autumn, on Monday we ventured out of school on our Autumn walk.  We headed over the road to our other Forest School sites and began to look for signs of Autumn.  We returned with a collection of skeleton leaves, feathers and acorns.  You enjoyed using these alongside the sticks found in our Forest School to create some Autumn art in the style of Andy Goldsworthy.

Write Dance

(Gross Motor)

The Penguin Dance

We have enjoyed being penguins this week to work on our gross motor skills.  Our arms became flippers as we flapped our way around the cabin with our waddling legs.  This dance is always a good one to practise balancing on one leg as you move your weight from one to the other.  Teach your family this weekend how to do it!

Listening Game

Match the Sound

We continued to learn how to stay quiet during circle time games with a matching instrument game.  Mrs Mander shared her five musical instruments on the five frame and you enjoyed taking it in turns to match the sound of an unseen instrument.  Instrument sounds are a lot of fun when you are 3 and 4 and lots of you enjoyed exploring them on the balcony during outdoor play and explore.

Maths

The Number 2

With the weather a little warmer this week we enjoyed some Maths games outdoors.  A popular one this week was when we had to make a team of two with the “10-second hug” game.  We hugged a friend, counted forwards to 10 and then found a new friend as we counted backwards from 10.  It is more important for us that the children count to and from 10 rather than counting beyond 10.

Communication and Language

The Leaf Thief

We always start the Autumn topic with this story!  A lovely story about the change of season which led into some role play during your circle time with Mrs Allen.  You enjoyed playing a hide and seek game with the leaves on the patio and making a boat for “mouse”.

Forest School Game

Early in the morning

Now we are “super speedy” with getting our waterproofs and boots on for our afternoon session outdoors, we have introduced our weekly patio game.  This week we have been singing “Early in the morning” and took it in turns to travel around the circle, delivering 4 letters (wooden blocks) to our friends.  This led to us into playing “posties” all afternoon and enjoying posting letters in the post boxes (crates).

Dough Disco

(Fine Motor)

Green Green Grass, George Ezra

I am sure the children are coming home singing this song on repeat as I have been!  What a song - thank you Theo for choosing.  We talked about George Ezra and the instrument he can play at the same time as singing.  We also made comparisons with him and last week’s Harry Styles and how they both live in the same country as us.  We have learnt how to “sausage roll” the dough and added the push down, push up, criss-cross arms for the chorus!  Thank you Lily for next week’s choice – this is a new one for all of us.  Keep these “disco” song requests coming in! 

A message for parents – it was wonderful to see so many of you at our Open Evening on Wednesday night and for you to see the areas where the children spend their days.  We caught up with most of you but for those that we didn’t, we will be allocating those parent consultation times next week (thank you for the fast return of the slips!).  This is an opportunity to chat some more about your little one and for you to get a glimpse of their learning journeys.

Mrs Mander, Mrs Allen and Mrs Franklin X

Nursery News – Friday 29^th September 2023

Forest School

The Gully

Finally, the gully is officially……open!  This week we have talked about how to stay safe in this area and more importantly for you, how to keep the water flowing.  It has been fun to watch lots of you race to the gully in the morning and afternoon and clean out the mud and sand so we can turn the tap on.  I would like to think you are this keen at home to help out.

Write Dance

(Gross Motor)

Just Like This

This Write Dance song has had us marching, building and eating (!) our way to and from school.  The trickiest action was “crossing the midline”.  Zigzagging arms across the body is a skill that uses both parts of your brain (thank you Oscar for showing me where this was this week). 

Listening Game

Find the Sound

Our listening game this week involved us hiding the music machine in a bucket and hiding the bucket in the cabin.  You took it in turns to use just your ears to find it whilst the rest of us stayed still and quiet to help you.  Staying quiet during parts of our nursery day is just one of the listening skills we learn.

Maths

Circles

As we waited for our friends to join us from Forest School, we enjoyed mark making numeral 1 – the easiest numeral to draw.  It was great to see this mark making continued outside in the sand with you Isri and your sand tool.  Once we were all settled, we enjoyed exploring circles in the cabin.  Finding objects with the circle shape on was fun and a great learning point when we spotted the sunglasses were more ovals than circles.  We enjoyed working as a team of two to create coloured camel circles and today popped on our circle binoculars (our hands!) and found more circles in our Forest School.  Why not go on a circle hunt of your own this weekend?

Communication and Language

End of Topic photo share

As we came to the end of our “All About Me” topic, our final few friends enjoyed sharing their family photo.  We heard all about the dinosaur statue in Jack’s, the trip to Greece in Amelia’s and a rather large Peppa Pig being part of Harriet’s family photo.  Communication and Language incorporates all of the skills of listening, attention, understanding and speaking.  Allowing children time to talk (whilst others stay quiet and listen) is a key part of our learning.  It is so much more than reading a story to the children.

Dough Disco

(Fine Motor)

Watermelon Sugar, Harry Styles

Thank you Elsie for starting the year with an excellent disco song.  We have been working on our first dough action of squeezing and rolling the dough into a ball.  We also had to listen for Harry’s words of “Watermelon Sugar, high” as we span our arm and waved.  Next week, we are going to enjoy George Ezra thanks to Theo.  Please do email in with your disco requests – everyone gets a song and routine for the week. 

A message for parents – we have our whole school Open Evening next Wednesday 4^th October at 6-7pm.  Please do come along with your little one so they can give you a walk around of where they play.  You are also welcome to visit all the classrooms in the whole school.

Mrs Mander, Mrs Allen and Mrs Franklin X

Nursery News – Friday 22^nd September 2023

Forest School

Open new areas

With the sand and the mud kitchen fully open for business in our first two weeks, we were ready for the crates.  Mrs Allen showed you how to transport the red crates safely, how you could stack with them and which types of arrangements you could make with them.  The most popular game this week was to use them for a shop as you used the wooden blocks for the money.

Write Dance

(Gross Motor)

We can do anything

To get our body ready for the day ahead, we take part in a morning dance.  We called this Write Dance.  This Autumn term we learn the song/dance part and in the Spring term we mark make to the song once our hands are ready for it.  This week we have enjoyed jumping, stretching, swinging our arms and shaking our hands.  The tricky part was doing each one as we were travelling. 

Listening Game

Matching Pairs

This term our first circle time of the day is always a listening game.  Learning the four listening rules help us learn to listen.  This week you enjoyed playing hide and seek with your three nursery grown ups as we hid their faces around the cabin.  You shared who you had found and we played a taking turns matching pairs game.  Good looking is keeping your eyes on the faces being turned over!

Maths

The number 1

We have two parts to our Maths sessions – the transition game (whilst we wait for all of our friends to join us after Forest School) and a whole class game.  Our transition game was a fun game of showing 1 on a five frame.  Five frames are ways that we can “see” the number without counting.  We then moved on to meeting our orange numicon 1, showing 1 object in our orange hoop and finding ways we can show one on our fingers.  Have a go this weekend!

Communication and Language

When we’re together, Claire Freedman

After our lunch, it is time for some story fun with Mrs Allen in our Quiet area.  Every week, she shares a story linked to our topic.  This week you enjoyed talking about the things you like to do with your friends just like the animals in the story.  Mrs Allen introduced her soft toy friends and you had fun recreating a picnic for them to match an event in the story.

Dough Disco

(Fine Motor)

All About You, McFly

Dough disco is exactly what it sounds like – moving the playdough to a disco song.  We do this daily to increase the strength in the children’s fingers, wrists, hands, arm ready for handwriting next year.  The children will choose the song and we will create the dance.  It is VERY popular part of life with us so get your thinking caps on for a favourite disco song your little one likes – everyone gets a weekly choice.  This week was a topic one as we played musical dough to the song.  When Mrs Franklin stopped the music we had to lock that dough away in a pot and pop our hands in our lap.

A message for parents – it never takes very long for the germs to circulate amongst us (including the adults!) once term begins.  If you feel your child needs calpol before school then we ask that you let us know at drop off and the reason why.  If the reason is because of a high temperature, we ask that you collect them at lunchtime (11.30/12.00) or pop to the office and complete the paperwork for calpol to be administered at 12.00pm when the temperature is likely to spike again.

Mrs Mander, Mrs Allen and Mrs Franklin X

Forest School

On the Farm

Who knew toothbrushes would make such good cleaning tools?  You enjoyed cleaning all the farm animals on the patio this week – they look ready for September now.  You also enjoyed creating your own object for the Festival parade today – enjoy swinging that around in the garden at home.

Dough Disco

Old Songs, New Routines

The “music machine” continues to make the song choice and this week it strangely chose well for our Farming topic – ‘What did the Fox Say’, Effy’s choice and ‘Boogie Hedgehog’ (again!!), James’ choice.

Phonics

The wave sound, w

Our final Nursery sound – the wave sound, w.  We were a little scared this week as there were wolves and witches with wands!  We never knew what havoc they may have caused when we opened the box!

Maths

More/Fewer

We have finished our Nursery Maths this year with one final push.  Comparing numbers on dominoes and dice patterns by labelling with more; fewer was clearly too simple and so we used the numicon pieces to help us find out “how many more?” e.g. 6 has two more spots than 4.  Wow! What Maths superstars your new teacher will think you are.

Communication and Language

What the Ladybird Heard, Julia Donaldson

A classic.  A perfect story for learning about “the farm”.  Thanks to Mrs Wilson, our Early Years French teacher – we knew the French name for the main character – coccinelle.  Ask the children to pronounce it correctly rather than trying to read it. :-D

Music

Sounds like a Square Dance!

We did it – we managed to take part in the whole school “country dance”.  Not only did we remember the sequences of moves, we had to do this in the middle of the yellow class circle.  It was so much fun!

A message for parents – the Teddy Bears picnic was a huge hit for the children, we hope they shared with you what happened there.  The minibus and the huge bears were the biggest hit.  I would highly recommend looking out for the events at Burcot Grange for children (posted on parentapp) and take the whole family. 

Enjoy your weekend all!  Two days to go!

Mrs Mander, Mrs Allen and Mrs Franklin X

Forest School

On the Farm

Milking the cows was a popular choice this week as you had to fill the rubber gloves with water and squeeze each finger to get it out again.  Such a good exercise for those hands!

Dough Disco

Old Songs, New Routines

The “music machine” continues to make the song choice and this week Henry was happy when Ghostbusters made a return and we still “moved it” to Benji’s disco choice.

Listening Game

Farm Sounds

Staying Quiet was revisited this week as we had to listen to the farm animal making the sound and see if we could match to the correct picture.  We talked about different types of chickens (hens and cockerels) and learnt the French names for cat and dog.

Phonics

The volcano sound, v

Just a few objects in the sound box this week – vulture, van and a vest but a lot more pictures.  We looked at a picture of a real life volcano and talked about why we wouldn’t want this in our box!

Maths

Dominoes

We linked our learning this week by looking at the patterns on our wooden dominoes – we realised we had seen these before when we were able to easily name the domino e.g. 5-2 3-1.  They were of course the same as the dice patterns.  We extended our learning by comparing each side and saying which has more and which has fewer. 

Communication and Language

Fergus the Farmyard Dog, Tony Maddox

You made the link between the characters in this story and one you have shared in the past.  Your story activity of describing animals was fun - luckily you were able to make the sound of the animal as a big clue to your friends.

Music

Sounds like a Square Dance!

Our whole school festival on Friday 21^st July is fast approaching and we are under pressure to master the dance.  Luckily the song is a hit as we can’t help but smile as we skip around in a circle all together in both directions.

A message for parents – we are off for our summer visit to Burcot Grange next Wednesday 19th for a Teddy Bear hunt and picnic.  Letter with further details has come out on parentapp today.  If your child attends on a Wednesday, we won’t be able to offer the 11.30 or 12.00 pick-ups as we are leaving at 10am and returning at 12.30pm for a late lunch.  The earliest collection time will be 1.40pm.

Enjoy the (rainy) weekend all!

Mrs Mander, Mrs Allen and Mrs Franklin X

Forest School

On the Farm

You had fun creating your own farm on the tuff tray with sand, mud and water combined.  Those animals had so much fun travelling through all of this.  You also enjoyed working as a team to build your own tractor with the crates.

Dough Disco

 You’re Welcome, Maui

Poor Evie. She danced through everyone else’s songs and somehow didn’t make her own choice.  We soon made up for it Evie with a classic song from Moana.  We talked about, looked at the flag of Hawaii, and learnt four new Hawaiian hand gestures for rain, sun, flower and wind – can you teach your family this weekend?

Listening Game

Odd One Out

We played an old game of musical threes with a twist – when the music stopped, you had to make the three and spot the Odd One Out.  Looking at who is different to the other two in different ways was challenging.

Phonics

The jellyfish sound, j

The sound box was VERY wobbly this week as you discovered two things in there to make it move.  A jellyfish and some jelly.  We also had five familiar faces – can you remember who they were???

Maths

Roll, Match, Subitise

As we head into our final push for school, we have been combining all our learning with a whole class game of Ladybirds.  You were all super at rolling, matching the dice pattern and subitising the ladybirds you collected.  For some, totalling them was your challenge.

Communication and Language

Let’s go to the Farm,

Caryl Hart and Lauren Tobia

To introduce our new Farm topic, Mrs Allen shared this story with you about Bee and Billy visiting new animals on the farm.  You made the story come alive with the role-play wooden animals and enjoyed singing Old McDonald with the animals from the story as you met them.

Music

Sounds like a Square Dance!

For our end of term whole school festival on Friday 21^st July, we have begun practising our very own country-dance in the afternoon.  Taking part in the same dance routine as the rest of the school may be our challenge but we can do this!

A message for parents – the French café is open next week for the whole school and this is for Nursery too!  Please send the children in with their 50p’s to buy a delicious French breakfast snack on any morning.  When they head past Mrs Moss, we will be there to support them with a visit to the tuck shop.  This is good practice for those heading into main school in September!  We will be ready for them in the cabin with our very own French dining table set up.

Have a lovely weekend all.

Mrs Mander, Mrs Allen and Mrs Franklin X