Nursery JH
Welcome to Nursery!
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework is a government document that all schools and Ofsted-registered early years providers in England must follow. It sets standards for the learning, development and care of your child from birth to 5 years old. The standards ensure your child will learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe.
What Will My Child Be Learning?
The EYFS framework outlines seven areas of learning and development and educational programmes. There are three prime areas of learning, which are particularly important for your child’s development and future learning:
Communication and Language, Personal Social and Emotional Development and Physical Development.
There are four specific areas of learning, through which the prime areas are strengthened and applied:
Literacy, Maths, Understanding the world and Expressive Arts and Design.
Early years practitioners also use your child’s needs and interests to plan challenging and enjoyable activities and experiences.
How Will My Child Be Learning?
The EYFS framework identifies the essential role of play in your child’s development. Our curriculum provides opportunities for abundant free-flow child-led play, where children can push their own boundaries, develop reasoning skills, make decisions, release stress and work through difficult emotions exercising control which is essential for self-regulation. This is therefore the cornerstone of our curriculum. It is through both child-led play and play guided by an adult that your child will develop confidence and relationships with others. Through play, EYFS practitioners will help your child to extend their vocabulary and develop their communication skills. The EYFS framework identifies three characteristics of effective teaching and learning:
Playing and exploring, Active learning and Creating and thinking critically.
A greater focus on teaching specific skills will occur as your child progresses through their reception year, which will help them to prepare for year one.
Our Nursery year 2024 - 2025
Nursery Rhyme Workshop!
We had a wonderful time inviting our parents in to our playdough workshop. We measured the ingredients to make 'no cook playdough' and 'cloud dough' to take home along with recipes for other types of dough. We had fun getting messy with our grown ups!
This term we have been immersing ourselves into everything Autumn. We have been on an Autumn walk, looking for signs of Autumn. We collected some fallen leaves, berries and pinecones and used them in our craft and numeracy activities. We looked at all of the different vegetables that we brought into school and were able to name lots of the them. After carefully chopping all of the vegetables, we then made soup to welcome our grown-ups into school with. It was delicious and healthy! We sang our Autumn songs for our grown-ups too, ending with our favourite, 'Dingle dangle scarecrow'.
Our Nursery Year 2023-2024
STEM science workshop
We had bubble fun with a science lesson with Mel, from Northumbria University. We listened to the story 'Too many bubbles' and we used liquid and gas for our bubble experiments. The liquid was the bubble mixture and the gas was the air that we blew into the bubbles. We used different shaped bubble wands and watched to see what shapes the bubbles would be and Mel and Caitlyn blew some giant bubbles. Our grown ups came to join us - and so did the rain!
Mrs Henderson introduced our story of 'Handa's surprise' and we talked about where the story took place. We worked out that it was in a hot climate and found out that it was set in the African country of Kenya.
We made 'mud' houses using clay, straw and twigs, African patterns using different shapes to recreate the pattern examples and we used puppets, masks and real fruit to retell the story.
We had a selection of fruits from the story and used the different paint colours to make observational paintings and we also used tangerines for our subitising activity, emulating the patterns on the dice using the tangerines.
Supertato to the rescue!
We enjoyed listening to lots of different Supertato books, written by Sue Hendra. We made Supertatoes with playdough, using Mr Potato head pieces, crafted Supertatoes with their cape and masks, rescued veggies from a trap with tweezers, weighed the Superveggies in the home corner and made vegetable shopping lists and Supertato speech bubbles.
We had fun being back to school after the Easter holiday and exploring our classroom and all of it's new furniture and resources
We had great fun with Phil from 'Muddy Monsters'. He showed us how to be careful around the fire that he lit, we could feel the heat from a safe distance. We enjoyed lots of other outdoor experiences like using the mud kitchen, hanging and pulling ourselves up on the outdoor gym, painting with mud, swinging in the hammock and digging and exploring in the woodland.
We had an amazing attendance for our playdough workshop. We made no-cook playdough and cloud dough with our grown-ups - getting very messy in the process! We also showed our grown-ups how we do 'Disco dough', which helps to strengthen our hands and fingers, ready for mark-making.
Funny faces for Red nose day
We have been creating activities to support children's understanding the world and physical development, specifically using their senses and exploring nature as the children create images and models to support their understanding of the effects of changing seasons, while they learn new words related to Spring.
We shared the story, 'Jasper's beanstalk' and we talked about how plants grow and what we might find at the top of the beanstalk. We planted our own beans and we cannot wait to see how they grow!
We painted pictures of daffodils and primulas. We looked closely at the colours of the petals and the shapes of the leaves.
We made spring gardens.
We made trees that were starting to grow new leaves and blossom. We used real leaves and flowers and talked about how they feel smell and look like
We used daisies and green playdough to copy subitising patterns.
We enjoyed celebrating Chinese new year - the year of the dragon! We did our own Chinese writing, made Chinese lanterns, money wallets and Chinese cherry blossom. We also celebrated by playing instruments, dancing in the hall and doing a parade through school.
Bertie Owl helped us to talk about celebrating the New Year. We wore party hats and had party blowers. We talked about how we had all celebrated the arrival of the new year and that last year it was 2023 and this year is now 2024.
We did the countdown together and blew the party blowers and wished each other a Happy New Year!
We then had our own New Year tea party and made new year's resolutions
New Year Countdown - 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 - Happy New Year!
Nursery Rhyme Week
Nursery rhymes are important in early years to help children to develop key developmental skills.
They are a powerful learning source in early literacy and enable children to become interested in rhythm and patterns of language.
Rhymes support language and communication skills, build confidence and prepare children for reading and writing as they get older.
We had lots of different rhyme activities this week - we made salt dough currant buns; planted flowers like 'Mary Mary, quite contrary' ; used the farm animals to sing 'Old Macdonald had a farm', using the Makaton signs for the animals and counted the 'speckled frogs' - we even found a speckled frog in our yard!
We went to play outside in our yard and found poor Humpty Dumpty cracked open on the floor next to a wall. Did he fall, or was he pushed?! This was a crime scene! We dusted for fingerprints and looked for footprints with Mrs Weightman and then discovered a clue...
We did lots of Humpty Dumpty themed activities. We built sturdy, strong walls for him to sit on, made salt a dough Humpty Dumpty and did a scientific experiment to find out which material would protect and egg most effectively.
To finish our nursery rhyme week, we invited parents into school to make puppets and resources to support our singing of the rhymes.
To start off anti-bullying week, we took part in odd sock day, highlighting our uniqueness - we are all different, all special!
We have been celebrating Diwali in lots of creative ways in nursery. We made firework pictures, made Mehndi designs, diva lamps and rangoli patterns. Diwali is the Hindu festival of light and symbolises the victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance.
We lit our Diva lamps, looking at the lights, shining in our dark classroom.
Our Nursery year 2022-2023
Eco Beaver
We had our annual visit from Mrs Beaver and she took us on a climb up Wish tree mountain, we wrote our wishes on a star and hung them on the wishing tree.
We danced with our silk scarves to waft the wishes into the sky.
We then made a beaver colony, played 5 little speckled frogs, decorated biscuits, dressed up and made lemonade!
We enjoyed having our grown-ups in school for our nursery rhyme workshop. We learned about the importance of nursery rhymes for our language skills and made lots of props to help us to sing our rhymes.
We also shared some yummy hot cross buns
We had a fantastic day with Phil from 'Muddy Monsters'! 😃
The Muddy Monsters kept us busy!
We used the mud for mixing in pans and making artwork
We enjoyed exploring the natural environment and finding our way through the bushes and trees
We had fun sharing the hammock and taking turns to swing each other
We made some amazing bubbles!
We went on a bear hunt journey with Phil, travelling through each part of the story, including the thick oozy mud and stumble tripping through the big, dark forest
Hansel & Gretel
We gathered together to plan what we needed to make a gingerbread house for our role-play area and then got busy making the sweet decorations - spiral lollies, giant colourful smarties and candy canes.
We enjoyed using the gingerbread cottage role play area
We made story maps and followed the trail
We had lovely ginger smelling playdough to make gingerbread men with
We used sweets and jars for counting and writing number sentences
We had fun celebrating Chinese New Year 😃
We enjoyed sharing the Chinese role-play area with our friends, writing down the orders from the menu and trying to pick up the string noodles with the chopsticks.
We matched objects of lucky colours - red and gold - to the numerals
We have decorated the classroom with our Chinese crafts
Making Chinese crafts
Waiting to try the noodles and prawn crackers
Playdough workshop
We had a great day with our grown ups, making 'no cook' playdough and 'cloud dough' in our playdough workshop. We followed the recipes and then showed our grown ups how we do disco dough, to strengthen our hands, ready for writing 😃
Anti-bullying week
As part of anti-bullying week, we wore odd socks to school today. We wore them in celebration of our individuality - everyone is different and everyone is equal
We enjoyed our Kalma yoga class with Vicky as part of anti-bullying week. We met Kalma Koala, who looked a little different to how koalas usually look, but we know that it's ok to be different. Vicky told us about how finding the quiet inside ourselves and being calm can help us to be kind ♥️
We finished the session calmly, with one hand on our chest and one on our tummy as we closed our eyes and concentrated on our breathing
We raised lots of money for Children in Need - and had fun at the same time!
We did our own afternoon yoga session
Halloween learning
We wrote our potion recipes and made them in the water area
We drew pumpkin faces and squashed and squeezed the spooky green playdough
We practised our fine motor skills by tapping golf tees into the pumpkins
We did some cauldron counting - matching the spooky creatures to the numeral
Harvest
We learned about the time of year, called Harvest. We looked at the different vegetables brought into school and then enjoyed welcoming our grown ups in to share the soup that we made.
September 2022
We are all settling into Nursery life well
Science Week 
Our science focus was on the continent of Antarctica.
We learned that it was the coldest place on Earth - even colder than the North Pole!
Antarctica has 90% of the total ice on Earth.
It is a cold desert, as it hardly ever rains or snows and the ice is 1 - 3 miles thick!
Antarctica has only 2 seasons, Winter and Summer, where we have 4 seasons, winds can reach up to 200mph - brrrr!
No humans live there, but lots of scientists visit to study the landscape and animals.
There are seals, killer whales and lots of different types of penguins living there.
We have found out lots of facts and have done some fun activities, we love science!
We made habitats for the penguins using sugar cubes, icy blue playdough and printed igloos with paint.
We used coloured ice-cubes for colour mixing, guessing what colour the different combinations of ice cube would make
We used coloured ice to 'paint' with, it felt so cold and melted in our warm hands
We even investigated 'Antarctic ice' in the outdoor area
Nursery sports day!
We practised our throwing, catching and balancing skills
Hurdles
We burnt lots of energy
We kept cool in the sun 😎
We had special visitor at Sea View - Mrs Beaver! 🦫
Mrs Beaver was nervous about meeting the children - until she saw all of our smiling faces 🙂
We journeyed to 'Wish tree mountain' with Mrs Beaver
We wrote and drew on our wish tags and hung them on the wish tree
We used silk handkerchiefs to waft our wishes into the sky!
We washed the shells and helped to build the Beaver colony
We made Beaver biscuits
We dressed up - and so did some of our grown ups!
We used umbrellas to sing and act out the song, "5 little speckled frogs" 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸
We also enjoyed making and sharing mint tea with Mrs Beaver 🫖🍵
The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Celebrations 👑
Our story for Jubilee week was 'The Queen's Hat'. We learned about all of the London landmarks and used these to make our maps.
We made giant stamps
We coloured Union Jack flags red, white and blue
We designed crowns to wear for our Jubilee parade
We made Jubilee biscuits
We had a whole school, Jubilee parade - and Mrs Granlund even took a selfie with the Queen!
Mental Health Awareness Week 2022
The theme for this year's mental health awareness week is loneliness.
We talked about the importance of friendship in combating loneliness and listened to a story about how friendship is far more important than any possessions.
We drew our friends and talked about what made them special
Fun times with friends 🙂
Easter celebrations 🐣
We invited our grownups into school to celebrate the Christian festival, Easter, by making Easter crafts and sharing hot cross buns and Spring songs
Morning nursery
Afternoon nursery
Red nose day
We had fun having 'Red nose and spoon' races and raised money for Comic relief.
Handa's Suprise
We retold the story using props, masks and puppets.
We made African necklaces.
We observed and painted the fruit in the story.
We made story maps and retold the story using pictures as cues.
Supertato to the rescue!
We used the story setting of a supermarket in the Supertato book for our role-play area
We designed our own Supertato characters
We used real potatoes and Mr Potato head to create our Supertato designs
We made wanted posters to help capture the the evil pea!
We used potatoes in our numeracy
We recalled quotes from the story and wrote them in speech bubbles
We used real vegetables to retell the story
World book day red carpet
Children's mental health week ♥️
We took part in a number of activities this week to promote children's well-being. We decorated stars in a way that makes us feel happy, we drew pictures of happy faces or something that made us feel happy, we decorated hearts for someone special, we did some mindfulness through yoga and then we finished the week by having an ice-cream treat from the ice-cream van.
We explored lots of different activities and techniques to celebrate Chinese New Year and also tried some Chinese food.
We used cotton buds and plastic bottles to paint cherry blossom
We made 'happy new year' cards
We used Chinese numerals to support our numeracy skills
We took our Chinese parade all the way to Mrs Weightman's office!
We painted good luck messages in Chinese writing on our banners
We made Chinese lanterns
We listened to The Willow Pattern story and made our own Willow Pattern plates
Making repeating patterns on a Chinese dragon
Chinese zumba
Making fans
Our favourite part was trying the noodles!
We have been talking about internet safety and being safe online. We listened to a story to help us understand how important this is...
The story told us that...
"When you're talking to someone on the internet, you can't always be certain who it is. Unfortunately, not everyone tells the truth online, and people can pretend to be someone else."
Winter time!
We used different objects to construct Winter structures with...
We made 'Frozen' castles using blue and silver cups
We used salt dough to make snowmen and added buttons for features
STEM activities: Mel came to visit us from Northumbria University to talk to us about what scientific jobs we could do in the future. She told us about what a 'glaciologist' does. She read us a story and we did some experiments with ice and melting, using food colouring and pipettes, so we could see the effects.
We also made pictures using coloured ice cubes instead of paint.
We learned about space and made imaginative alien artwork during our topic of 'Journeys'
We made planet pictures
We made maps for our journey into space
We built rockets to fly into space
We decided what to put in our packed lunches to take with us on the journey
We made our own constellations using fluorescent stars
We painted aliens on the shiny planet
We designed aliens using paint and drew alien pictures
Christmas at Sea View Nursery
We decorated the Christmas tree...
We made salt dough decorations to hang on our own Christmas trees
We also made other decorations to take home
And we had a visit from the Christmas elf
Happy Diwali!
Our Diwali decorations
We began our celebrations by making firework paintings
We made 'Happy Diwali' cards and Diva lamps
We used seeds to make Rangoli patters, made lanterns and mehndi
Halloween and Winnie the Witch fun! 
We used a pumpkin to strengthen our hands by tapping in golf tees
We used different shapes to make funny pumpkin faces
We dressed up, made potions and magic wands - and did Halloween yoga
Cauldron counting, role play and making writing shapes
Harvest soup
We chopped and prepared vegetables to make soup to share with our grown-ups
We showed racism the red card!
We all wore red for 'Show racism the red card' day and drew pictures of our friends. We also listened to a story by Julia Donaldson that promotes difference and tolerance called 'The Smeds and the Smoos'.
Halloween fun 🕷️
We had fun dressing up!
We made Halloween crafts
We used activities to help our fine motor skills and strengthen our hands
We even joined in with a spooky Halloween themed yoga 🙂
We explored colour and how different colours make us feel
Our artwork...
Hello yellow day!
We explored colour in lots of different ways and talked about how different colours make us feel 🙂😭😜😤
Well-being week
PHSE links:
To communicate their feelings to others;
To recognise and begin to know how others show feelings;
To listen to other people and play and work cooperatively.
To start the new term, we have enjoyed listening to these stories...
Funny faces - and things that make us happy! 
