Nursery

This week we have been learning........

Red Pod
This week we have been learning about Autumnal animals, exploring pumpkins and where they grow. We put some pieces out in the school grounds to feed the animals, we made sure to place them high up away from any hedgehogs that visit. We have also participated in listening to and talking about a story called Owl Babies and Wow said the owl. We have been learning an Autumn song called Autumn leaves. We know that hedgehogs and owls are Autumnal animals, hedgehogs have spikes to defend them from predators. Owls are nocturnal, they sleep all day and stay up all night. Pumpkins grow on a vine in the ground on a farm and are harvested during Autumn, people carve pumpkins to make soup or pies.

Purple Pod
This week the purple group have been learning all about autumn, we discovered the mornings are getting darker, the leaves are falling off the trees and the weather is getting colder and very windy, Debbie from the red group kindly bought us a pumpkin a fruit that is ready for picking and eating in autumn, we spent lots of discussing and sharing ideas on how we could break it open, we took turns using a mallet and playdough tools And trough working together we managed to get it open, we found lots of seeds and “slimy pumpkin guts“ inside. Once we finished exploring the pumpkin we put it outside for the birds and squirrels to eat. We made sure to keep it off the ground because we learned pumpkins Can make hedgehogs sick. 
The pumpkin inspired our choice for book of the week “a pipkin for pepper for the pumpkin soup” and we have Had fun exploring the characters and story. 
Alongside autumn the children have been keen to Use their Imagination to build and create obstacles courses both indoors and outdoors or obstacle course helped us to develop our gross motor skills and sharing and turn taking.


Blue Pod
It has been a very busy week this week in the Blue pod. The children have been using their fine motor skills to thread pasta onto spaghetti. This is great practice for using the small movements in the fingers. They also enjoyed finger print dots over their names to introduce mark making, letter and name recognition.
I also introduced a game of Connect 4 which the Blue group have loved. This was not to follow the rules of the game, more to encourage playing cooperatively, take turns and share resources. Each day the children have asked for the game to be played again they enjoyed it so much.
This week the children have read the books ‘Hands Are Not For Hitting’ and ‘Feet Are Not For Kicking’ The children have absolutely loved reading these and can be heard telling each other about kind hands and feet. These books have encourage the children to draw and cut out their kind hands and we have put them on our very on our feelings tree. next week we are looking forward to more Halloween crafts. If you can, please send me a picture of your child making a scary face.


Green Pod
This week in the green pod we have been exploring the story “We’re going on a bear hunt”. We read the text discussing and recalling events from the story, we used what we learned to create a map, so the family could find their way home. We were introduced to binoculars and investigated what these are used for, creating our own using a variety of different materials. On Thursday we went on a bear hunt, taking our binoculars with us to help us look for a bear, we recalled the scenes from the story and actied these out on our journey. We had to go through “long wavy grass”, a “big dark forest” and even had to venture through a “swirling whirling snowstorm” although when we got to the cave we discovered a bear and had to run all the way back recalling the reverse order of our journey. We have also been developing our ability to discuss our likes and dislikes of the story and sharing this with our peers.


Yellow Pod
Monday and Tuesday at nursery I have been developing my fine motor skills and muscle dexterity through a range of Autumnal activities. I used coloured pasta to thread onto ribbon and make a lovely Autumn necklace. Lianne set up an Autumn scene with a pumpkin, pine cones and leaves to paint onto cling film using the pincer grip to hold the paintbrush.

I also used a mallet to hit golf tees into a pumpkin using my hand eye coordination as well as my fine motor skills and also did leaf printing onto clay which is drying for me to bring home!

This week in the yellow and gold pod we have been exploring ‘room on the broom’ and getting excited for Halloween coming. We have explored the characters and events in the story and made our own props to retell the story. We are planning on making our own cauldron to make some spooky spells. We also had some Halloween shaped pasta in our tray which we discussed the shapes and shared stories about. Some boys and girls spent lots of time making jigsaw puzzles and making their own counting game.

Have a lovely weekend
The Nursery Team