First week back after Christmas and the children have come back very exciting and ready to learn. This week our focus text is Winnie Loves Winter. We have been learning about the signs of Winter and how this differs from other seasons. Children have explored snow play using small work characters along with decorating a winter scene using cotton ball, sequins and many other materials. We have been learning about the birds in winter and where they get their food from. We have made bird feeders to hang on the trees in the school grounds during our winter walk. 

This week have welcomed our new nursery children. The children have been very helpful showing the new starters where things go and navigating them around nursery. This week our linked text has been Three Little Pigs. The children have really enjoyed acting the story out and repeating familiar parts of the story whilst reading it. We have been used junk modelling to build house for the three little pigs using sticks and straw. We have got creative and used different construction materials to see how we could build their houses. During outdoor exploration children have used the crates and beams and worked as a team. We have looked at different materials and discussed why some may be stronger/weaker to build with. In Maths we have continued to look at number 3. Children have completed number hunts using images of 3 items and target splatters of 3 on the outdoor pitch.

This week we have been reading the story Noah's Ark. The children have taken to this story really well and enjoyed acting out the story. In nursery this week we have been using water colours to paint rainbows to represent the rainbow at the end of the story. We have been practising our cutting and sticking skills cutting animals up and sticking them onto a large ark. The children have had lots of fun with lots of large cardboard boxes pretending they are on the ark. Some of our children have great imaginations so this has been really lovely to see. During water play we have been exploring floating and sinking using boats and different materials to see if this changes whether they can float or not. Our number of the week is 4 so we have been doing lots of counting to 4 and finding hidden numbers around the area along with counting the correct amount of buttons onto Pete the Cat for maths.

This week the children have enjoyed learning about Chinese New year. We looked at the story behind new year and how the animals took part in a race to decide which animal was for which year. The children re-enacted the race during PE working in teams to get to the other side of the river. During this week we explored messy play using noodles, rice and chop sticks and made paintings using textured rollers. In maths children were using golden coins to put into red envelopes to match the correct number through subitising and indentifying numerals.  The children also took part in dragon dances making movements with scarfs. 

This week we have had a focus of dinosaurs. Our text was Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs which the children engaged with really well and wanted to read the other books within this sequence. During outdoor exploration children went on a dinosaur hunt whereby they were finding hidden dinosaurs and collecting these in their buckets. Also outdoors children took part in a Train Station roleplay. They throughly enjoyed this and even created their own  lost and found area. Using the crates they were being very imaginative building their own trains. Some children took the role of the ticket officer and stamped children's tickets to get on the train.