Mega Maths 

Over the last two weeks in Nursery we have been concentrating on the specific area of Maths' looking at our counting skills, recognising numbers, adding two groups of objets together and recognising and talking about the properties of shapes. We cannot believe how much learning has been taking place in our classroom. 

Making shapes using lego, talking about the properties of shapes and looking for familiar shapes in the environment that are similar.

Fishing for shapes in the water, thinking of ideas about what the shapes could represent in the environment. 

Ethan drawing a clock and the children helping him add the numbers to tell the time. 

The children finding objects that are longer than the Giant Footprints and then ordering and comparing up to 3 different objects to find out which is the shortest and longest. 

Grace made a prediction that the wooden block would be the heaviest, can you tell by her face that she was right? 

The children played Tin Can Alley, using bean bags to knock the tins down the children' task was to recognise the numbers. 

Can you believe how much progress we have made in our maths? 

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Welcome back to our class blog

The sun has been shining this week, so we have taken the opportunity to do lots of planting for our new outdoor garden and even had a mini BBQ .

We have planted beans and sunflowers, the children talked about what plants need to grow.

What a fabulous week in the sun we have had. 

See you next week  

Haigh Hall Trip  

On the last day of spring term we went to Haigh Hall for a day filled with Easter activities and outdoor fun. 

Our amazing Easter baskets. 

The children then made fantastic Easter badges 

 Making bird feeders for our gardens. 

Pit stop in the woods! 

Den building! 

Fun on the park! 

Easter Activities

This week in nursery the children have been taking part in lots of Easter activities. We started the week by reading the Easter story and learning about why we celebrate Easter.

We made eggs using salt dough and baked them in the oven, the children then painted lovely patterns on them.

The children did a fantastic job making repeated patterns on eggs. The children developed their fine motor skills by using pegs to dab cotton wool in the paint.

Easter Bonnet Parade

On Wednesday the children did their Easter Bonnet parade, Mrs Houghton and Mrs Pennington were  our judges, in 1st place was Reilly and in 2nd place was Adam.

Reilly and Adam our Easter Bonnet Winners!

A big thank you to all our amazing parents for taking part in our Easter Bonnet competition.

Have a wonderful Easter!!! See you all on the 20th April, Lots of Love the nursery team xxx

Our trip to Greenslate Farm

On Wednesday we went on our trip to the Farm, we had such a fantastic action packed day.

We started the day by learning all about the fruit and vegetables that they grow on the farm, the children already knew the names of lots of fruit and vegetables but learnt lots of new vegetables such as Leek and Beetroot.  The children went on a hunt to find lots of the vegetables and had to dig them up from the ground following pictures and clues.

Evan digging up the carrot's and Rihanna digging the potato's.

Alfie collecting some Rocket.

After we had found the vegetables on the farm the children made their own pictures using the vegetables', the best bit was tasting them.

We had lots of fruit and vegetables left over so we decided to feed the goats, ponies and pigs. The goats were very hungry!!!

We had a lovely picnic lunch, some children ate in the tepee and others sat on the grass.

We planted different kinds of seeds to take back to school, including

Sunflowers and Pumpkins. The children made their own labels, what a fantastic job Jessica and Zac did.

Before we went home we fed the chickens and collected their eggs.

Thanks for looking at our blog, see you all next week

Abracadabra!!!

This week in nursery we have been celebrating World Book Day, we decided to turn the day into a week so all children in our class could be involved. We themed the week around the stories of 'Winnie The Witch'.

Over the week we actually read 6 'Winnie The Witch' books, that's a lot of reading! One of our activities was to make story hats, we concentrated on the structure of the books and the events and characters in each story. Our story hats are the main focus of our new World Book Week display, come into our classroom and see our fantastic work.

On Thursday the children all came to school dressed as a character from Winnie The Witch. The parents did an amazing job and we can't thank them enough. It was a tough decision to choose 3 winners for the best homemade costumes. In 3rd place was Mia C for her homemade Winnie the Witch hat, in 2nd place was Adam for his fantastic Wilbur costume and in 1st place was Alife Jennings who came dressed as a multic-oloured Wilbur just like when Winnie turned Wilbur multi-coloured in the story. Alfie what a fantastic idea!

 Mia with her fantastic Winnie the Witch hat and Adam dressed as Wibur.

Alfie in is his fantastic Multi-Coloured Wilbur outfit.

On Thursday morning we went to the ALPS to make our own Witch & Wizzard potions that the children had made up.  We used crusty toenails, bogeys, spider blood, and eyeballs. We put the potion ingredients in our cauldron and put it on the fire to boil. When it had boiled we used our magic wands that we had made and waved them five times and shouted ABRACADABRA!!! When we lifted the top off and it had made a delicious soup, it was yummy. We then roasted marshmallows on the fire. We had such a great morning.

Next we are having superhero challenges girls -vs- boys and don't forget its Comic Relief on Friday, the children can coming to school dressed a superhero or princess.

See you next week!

World Book Day Notice 

On Thursday March the 5^th it is World Book day. In nursery we always celebrate World Book day by having a dressing up competition and a party, this year we are going to theme our week around ‘Winnie the Witch’ with some exciting activities planned.

On Thursday we are asking children to come dressed as a character from ‘Winnie the Witch,’ the competition will be based around the best homemade costume and there will be prizes for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place winners. There are some fantastic ideas on homemade costumes on http://winnie-the-witch.com, which also has some great games the children can play on.  

To celebrate our love for reading we are inviting the children to bring their favourite book into school to share with the other children. We looking forward to a fantastic reading week ahead and hope you can support the children in their love of reading by making an extra special effort for a bedtime story every night.

Thank you for your continued support

Nursery Staff 

Chatterbox Challenge Week 

On Friday we walked to the Robin Park Arena to take part in this year's Chatterbox Challenge with other school's from the local community. Over 250 children joined in the four nursery rhymes and then we all played ring games and had a little picnic. 

The four nursery rhymes:

1: Here we go around Mulberry Bush

2: If you go down to the woods today 

3: Five little Ducks 

4: Sleeping Bunnies 

Thank you to all the parents for donating to this amazing charity 

Have a wonderful half term see you back in school on Monday 23/2/2015

An Alien Invasion 

We had a lovely Monday morning in class.  We talked about what our Chatterbox Challenge is, which consists of learning 4 new rhymes. We started of with ‘Here we go round the Mulberry Bush’. We also talked about eating healthy and why we need to do lots of physical exercise. The children made a start on making healthy lunch boxes and played a healthy lunch game with Lauren.

But then something very strange happened, when we got back from lunch there was patterned underpants everywhere. Uh oh, whose were they and how did they get there…………?

Alfie J said “Miss Oddie it’s that Alien that I saw last week on the moon” Charlie had an idea “Lets go and find it and give him the underpants back”.

So we set off in search of the Alien to give him the underpants back, it was great because the children each took a pair of underpants and described the pattern so they knew exactly what Alien they were looking for.

When we got there we realised there was more than just one Alien but 12, oh my goodness. The children found all the Aliens and matched their patterned underpants   to the right Alien. It was a good job the Aliens were friendly.

We set up an obstacle course outside, the children had to go under, over, through, and climb over the top of the climbing frame. Zac said “This is good exercise”. 

As part of our Chatterbox Challenge which is themed around the television program Ben and Holly we watched Ben and Holly’s Royal Picnic. We thought about our own picnic and what we would have in our own picnic basket and wrote these ideas down. 

Ben and Holly lived in a castle; we wanted to make our own castle. We set the children a challenge, using poles, connectors, pegs and fabric they had to work in a team to make their castle. The children were great, and we even made up our own Ben and Holly stories up in the castle.  

Haven’t we been really busy? Next week we will be continuing with out Chatterbox Challenge and making fruit kebabs for our snack.  

Week Ending 30/1/2015

Welcome to our class blog 

On Monday we used all the recyclable junk that our parents brought in to make amazing rockets. The children developed their own designs into fantastic models. 

After Alife spotted the Alien on the moon last week, we came into class on Tuesday to find Aliens and slime in our water tray. The children had such a great time exploring the texture and used some fantastic describing words. 

In our outdoor area, the children have been developing their threading skills weaving ribbon through the net. 

This week we have been learning how to make repeating patterns  in our new Funky Fingers area. We have also been talking about Miss Brown's pattern socks, describing the patterns we can see. Evan made a fantastic repeating pattern with cubes. 

A special well done to our superstar Grace who made this fantastic rocket at home with her mummy. Wow it's amazing. 

Come back next week to find out about our Chatterbox Challenge 

To Infinity and Beyond 

On Monday we finally made it to the moon, we went to the ALPS and used our special imagination wand and counted backwards 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ..... blast off!!!! 

We took our passports with us and set off to imagine what we would see on the moon. 

Charlie said '"People walk funny on the moon" So when we landed on the moon we lifted our knees right up and called it the moon walk. 

Miss Brown collected the passports and Phoebe gave her a special moon salute. 

Alfie spotted an Alien, "Miss Oddie there is an Alien behind that tree with 4 eyes and 6 legs" We just love Alfie's imagination. 

Please come into our classroom to have a look at our space corner. The children have learnt so much through learning about space, here is what the children said: 

Adam " There's no gravity on the moon". 

Katie "I live on Planet Earth"

Zac "The sun is hotter in the middle".

Layla M "When you don't have suncream on the sun will burn you". 

Evan "Planet Earth is a sphere"

Come back next week, we will be hunting for the Alien that Alfie saw, as well as reading the book Aliens love underpants!

See you all soon 

Week Ending 16/1/2015

Let's get creative

This week in nursery we have continued our space theme by doing lots of creative activities that have been so much fun. 

On Monday we made space passports for our trip to the moon, the children have been developing their pencil grip and giving meanings to the marks they made. Unfortunately we had to cancel our trip to the moon on Thursday due to unsafe weather conditions, it was far to windy to land our rocket on the moon. We are hoping to have better weather on Monday, so we can use our passports and take a Journey to the moon. 

On Tuesday we became designers, we designed our very own rockets. Please feel free to come into class and look at our fantastic designs. On Wednesday we used our designs to make model rockets using different construction equipment. 

Next week we plan to make our designs using junk modelling. 

On Thursday we made a special potion that made moon sand, we used flour, sugar, raisins and cherries. The children enjoyed getting messy and using their imagination to make their own stories up about going to the moon. 

Come back next week to see if we actually make it to the moon.

Have a lovely weekend

Lots of Love 

Miss Oddie, Miss Brown, Mrs Grundy, Mrs Littler, Steph & Lauren 

Hello and welcome back to our first blog of 2015

We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and we wish you a very Happy New Year!

We started off 2015 with three new children to our class, Nathan, Mason and Kian. We can’t wait to show you how much fun we have learning, you will love it at Westfield pre-school.

This week we have been learning all about space, we went to Marsh Green library to find lots of information books to help us learn facts about space. The children were really interested in this topic so we decided to develop our ideas and activities.

 Having fun building rockets! 

We enjoyed using our imagination with the NASA small world play set! 

Libby really enjoyed being an Astronaut for the day on Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon we came together as a group to find just how much we have learned throughout the week, Miss Oddie was amazed at some of the learning that had taken place. Charlie blew Miss Oddie’s socks off when he said “Miss Oddie the moon doesn’t have any gravity so you can float”. WOW!!!

Next week we will be making our own astronaut passports, as on Tuesday we will be taking a trip to the moon in our very own Westfield Rocket!!! We can’t wait! Just like Baby Bear in the story of whatever next, we are taking a picnic. We have even made a list for Miss Oddie to take to Asda with her, we are having Cheese Sandwich’s, Crisps, Chocolate Cookies and Lemonade. I wonder what we will see when we land on the moon? 

See you soon Love the Nursery Team 

xxx 

This week the children performed our Christmas Nativity, wow what a fantastic job they did!! Ethan did an outstanding job of being the Narrator, and we had lots of superstar Actors and Actresses. We were just about to go back to class when we heard some bells, we were very shocked to see Father Christmas come through the door with a sack full of presents. 

Ethan was our fantastic Narrator 

Harry our little Donkey with Max who was a fantastic Wise Man. Mrs Grundy with Jessica who was our Mary in the Nativity.

Father Christmas giving Rhianna a present, Rhianna was Angel Gabriel and she was absolutely fabulous. Phoebe was our lead singer and welcomed all the parents to our Nativity, 

All the staff and children would like to say a huge thank you to all the parents providing amazing costumes, the children looked wonderful. 

We have also had a walk to the Post Office to post our letters to Father Christmas, Charlie asked the lady at the post office for a stamp and Zac posted the letter. Adam said "I can smell chips", after a long walk we decided we would go into chippy and get some chips. They were yummy! 

Don't forget on the last day, Friday 19th is our Party Day. The party will be in the large hall 1pm till 3pm please collect your children from the classroom in the usual way. 

Thanks for reading 

Lots of Love Miss Oddie, Mrs Grundy, Mrs Littler, Miss Brown, Lauren & Steph 

xxxxx

On Monday we continued to talk and learn about friendship and why we are good friends. The children came up with lots of fantastic ideas. 

On Tuesday was our trip day, can you guess where we went? 

Yes you guessed it, Blackpool! 

We went to Jungle Jim's to have a play and then went to watch Aladdin at the tower circus. We had such a good time! 

We also had a special visit from Father Christmas, which was very exciting. 

After all the excitement, it was time to go home. 

Thank you for reading our blog, next week come back to find out about our Christmas writing challenge. 

Welcome back to our class blog

This week we have been learning what makes a good friend. The children sorted pictures into two groups, what makes a good friend and what makes a bad friend. When the adults spotted one of the children being a good friend, they received a special certificate. Also the children practiced their treading skills by making their best friend in nursery a friendship necklace. 

Funky Fingers & Dough Disco 

We have started to develop our fine motor skills this week which will help us become super writers. The children danced to Gangnam Style with dough to develop their fine motor skills. The children had lots of funky finger challenges including who could thread the most beads in a minute and who could put the most pegs on card in 30 seconds. 

We have also been spending lots of time in the creative area, exploring colours and mixing different colours together.  Look at the colours we made, Charlie said "It's like magic". 

Next week we will start our nativity and learn lots of new Christmas songs. 

Welcome back to our class blog

At the beginning  of the week we thought about Remembrance Day and why we have a 2 minute silence at 11.00 am on the 11th day of the 11th month. The children talked about how important our soldiers are and why we wear poppies. 

The children made beautiful poppies, and were fantastic during the 2 minute silence. All the teachers were very proud. Why don't you come into our class to see the poppies on display. 

On Thursday morning we had yet another adventure to the ALPS, we read a story called the 'Leaf Man'. The leaf man was blown away by the wind and met lots of animals and people along the way. When the story had finished the children had some fantastic ideas, Charlie said "We could collect leaves and make our own leaf man". The children started to think about their own ideas, Miss Oddie was so impressed with our ideas that we went to Mrs Houghton to share them. Mrs Houghton was equally impressed and she gave us special stickers. We took Charlie's idea on board and collected lots of leaves and made our own pictures with Mrs Moore on Thursday afternoon. 

On Friday morning we read the 'Leaf Man' story again, to see if we could come up with even more exciting ideas, the children didn't disappoint. Jayden said "Lets make a leaf monster", and that's what we did. We drew around Jayden and used all our leaves that we collected to make the monster. 

Also on Friday it was Children in Need, thank you to all the parents for your kind donations and buying the children's yummy cakes, we had lots of fun baking in our pajamas. 

I wonder what will be happening next week????? 

See you all soon

xxxx