Welcome to the Nursery
Sunshine page
Hello!
Dear Nursery Friends,
We hope that you all had a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year!
We are missing you lots and can’t wait to welcome you back as soon as we can!
Until then, please come and visit us on our webpage! Each day, we will be posting new videos with stories, songs and ideas to do at home with your grown ups!
Grown ups, please remember that we are always here to support our families. If you have any questions, would like any advice, or would just like a little chat, please phone us on the main school telephone number. We will always be happy to talk to you.
Keep safe and look after yourselves ♥
Miss Rowland, Mrs Marsden, Miss McFall & Miss Williams
Below you will see each day contains a list of signs and symbols. These are what we use in Nursery and throughout school as our visual timeline throughout the day. It helps the children know what we are doing, what comes next and what to look forward to.
Click on each symbol to reveal a video and enjoy!
Week 2: Friday 15th January
Click on each symbol below to join in!
Today is Friday.
Click on each symbol below to listen!
The story of the week is The Little Red Hen.
The Nursery rhyme of the week is Baa Baa Black Sheep.
The sign of the week is pig.
Click on each symbol below to listen and join in!
Today in carpet time, we are looking at patterns again.
Activity:
Can you go on a pattern hunt? Look for the three different patterns around your house. Perhaps you can find a pattern on your clothes or your socks? Your cushions or your curtains? Your cups or your mugs?
You can sing the following song while you go on your pattern hunt.
We’re going on a Pattern Hunt,
We’re going to find some patterns,
We’re looking around inside,
I wonder what we’ll find!
Spotty⚪⚪⚪ Stripy➖➖➖ Zigzag 〰〰〰
Today in Letters & Sounds, we are listening for rhyming words in a rhyming story (“Hippo had a Hat”).
Activity:
Do you have any stories with that rhyme?
Read them with your grown up and see if you can join in with the rhyming words.
Today for Story Time, we are reading “How to look after your Dinosaur”.
Goodbye and see you tomorrow!
Week 2: Wednesday 13th January
Click on each symbol below to join in!
Today is Wednesday.
Click on each symbol below to listen!
The story of the week is The Little Red Hen.
The Nursery rhyme of the week is Baa Baa Black Sheep.
The sign of the week is pig.
Click on each symbol below to listen and join in!
Today in carpet time, we are looking at patterns.
Activity:
Can you have a go at drawing the three different patterns we have looked at today?
Spotty⚪⚪⚪ Stripy➖➖➖ Zigzag 〰〰〰
Don’t forget to use your “birdie fingers”!
Today in Letters & Sounds, we are clapping the syllables (or ‘beats’) in words.
Activity:
Have a little picnic (real or pretend).
What food and drink will you have?
Can you clap the syllables in the words?
Today in PE, we are moving like the Avengers!
Activity:
Can you think of any other moves you could do?
Today for Story Time, we are reading “The Tiger who came to Tea“.
Goodbye and see you tomorrow!
Week 2: Tuesday 12th January
Click on the symbols below to join in!
Today is Tuesday!
Our sign of the week is “pig“.
Our Nursery rhyme of the week is “Baa Baa Black Sheep“.
Today in carpet time, we are looking at patterns.
Activity:
Can you have a go at drawing the three different patterns we have looked at today?
Spotty
Stripy
Zigzag
Week 2: Monday 11th January
Click on the symbols below to join in!
Today is Monday!
Our sign of the week is “pig“.
Our Nursery rhyme of the week is “Baa Baa Black Sheep“.
Week 1: Friday 8th January
Click on the symbols below to join in!
Today is Friday!
Our sign of the week is “dog“.
Our Nursery rhyme of the week is “Old MacDonald“.
Our story of the week is “Poppy and Sam’s Animal Sounds“.
Activity Time!
Play a game of “Who am I?” Make the sounds of your favourite animals and ask your grown up to guess which animals they are! Then swap over. Ask your grown up to make the sounds of their favourite animals. Can you guess which they are?
You can look at the picture below to help you.
The themes for the first Spring half term are:
Week 1: Down on the Farm! – Poppy & Sam’s Animal Sounds
Weeks 2 & 3: Down on the Farm! – The Little Red Hen
Weeks 4 & 5: Down on the Farm! – The Three Little Pigs
Week 6: Chinese New Year & Valentine’s Day
Key Knowledge
By the end of term, we would like the children to be able to use their words to:
Name the different animals that you can find on a farmyard
Say/make the noises that the different animals make
Name some features that you can find on a farmyard e.g. pond, fence, tractor
Week 1
This week, our topic is “Down at the Farm!”
Our Book of the Week is: Poppy and Sam’s Animal Sounds
Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week is: Old MacDonald had a Farm
During Week 1, we will be looking at a range of different stories set on farms! As well as our Story of the Week, we will also be reading “Noisy Farm” and “Oh Dear!”
We will be naming the different animals and having a go at making the sounds they make! We will also start to look at where they live and what features we can see on the different farmyards.
For our maths work, we will be looking at patterns this week. We will be looking at spotty, stripy, wavy and zig zag patterns and will have a go at spotting them in pictures. Perhaps we’ll even notice some patterns on some of the farm animals! We will then have a go at drawing some patterns ourselves.
What can you do together at home
Read or watch our stories of the week together
Take it in turns to make different animal sounds, while the other guesses which one it is
Look around the house to see if you can spot any of the following patterns: spotty, stripy, wavy, zigzag. Go on a pattern hunt! Have a look at cushions, curtains, tops, socks, wallpaper… do any of these have patterns?
Practice reading the numbers 1, 2 and 3. Can we remember them from last term?
We are so sad that we couldn’t perform our Christmas sing along for you this year but please enjoy our singing below!
Merry Christmas!
Morning Nursery Children
Afternoon Nursery Children
The themes for the second half term are:
Week 1: Halloween, Bonfire Night & Remembrance Sunday
Week 2: Autumn
Weeks 3 & 4: Toys
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65820406/AdobeStock_259518799.0.jpeg)
Weeks 5, 6 & 7: Winter & Christmas
Key Knowledge
By the end of term, we would like the children to be able to use their words to:
Describe the signs of Autumn
Say how they celebrate Christmas
Weeks 4 & 5
During weeks 4 & 5, we are looking at the topics of ‘Toys’ and ‘Christmas’.
Our Book of the Week is: Dear Santa
Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week is: When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney
During Weeks 4 & 5, we have been doing lots of activities related to Toys and Christmas!
We have been looking at lots of different Christmas pictures and spotting the different shapes in them. (For example, a snowman’s head is a circle shape and a Christmas tree is a triangle). We have then drawn our own Christmas pictures!
We have also been looking at the numbers 1, 2 and 3. We have been reading the number and counting the correct number of objects! We have been helping Santa by decorating his snowmen with the correct number of buttons!
We have also been looking at Christmas presents and toys and comparing quantities, using language such as “more”, “less”, “lots” and “not many”.
What can you do at home
Watch or read the story “Dear Santa” together. See you many words your child can join in with (you will be impressed!)
Sing our Nursery Rhyme “When Santa Got Stuck Up the Chimney” together. Can your child show you the actions?
Practice reading the numbers 1, 2 and 3. You can make little ‘flashcards’ by writing the numbers on pieces of paper or post-it notes and hiding them behind your back. Sing “What’s the number?… What’s the number” and then show them a number. They will love playing and it will help them to remember their numbers!
Practise counting as you go about day-to-day life. Count the baubles as you put them on the tree (up to 10) or count the knives and forks when you prepare for dinner.
Look at the shapes circle, square, triangle and rectangle with your child. Can they see any around the house? What shape is your clock? Or your TV? Or the wheels on your car?
Week 3
This week, we will be finishing our topic of Autumn and beginning our topic of Toys!
Hello our Nursery Friends!
Whilst we are away from school this week, we have put on some extra activities that you could do at home with your grown-ups. We are going to miss you lots, but we hope that you all keep safe and well, and we look forward to seeing you again soon!
From Miss Rowland, Mrs Marsden & Miss McFall
Our Books of the Week are: Kipper’s Toybox & Autumn is Here!
Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week is: Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
Our new topic this week is: Toys
In the Early Years, children do most of their leaning through play. This makes ‘Toys’ a wonderful topic to explore, as virtually every skill in the curriculum can be learnt or developed through toys!
What can you do at home?
Read and watch other Kipper stories together!
Practise early maths skills!
Ask your child to choose a few of their favourite toys
- Can they use the vocabulary of size to describe or compare them (big / bigger / small / smaller)
- Together, try and order the toys by size, from biggest to smallest
- Have a go at grouping the toys by colour
- See if your child can spot any shapes within their toys (e.g. the wheel on a car is a circle, the beak on a bird is a triangle)
- Encourage your child to count their toys before tidying away. How many do they have out? Get them to put some away. Do they still have the same amount out? Ask them to count again. Is it the same number as before or different?
Flick through a toy catalogue and look at the different toys
Talk to your child about the toys you used to play with as a child. Show them photos or pictures
Ask your child if they would like to draw a picture of their favourite toy. They could even bring it to school to put on the wall!
Spend some time playing together with your child and their toys. Follow your child’s lead and make up stories together. (This is so beneficial for their language development!)
Hide toys around the room and get your child to go on a ‘toy hunt’ – give clues using ‘positional language’ like ‘under’, ‘inside’ or ‘next to’
Hide some of your child’s toys in a bag. See if they can guess them by listening to your description (e.g. it’s red, it has wheels, it has a long ladder, it puts out fires = fire engine). This will help to develop your child’s language and understanding!
Make a toy house together using a cereal box!
Have an indoor Teddy Bears’ Picnic!
Continue to search for the signs of Autumn in your garden or from your window! Carry on looking at the Autumn activities from last week!
Week 2
This week, our topic is Autumn.
Hello our Nursery Friends!
Whilst we are away from school this week, we have put on some extra activities that you could do at home with your grown-ups. We are going to miss you lots, but we hope that you all keep safe and well, and we look forward to seeing you again soon!
From Miss Rowland, Mrs Marsden & Miss McFall
Our Book of the Week is: Squirrel’s Autumn Search
Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week is: Incy Wincy Spider
Our topic of the week is: Autumn
This week, we are looking at all things Autumn!!
We are looking at the signs of Autumn and using our words to describe them.
The leaves on the trees change colour (yellow, orange, red and brown)
Leaves, pinecones, conkers and acorns fall off the trees
Squirrels and hedgehogs collect food
Birds fly to a warmer place
What can you do at home?
Read and watch Autumn stories together!
Sing Autumn songs together!
Search in your garden for signs of Autumn! Discuss what you can see!
Watch the birds from your window! How many can you see? Discuss how they fly to a warmer place ready for winter!
Can you spot any squirrels or hedgehogs? Discuss how they collect food ready for winter!
Collect leaves in the garden and make a leaf wreath (you can cut the card from a cereal box). Discuss the colours and count the leaves!
Use leaves to make a picture of a hedgehog or a leaf man!
Use crayons to do leaf rubbing!
Make a bird feeder and watch the birds feed!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/makes/bird-feeder
Week 1
This week, our topics are Halloween, Bonfire Night & Remembrance Sunday
Our Book of the Week is: Meg & Mog
Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week is: Five Little Specked Frogs
This week, we will be learning about Autumn Celebrations and Remembrance Sunday.
In Maths, we will be looking at different shapes and how we can use them to make pictures. We will than have a go at creating our own picture of a witch!
We will also be looking at the language of ‘big’ and ‘small’/’little’ and helping Mog to split her ingredients into big ones and small ones for her spells!
In Literacy, we will be doing lots of different mark making activities, such as creating our own firework pictures! We will also have a go at painting our own poppies too!
Remembrance Sunday will be taught in a nursery-friendly manner. Our focus will be on saying thank you to soldiers for being brave and for keeping us safe. We will be sharing the video below with the children, which you may like to share at home too.
What can you do at home?
You can spend some time together talking to your children about Autumn celebrations and perhaps showing them some videos of fireworks
You might like to explore mark-making at home by making firework pictures. You could use different coloured crayons or chalks and discuss the different colours and the sounds the fireworks might make!
You can read (or watch on youtube) different ‘spooky’ stories e.g. The Meg & Mog series, The Winnie the Witch series or Peppa Pig’s Halloween themed stories.
And you can help build your child’s understanding of the language of size by commenting on what you see as you go about your day. E.g. “I can see a tiny spider!” or “Look at that big lorry!”
Personal, Social & Emotional Development
One of our key objectives in Nursery is to learn to play kindly with our friends, sharing, taking turns and building on each others’ play and ideas. Some of the ways we learn this best are through role play and playing with our ‘small world’ toys. Here we learn to take turns playing different characters and to share the toys between us.
We also learn to follow our class rules and to understand why they are important for helping us to learn and make friends.
Our class rules are:
Listen to grown ups and each other
Talk quietly
Walk inside
Be kind
How can you help at home?
Spend some time playing with your child, whether it be role play (e.g. playing mummies and daddies or superheroes) or playing with their toys (e.g. dolls or Paw Patrol figures). Take it in turns to play with the different toys or to play the different characters. Encourage your child to share with you and build on each other’s ideas.
Mrs Walton’s top tips
Hi, My name is Mrs Walton and I am one of the Speech and Language Teaching Assistants here at Abbey Hill. You may have seen me working throughout the Foundation Stage Unit. I specialise in supporting children with language and communnication difficulties, 1-1 or in a small group.
Working closely with Speech and Language Therapists, I have been fortunate to develop my skills over the years and I am now in a position to offer training to teaching staff to further help support children’s communication and language development.
If you need any advice or just a general chat regarding your child’s language and communication development, talk to a member of the FS Staff and they will let me know 😊.
Talking together
No matter how old I am one of the best ways to help my speech and language development is to have some quiet time with me so we can talk, look at books together or sing nursery rhymes. It is always best to make sure the T.V is switched off and there is little background noise.
- I love playing make-believe games and enjoy it the most when you join in too. Make a pretend cup of tea with me or help make dolly better.
- Now my language is developing, it’s ok if I stumble or make mistakes in my talking, sometimes I’m finding the right words to say. Give me lots of time to talk and try not to draw attention to my mistakes.
- I love looking at books, please read to me and encourage me to join in and say some of the key words. It feels good to ‘read’ all by myself.
- I am learning how to say a variety of words through copying. Say the words to me how you would say them e.g. I say “I buyed the book” you say “yes you bought the book”
- I feel great when you are looking at me when I’m talking, it lets me know that what I have to say is really important. This will encourage longer sentences in my talking.
- Give me lots of opportunities for language by giving choices or asking open ended questions e.g. Would you like pizza or fish fingers for tea? My favourite part of the book was where the little girl finds her lost teddy…What was your favourite part?
Challenge!
We challenge you to put on your woolly jumpers and your wellies to go and find all things autumnal! Create a poster or a display of your favourite finds. This is a great way to get talking and learn new vocabulary!
You may find Conkers, Pumpkins, Crunchy leaves and Pinecones. You may also notice new sounds such as a squirrel rustling in the trees, a trickling of water or the whistling of the wind. See what you can discover this Autumn. Have fun!!!
Physical Development
In nursery, we work on developing our “gross motor” and “fine motor” skills.
Gross motor skills
These relate to the larger muscles in your body, and involve larger muscle movements. Using your legs to jump or your arms to throw a ball are good examples.
At school, we try to develop our gross motor skills everyday! Some examples of our activities to help with this are:
Climbing on the climbing frame and balancing equipment, riding bikes, throwing and catching a large ball, obstacle courses (running through cones, jumping in hoops, hopscotch etc.)
Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills relate to the smaller muscle groups, such as the ones in your hands and wrists. These help you to use tools and equipment like scissors and pencils and are very important in helping you to write.
At school, we try to develop our fine motor skills everyday too! Some examples of our activities to help with this are:
Using tweezers to pick up small objects, pegging socks onto a line, threading beads onto a string, doing inset jigsaw puzzles, stretching elastic bands onto boards, peeling stickers, using scissors to cut
How can you help at home?
There are lots of things you can do at home to help with your child’s physical development!
You can play chasing games in the garden or park or have different types of races (running, jumping etc.) You can throw and kick a ball to each other or make your own obstacle courses.
Inside the house, you could ask your child to see how many pegs they can peg on to a clothes hanger, or they could help you prepare a fruit salad by cutting soft fruit like bananas. Perhaps they’d even like to make a ‘cereal necklace’ – threading cheerios onto string!
Keeping Healthy!
Washing our hands
For all of us, washing our hands regularly has become so important. At School we teach the children to wash their hands for 20 seconds by helping them count to 20, or by singing a favourite Nursery Rhyme e.g. ‘Twinkle. Twinkle, Little Star.
The song below, also teaches the children the importance of washing their hands and how to do it.
Eating Healthily
In Nursery, we also start to talk about the different foods we have at snack time and the reasons why. They learn about eating fruit and vegetables, and that they help us to grow big and strong.
The songs below are great for sharing with the children.
Literacy
Reading
In nursery, our key goal is to help children develop a love of stories. Each week, we have a “Book of the Week”, which will be related to the topic, but we also read lots of other stories to help introduce children to rhyme and rhythm, alliteration and repetition.
At the beginning of the year, the focus is on listening to and enjoying the stories, and in joining in with repeated phrases or familiar parts of the story.
As the year progresses, we begin to be more aware of the way stories are structured. We might anticipate key events or phrases, or even suggest how the story might end! Afterwards, we will be able to describe the main characters, events and settings.
How can you help at home?
The greatest way to help your child is to share a book together as often as you can! Just before bed is a lovely time! Take the time to enjoy the story together, looking at all the pictures and making the sounds and noises that appear in the book.
You could also listen to stories online. Cbeebies offer a lovely range of bedtime stories!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00jdlm2/cbeebies-bedtime-stories
Writing
In nursery, we build the skills to helps us write once we move into Reception. Our focus in nursery is on mark making and giving meaning to the marks we make.
We do this through all sorts of different media! Pens, crayons, chalks, paints, toys, sticks, even our fingers themselves!
Initially, children like to explore mark marking and might not necessarily give meaning to their marks. That is absolutely fine and all part of their learning journey! But as they become increasingly confident, you may notice that their marks begin to mean something to them. They might tell you that it’s a picture of you, or perhaps your house! Over time, they will continue to develop in their mark making and you may notice that they begin to use lines to enclose space and create shapes. They will often use these shapes to represent different objects or different parts of the picture!
Encouragement and praise goes a long way in building children’s confidence and can really help them to develop and experiment with their mark making.
In nursery, we encourage the children to begin using the ‘tripod grip’ when they are ready, or ‘birdie fingers’ as we call it at school. Our aim is that by the end of the year, most children are able to hold their pencil or crayon in a similar position to the picture below.
Maths
Week 4
This week, our topic is “Ourselves”.
We will be looking at the stories “What Do I Look Like?” and “We Are All Different”.
An important stage in children’s early years is to be able to express how they are feeling (e.g. happy, sad, worried, cross, tired). So we will be talking about our different feelings and looking at matching facial expressions.
We will also be discussing our likes and dislikes, talking to our friends about our favourite foods, animals and things to play.
Finally, we will be exploring what we look like, discussing and counting our different features e.g. eyes, ears, hair. We will be considering whether we all look the same or if we all look a bit different.
Our Story of the Week is: “What Do I Look Like?”
Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week is: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Our Vocabulary of the Week is:
“I feel…”
“I like…”
“I don’t like…”
What can you do at home?
Encourage your child to express how they are feeling, using their words.
Sing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes together
Count how many arms, legs, fingers and toes you both have.
Week 5
For the remainder of the half term, our topic is “Our Senses”.
This week, we are focusing on what we can hear.
We will be looking at the story “Peace at Last”.
Our Story of the Week is: “Peace at Last”
Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week is: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive
Our Vocabulary of the Week is:
“I can hear…”
What can you do at home?
Go on a ‘listening walk’ – what can you hear in the house? What can you hear in the garden? Or on your walk to school
Explore how you can change your voice – sing our nursery rhyme of the week loudly / quietly / quickly / slowly. Can you sing in a silly voice like a mouse or a robot?
Look at different musical instruments. What sounds do they make?
Get a ‘drum stick’ (you can use a pencil or a spoon). Tap it on gently on different surfaces (e.g. metal radiator, wooden chair, fabric sofa). What does it sound like? Do the different surfaces sound different or the same?
Week 6
For the remainder of the half term, our topic is “Our Senses”.
This week, we are focusing on what we can see and smell.
We will be looking at the story “Little Red Riding Hood”.
This week we are reading Little Red Riding Hood. We will be looking at the wolf’s body parts and what they help him to do!
His eyes let him see and his nose lets him smell.
We will be conducting experiments to see what happens when we pour water onto a plate of skittles and what happens when we mix various liquids together! We will be using our eyes to look what we can see!
We will also be smelling different ‘smelly pots’, with herbs and spices. We will discuss what they smell like and whether we like them or not. We will then make a tally chart to show how many of us like them and how many don’t.
We will also be making shakers, and experimenting with sound. Can we play our shakers loudly, quietly, quickly, slowly…
Our Story of the Week is: “Little Red Riding Hood”
Our Nursery Rhyme of the Week is: I Hear Thunder
Our Vocabulary of the Week is:
“I can see…”
“I can smell…”
What can you do at home?
Go on a walk outside – what can you see? Look at the changes in the trees? What colour are the leaves? Can you collect any leaves or conkers and take them home? If you have a magnifying glass, use it to see the features.
Hide some foods that your child eats in a pot/box. Get them to close their eyes and smell. Can they recognise what it is? Can they say what they can smell?
Smell some different herbs and spices. What do they smell like? Do they smell nice or not?
Go on a walk outside or in the garden. What can you smell? Smell the different flowers and plants? Are they the same or different?