Welcome To The Nest!

Nurture Lead Practitioner: Miss Wood

Nurture Practitioners: Miss Hazeldine and Miss O’Connor

Another fun week in The Nest! We have introduced Buddy the Bear who go home with a child each week. Buddy’s diary goes home with the children and they write all about the adventures they go on with Buddy! This is a huge developmental strategy to talk about their experiences and show curiosity. This week in the nest we have continued with the Jack and the beanstalk story. The children used the knowledge of the story from last week to write a narrative. In maths we continued to learn about one more and one less. We also explored numbers up to 50 and the meaning of portioning numbers into tens and ones. We also completed creative activities such as painting a sunflower using forks.

Welcome back nestlings!
The children have settled in well after the easter break and enjoyed their first week back. Our topic this week is planting and growing. We started the week off with planting some runner beans, we discussed how to take care of them and the things they need to stay alive. Each couple of days a child is chosen to water the beans and ensure they are being looked after. Our story this week is Jack and the Beanstalk. The children have thoroughly enjoyed listening to this story and have produced some fantastic work based around the story such as a story map, an adjective beanstalk, used puppets to retell the story and ordered the story using pictures. 

In maths we have been learning about one more, counting backwards, exploring numbers up to 50 and understanding the meaning of tens and ones.  

This week was assessment week where we have focused on baseline, Boxall and WellComm assessments. The children have worked super hard in all assessments and have shown such gratitude when completing them. In between all their super hard work, we completed some fun painting activities. We used forks to create a lions mane and make a lion picture, we also used bubble wrap to make a snake picture. We have completed some practical maths activities such as drawing round our hand to measure how long our hand is using cubes.

This week in the nest we have been learning all about farm animals. We have been practising our cutting skills and 2D shape recognition to build different farm animals. In English, we were able to identify rhyming words and come up with our own poem and called it “I’m a little chicken”. We are continuing to do phonics every week and practising our letter formation. In maths we have been practising our number formation, understand the meaning of subtraction. We also made a card to celebrate mother’s day. As a group, we were able to identify things that make us smile and put it on a sunshine.

What a lovely first week back!

Our story this week was We’re going on a bear hunt. The bear was missing from the nest so we followed the footprints which led us to the bear. We brought the bear back to nest as he was friendly. For English, we were able to create a story map of the bear hunt, identify our favourite part of the story and use adjectives to describe a setting. For maths we were practising writing addition sentences, number formation and using number bonds to add. We also created a bear using 2D shapes, make a bear mask and made puppets to retell the story. 

Our key text this week was "The Way Back Home". We created a story map to retell the story through pictures. We then were able to identify the feelings of the characters in different parts of the story. For our big write we were able to use pictures from the story to think of a sentence to retell the story using correct punctuation and our phonics knowledge. For maths, we were practising number formation, working with numbers up to 20 and investigating place value using one more and one less. Other activities we participated in involved, making a jet pack to fly to the moon like the character in our story, using our phonics knowledge to build CVC, CCVC and CVCC words and exploring a variety of stories. 

This week our key text was Hello Winter. The children enjoyed learning all about winter and the seasonal change. The children gathered information from the key text and used iPads to research and create a fact file. In maths we were learning to recognise, build and write numbers 0-20. We also played some teamwork games such as what’s in the box and jenga.

Another lovely week in the nest! We continue to focus on frozen planets. This week our key text was little polar bear, we researched about cold and hot environments to see which would be best suited for polar bears. We then used our senses to discover what we may hear, see, smell and touch in a hot environment and cold environment. Around our classroom we had activities such as mark making in salt, matching number to quantity, working with 2D and 3D shapes and creating patterns using shapes.

What a lovely first week back in the nest! The children have settled back in well and got straight into having lots of fun and learning. In English our story was about penguins. We gathered facts from our story and created a fact file including its key features. We have also been practising our cutting skills, ordering penguins from largest to smallest and ordering numbers 1-10 independently. We have also been learning all about 2D shapes. We went on a shape hunt around school and found objects the same shape as ours. We also made a penguin using 2D shapes. 

The Christmas celebrations have begun!
This week in the nest we have taken part in some fantastic Christmas activities. We have been finger painting to decorate our Christmas tree, ordering our name to build a Christmas tree and building a snowman. In maths we have continued to practise subtraction. We also build Christmas trees matching number to quantity using sequins as well as adding the correct number of penguins to the igloo. We have continued to practise our phonics and forming our letters. We have also taken part in lots of fine motor activities such as using tweezers to pick up snowballs, gingerbread lace threading and cutting activities. 

This week in the nest we have been focusing on all things autumn and discussing seasonal change. We have taken part in lots of creative activities such as leaf painting, tree making, and making hedgehogs. In maths we have been counting cookers, practising number formation and matching number to quantity. In groups, we have also been exploring subtraction in different ways. In English/phonics, we have been practising letter formation, writing our first and last name and exploring writing sentences with correct punctuation. We had a surprise visit from our Christmas Elf! He will be reporting back to Santa in the North Pole every night to let him know we are on the nice list. 

We have been super busy in the nest this week! We have been learning all about Diwali, what it is and how it is celebrated. We have completed many Diwali activities such as, making rangoli patterns, colouring Diwali pictures, researching facts about Diwali, making our own diya lamps and much more! For our maths and English activities we have been learning to add two groups together and write number sentences, identify numbers and match number to quantity, shape recognition and ordering numbers 1 to 5. In English, we used the research we have discovered and wrote a fact file. We have also been practising phonics, pencil control and our fine motor skills. To end our week we worked as a team and took it in turns to decorate our Christmas tree. 

Another wonderful week in the nest!

Our focus has been all things bonfire. We have discussed as a group how we celebrated bonfire night. We have also made rockets, firework pictures and bonfires. We have also been practising our fine motor skills using buttons. In maths, we have been adding groups together and writing number sentences. We have also been ordering pictures from smallest to largest. We have also been practising work as a team and taking turns.

What a lovely week in the nest we have had!
There has been lots of fun activities such as mark making in sand practising our letter formation and number formation. We have also been practising our number bonds to ten. Some of the children created a wanted poster to help find the big bad wolf using knowledge of adjectives and conjunction to write a descriptive poster. We have also been working as a team in different group activities such as Jenga and a cake sorting activity. This helped us develop our turn taking and sharing equipment.

Our weekly theme this week was The Three Little Pigs. We completed lots of fun activities such as collecting sticks to build a house and using them to help us practice using the part whole model in Maths. We made a house of bricks using sponges and paint. We also discussed all the different type of houses we may come across or live in such as flats, bungalows and two story houses. We then used different materials to make our own house of straw, sticks and bricks. Finally, we worked as a team to think of some actions to retell the story of The Three Little Pigs. 

_{Happy Halloween!}

Happy Halloween! In the nest this week we have been all things spooky and fun. We have had lots of activities such as finding the spiders, making monster faces and making witches . We celebrated our final day of term with a halloween party doing lots of fun things such as apple printing, halloween dancing, cookie decorating and a special treat of a halloween jelly. 

This week in the nest we had our final week of learning about superheroes. We discussed the real superheroes such as doctors, vets, firefighters and many others. We also took part in some baking. This helped us practise taking turns, sharing and following instructions. We made cookies and decorated them. We then practised writing a list and instructions to bake again. In maths, we have been focusing on number recognition and matching number to quantity.

Supertato has been to visit the nest!
We have completed lots of fun activities on our tuff tray such as using tweezers to find the evil pea, potato printing, making our own supertato and finger puppets, trapping the evil pea using string and using peas to help us with our counting. Some of the nestlings have begun to complete more structured maths and English work such as practising number formation and creating a story map to retell the story of Supertato.

This week we have become superheroes! 
We read our key text which gave us a understanding that our dream jobs can make us superheroes. We had circle time with talking ted where we discussed what characteristics make a good superhero. We have made superhero masks, superhero wristbands and rescued people that were trapped in spider webs. We also had a surprise visit from Spider-Man that covered our classroom in a huge web. We used our superpowers to escape the obstacle course !

This week in The Nest we have been learning all about families. We read our key text and discussed different types of families, celebrations, religions and backgrounds. We brought in family portraits and shared them with our peers. We then used these pictures to draw family portraits of who live in our house. We have also continued to focus on sharing, taking turns and building friendships. Finally, we have had a go at some maths and English challenges such as number and shape recognition and writing our first and last names. 

In The Nest we have been focusing on how to stay healthy. First, we read our key text all about fruit. We then tried lots of fruit and vegetables. We took part in lots of activities such as packing a healthy and unhealthy lunchbox, sorted foods into healthy and unhealthy groups, took part in lots of exercise, practised cleaning teeth and washing hands and much more. We have also been learning to share, take turns and build friendships.

This week in The Nest we have focused on understanding, recognising and managing our emotions. The children have taken part in lots of activities relating to our key text The Colour Monster story. We helped The Colour Monster sort out all his emotions into jars which were happiness, sadness, anger, fear, calm and loved. We have created colour monsters using our craft resources, sorted bears into coloured groups using tweezers to practise our fine motors skills, shared emotion stories together, decorated biscuits and much more!

What a wonderful first week in The Nest we have had!
Our theme this week is All About Me. We started the week identifying our facial features and using the knowledge to paint a self portrait. We participated in some group activities that involved identifying similarities and differences between how we look and our interests. We completed some fine motor skills where we practiced holding a pencil correctly and threading hoops onto pipe cleaners.