Nursery News

News and Updates from Nursery

8 months ago
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Nursery News

A great week in Nursery to round off the term. It started with learning all about keeping our teeth healthy. We played lots of games using our mathematical subitising skills and even got to take home the games complete with minty playdoh and a toothbrush and toothpaste pack.
 
At the end of the week we took part in the school’s ‘TT Rock Star’ Day. Although not yet old enough to be thinking and learning times tables, that didn’t stop Nursery from joining in the fun – instead of times tables we drew on our understanding of 2D shapes which we have been learning about this term. We made TT Rock Star Robots, using rectangles. There were some really cool Raddlebarn rockin’ robots on display!
In the words of the late great rock start, Freddie Mercury – ‘Don’t stop us now, ’cause we’re having a good time!’ 
8 months ago
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Nursery News

This week in Nursery, we have experienced runaway chapattis and Monster Trucks! 
 
The children have been learning about 2D shapes and have been matching, sorting and classifying shapes. As part of these investigations we read the story ‘Tip, Tip, Dig,Dig’ and this inspired us to create our own ‘Monster Trucks’. The children’s imaginations were fired and the inventiveness of their ideas and their explanations as to what and how their truck worked, blew us away!
 
Following of from listening to The Gingerbread Man, we have been reading a similar tale called, ‘The Runaway Chapati’ by Susan and Alan Price. Set in India, it is the story of a little girl who made a chapatti, but it did not want to be eaten! The similarities with the Gingerbread Man helped the children to quickly learn the repeated phrases. We learned how to make chapatis and became experts with using a rolling pin to keep the circle shape needed to fit in the frying pan. The children were given some chapati flour and a recipe sheet so they can make some at home too.

9 months ago
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Happy New Year – Nursery

Happy New Year to you all! What a great start to 2024 for the Nursery children. They have returned all fresh and full of enthusiasm and energy. Which is just as well as in Nursery we now have our very own gym, complete with step machine, twist plate, cross trainer and exercise bike – oh and not forgetting the weights!  
 
Elsewhere, we have seen an explosion of interest in writing particularly with the introduction of our Tales Toolkit area. Tales Toolkit is a resource we have been using since the children arrived in September to teach story telling skills and develop their imaginations.  
Now we have the opportunity for children to draw and write their own stories using the story props in the Tales Toolkit area. We have been blow away by their natural story telling skills and keenness to tell a good yarn! We are even beginning to see some children attempting to write their names – exciting times ahead!
9 months ago
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Christmas News in Nursery

Wow! What a term we have had and what a lovely way to finish with a trip to the Hippodrome to see a favourite book we have been reading, brought to life! 
‘Dear Santa’ by Rod Campbell, was a magical experience for the Nursery children and to see a story that they know so well performed for them was a really special treat. The children were enthralled and loved every minute of it – they even got to meet the cast afterwards for a special photo opportunity along with a gift for every child.
 
To end our festive week we have had our parties – we played ‘Pin the carrot on Olaf’ and a version of pass the parcel but with a ‘Dear Santa’ twist, plus we made some lovely Christmas crafts too oh, and we ate lots of treats😉
 
From the Nursery Team, may we wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and here is to a happy and healthy 2024… see you all next year!
10 months ago
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Nursery News

In the Nursery the build up to Christmas is well and truly under way. The delivery of our Christmas tree last week caused much excitement and the children have learned how to make paper chains to adorn it. 
 
Elsewhere we continue with our mathematical exploration of collections. Sorting and matching things helps to develop visual perception along with critical thinking and memory skills. Key skills which are not only needed for maths but also for other subject areas such as Science and History.
 
We have been inspired by the beautiful book ‘Junk DNA’ by Clare Thompson. In the book the author has collected numerous everyday items made of metal and used these to create stunning images.
Miss Killelay’s Grandma was a great collector and just so happened to collect lots of interesting metal objects such as keys and nuts and bolts. The children sorted the items into categories looking at the similarities and differences, asking lots of questions about what the objects are and what they are used for.
We then had a go at making patterns and arrangements and even some pictures just like in the book.
10 months ago
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Nursery News

It has been a great week in Nursery (isn’t it always?). We have continued with our exploration of pumpkins left over from Halloween. We used these in our maths sessions to learn about comparative size; using language such as bigger than or smaller than and heavier and lighter. We also cut them open to see what was inside and used the seeds for a spot of subitising!
 
We watched a short video story of ‘Pumpkin Jack’. It is an American book that tells of a little boy who carved a pumpkin lantern for Halloween. He then put it in the garden and over time it began to rot down. Eventually, in the Spring, the seeds left inside began to sprout and new pumpkin plants and fruit grew, ready for the following Halloween.
 
Twenty days ago we put a left over carved pumpkin into a tightly sealed container (to keep us all safe) to watch what happens to the pumpkin over time. You can see by the current state of the pumpkin it is well and truly rotting down. The words used initially to describe the white bits were ‘snow’ and ‘fluffy’. Now the children are beginning to use words such as ‘mould’, ‘rot’ and ‘decompose’ with one child noticing this week that it had started to ‘melt’! 
 
We shall keep you posted – we are curious to see if our ‘Pumpkin Jack’ begins to sprout new shoots! Watch this space.
10 months ago
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Nursery News

To get off to a flying start this week, the Nursery children have been taking part in activities related to Anti-Bullying Week. On Monday we proudly displayed our ‘odd socks’ and talked a lot about how it is ok to be different. We read the book ‘Kind’ by Alison Green and this led us to create a ‘Kindness Jar’ – all through the week we have been adding kindness hearts to our jar when we have done something kind for others.
We have played some great games with socks too – always on the look out to practise our subitising skills in Maths, we used a 5 frame to show the amount of socks we were able to pick up using a ‘grabber’; this had the added challenge of using the 30 second timer too! We set a Nursery record with 7 socks grabbed in 30 seconds!
 
On Children in Need day, we used our Tales Toolkit to create a story around Pudsey and his friends. Pudsey wrote to the children to say he had lost all his friends – den, den, der! (they were hiding in the outdoors somewhere). What ensued was the biggest teddy bear hunt ever – lots of fun and lots of brilliant creative ideas to come out of today’s Tales Toolkit. 
11 months ago
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Nursery News

This week, as part of Black History Month, we have been learning about Lyda Newman. She was an African American activist and hairdresser and she invented the modern day hairbrush! Her idea was to replace animal hair with synthetic bristles and add ventilation into the brush… so there you have it! We learn something new everyday in Nursery!
It was lovely to welcome Hajara’s Mummy into the Nursery who showed us how she braids her daughter’s hair – it was fascinating and she was super quick at braiding!
We also read the book ‘Hair Love’ by Matthew Cherry, which is a very beautiful and poignant story of a little girl whose Daddy tries to help her do her hair for a very special occasion. There is a little video that you can watch online of ‘Hair Love’… we loved it!
12 months ago
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Nursery News

Hi Everyone
It’s been a really busy start to the new term and we are delighted that the Nursery children are already getting the hang of so many new routines, getting to know the staff and making friends with others.
Already we are creating our own stories with ‘Tales Toolkit’ (more of that to come), learning new poems from our ‘Poetry Basket’, getting to understand our emotions with the help of ‘The Colour Monsters’ and in maths, beginning to develop an understanding of subitising (more of that to come too!)
Here is a little snap shot of what we have been up to…
We took home Autumn Treasure Bags for us to collect interesting items on a walk with our parent/s. We have loved investigating and talking about what we found and we sorted and classified the treasures into sets.
Did you know that Monsters love Colours? Well, they do in the book we have been reading. This inspired us to produce our own ‘scribble monsters’ – it was great fun, scribbling along to different tempos of music – the William Tell Overture had us exhausted!
And just this week, we have been helping Hazel to celebrate her first birthday (Sunday 15th October). We made her dog friendly birthday cakes especially for her and her doggy pals. If you have a dog at home we can highly recommend Battersea Dogs Home dog friendly birthday cake recipe.
Tune in soon for more news from the Nursery 😉
1 year ago
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So long and farewell…

On Monday afternoon the Brilliant Badgers, the Super Squirrels and the Fabulous Foxes came together in celebration of the end of a truly magnificent year. To mark our farewells, we invited our parents and family members to come for Afternoon Tea and ‘champagne’ in the Nursery!
The children spent the day making and decorating cupcakes and practising their favourite poems from the Poetry Basket. The performance was of course, super and it was so lovely to see so many family members attend.
Goodbyes are always hard but we know that the children from Raddlebarn Nursery have had the most amazing year and are more than ready for the next part of their learning journey, whether that be here or elsewhere. It has been an absolute privilege to have been part of your first steps into school. We wish each and everyone a very happy summer.
Love from Miss Killelay, Mrs Whelan and Miss Hunt.
p.s. Thank you for all the love, support, kind words and gifts. We appreciate you all