Our Gruffalo adventures continued this week with lots of imaginative play, outdoor exploration and opportunities to get creative.

At the playdough station the bairns made their own versions of owl ice cream, using their imaginations to decide on flavours and toppings. Our vegetable stew made another appearance, the bairns helped to prepare and chop the vegetables again. Once the vegetables were cooked it all moved outdoors to the mud kitchen, where the bairns could get stuck in to create their own recipes.

We headed off on a nature walk on Tuesday morning, but with a Gruffalo twist! Hidden amongst the trees were different Gruffalo characters for the bairns to spot. The had to look carefully as they explored, encouraging observation skills and making the walk into an exciting Gruffalo hunt.

The sandpit became a treasure-hunting adventure. The bairns dug deep to discover hidden bones and other treasures before creating their own treasure maps, using their ideas and imagination to plan where their treasure could be found – “X marks the spot!”.

We made the most of the outdoor space on the tar on Thursday, giving the bairns plenty of room to run, move their bodies in different ways and enjoy being active outdoors together.

We continued building our links with the primary school by heading down to ‘play through primary’ again. The bairns enjoyed spending time in the school environment, exploring and becoming increasingly familiar and comfortable with the wider school community.

Another busy week! Again, we’ll leave you with some additional photos from their play throughout the week. Thanks for reading along!

This week at nursery we stepped into the deep dark wood as we explored “The Gruffalo Granny”! We’ve read and enjoyed the book many times this week so have engaged in various Gruffalo inspired activities.

We created our own deep dark wood in the tuff tray, where the bairns could explore, imagine and bring the story to life, as well as creating their own woodland stories and games. We also enjoyed making vegetable stew in the water tray. The bairns  carefully chopped and prepared different vegetables before adding them to the water tray to mix up their own stews and soups, just like the ones Gruffalo Granny enjoys! To top it all off, we even had scrambled snake for snack. An amusing change from scrambled eggs!

We had a special visit this week from a former nursery worker and her baby. The bairns were very excited to interact with the baby and were delighted to have the opportunity to hold her. It was a lovely, memorable experience and sparked some conversations around caring for babies and how we grow. We were grateful to be given permission for these photos to be shared on our blog.

The bairns fairly enjoyed our visit to the school on Friday for “Play through Primary”. They explored different areas throughout the school, playing with a variety of resources and enjoying spending time with other bairns, including some familiar faces. It was a lovely opportunity to become familiar with the wider school environment and build their confidence.

Another busy week of stories, imaginative play, exploring, learning and making connections. We’ll leave you will some additional photos of play from throughout the week and look forward to share more next week!

It’s been another busy week at nursery, with lots of play indoors and outdoors and opportunities to explore our wider community.

In PE this week the bairns were using balloons, scarves and pom poms to practise tracking with their eyes, watching the objects as they moved through the air and following their movement.

After receiving our letter from Miss Robertson last week, we decided to put our literacy skills into practice by working together to write back to her. The bairns shared their ideas about what they wanted to say and drew some pictures on the letter.

On Wednesday we headed out for a walk to the postbox to post the letter. This gave us a chance to discuss how letters are sent and to learn more about our local community. We enjoyed walking together, looking at our surroundings and practising our road safety.

On Wednesday morning we were invited down to the primary school for their assembly. It was lovely for the bairns to experience being part of a larger school community and to become a bit more familiar with the environment and routines that they will be part of in the future.

This week we also had a fire drill. The bairns did a brilliant job staying calm, following the instructions and leaving the building safely. We were just about to head outside to play at the time so luckily most of them had their jackets on! This was an important opportunity to learn about fire safety and understand why we have procedures to keep everyone safe.

After our fire drill we headed down to the back of the primary school to play on the play equipment. They had great fun playing on the boat and hauling creels. Whilst exploring the other equipment they developed their balance, coordination and core strength. Moving across the play equipment encouraged the bairns to plan their movements, judge distances, develop spatial awareness and make risk assessments.

Last but not least, here are some pictures of some play that has been happening at nursery this week. We are always a busy bunch! 🙂

It’s been another exciting week here at nursery, with plenty of pictures and news to share!

The bairns have had a good mix of play outdoors and indoors throughout the week, with all areas of the setting being enjoyed. Outside the mud kitchen and sand pit have remained firm favourites, with the bairns showcasing their brilliant imaginations and investigating different materials through hands-on play. Indoors the children have had lots of opportunities to follow their own interests, make choices and learn through play, with the water tray, building blocks, sand pit, small world, crafts and playdough, amongst others,  all proving popular.

In PE this week we were practising our throwing, rolling and kicking skills with balls, aiming carefully to throw the balls into hoops or to knock over skittles. They developed their hand-eye coordination , control and accuracy whilst having fun being active.

Bookbug came to visit on Wednesday for the first time this term. The bairns fairly enjoyed singing along and joining in with the actions during the songs and rhymes and listened well during the story. We love when Bookbug comes to see us!

On Thursday several of the bairns were keen to go outside and help “put the garden back together”. Everything had been moved off the grass the day before so that the grass could be cut, so the bairns showed responsibility and fantastic teamwork in working together to lift and carry the logs and roll the tyres back into their places.

The bairns have been increasingly interested in playing post offices so we have set up a post office area of our own this week. The children have been writing/drawing on, stamping and posting their letters and parcels and exploring different roles within their post office play. This has provided lots of opportunities to develop their communication, mark-making and early literacy skills through imaginative play.

We were then very lucky to have a visit from a real life postwoman! Michelle came in to see us and told us about her job delivering the mail. She gave all the bairns envelopes, labels and stamps and let them use her scanner to scan and “beep” their labels. Thanks very much to Michelle for coming to see us!

In line with the post office theme, we also received a very special letter! Miss Robertson wrote to us to share her news from her maternity leave so far. The bairns loved seeing the picture of baby Tommy and hearing how they are getting on. It turns out his favourite song is one that we sung during Bookbug this week!

A busy, brilliant week of learning and play for us all!

We’ve had another lovely week at nursery, packed full of fun, creativity and plenty of opportunities to learn through play.

The bairns enjoyed PE again on Tuesday, it’s great to see everyone joining in and developing their physical skills while having lots of fun.

We also had a delicious science experiment in the kitchen on Wednesday, with the return of Betty – our sourdough starter! The bairns enjoyed measuring and mixing the ingredients together to make pancakes, whilst talking about how tiny living organisms in the sourdough create bubbles and give our pancake mixture a yummy texture and flavour. We nearly used all of Betty up so we made sure to feed her again so that she is ready for our next baking session!

Our water tray has been a very popular area for exploration this week. The bairns experimented with mixing different colours together, watching as the colours changed and new ones appeared.

Various arts and crafts activities have been on the go this week, with several of the bairns keen to help create the colour monster display. They have done a fantastic job and we are excited to see the finished result.

There has also been plenty of construction and imaginative play this week. Using our building blocks, the bairns have worked together to build houses, ferries, towers and all sorts of structures. We’ve seen problem solving, teamwork and creativity as they experimented with balance, size and shape.

An all-round busy and happy week!

We have fairly enjoyed our first full week back at nursery, with our returning bairns and new starts all settling in well.

On Tuesday morning we took the children up to the leisure centre for a fun and active PE session. We played a few stop-start games, encouraging the children to listen carefully to instructions and respond appropriately, then enjoyed some time running around and playing with the balls. The children were very engaged during their first PE session and appeared to thoroughly enjoy themselves. This visit helped to support gross motor development, coordination, spatial awareness, listening and confidence, whilst also promoting the importance of being physically active.

The bairns have been very busy both indoors and outdoors this week. We have been lucky with the weather this week so have enjoyed a lot of time playing in our garden. Water play in particular has been popular so we put our suits on to keep us dry and had all sorts of fun with our outdoor tap. One of the children asked if they could get the hose out of the shed and that led to experimenting with the changing direction and movement of water, displaying curiosity and problem solving as they added extra pipes for the water to flow through. They made little boats out of tin foil to sail down the stream of water which proved very exciting.

We also had our first day back at library on Thursday. We went in 2 groups to ensure there was space for us all. Elizabeth read us a story then we got to look through the books ourselves before choosing which one to take home. The bairns listened well and appeared to enjoy the visit. Nursery rhyme packs went home with everyone and can be returned each Thursday in their blue folder.

A great week all round, lets see what fun next week brings!

Welcome back to the new term at Nursery.

Here are a few photos of what we have been up to since we have returned.