We are the youngest members of our one form entry primary school and we are made up of twenty six children.
In the Nursery we provide a busy, creative and nurturing environment through a variety of exciting and imaginative learning projects. We work alongside Reception to build a successful foundation for learning and to prepare the children for key transitions as they move through the school. The children learn through play and interact with their peers as well as with adults. They also learn key skills, such as name and number recognition, as well as important life skills, such as doing up coats, holding a pencil with the correct grip and learning to share with others. We know that outdoor play is just as important for children’s development and we encourage the children to take their learning further within our stunning natural environment. Using the Development Profile, we plan our lessons with the children, based upon their interests, in order to enhance their engagement and provide versatility.
The Nursery Day
The nursery day is split into two sessions: the morning nursery starts at 8:45am and finishes at 11:45am and the afternoon wrap-around play session starts at 11.45am and finishes at 3.15pm. We start the morning session with a short carpet time where we welcome each other, introduce some activities and share our ‘Talk Bag’. Throughout the sessions, our teachers ensure there are lots of different experiences and activities for us to explore and interact with.
Throughout both morning and afternoon sessions we have opportunity to choose if we want to explore our learning outside or inside. Luckily, we have an outside area that has a covered area so if it is raining heavily we can still play outside underneath it.
During our sessions, we have milk and fruit time, which is when we sit with some of our friends and have a drink and choose some fruit. Each week we bring some fruit to nursery so that we have enough fruit to cut up and share.
We are so lucky because once a week, we have an interactive music lesson with our specialist music teacher. We sing, play instruments and use our bodies as percussion. It’s a real highlight of our week!
Before we go home, we come together again on the carpet and have a story, sing together or play some circle games.
The Nursery Classroom
Our classroom is divided into different areas to encompass all of the different skills and subjects that we like to explore. There is a home corner where we can pretend we are the grown ups! We have a mark making space to help us begin our important literacy learning and we also have a number area. We have a special book corner and a quiet/calm area for when we need a break from all that playing. Some of us really like to draw, paint and build so there are both construction and creative areas and, for the really imaginative, there are small world spaces full of dinosaurs and cars, pirates and animals. Finally, we have sand and water stations, not to mention the malleable table which could have anything from playdoh to jelly. So you can see it is a very busy day for us, but don’t forget that, with all this hands on learning, we may sometimes come home a bit messy!
Our Projects This Year
This year we will be thinking about lots of different questions to stimulate our learning, such as who am I and how do I do school? What changes happen in the world? If I could travel across the lands what would I find? What’s below? How does it grow?