Archive 2023 Nursery

LAST WEEK...

What a fun last week we have had- it could only be FABULOUS with you AWESOME lot!

Forest school and our last performance went wonderfully well with lots of classes applauding us and bravo'ing our singing.

You saw and heard how AMAZING our actual performance went too. So much practice and hard work paid off- well done EVERYONE.

Our Teddy Bears picnic was a great success. We cut up; strawberries, grapes and bananas to thread on a skewer and also had crisps a cake as well.

A day of our favourite games today too :-)

We know you will have the BEST Summer and enjoy RECEPTION life to the fullest.

Many thanks to all our SUPPORTIVE and BRILLIANT families too.

w/b- 08/07/2024- our penultimate week…

In Forest School this week we had a fun carousel of activities.

Activity #1Blindfold tours.

You led your partner around Forest school. They could only use their ears to listen and hands to feel.

Activity #2Storytelling with puppets.

You used the puppets to retell the 3 little pigs story.

Activity #3Nature art.

Gathering natural objects to create an artwork o a massive white sheet.

Activity #4 Water painting.

Using water to paint objects- trees, leaves and fences etc.

Olympic Sports Day was FANTASTIC- even if the weather wasn’t so.

The classrooms were changed into Olympic Arenas as we participated in: warm ups, beanbag tossing, dancing, cone games, cheerleading, taekwondo and yoga.

Well done for all trying your best- we are very proud of you all.

More information on our performance will be emailed/ texted next week.

w/b- 01/07/2024- getting Reception Ready…

Literacy- In Forest School this week we used our investigative skills to find objects on our ‘scavenger list’. We had to use our eyes to hunt for the flower, leaf, insect etc and point at the object when we found it. This was lots of fun and we used great descriptive language to explain what we had found and where it was.

 We continue to be very observant and have noticed lots of changes in the classroom this week. We have been describing what has moved, gone or been replaced as the classroom gets ready for the new Nursery children. We are excited that this is happening in our new Reception classes too- ready for us to add our work to the walls.

Mrs Farrelly is so pleased with our performance practices and we love being in the amphitheatre. This week we are focusing on describing what we have enjoyed most in Nursery and using our big voices to be heard over the noisy birds and planes!

Numeracy- We continue to use the whiteboard to play lots of maths games. These are mostly through the ‘Topmarks’ website if you’re looking for educational games to play over the Summer. This week we have been feeling proud about how much we have learnt in Nursery by looking at what we knew in September and what we know now. The children were amazed at their improved number, sum and shape knowledge as well as their phonics and name writing developments. Everyone has made great progress and we couldn’t be prouder of you all.

Thank you to everyone who has filled in and returned the page in the report to assist your child’s teacher next year. If you haven’t done so, please return this ASAP thanks.

w/b- 24/06/2024- Dragon tastic times continued...

Literacy- The children were still curious about the dragon goings on in Forest School and they discussed wanting to make a nest, food and traps for the hatching dragons. Lots of maths language was used searching for the right kind of sticks (long, short, mawr, bach) and the thinking, teamwork and negotiating skills involved in gathering ingredients and making traps was phenomenal.

We have been to the amphitheatre to practise our end of year performance and we are already getting better at singing the songs we have chosen in the groups we have created too. We just hope the weather will stay kind for the actual day.

We continue to use our Read Write Inc chants to help us write our sounds and even write c-v-c words- this will help us lots in our new Reception classes and WOW our teachers too.

Numeracy- We continue to look at story sums this week and remembered what the ‘+’ and ‘=’ signs mean. It was fun using objects and our fingers to help us. We know lots of letters, but writing numbers is still tricky- don’t worry this will be covered lots in Reception with more helpful chants too.

We have lots of craft that we are finishing over the next few weeks. We have fish lanterns and fish stamped paintings we will be bringing home soon.

We hope you have all received your reports and please can you fill in and return the page about your child. This will feed into their one page profiles for their next teacher.

Moving up day was a great success and the Reception teachers cannot wait to have the children all back full time with them in September.

We still have three weeks of fun to enjoy in Nursery too. Next week Mrs Williams and Miss Hoyte will have a supply teacher to help on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as Mrs Farrelly is off to do her own ‘moving up days’ with her new Year 1 class in her new school.

Thanks for all the children coming to school with sun cream and hats- its appreciated. It may be back to rain coats again next week though! 😊

w/b- 17/06/2024- Dragon tastic times.

Literacy- Our book this week is ‘Zog’ and we started the week with a dragon sighting in Ewloe and investigating where it might be. Forest school seemed most likely so we headed there. We found footprints leading into the forest area which confirmed our thoughts. You were great investigators and found so many dragon clues everywhere. You found scratches and yucky dragon snot on the trees as well as damaged twigs. We enjoyed reading about Zog and what he learned as he moved up through dragon school (just l like us moving up to reception) and we practised doing what he learned in each year. We have started to talk about our end of year performance and the children wanted to perform outside so we had a look at venues and decided we liked the amphitheatre best. We explored the stage and the audience area and are excited to invite you to see us perform here in the last week of school (TBC).

Numeracy- We have been looking at story sums this week and learning what the ‘+’ and ‘=’ signs mean. It was fun adding up summer suns and ice cream. Next week we adding up with dragons.

We have chosen our own performance groups and the songs we would like to sing too- so you may hear us practising these at home as well. All of the children wanted to wear their own dress up/ fancy clothes for the performance so this information will be included on your invite- due soon.

We have had a look at the lunch hall and discussed next Fridays arrangements for the children to feel excited about moving up day.

Thanks for all the children coming to school with sun cream and hats- its appreciated. 😊

w/b- 10/06/2024- Forest school finding and fish fun too.

Literacy- Our book this week is ‘Tiddler’ and we love using all the areas to act this story out with the characters, clocks and Miss Skate’s register. We learnt that tiddler is another word for small (bach).

We had to use our finding skills in Forest school when we went on a hunt for something; big (mawr), small (bach) and something green (gwyrdd). Then we read a beach story book and used our listening skills. The story had lots of doing words in it. When we heard the word ‘jumping’ or ‘leaping’ or ‘balancing’ we had to act out that movement.

We created fantastic Father’s Day cards and chatted lots about all the features our Dads have to draw them just right and even wrote in them ourselves too- we hope you treasure these 'made with love' cards.

Numeracy- We continue to practice our counting through songs and have sung and acted out ‘1,2,3,4,5, once I caught a fish alive’ as well as learning a new song ‘5 little fishes swimming in the sea’. Counting backwards is trickier than counting forwards but still such a useful maths skill so please continue this when at home. Games to play to help include hide and seek, rocket launching and other songs like ’10 in the bed’.

In addition we have been gardening, planting, paint printing and much more other craft and this is still ongoing.

Please can coats come in every day as we got outside whatever the weather- especially on Mondays when we have our Forest School sessions. 😊 Diolch yn fawr

w/b- 05/06/2024- Holiday news and new Summer topic.

Literacy- We have been reading lots of Summery books this week and talking in front of the whole class about what we did in the holidays. It is amazing how far everyone has come to be confident in explaining events that have happened and even asking and answering follow up question too.

We have been chatting to Mrs Farrelly about we like in school, who are friends are and what we want to get better at. She is writing report stories about us and wants us to have our say on them as well. We even got to draw all our friends having fun in school.

We made ice-creams with scoops and pom poms to improve our fine motor skills. 

We continue to improve our phonics. Please keep this up as we can see such progress. The children are learning to use their ‘Fred Fingers’ to help them sound out the words they hear and it also helps them write them.  

Numeracy- It was exciting to change our month display to June. We sing ‘Months of the Year’ all the time so it’s great when we can relate it to our class display.

We've been exploring the '5 little monkeys jumping on the bed' song and have had lots if fun acting the song out.

This week we’ve been looking at dominoes and how we need to recognise the numbers and match them up. It was fun making a long track.

We are looking forward to Sports Day and cheering each other on.

Next week our book will be Tiddler 😊

w/b- 20/5/2024- More curious questions and amazing realisations.

Literacy- Our book this week is ‘The very hungry caterpillar’ and we love using all the areas to act this story out with props, cook for the caterpillar and look at fact books about insects. We’ve also had some of our friends explain that they have had caterpillars that have turned into butterflies in their house- great explaining and question asking everyone!

We all know this story but most of us still thought a baby butterfly would be a small butterfly. We kept rereading the story and asking lots of questions throughout.

We are working lots on blending- the skill that helps us read. We have been blending words orally and I will say put your fruit in the b-i-n. We are now using this skill to write blended words too. There are many blending songs and games to be found online and if you ask the children they will show you there ‘Fred fingers’ that help them blend.

Numeracy- We have been learning a big word ‘symmetry’- when one side is the same as the other. We have had fun using a mirror to check for symmetry with our faces and butterflies. We then painted one side of a butterfly to create a symmetrical butterfly by folding it over and pressing the paint. Lots of you chose to paint shapes and when I asked you Pa lliw? What colour? You told me in Cymraeg, coch (red) glas (blue) melyn (yellow) or gwrdd (green).

We were disappointed to not have had Sports Day this week, however it means we get another practice after Half Term and we hope you can still come.

What a fantastic wear green ‘well-being day’ we had today. We discussed how we have lots of big emotions and feelings and how some things help us feel better, happier or calmer.

You chose some great things that make you happy and calm to do today.

We went on the big yard and played on bikes, sang on the stage and chased each other on their painted floor snakes. We watched Pixar short films whilst having snack. We did a ‘Cosmic Yoga with Jamie’ story about the Hungry Caterpillar and we had a dance party too.

We practiced using our new breathing technique as well. We pretend our palm is a yummy chocolate cookie and we smell it with a big long deep breathe. We then use our index finger as our birthday candle and take a big long out- breathe to blow it out. We repeat the chant ‘smell the cookie, blow the candle’. If we do this 5 times it makes us feel calm and we can then talk about how we feel and be helped.

Enjoy your half term and we can’t wait to hear what you have been up to 😊

w/b- 13/5/2024- What a frog- tastic week this has been

Literacy- Our class song is ‘Five little speckled frogs’ and we have had fun acting it out and talking about one less, as each frog jumps into the water.

Numeracy- We have jumping frogs from shapes to lily pads using a dice to choose how many jumps. We have also been matching frogs based on their size and colour.  I have enjoyed hearing your talk about the frog families and how the big frogs could be Mummies or Daddies and the tiny frogs must be babies.

We have also enjoyed discussing our baby photos and we’ll be doing more with these next week. My how you’ve grown!

We have been looking at a frog life cycle and were amazed that they start off as frogspawn babies in the pond, we loved them turning into tadpoles (like us becoming children) and then they become froglets (like teenagers) and then they become adult frogs.

Our seeds have started to grow and we love looking at them each day and talking about what is happening.

Frogs and insects have also been I our sand and water areas where we role play with them going about their lives and also sing our speckled frog songs too.

We have also been creating some gorgeous beach art- inspired by Rhiannon Roberts. This will be on display in our outdoor gallery on Sports day.

Next week we will continue to mirror the activities inside outside so please bring hats and wear sunscreen if necessary or maybe have a coat too- this weather is unpredictable at the moment!

w/b- 22/04/2024 What a fantastic outdoor learning week we have had.

Literacy- We are now reading ‘The Enormous Turnip’ in class and have had great fun in PE acting out the story. We know this story well now as have listened to varied songs, stories and acted it out in class too. We can answer questions like ‘who?’ ‘what?’ and ‘where?’ and explain why we liked about the story too. We continue to add new songs to our repertoire. Our recent ones are ‘Little Peter Rabbit’, Humpty Dumpty, Twinkle, Twinkle and The Grand Old Duke of York. All of these repetitive nursery rhymes help with our language and number skills and are hugely FUN!

Numeracy- In our role play of the Turnip story there is a lot of counting. We had to count the correct number of people to pull the turnip. We also used ordinal language like ‘first’ ‘second’ and ‘third’.

We have been on a bug hunt and used bug holders with magnifying eyes to see what we found. I loved the way you kept on trying- when you couldn’t initially find any and this helps to build your resilience. You enjoyed sharing what you’d found with your friends and we chatted lots about the creature’s lives and how important it was to put them back when we had finished looking at them.

We have also been gardening and finding more bugs in the soil. We also planted our own seeds like Jack did. We chose to plant bean or sunflower seeds and can’t wait to watch them grow.

Next week we will look at how the children have grown. Thanks to everyone for the baby pictures we have received and please can we have them handed in if you haven’t done yet.

We continue to mirror the activities inside, outside so please ALWAYS bring coats even if it appears ok as it does get cold outside.

w/b- 15/4/2024 We’ve continued to have lots of Jack and the beanstalk fun this week.

Literacy- We found huge, some would say giant, footprints in class this week. It sparked so much chatter and debate. Was it Father Christmas or a Giant? We remembered it was April so thought the Giant more likely. This sparked us going on a Giant Hunt. We found signs that a giant had possibly broken the pavement. We asked our chickens if they had seen an anything. This led us on a golden egg hunt, working with our friend to find the Giants dropped eggs. In groups we decided to keep the eggs safe and make nests. Our first nests were ok but our second attempts were much better and held more eggs. The amount of descriptive words we’ve used to say Giant has been incredible. BIG, HUGE, GINORMOUS, LARGE, MASSIVE to name a few! We will continue to grow these fantastic ‘word banks’.

We had a fab PE session playing ‘Jack says’ instead of Simon says and you were brilliant at acting out the beanstalk story.

Numeracy- We have been working on our teen numbers this week, remembering the song chant ‘numbers in the teens start with 1’. Most of us can recognise 14 as one ten and four ones, and some of us can call it fourteen. Please keep a look our for numbers when you’re out and about- especially teen ones!

We have been practising our fine motor skills by using pegs to make beanstalks and adding green Numicon shapes 4 and 8 to add as leaves.

We’ve continued to sow seeds using sand and next week we will use real seeds and soil.

As a whole class we have decorated the Giants castle and have a finished beanstalk and castle display.

Next week our story is ‘the Enormous Turnip.’ We continue to mirror the activities inside outside so please ALWAYS bring coats even if it appears ok as it does get cold outside.

w/b- 8/4/2024 We have loved having you back in school and hearing all about your Easter holidays.

Literacy- Our class book is ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and our classroom is full of ‘growing’ and beanstalk fun. We have been acting out the story and love climbing the beanstalk, crawling under the Giant’s castle door and chopping the beanstalk down too. This book covers lots of emotions and has sparked discussion that its ok to have all these ‘big feelings’ and we may need help when we feel angry or sad.

We have two areas where we can role play the story too and I’ve enjoyed watching the children acting out the angry mum the most, as she shouts and throws the beans out of the window- Oscars await!

Numeracy- We have been making beanstalk towers with clouds on top by throwing a dice and threading that many cubes on a pole. Great for our maths and finger exercises. We have also been writing numbers, matching Numicon and counting out that many beans too.

We have also enjoyed playing a ‘growing themed’ bingo with seeds, plants and watering cans.

We have been practising our fine motor skills by rolling the play dough to see who can make the longest beanstalk.

In the sand we have been planting seeds in pots and watering them. You’ve had great imaginations as what the seeds will grow in to.

As a whole class we have working with friends to decorate our class beanstalk. We used a variety of creative tools and think it looks great. We can’t wait to put it up in Nursery and make the castle and clouds to go on top.

Next week we will continue to mirror the activities inside outside so please ALWAYS bring coats even if it appears ok as it does get cold outside.

w/b- 18/3/2024 Our final week before our Easter break has been packed full of egg-tastic and Spring activities.

Literacy- We have introduced questions to help the children think about the story we read each day. Since September they everyone has improved discussing books and this will help them even more. We have been thinking ‘what’ characters are in the story and also ‘how’ they felt during the book. It has even made us think ‘where’ is the book set as some have been in Africa, a farm or the park.

We continue to add new songs to our repertoire and Helpwr heddiw daily choice-this week we have added ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ and ‘Baa baa black sheep.’

We used our senses in Forest School to find out more about Spring. Our eyes saw lots of Spring life such as; birds, ladybirds, bees, flowers, new green leaves and buds on plants. Our nose helped us smell the daffodils. Our ears heard lots of different birds singing. We gently touched the flowers and found patches of nettles which we discussed we shouldn’t touch. We decided we shouldn’t eat anything we find in Forest School too. However, we did decide we could have our snack outside- and we did!

Numeracy- We have been continuing to use dice to help us match: numbered ducks, Numicon, chicks and ducklings. A Spring shop has opened up outside selling barbeque food and ice creams and we have been taking turns to sell and buy these items using money. Easter eggs have been decorated with patterned loose objects and using dabber pens too.

Thank you for another great Half term. We hope you stay healthy and happy on your two week break from school and we look forward to welcoming you back for our Summer term and an exciting ‘What’s Growing’ topic.

w/b- 11/3/2024 This week we’ve been focusing on the traditional tale ‘Little Red Hen’, our ‘5 Little Ducks’ song as well as learning about what Spring and Easter means to us.

Literacy- We welcomed parents in to celebrate ‘Mother’s Day on Monday. We hope you were as proud of your child as we were. They have worked so hard on learning new songs and actions, as well as creating unique cards and flower gifts we hope you treasure forever.

This week we have been designing our own Easter Chick. This has involved lots of questions when we have been making the body, wings, legs, beak and eyes. BIG or small, long or short and pa liw/ what colour? You have had some very creative ideas and have worked hard on your scissor skills. Our display is going to look chick-tastic.

We have watched and listened to a variety of ‘Little Red Hen’ stories and similarly to the ‘3 little Pigs’ story there are so many variations. Some don’t have a dog, cat and a rat but have a bull and a duck instead!  Traditional tales give the children the confidence to learn and then retell these repetitive phrase stories- which is why we love and use them lots.

We have been matching animal pictures to the correct words using our initial sounds such as knowing h-e-n needs to start with h.

WORLD BOOK DAY- You all looked amazing and we read so many of your books-THANK YOU. Year 6 even came to read with us too- it was a super special day.

Numeracy- We have been using a dice to help us choose how many eggs we need and also how many chicks need to go in the eggs.

The playdough area has seen lots of flatbreads being made and we have been practising knife and fork skills by chopping these up on plates. This skill will help us be ready for school dinners in Reception too.

In the sand we have been helping Little Red Hen make her bread. Lots of maths vocabulary is being used- ‘How much?’ ‘More please’, ‘5 spoonful’s’ etc. I love being in this area and being offered cake, pizza and bread.

We continue to spend as much time as possible learning outside so everyone still needs a coat until it is much warmer. We are experts at 'What's the time Mr Wolf?' and can happily start a game by asking friends all by ourselves- Da Iawn

We have discussed what Spring means to us. You are excited about; lambs, ducklings and all baby animals. Lots of you have seen Spring flowers and can name daffodils. Some are excited about the Easter Bunny and possible hunts for chocolates. We learnt the weather can be mixed which is why we see lots of rainbows.

We will be going on Spring hunts next week to see what we can spot.

w/b- 4/3/2024 This week we’ve enjoyed one of our favourite traditional tales, ‘The three Little Pigs’.

Literacy- We had a dramatic PE session where we acted out the ‘3 Little Pigs’ story and had so much fun pretending to be the pigs and the wolf- great acting everyone. We then played ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ and in Welsh ‘Faint or gloch Mr Blaidd? Learning to take turns is a big part of our Nursery sessions, where we don’t always have time for everyone to be the wolf.  I have enjoyed seeing the children recreate these games with their friends this week outside- da iwan pawb! We also played our favourite ‘duck, duck, goose’ game but changed it to ‘pig, pig, wolf’. 

We continue to improve our fine motor skills in fun ways. This week we used water colour paints to paint pigs- we can’t wait to show you our display as the finished paintings are incredible.

We have watched and listened to a variety of ‘3 Little Pig’ stories and we were surprised that there could be so many different endings. 

There have been lots of fun role play opportunities in class to retell the story using puppets, toys, building materials and colouring and cutting story pictures.

Numeracy- We have been ordering wolves in size from smallest and biggest and also talking about families and how the largest could be Grandad Wolf and the tiniest, Baby Wolf.

The Interactive White Board (IWB) had a directional game on it where we moved the wolf using arrows to blow the pigs houses over. It was great hearing teamwork and the use of phrases like ‘go forwards’ and ‘you need to turn’.

Over the next two weeks we are relooking at our traditional tale ‘Little Red Hen, the nursery rhyme ‘5 Littler Ducks’ and what Springtime and Easter means to us.

Thanks for coming to Parent's Day- always lovely to see you all and hear tales from home

Mother’s Day Performance- Monday 11^th March 9AM and 2.30PM. Family or friends are welcome to attend if you can’t. We can’t wait! 😊 

w/b- 26/02/2024 We continue to be so busy that the Nursery week just flies by!

This week we’ve been learning about St. David’s Day and our important Welsh symbols like; dragons, daffodils and leeks.

Literacy- We have watched and listened to St. David’s story and learned he liked to share, read and build just like we do.

We had an active Forest School session where we wanted to be Welsh Dragons. We thought Zog could have been a Welsh Dragon so we tried all the things he did. We tried to fly, roar (mainly at trees), blow fire and finally capture a princess (the teachers had to do as we couldn’t find any princesses)

We have introduced another job for Helpwr Heddiw each day, to choose what songs we sing. This helps the children make choices and start to use their ‘pupil voice’.

We have been improving our fine motor skills by colouring in our daffodils neatly, then cutting them out and finally writing our names on them. We are pleased lots of pupils say they have ‘children’s scissors’ at home as it is such a great skill and fun activity. They look amazing on our display.

Numeracy- St David shared the vegetables he grew so we have been sorting food into fruit and vegetables and meat. We then counted what we had sorted and described which group had more.

We have also been using dragons and eggs to help us match Numicon to numbers.

We have been building castles and monasteries with friends as well.

Next week we are relooking at our traditional tale ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and the nursery rhyme ‘Old MacDonald.’

Parents Day is Friday 8^th March- please come and see me if you can’t attend and I can assist.

Mother’s Day Performance- Monday 11^th March 9AM and 2.30PM. Family or friends are welcome to attend if you can’t.

w/b- 19/02/2024 We were so excited to welcome everyone back and hear about your half term fun. This week our story book is ‘Tiddler’ and we are learning the rhyme ‘1,2,3,4,5, once I caught a fish alive’.

Literacy- We have a new ‘bucket of books’ we read from every morning after we have done all our jobs (self -registering, choosing our colour monster feeling, taking snack out and putting our coats and bags away). What a busy start to the day you all have!

We have been improving our fine motor skills by catching fish, completing fish jigsaws and tracing along dotted patterned lines.

We are learning some new songs to sing to a special someone soon (mum’s this might be you!) The children are enjoying learning these- especially the actions.

We have a new ‘finding out’ area where we are using magnifying glasses and fish fact books to chat about the fishy objects that are here- lots of you already know lots of information.

Numeracy- We have been catching and sorting fish into colour families and then learning how it’s easier to count ‘how many’ when we line them up and touch each one in turn. Some of us can even find the matching number.

We have been matching pegs to Numicon shapes- lots of 'fine motor' pushing skills and counting too.

We have been making fish art with 2D shapes, googly eyes, pom poms and pipe cleaners.

Helpwr Heddiw has a new job of choosing our daily whiteboard activity. This week we’ve done lots of counting and recognising numbers in these games.

We have introduced a continuous snack system this week, where the children choose when they want to eat and drink and help themselves after they have washed their hands. It is working really well and it is  lovely to see the children chatting happily with different groups of friends in this set up.

NB/Can all snack boxes be labelled for the children to identify theirs as some boxes are very similar.

Information on Parents Evening coming soon.