Latest News & Information
Dear Santa
After listening to the Dear Santa book, we have been very busy with activities linked to the story.
We practised our fine motor skills as we cut out things we would like as presents, stuck them on to our letters and made fingerprint Christmas trees and baubles.
There were opportunities to count out ‘baubles’ to decorate Christmas trees and match Numicon pieces to the corresponding Christmas pictures.
We showed our value of creativity as we designed our own trees and made Christmas shapes with playdough.
It is very cold where Santa lives in the North Pole so we explored ice alongside some of the animals that live in the Artic.
Handa's Suprise
.We have been focusing on the delightful story, Handa's Surprise by Eileen Browne. This enchanting tale has provided numerous opportunities for learning and exploration. Throughout the fortnight, the children learn the names of various animals and fruits featured in the story. They have been re-enacting the narrative using props, practising their balance skills by trying to carry baskets of fruit on their heads, and even crafting their own imaginative versions of the story by selecting different animals to "steal" the fruit. Their creativity has shone through in their drawings, where they have depicted their unique interpretations of the tale. The children have enjoyed counting different amounts of fruit to place into their baskets, which has been a fun and practical application of numeracy. They had plenty of opportunities to develop fine motor skills—through activities like making puppets from the story, designing their own fruit baskets and threading fruit.
We are going on a leaf hunt!
We have been focusing on the story "We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt" by Steve Metzger. We have been trying really hard to join in with the repeated refrain in the story, ‘We’re going on a leaf hunt, we’re going right away. Let’s find colourful leaves, it’s a wonderful day.’ We have explored leaves and other Autumn treasures, including pumpkins. There have been opportunities to develop our counting skills and number recognition when counting out confers and cones. We have also had the chance to develop our creative skills when making leaf hedgehogs and sponge print tree
Diwali
We learnt that Hindus and Sikhs celebrate Diwali. We learnt mehndi and rangoli patterns are used to symbolise good luck and good health, We used our fine motor skills as we designed our own mehndi patterns and used coloured powder to make rangoli patterns.
Multicultural Week
Multicultural week in Nursery has been amazing. We started the week with a visit from author Lorreta Chindo-Besong, who read us her story, Nain Rocks her Afro Hair. We joined in with the story and had a go at saying hello in lots of different languages.
We have focused on the story We All Belong by Alex Goss. We have compared ways we are the same and different to our friends, family and teachers in both physical appearance and in the things we like and dislike. We explored hand printing using skin tone paints.
We have listened to songs in a range of languages spoken by the children in Nursery and sung songs in French, Spanish and Turkish. We had the opportunity to dress up in clothing from other cultures and investigate herbs and spices used for cooking in these cultures. We looked carefully at flags from our family's cultural heritage and created our own flag. These flags were joined together with the rest of the school's flags to create 'Hazelwood's Heart of Heritage'.
We made Gurabija, a traditional Albanian biscuit. We used eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar, flour and baking powder. First we measured out the sugar, flour and baking powder, then mixed it together with the other ingredients. Once we had made the dough we used our hands to roll small balls before pressing them flat on the baking tray. Our teacher put them in the oven to bake. The smell in the Nursery was marvellous.
Owl Babies
We have been reading Owl Babies by Martin Waddell. We have enjoyed this story and have been joining in with the repeated refrain 'I want my mummy' very enthusiastically. We have retold the story using story props and produced our own versions of the story. There have been lots of opportunities to show our value of creativity, such as designing our own owls using a range of materials including pens, paints and feathers. We have enjoyed using the magnifying glasses to look closely at feathers and natural resources that you might find in an owl's nest. We have been talking about how the baby owls feel when mummy leaves and when she comes back and related to our own feelings when our parents and carers leave us. We know they will always come back.
The colour Monster
We have been reading the story The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas. This story helped us explore our feelings and emotions. We named emotions and feelings such as happy, sad, angry, scared, calm and love and then discussed things that make us feel some of these emotions. We have sorted objects using the colours names and taken part in a range of creative activities including driving cars through paint to make a large Colour Monster, finger painting our own monsters and learning to use scissors to cut out and make puppets. We have also been learning that it is important that we tell an adult if we need some help and support with our big feelings, particularly when we feel sad or angry,
Welcome Nursery!
Our Nursery children have been exploring their new learning environment and beginning to build positive relationships with our staff and new Hazelwood friends. They have had lots of fun this week and we are so proud of them!
