nursery planning Archives

November 04, 2016November 04, 2016 by riverside

Our Pre-schoolers learn about Australia

Our busy pre-schoolers have been ‘down under’ during the past few weeks.

To help bring the experience to life, our pre-school room was transformed into the Australian outback, complete with Ayers Rock (a rather handy pop-up tent) and native animals, crocodiles, kangaroos, koalas, snakes and spiders. Needless to say, our fearless pre-schoolers took outback camping all in their stride!

The children have also been learning about Australian objects, such as boomerangs and didgeridoos. They also spent time crafting some famous Australian landmarks, including Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House made from paper plates and cups.

Halloween Fun

To celebrate Halloween, our pre-schoolers got to grips with an array of spooky activities. There was pumpkin carving, apple bobbing, spooky dressing-up (even a ghoulish “Woody” from Toy Story put an appearance!) and a potion station, where they could enjoy concocting ghoulish coloured potions.

The children also made sweet treats, such as witches hats (ice cream cones and biscuits) and chocolate covered apples complete with sprinkles. It was a particularly delicious Halloween this year!

Our sparkly boomerangs

One of our cuddly koalas

Boomerangs and a Digeridoo

Ayres Rock and The Outback

September 29, 2016September 29, 2016 by riverside

African Adventures for our Pre-schoolers

Our pre-schoolers have been learning all about Africa.

Our pre-schoolers have helped transform the pre-school room into an African village.

Nestled in one corner is a vibrantly coloured African hut, whilst outside African animals, such as lions, cheetahs, giraffes and elephants roam the savannah – ok, the reading corner!

The children have created wonderful artwork of African scenes for the art board. In the last few days, they’ve been busy making coloured African pots out of papier-mâché.

The children have really enjoyed hearing imaginative stories about native creatures such as ’Milly the Meerkat’, however, one book that has had them all absolutely hooked is a large encyclopaedia all about African animals – bursting with images and animal facts.

As well as playing adding and subtraction games to help the children develop early maths skills, Mary has been working closely with the children on literacy and language.

Alongside matching sounds to words, they’ve been practising writing words beginning with the letter ‘N’.

Next stop on our pre-schoolers’ world tour is Australia, which will start at the end of October.

Our African scenes artwork

Layla and Hendrix hard at work

Drying out time – Our colourful African pots

September 29, 2016September 29, 2016 by riverside

Boosting our Pre-schoolers’ Literacy Skills

Learn about the work we do with our pre-schoolers to prepare them for school

To prepare our pre-schoolers that will start school in September 2017, Mary spends time each week playing games with the children to develop their phonics and literacy skills. The children also focus on a letter of the week and are asked to sound out and write down (with help) items beginning with that particular letter.

Additionally, if your child starts school next year, you’ll receive a wallet in January with a reading book or puzzle sheet to look at with your child at home.

The idea is to help your little one become familiar with taking books home to read when they start school. Also in the wallet is a reading record. This is so you can write feedback about your child’s reading, for example, what they enjoyed or what they found tricky.

Mary ran the scheme earlier this year with our pre-schoolers and feedback was extremely positive. One parent said how much their daughter’s listening and language skills had improved in the months before starting school.

Examples of the children’s writing skills

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August 15, 2016 by riverside

Caribbean Capers for our Pre-schoolers

Feeling hot, hot, hot! Our pre-schoolers have been exploring the Caribbean ocean and islands.

The pre-schoolers have been having ‘a totally tropical time’ learning all about the Caribbean.
As well as doing crafty activities, such as, making jellyfish, beach scenes, seahorses and octopi, we’ve been learning about what lives in the deep depths of the ocean. The children have also got stuck into making a big art display about the children’s story The Rainbow Fish.

To begin building the children’s maths skills, we’ve been playing the adding and subtraction fish game. Whilst to aid literacy and language development, we’ve been looking at the letters that make up the days of the week, matching sounds to words with phonics games and writing words beginning with the letter ‘O’, such as, ‘Octopus’.

Our pre-schoolers have also been playing simple, fun games such as searching for fish in sparkly water (which involved plenty of splashing!) and a sandcastle building competition in our lovely indoor sandpit.

Continuing our Caribbean theme, we‘re about to start learning about sea-fairing pirates. Watch out for our pirate ship art, treasure maps and sensory trays full of gold! Ahaaaaarr!

: Our under the sea display including our big sparkly rainbow fish and smiley octopus

Our ‘under the sea’ display including big sparkly rainbow fish and smiley octopus

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July 01, 2016July 01, 2016 by riverside

Babies and Toddlers turn Jungle Explorers

Babies and toddlers explore the deep, dark jungle.

Over the past few weeks, the babies and toddlers have enjoyed lots of jungle-themed activities including making giraffe biscuits and lion face pizzas and creating some inspiring jungle artwork. Check out the children’s amazing giraffe hand prints below!

We’ve been teaching the children about the different types of animals that live in the jungle, such as lions and giraffes, and practising the different noises they make – we have some lovely loud lions in the group!

We’ve also listened to and performed actions to one of the children’s favourite stories – Rumble in the Jungle – and sung about noisy Leo the Lion. As well as great for making huge ‘roars’, these stories and songs help the children become attuned to stage one phonic sounds.

We’ve also been practising counting and identifying numbers at circle time and in different, imaginative ways throughout the day.

The seaside is coming…

In July the baby and toddler role play area will transform into a lovely sandy beach. We have lots of exciting adventures planned such as creating papier-mâché beach balls, exploring tropical fruit and jelly and making our own ‘flip flops’. Watch this space for the results!