We are so proud of the amazing progress our children have made not just this half term but across the entire year! We can’t quite believe that this is the last Nursery blog before the children continue their learning journey as they head into Reception. We are also excited to see our Rising 3’s continue their time in Nursery and welcome some new friends in September .
What a jam packed half term it’s been! We started with an exciting jungle safari adventure in the sensory garden where the children became explorers searching for the hidden jungle animals and have ended the half term with an amazing bubble party and fun in the cinema room followed by an exciting colour run (that got a bit messy!) a family picnic and many other treats to celebrate their fabulous first year at Crescent!
We have been superstars with our story telling skills. The children pretended to be the jungle animals from our stories “Monkey Puzzle” and “Dear Zoo” as they dressed up in costumes and masks! We heard parrots ‘shrieking’ …. Elephants ‘trumpeting’ and tigers ‘growling’! Our shared story telling sessions have enabled children to re-read stories and to delve a little deeper into understanding characters emotions and feelings and gain a good understanding of story structures and important book handling skills.
We have extended our vocabulary throughout our topic introducing the children to new and ambitious words. We have practised recognising syllables in words and using words within a sentence,all with the help of “Whizzy the word wizard”…. The children are excited that Whizzy will get to move up to Reception with them in September!
In Read Write Inc. we have been practising our oral blending skills and blending our known sounds to start to read simple cvc words. We have continued to use our ‘listening ears’ to tune in to initial sounds in words. Some of our Rising 3’s have also begun to access the Nursery Read Write Inc. programme and are well under way with beginning to recognise some of the set 1 sounds! We are looking forward to continuing working with Fred the Frog and learning even more sounds in September!
We have become super confident in making our gross motor movements using dancing scarves in our ‘Squiggle whilst you wiggle’ sessions… these movements (up, down, round etc.) have helped the children with their understanding of both the language and fine motor movements used for correct letter formation. A strong focus has been on using the letter formation rhymes to ensure that each letter is formed correctly. The children have been busy practising writing their names to become even more independent and confident. When children can label their own work it not only creates greater independence but most importantly ensures that those masterpieces find their way home!
In Maths, our children have joined in with number songs , looked at what a number looks like as a written digit , how it can be represented in a tens frame , with counters or other objects and also how we can form the number using our ten town rhymes . We have been so impressed to see all of the amazing problem solving and subitising skills this half term ! The children helped the zoo keeper to rescue the escaped animals through subitising different amounts to work out how many were needed! We have explored pattern this half term and learnt about repeating number patterns and spotted the odd one out! We also had a great time programming beebot and developing our use of positional language to help him find his way !
The children got messy and made their own slithering coiled snakes and also made some wonderful jungle animal masks that they then used in their play!We have explored rhythm and rhyme in our weekly music sessions alongside performing our rhyme focus ‘5 little monkey’s jumping on the bed’.We have explored various animals that can be found in the jungle and where jungles can be found and used all of our senses to discover different patterns. The children particularly enjoyed helping to rescue the animals from frozen coloured ice blocks. They noticed patterns and changed and were able to talk about different process.
Our trip was a real highlight this half term with amazing experiences for all of our children as they explored the animals and their surroundings at Peak Wildlife Park.
Sports Day saw all of our children compete within their teams and children showed off their super running, balancing and co-ordination skills! A great team effort!
Colour Run Fun!
Well done to all for a wonderful year! A huge thank you to our amazing families for your ongoing support! We can’t wait to see you back shining in September ! Have a lovely summer holiday!