Ireland Wood Primary School
Immerse, Inspire, Include

Pupils  »  Archive  »  Archive 2012-13  »  Nursery

Nursery

Teacher:
  Mrs. Bromley

Other Adults: Zoe (Room Supervisor), Jessica (Assistant Room Supervisor), Janet (Child Practitioner), Jodie (Child Practitioner) and Natalie (Apprentice Child Practitioner)

PE: Thursday and Friday

Themes for the Term: Animals and their Babies

Teacher Promise:
We would promise to be friendly, helpful and fair. We will be fun, kind and smart!

Class Vision:
We would like to work in a bright, colourful and tidy classroom. When we are working, we would like all the children to be engaged and involved.

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year!! Year of the Snake In Nursery the children all enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year. We did lots of activities, such as finding all about the traditional story and what kind of animal we all are, which is determined by the year a person was born in. We also made a stir fry, using traditional ingredients. The children tasted the ingredients raw and cooked and decided which they preferred and amazingly most of the children preferred the raw ingredients!! We made a dragon and watched videos of people celebrating and how they danced. We did this using our dragon and musical instruments. Each child had an opportunity to dance with the dragon and play the instruments in a very loud way, as we observed on the videos. The children and staff were very excited about having a go at the dancing!!

Pancakes!!!

Pancakes!!!! The children listened to the teacher talk about the reason for Pancake Day and we celebrate with pancakes on this day. The children designed their own pancakes and made collages of their designs, discussing it with the adults involved. The children then had a taste test and decided which filling they liked the most. The chocolate spread went down very well!! The teacher had cooked some small pancakes for the children to have a tossing competition! The children all enjoyed this and became very involved. It made the children laugh and some pancakes landed on the floor, over the childrens shoulders and on the childrens heads!

Visit From Year Five

A Visit from Year Five The children from Year Five came down to visit and work with the children in Nursery. The children in Year Five had made and designed their own Little Miss or Little Mister books, thinking up new and varied characters. The older children then read their book to the children in Nursery, either at the top of the class or in small groups. The Nursery children also enjoyed looking at the older childrens illustrations of the characters involved. The children gained lots from working together, everyone was happy!

Year Three come for a Visit.

A Visit from Year Three!! Year Three had also designed their own flap books about animals, which fitted in with the book that they had been doing focussed work on and wanted to share them with us in Nursery. The children all came down and showed us their creations, which were wonderful!! One girl explained to use what they had been doing and then read us her story, showing us the pictures, before we broke into smaller groups allowing all of Year Three to read their books to the nursery children. We love it when other classes come to see us to share their work, as it helps us meet the big kids!

Life-Cycles.

Life-Cycles During this half term the children have been looking at lots of different Life-Cycles. From the plant and animal world, the children have explored all the areas of growth. From planting seeds; to looking at caterpillar pupae; to painting blooms; to moving like plants and animals as they grow; watching caterpillars develop into butterflies; to looking and discovering frogspawn and looking at the hens who lay the eggs, to name but a few of the activities that have taken place. The children have looked briefly at the circle of life and the outcomes, which will be developed over the up-coming term, when we talk about Animals and their Babies and What animals do for us.

Fun stuff in Nursery!

Look at some of the fun things we have been doing in Autumn.....

Here at Ireland Wood Children’s Centre, we like to get things off on a positive start!

When we were invited to join the Movement and Play city wide project, as a staff team it was felt that this would be a positive thing for our setting to be involved in, for both the children that attend the setting and the adults that work here. Though as a Centre we have always been involved in a lot of movement activity, we felt it was right to remind ourselves as to why we were encouraging this. The revised EYFS says that at 30-50 months children “Move freely and with pleasure and confidence in a range of ways, such as slithering, shuffling, rolling, sliding and hopping”. To get there starts as soon as a child enters the Children’s Centre, with the cooperation of the Parent/Carers.

Firstly Sharon came to visit our teacher and input with the nature of the project and all it would entail. The teacher decided that we should incorporate more movement throughout the day and had to think of positive ways that this could enhance our already energetic days.

The teacher then invited Sharon into deliver a whole setting training, which was very successful! The staff were then either reminded or learned new knowledge in regards to movement of children and the benefits of it, and how that impacts on ‘School Readiness’. The Staff came away with a lot to think about! Staff have since begun enabling children to take off their foot wear to play and have sensual experiences through their feet, as 80% of sensory feedback is through the feet.

The teacher encourages the children to become more bodily aware, through linking it to the reading of ‘Handa’s Surprise’. The children always find this extra movement a positive experience and it encouraged them to remember the story!

Here the children are learning the ‘Phonic’s Rap’, where we all get up and move to the rhythm of the rap, using actions. This helps us remember the name of the letters in the alphabet and keeps us moving!

Here is Luke on the carpet, as always in his superhero suit, showing that he enjoys working on the floor.

Using all the resources we have, encourages the children to move using both gross and fine motor skills.

Whilst we had the topic of ‘Ourselves’ the children learned all about their bodies through dance and rhyme, such as ‘Them Bones’ and ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’. This was extended by the children drawing around each other, indoors and outdoors. This activity kept the children busy for a long time and captured their imaginations. Indoors the outlines were filled with either, collage, paint or felt tip pens.

Here the children are looking at shapes, but are happier working on the floor, rather than a table.

From taking part in this project all staff have understood the importance of the movement of the children and therefore have encouraged the children to play in areas that are conducive to movement.

We encourage as much movement as is possible and in as many different ways as is possible.

We have also talked to Parent/Carers about the project and the benefits movement has on a child’s Holisitic Development and how it impacts on children’s future learning.

Having such resources at our use has enabled the setting to encourage children to become more bodily and movement aware. Children are taking more ‘risks’ with their movement and Parent/Carers are beginning to feed back about the positive benefits they are seeing with their own children.

Movement encourages the children to enjoy their learning and the children are much more open to learning experiences.

Children with Special Needs really benefit from gross and fine motor activities, helping them with their concentration, understanding and most of all the enjoyment of what it is they are learning. Riding bikes teaches our children lots, from the motion of how to pedal; using both feet; to using opposite feet; to controlling the direction of the bike; to the taking of turns; the expectation of behaviour and the language involved in all of that. It also uses both sides of the brain in readiness for other experiences and activities, such as reading and writing.

Boys like to be physical and flourish when having activities and toys that encourage them to explore. They are more open to domestic learning, such as writing and reading when learnt in a more physical way.

Engaging children in appropriate ways leads to all the Signs of Involvement;

Concentration; Energy; Complexity and Facial Expression; Persistence; Reaction Time; Verbal Expression and Satisfaction.

The revised EYFS talks in the Unique Child about, “Showing high levels of energy and fascination”. In Ireland Wood Children’s Centre that is what we as a whole staff team strive through the opportunities we deliver to children, through movement, exploration and fascination.
Revised EYFS

A guide to the stepping stones and the possibilities for all of the children's teachers, to enable all children to succeed.