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Manor Park Infant and Nursery School
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Nursery
Welcome to the Nursery Class!
Welcome to Manor Park Nursery.
Hello and welcome to the class page. Mrs Dolby and Mr Asplin are the Early Years Teachers. Mrs Christian and Mrs Page are the teaching assistant. Mrs Bell is our care assistant.
We look forward to watching your child learn and grow throughout their time in nursery with fun activities and experiences that we have planned.
Summer Term 1 2024
Week commencing 15th April 2024
‘Whatever Next’
This week to introduce our topic of a well-known explorer (Neil Armstrong), we have read the book ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy. The story is about Baby Bear wanting an adventure before bed. Baby Bear finds a rocket under the stairs, makes friends with an owl and has a picnic on the moon! The children have engaged in acting out the story with their friends and drawn amazing pictures of the moon using chalk on black paper. In mathematics the children have matched the rockets by counting the stars to the number on the astronaut. We have been creative in moulding play dough into rockets using shapes and built our own rockets out of a selection of wooden bricks in the small world area. In addition, we have opened up a coffee van in our role play area where children have served a selection of drinks to their friends!
Spring Term 2 2024
Week commencing 25th March 2024
The story of Easter
This week we have learnt about the story of Easter. We have learnt that the Easter story is told in a book called the Bible. It reminds us to love and look after other people. The Easter story is also a celebration of new life and we have linked this back to the new life of the chicks. The children have enjoyed using their fine motor skills using water colours to paint their Easter egg; used their scissor skills to cut out shapes to make Easter chicks; tasted traditional hot cross buns and Simnel cake; designed their own Easter egg patterns; counted the eggs to the corresponding number and thoroughly enjoyed finding the hidden Easter eggs in the nursery garden.
Week commencing 18th March 2024
Life cycle of a chick
This week we have been learning about the life cycle of a chick. The children have seen the process from incubating eggs to pipping to hatching. We have learnt how to hold them carefully and the need for food and water to grow. In our weekly activities we have been very creative using different materials to create chicks, as well as followed step by step instructions to draw chicks. In mathematics we have been matching the egg patterns. In literacy we have read the story of The Little Red Hen and how important it is to help each other.
15th March 2024
Celebrating St Patrick’s Day
15th March 2024
Comic Relief
Week commencing 11th March 2024
Handa's Surprise
This week we have read the story ‘Handa’s surprise. A girl named Handa collects seven delicious fruits for her friend Akeyo. But when Handa arrives at Akeyo’s village they are both surprised to find different fruits in the basket! We have linked the story to our geography topic where we have compared and discussed where we live in Calverton to Africa.
The children have tasted the exotic fruits that Handa carried in her basket and then produced some beautiful colourful fruit printing and observational drawings using pencils and paints.
In mathematics we have weighed a selection of fruits to see which is the heaviest and lightest using scales. The children have also enjoyed having a go at weaving using positional language.
Week commencing 4th March 2024
Traditional Tales: Jack and The Beanstalk
We have read the traditional tale of 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and introduced the book 'Jasper's Beanstalk'. The children have really engaged with the story and linked their learning to various activities as well as planting their own bean which they have taken home to grow. In mathematics we have counted the correct number of beans to the number on the beanstalk.
Thursday 7th March 2024
Celebrating World Book Day
Tuesday 5th March
Celebrating Mother’s Day
1st March 2024
Celebrating St David’s Day
Week commencing 26.02.2024
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
This week we have been retelling the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. The children have had so much fun acting out the characters using props and during our P.E lessons. They have used their cutting skills to cut out the characters to create their own scene of the story as well as cutting and snipping green vegetables outside! We have listened to the story on a CD which included songs that the children have thoroughly enjoyed reciting. They have used their imagination in the role play area in the troll’s cave and made some fantastic playdough trolls from nuts and bolts.
In mathematics we have revisited repeating patterns connected to the story and used our gross motor muscles to build bridges for the billy goats to cross outside.
Continuing our geography topic we have talked about the different means of transport we could use to travel from Calverton to Africa. The children used these means of transport with paints to make tracks.
Week commencing 19th February 2024
Traditional tales: The Three Little Pigs
This week in literacy we have been reading the traditional story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ retold by the author and illustrator Axel Scheffler. The children have enjoyed exploring the range of activities connected to the story from building the three little pigs house with different materials to acting out the story with friends and props. In mathematics we have explored 2D shapes and their properties.
Spring Term 1 2024
Week commencing 5th February 2024
Celebrating Chinese New Year
This week we have celebrated Chinese New Year. The year of the dragon!
The children have enjoyed learning about another culture from around the world. We have read the book ‘The Great Race’ the story of the Chinese zodiac and ordered the numbers from 1st to 12th to where the animals finished in the race. We have created dragons using different materials; dressed up in traditional Chinese clothes in the home corner; had a go at using chopsticks to pick up noodles and experimented with writing Chinese symbols using a thin paintbrush.
Week commencing 29th January 2024
Traditional Tales: The Gingerbread Man
The children have engaged in a range of activities this week in our literacy of the traditional tale ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We set up a bakery in our home corner and the children enjoyed taking on the role as shop assistant or baker, icing the gingerbread men to sell to customers! The children have acted out the story using props; rolled out dough and used the cutter to make and decorate their gingerbread man; Used different materials to build a bridge for the gingerbread man to cross the river safely! Strengthened their gross motor skills using rollers to paint our cardboard cut-out gingerbread men outside; moved in different ways on apparatus both indoors and outdoors. In mathematics the children have rolled the dice and found the number on the gingerbread man to stamp with a dabber.
Week commencing 22nd January 2024
The Elves and the Shoemaker
This week we have read the traditional story of the Elves and the Shoemaker. The children have tried on a variety of shoes and had their feet measured in our role play ‘Shoe Shop’. We have talked about ‘pairs’ meaning two and different types of fastenings on shoes. The children took off one of their own shoes and named the type of fastening it had. We made a tally chart with our findings to see which was the most popular fastening in nursery. We polished our school shoes using a shoes brush, polish and a cloth.
The children had fun pairing shoes, and enjoyed an activity outside finding the other wellington boot which was hidden in the nursery garden to make a pair. We have practised our cutting skills by cutting out elves and used split pins to put it together, in addition to dressing our elves in beautiful clothes just like in the story.
We have continued our geography topic and discussed what we like and what we don’t like about living in our village. The children over the weekend have walked around the village spotting buildings of interest from the sheet they were given. We then shared our home learning with the nursery children.
Week commencing 15th January 2024
What do I know about my local area and the village I live in?
We have continued our geography topic looking at what we know about our local area and the village that we live in. The children have identified types of buildings and places they see from photographs and used a tick chart to record their findings. In literacy we have read a twist from the original story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears called ‘Goldilocks and Just the One Bear’. This time it is Baby Bear who wanders from his home in the forest and gets lost in the Big City! Although the weather has been cold outside the children with their clip boards went on a Goldilocks number treasure hunt. Other activities this week included: practicing writing the letters ‘s’ and ‘a’ with paint brushes in flour; making a landscape collage reflecting the scenery of where we live; creating a bear’s face using natural materials; building a city using construction blocks and counting out the correct number of bears to the number.
Week commencing 8th January 2024
Where in the world do I live?
This term our geography topic is looking at the British Isles. We have looked at the United Kingdom map and located the city of Nottingham. The children have learnt that there are many villages and towns in Nottingham and that we live in a village called Calverton. We also located Scotland, Ireland and Wales on the map.
In literacy we are reading the traditional tale, of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. The children have enjoyed acting out the story using the props. We have used different size spoons and counted how many spoonsful of porridge oats it would take to fill the bowls of ‘daddy bear’ ‘mummy bear and ‘baby bear’. In mathematics this week we are counting out 3 objects that are the same and the children had a go at writing the number 3 using a tripod grip to hold the pencil.
Autumn Term 2 2023
Week commencing 18th December 2023
How do people around the world celebrate Christmas?
This week we have talked about how over this festive period people around the world celebrate Christmas by giving and receiving gifts, decorating their homes, celebrating with parades and parties, saying prayers and sharing food and drink.
We have read the beautiful book 'The Christmas Pine' by Julia Donaldson which tells the story of a pine tree that grows up to be a famous Christmas tree!
Our nativity scene in the small world encouraged the children to re tell the story of Christmas in their own words and sing the songs they had learnt from the nursery nativity 'This is my Gift for You'. We have decorated Christmas trees using pom poms; and used our fingers to explore the sensory tough spot! We enjoyed tasting traditional Christmas foods from the around the world including panettone, apple stollen and mince pies!
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Week commencing 11th December 2023
Can you name a book that the author Julia Donaldson has written?
The children have enjoyed listening and talking about the stories that we have read by the author Julia Donaldson this half term. This week we have been reading the story 'Stick Man'. The children have enjoyed acting out the story in our small world; counting the correct number of sticks to match the numeral; manipulated play dough to make numbers and used wooden hammers to free 'Stick Man' from the ice! Our funky fingers challenged the children to think how to wrap the wool round the stick and then unwind it. In addition we have made Christmas cards, Christmas decorations and calendars. What a busy week!
11th December 2023
Our nursery nativity “This is My Gift”
Week commencing 4th December 2023
Why did Florence Nightingale receive a medal?
We have learnt this week that Florence Nightingale was awarded the Order of Merit for her work in hospitals. The children have looked at a picture of the medal and used different materials to create a similar medal.
In literacy we have read the story ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ by Julia Donaldson. The children mixed the different ingredients to make their very own Gruffalo crumble! Some children explored the small world tuff spot to retell the story using the props provided. In mathematics we have looked at numbers 1 to 5 and using the dabber stamped the correct marks to match the number.
We have been learning the nursery rhyme ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’. We investigated whether a catapult would be a good way to help the cow jump over the moon? We used a ping pong ball for the cow to see if the catapult would work. We then placed a paper moon on the floor to see how far the cow jumped over the moon!
Tuesday 5th December 2023
White Post Farm trip
The children had a thoroughly enjoyable time at White Post Farm today. We were fortunate to see lambs that had been born at 2am this morning. The children experienced feeding the reindeer with moss and had the opportunity to hold and touch different.
The children were absolutely mesmerised meeting Father Christmas. They sat beautifully whilst listening to Father Christmas reading a story about friends and kindness.
30th November 2023
Celebrating St Andrew’s Day
Week commencing 27th November 2023
Why is Florence Nightingale known as The Lady with the Lamp?
This week we have been learning about why Florence Nightingale was known as The Lady with the Lamp.
We added a lantern to the role play area in our Florence Nightingale hospital, so the children could check in on the patients at night. We have learnt why a lamp was used because there was no electricity many years ago. The children have also learnt that Florence Nightingale wrote letters to the wounded soldiers and set up a reading room in the hospital.
We have drawn portraits of Florence Nightingale and her lamp using charcoal and crayons, and used tissue paper to make our lamp sun catchers.
In literacy we have read the book ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’ by Julia Donaldson. The children have retold the story in their own words in the small world area and on the carpet pretending to be Mrs Dolby! In our funky fingers the children used their fingers to squash and squeeze the different materials that were inside the plastic wallets. Our farm tuff spot attracted the children’s curiosity in exploring the different textures. We had fun creating small spaces using cubes and hoops to see how many children we could squeeze inside the space. In mathematics we counted the farm animals and made marks to represent the numbers.
Week commencing 20th November 2023
What was Florence Nightingale's work?
Continuing our history topic we have learnt that Florence Nightingale was a nurse who improved hygiene to stop infections and diseases. Together with a team she cleaned hospital wards introduced hand washing which in turn reduced the spread of infections amongst the wounded soldiers she cared for. In our role play area, the children enjoyed using the cleaning resources to mop and scrub the floor in 'The Florence Nightingale' hospital. They then went on to wash their hands before seeing to their patients!
In literacy we have read the book 'The Go-Away Bird' by Julia Donaldson. The children have enjoyed acting out the story in the small world and have been very creative in making their own Go-Away birds from an assortment of feathers and other materials.
In mathematics the children have counted out the worms to feed the birds and matched the number to the correct amount. We have also counted how many Spoonfuls of lentils it would take to fill up our cup cake cases using different size spoons.
Wednesday 22nd November 2023
A visit from the RNLI
The children had a visit from the RNLI. Denis talked to the children about water safety and the job the lifeboats and crew do. We were shown some pictures and videos of the lifeboats in action!
Week commencing 13th November 2023
Who is Florence Nightingale?
This half term we are learning all about Florence Nightingale. We have learnt Florence Nightingale was a caring and kind nurse who helped wounded soldiers in hospitals during the war. We practised putting on bandages and slings just like Florence wound have done many years ago. In their chosen learning the children had the opportunity to have a go themselves in The Florence Nightingale hospital role play area.
In literacy we are reading books by the author Julia Donaldson. This week we have read the book Room on the Broom. In our small world area the children have enjoyed retelling the story using the props; strengthened their fine motor skills by using the tweezers to find spiders hidden in the orange spaghetti and used pipettes to make potions.
In mathematics we have explored the numicon, counting the number of holes and then finding the matching number. We have continued to embed our knowledge of 2D shapes and their properties.
Week commencing 6th November 2023
A visit from a Dentist
We had a visit from a dentist Mr Dhillon and his assistant Jo who talked to the children on how to look after their teeth. We played a game where the children were given a picture of a food and we had to decide whether it was good or bad for our teeth. The children then put into practise what they had learnt about how to clean their teeth. Great job!
10th November 2023
In November, We Remember.
Week commencing 6th November 2023
Celebrating Diwali
This week we have been celebrating Diwali. The Hindu festival of light.
The children have had the opportunity to dress up and prepare Hindu vegetables and herbs in the home corner. Designed Rangoli patterns using different colour paints, lentils, chalks and chickpeas. Used clay to mould Diya lamps and decorated them with beautiful gems. Painted mehndi patterns on our hands and have drawn Diya lamps on Diwali cards. The children had fun learning the Diwali dances and tasting traditional Hindu food.
AutumnTerm 1 2023
Week commencing 16th October 2023
People who help us
’The Firefighters’
Our last week on our topic ‘People who help us’ we have been learning all about firefighters.
The children have enjoyed reading the book ‘The Firefighters’ by Sue Whiting. Imaginary and real! Jack, Mia the narrator and their teacher, Mrs Iverson are pretending to be firefighters. They zoom through the playground in their pretend fire engines and save the imaginary Lulu’s ice creamery from destruction.
We have enjoyed acting out the story ourselves, putting our fire uniforms on and jumping into our fire engines to put out our imaginary fires using water spray bottles and a water hose.
The children have used rollers to strengthen their gross motor muscles in painting red, yellow and orange flames, as well as their fine motor skills by using wooden hammers to tap in split pins and golf tees into a pumpkin.
We have learnt the nursery rhyme ‘London’s burning’ which the children have sung throughout the week at every opportunity! We have discussed fire is hot and we never play with matches, lighters or go near candles. In an emergency the children know to call 999.
We have practised our scissors skills and embedded our shape knowledge by cutting out 2D shapes to make a fire engine.
Week commencing 9th September 2023
People who help us
’Zeki gets a check-up’
This week we have read the book ‘Zeki gets a check-up’ by Anna Quinn. We have talked about going to the doctors for both check-ups to keep us healthy and when we are poorly. The children shared their own experiences of going to the doctors. In our role play area we have set up a doctor’s surgery and the children have enjoyed acting out the story using the dolls.
In mathematics we have explored ABAB repeating patterns using ambulance vehicle colours and autumn objects. In the water area we have investigated autumnal objects that float or sink!
The children enjoyed scooping out the pumpkins and removing the seeds. When the seeds had dried we gave the children a tricky challenge to pick up the pumpkin seeds using tweezers! We then cut up the pumpkin and made pumpkin soup!
We have talked about celebrating harvest time, when farmers gather in all the food they have grown. We have looked at and discussed autumn vegetables and what vegetables we like to eat.
Week commencing 2nd October 2023
People who help us
‘Im The Bin Lorry Driver’
We started the week watching the refuse collectors empty our school bins which fitted in with the book we are reading this week ‘I’m The Bin Lorry Driver’ by David Semple.
The children have designed their own control panel just like in the book and enjoyed acting out the story of a Bin Lorry Driver and Refuse Collector.
We have been creative box modelling using a selection of recycled materials.
The changing season to Autumn has come and we have been busy planting our daffodil bulbs, as well as exploring some natural autumnal objects. In mathematics we have continued to name and recognise 2D shapes.
The children have recited the nursery rhyme twinkle twinkle little star and explored how stars twinkle using a bowl of water covered with tin foil with holes in and shining a torch through to see the reflections in the water.
Week commencing 25th September 2023
People who help us
‘Topsy and Tim meet the Police’
This week we are learning about how the Police help us in the community. The children have enjoyed taking on different roles throughout the week from being a pedestrian crossing the road to traffic police investigating a crime scene where the gingerbread man fell off his bike and ran away! We have read the book 'Topsy and Tim meet the Police' and learnt that there are places that are not safe for children to play, and what we should do if we find something that does not belong to us. In mathematics we have looked at shapes (circle and triangle). We have linked these shapes to road traffic signs and the children have learnt that a round circle road sign means 'you must do it' and a triangle road signs means 'warning'. We have embedded our previous knowledge of prime colours to paint our own road signs and our scissor skills to cut out the circles and triangles. Using the different size spoons the children guessed how many spoonful's of porridge oats it would take to fill their container and then counted them out to see if they were right! The children are currently learning an Autumn poem and have explored autumnal objects in our STEM area.
As part of our topic this half term on ‘People who help us’, the children had a visit today from PC Mark who brought along his police car and Police dogs! The children thoroughly enjoyed the visit and confidently spoke to PC Mark what they had learnt from the story ‘Topsy and Tim meet the Police’.
Week commencing 18th September 2023
People who help us
‘Mog and the V.E.T’
This week we have continued our topic 'People who help us' and looked at people who help us in our community. We have read the book 'Mog and the V.E.T. Mog is chasing a butterfly one day, when something happens to her paw... ouch! 'She'll have to go to the vee ee tee' says Mrs Thomas. But before they can make her better, Mog causes a great ruckus at the vet's surgery...The children have thoroughly engaged in the story and talked about their own pets at home and where they take them when they become poorly. We have embedded our learning of primary colours from last week to make beautiful colourful butterflies just like the ones Mog was chasing. This week we have learnt the nursery rhyme Incy wincy spider and have done our own investigations on what materials would be useful to Incy wincy to keep him dry when it rains! Outside the children used water to see which spider went down the spout the fastest! In maths the children have counted the correct number of beads to the numbers 1 to 5. Great counting! The children have enjoyed the rain this week, splashing in the puddles and catching rain drops!
As part of our topic this half term on ‘People who help us’, the children had a visit today from Charlotte a vet who brought along her dog Toff. The children thoroughly enjoyed the visit and confidently spoke to Charlotte about what they had learnt from the story ‘Mog and the V.E.T.’
Week commencing 11th September 2023
People who help us
‘Mr Tick the Teacher’
This week we have started our new topic 'People who help us'. We have talked about people who help us in nursery and read the book 'Mr Tick the Teacher’ by Allan Ahlberg and Faith Jaques. The story is about Mr Tick who loves teaching his six children. But then they hear news that all small schools must close, so Mr Tick starts teaching some more unusual lessons! The children have thoroughly engaged with the story and acted out playing teachers with their friends.
We have drawn people who help us on a pre-cut hand for our helping hands tree display. We have been learning about primary colours (red, yellow and blue) and explored what other colours they can make by painting each hand with a primary colour then mixing them together to see what colour they had made! In our STEM area the children investigated different objects to see if they were magnetic of non magnetic. In maths the children have linked numerals 1-6 and amounts. E.g counting the right number dots to match the numbers.
Week commencing 4th September 2023
The Colour Monster
The children have come back ready to learn and have enjoyed learning about the emotions through our book 'The colour Monster'. They have learnt the colours that go with the emotions from the book and extended their vocabulary with new words: jubilant, miserable, anxious, frustrated, tranquil in the context of happy, sad, worried, angry and calm. We have painted using the different colours from the story and talked about how we are feeling each day by choosing coloured tokens using the language we have learnt. We have also learnt how to sign each of the emotions.
Our new additions to the outdoor area
Take a look at our nursery environment...
