Autumn Term 1 - September 2022
A huge welcome to all the children in Nursery whether they are new or returning to us! We hope that you had a fantastic Summer break and are ready to have lots of fun learning with us again. This half term is going to be a wonderful time for us all to get to know each other and return to our familiar routine and activities we all enjoy.
Please check below for more information about this half term and don't be afraid to ask either me or Miss France if you have any questions.
Talk 4 Writing - Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins

We will be learning all about Rosie and the walk she takes around her farm. We'll be watching out for the sneaky fox and all the things that happen to him when he tries to catch Rosie. Will he finally catch up with her? The children will also be looking at chickens and foxes and talking about the differences between the animals as part of their Topic and additional activities.
While the children are settling into their new routine we will be encouraging the children to learn new skills and helping them to use the new tools that they will have access to while at nursery. Through the use of scissors, paints, pencils, chalk, collage, clay and junk modelling (plus many others) we hope the children will start to become confident and creative. Using these materials should also help to develop their fine motor skills in readiness for early writing/mark making.
Topic - Skills and Tools / Autumn

Maths
For maths we will be concentrating on counting 1 to 5+ and looking at colour. The children will have activities to support their growing understanding of these areas and hopefully have some fun while doing so. The first half term will also be used for staff to complete base line assessments in order to assist the children in their next steps.
"The Creation Story" and "How God Loves Us" will form our Religious Education, and the children will engage in group time, prayer and quiet time, to reflect on these topics, during this half term. They will also engage in saying or singing their daily prayers.
RE - Creation and God loves us.

Week 1 beginning September 7th
All the children (new and returning) started back on Wednesday 7th September and are starting to settle in well. We have been working on getting back to our routine and will be learning and remembering our class rules over the next few weeks. I have been struck by how kind the children are being and how they are renewing their old friendships and making new ones. Please see below for some photographs from our first few days!
Week 2 beginning September 12th
It has been a wonderful week of getting to know each other again and making new friends too! The weather is still good and the children are beginning to understand their routine and expectations in Nursery. We have had fun mark-making in the class and outdoors. The children have also been practicing their fine motor skills by cutting and pasting for our collage of Rosie (the chicken in our story). In addition to this the children showed off their listening skills for the Creation Story and their fantastic balancing outside this week.
Week 3 beginning 19th September
We followed up from The Creation Story by talking about all the fantastic things that God has created and compared them with some things that are man-made. This is a tricky thing to do but the children tried their best and were very good at sharing their ideas at group time. While the weather is still being kind we were able to take the children to our school field to look at the 'baby' pumpkins, bean plants, herbs and even collected some apples and pears for our snack! The children have been experimenting with the paints and mixing colours to find out what happens and we have finished our Rosie collage for our display!
Week 4 beginning 26th September
The children have been practicing their fine and gross motor skills this week. We have helped them practice their scissor skills and they have been using large paint brushes in our outdoor area for 'painting' the chalk board and our outdoor easel. We have also celebrated a birthday and had parents to Stay and Play! Thank you to all who attended. I hope that you can see how well all the children are settling in to our nursery routine.
Week 5 beginning 3rd October
We have been using our PE session to reinforce our use of positional language. The children loved crawling through the tunnel, under the bridge and balancing across the benches of our obstacle course. It has been wonderful to see how some of the children are gaining confidence and making progress with their gross motor skills as a result. We have also talked about why we make the sign of the cross when we say our prayers and practiced our fine motor skills by using a tweezers to move and count objects in the Nursery classroom. The windy weather has blown some of our sunflowers over so we explored the head of one and have put it on our windowsill to dry. We talked about how we can use the seeds next year to grow even more flowers!
Week 6 beginning 10th October
The children sequenced our story by using pictures and putting them in order. They have also been practicing their names (recognising them and attempting to write them). We've been thanking God for all he has made for us and looking at autumn leaves. To finish our week we celebrated a birthday. Hopefully he had a fantastic day!
Week 7 beginning 17th October.
We've had a fantastic week to finish our first half of the Autumn Term! The children have been showing us the Sign of the Cross, making patterns and foxes, looking at pumpkins and meeting our beautiful owl visitors. The lady who brought the owls (Sadie) commented on how well behaved the children were so well done everyone! Please see below for some photographs from the week.