This week we introduced our Magic story box in Nursery and met the Yellow Monster. We talked about how the colour can make us feel happy and makes us laugh. We've enjoyed lots of exciting Yellow-themed actives in both our indoor and outdoor classrooms, exploring, creating, playing, and learning together.

We even had the chance to taste some delicious yellow fruits and talked about how they tasted and how they made us feel. 

It's been a bright, happy and laughter filled week in Nursery!

Take a look in our photo album for pictures of our wonderful yellow adventures 🌟

The nursery children have enjoyed sitting together for their first nursery dinner! It has been lovely to see them becoming more comfortable in their new dining area, enjoying mealtimes with their friends and beginning to build confidence and independence. There were lots of happy faces, conversations, and new experiences as they explored this special part of nursery routine. Well-done to everyone for such a lovely first dinner!

We have added more pictures in the album

The Nursery children are settling well into their new class. They have had lots of fun exploring, making new friends and playing with new toys in our indoor and outdoor classroom. 

Next week the children will be staying for dinner!

There are more photos in our album

This half term, the nursery children have been learning about Stoke-on-Trent and why it is such a wonderful place to live. As part of this, we explored some of the foods that Stoke-on-Trent is famous for. The children enjoyed making their own cheesy oatcakes by grating the cheese, rolling the oatcakes, and watching them cook in the microwave. They tasted delicious! Please see our photo album for more pictures.

This half term, the Nursery children have been learning about their local area and where they live in Shelton. After reading Shark in the Park, we wondered if there could be a shark in Hanley Park!

The children made their own telescopes and took them to the park to investigate. Although we didn't find a shark, we spotted lots of exciting things including ducks, geese, squirrels, flowers and the canal.

A fantastic morning of exploring and learning about our local area! There are more pictures in our photo album.

The children have been learning all about Spring and the changes we can see happening outdoors.

At the start of the week, the children listened to a story about a sunflower with Mrs Razaq. They were amazed to learn how tall sunflowers can grow! Inspired by this, the children planted their own sunflower seeds and are now taking great care of them in their keyworker areas.

We spent lots of time outside exploring and looking for signs of the new season. The children had great fun searching for minibeasts, spotting new leaves growing on the willow tunnel, and admiring the beautiful blossom on the trees. They also enjoyed planting spring flowers in the garden pots.

Back in the classroom, the children explored a variety of spring flowers and used different coloured paints and brushes to create their own lovely flower pictures.

Take a look in our photo album for some pictures!

 Hanley Library recently visited the Nursery children and talked about the amazing things that happen at the libraries in Stoke on Trent.  Chris, the librarian shared a lovely story with the children and gave each child their own Booktime gift pack which included a free story book and activities that can be completed at home. There are more photos in our photo album.

The Nursery children have started to explore their exciting new topic all about minibeasts. We introduced this learning by reading the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

To their amazement, the children then discovered that we have our very own caterpillars in the classroom! They have been fascinated watching them grow, change, and get bigger each day.

Inspired by our wriggly new class visitors, the children have been wonderfully creative. They have painted and drawn pictures of caterpillars, used playdough to make their own, and even worked together to create a large caterpillar piece of artwork outdoors using fabric and natural materials from the garden! 

On Tuesday 5th May, the children enjoyed a visit from Rent a Beast, where Carrie the Bug Lady brought a range of minibeasts for the children to meet.

The children held them and watched how they moved, learning that millipedes curl up when scared and that some minibeasts can look like sticks and leaves. The children also met a large spider called Fluffy and sang Incy Wincy Spider to her.

It was a great opportunity to see minibeasts up close!

The children in nursery also learned all about bees and discovered how important bees are for our flowers and gardens. They explored different materials to create their own bees and worked carefully to design them.

Each group enjoyed dipping apple pieces into honey, and the children liked it so much that many asked for more!

The children practised holding their pencils correctly and, using their new Kinetic Letters action of “down and bump,” drew the stripes themselves on their own bee template.

Later, our beautiful butterflies emerged from their cocoons and we released them into the nursery garden and watched them fly away!

Please take a look in our photo album for all the photos. 

Wow—our nursery children produced some truly wonderful and creative homework over the Easter break! We were so impressed by the incredible effort and imagination shown by both the children and their families.

The task was to create an artwork inspired by either our recent farm visit or the spring season, and the results were amazing. So many children brought in beautiful masterpieces that we even ran out of space on our display board!

Well done, Nursery—your artwork is absolutely fantastic! There are lots more photos of our wonderful work in the photo album.

This week at Nursery, we read the story The Little Red Hen, which led to lots of exciting learning opportunities. At the start of the week, the children helped Mrs Razaq to make bread. They mixed the bread ingredients with water, kneaded the dough, and then rolled it into ball shapes, ready to be cooked.

This week was also our Science Week. The focus for Science Week in Nursery was exploring how animals are similar and different and the theme for the week was Curiosity – What's Your Question? We were very fortunate to have a visit from four little chicks. The children were full of curiosity and asked lots of questions about how the chicks grow and change, and how they look different from the Little Red Hen in the story. We have added more photos to the album to show what we've been upto.

The Nursery children have been exploring the numbers 1–5 and discovering number patterns within 5. They have been learning that 5 can be made using different combinations of smaller numbers.

We used Numicon tiles to show this visually, practiced using our fingers, and have started representing these number patterns with pen marks on whiteboards. Outside, the children showed these number patterns using different coloured circles. 

On Thursday 26th February, the nursery children were visited by St Mary’s Primary School, who brought their school tortoises, turtles, and rabbit. The upper Key Stage Two children spoke knowledgably about the school animals, explaining how they care for them and what food they like to eat.

The nursery children loved holding and stroking the animals and enjoyed spotting similarities and differences between them. Please take a look in the photo album for more photos. 

 We had a fantastic time at our Reading Day on Friday 13th February! The children came to nursery in their pyjamas with their favourite teddies. We enjoyed singing to our teddies and rocking and bouncing them on the parachute.

In the afternoon, our parents joined us for a special storytime session, complete with hot chocolate and biscuits. At home time, each child took home their very own reading book to enjoy! There are more photos in the album

During our Art & DT week, the nursery children explored the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy. They discovered that art can be made using natural materials—not just paint, glue, and crayons! Inspired by Andy’s creations, the children designed their own amazing natural art masterpieces.

There are photos in the album to show some of our work.

The Nursery children have been thoroughly enjoying the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. As part of our learning, the children made their own porridge, carefully measuring just the right amount of milk and cooking it for just the right amount of time. We all agreed it tasted “just right” 🙂

In class, we have also been practising how to hold a pencil correctly using the three friends pencil grip. The children then applied these skills to create their own drawings of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

During the second week, we were very surprised to discover that someone had been in our nursery — porridge had been spilled on the floor and our special helper chair was broken! After some thoughtful discussion, we decided it must have been Goldilocks. We created “wanted” posters and displayed them around the nursery.

The following day, we received a letter of apology from Goldilocks. Once we realised she meant no harm and was truly sorry, we chose to forgive her. We then worked together to help Mrs Kasyoki fix the special helper chair.

There are lots more photos in the photo album for you to enjoy.

This half term, our learning has been all about Traditional Tales. We have especially enjoyed reading “The Three Little Pigs”. At Nursery, the children had lots of fun huffing and puffing to try and blow down the straw and stick houses. We discovered that the brick house was far too strong to topple!

The children also enjoyed getting creative by making their own Three Little Pigs houses, using glue to attach straw and sticks, and printing brick shapes with paint. They have been drawing pictures too, both in the writing area and on large pieces of paper on the floor. Outside, they built larger houses with construction materials and role-played their ideas using pig masks and tools from the builders’ area.

In the classroom, our home area became the Three Little Pigs’ house, and the children loved retelling the story in their own words with dressing-up clothes and visual picture cards. What a fun and exciting week! We can’t wait to dive into our next story, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”! There are more photos in our album for you to enjoy.

Last week, we hosted a nursery parent-and-child maths workshop, which was very well attended. It provided a wonderful opportunity for parents to learn more about how maths is taught in the Early Years. The session concluded with fun, interactive, number-focused games that parents and children could enjoy and complete together. We have added more pictures to our photo album - Take a look!

 Our Nursery children have been learning about winter and the changes to the weather during the winter months. We spent one day at home due to the cold winter weather, but on our return to nursery we continued our winter learning.

In our keyworker groups, the children sorted summer and winter clothes and talked about which clothes we need to wear during winter and why. We also enjoyed playing a winter bingo game together.

The children took part in an ice experiment, where they explored a large block of ice and discussed how it felt. Throughout the day, they observed what happened to the ice in warmer temperatures and watched it change from ice into water. The children learnt new vocabulary such as ice, melt and drip.

The children had fun using playdough to make their own snowmen, using their creativity and fine motor skills. Take a look at some of their super snowmen! There are more photos of our learning in the photo album.

The nursery children have been learning about why it is important to work safely in a space. This week in PE the children have been developing their upper arm strength and coordination skills by moving and stretching in different ways. 

The children carefully balanced a beanbag on different parts of their bodies and moved around the hall in a space, all whilst taking care to not bump into each other.

Lots of fun and giggles had and new skills learnt.  There are more photos in the photo album. 

On Monday, the nursery children went on a magical minibus ride around Shelton. We had so much fun and saw lots of wonderful things.

We saw the park, the Mosque, the Church, the Bus Station, our own homes, lots of cars and people, and we even had time to stop at St Mark’s Primary and say a quick hello to the teachers.

We had a great time ☺️🚌☺️There are more photos in the album

On Tuesday 21st October, the Nursery children enjoyed a visit to Hanley Park. This half term, the children have been exploring colours through a range of fun activities, including sorting, matching, painting, printing, and colouring. During their trip to the park, the children focused on spotting the vibrant colours of autumn. The children were really excited to find a wonderful variety of leaves in shades of red, green, orange, yellow, and brown. There are more photos in the photo album

In Nursery, the children have been continuing their learning about colours. Last week, we enjoyed the story The Colour Monster and explored how colours can represent different feelings.

This week, we shared the story Mouse Paint and had lots of fun experimenting with colour mixing to make new colours. The children have also been busy painting their own mouse pictures.

We have created some wonderful artwork using just blue and red pens.

There are more photos in our photo album

This week, the nursery children have been developing their upper arm strength and their core muscles more. We have been having lots of fun dancing with scarves and lying on our tummies drawing pictures on long pieces of paper. There are more photos in our photo album.