In our first couple of weeks in Nursery, we have focused on 'settling in,' to feel happy and comfortable in the nursery without our parents and carers. The children have been learning the routines of the nursery and have worked on becoming more independent. The children have a good understanding of our morning routines and can follow them well. They are continuing to practise their active listening skills during carpet time and throughout our adult led activities. The children have been learning our school rules and how to put these into practise in their choosing time by sharing, using kind hands and words and respecting our toys. They have had lots of fun playing and exploring, and building relationships with the teachers and other children in the class.

This week we based our learning around the story, ‘Going to Nursery.’ We talked about how we are growing up and becoming independent, being able to do things without needing our parents, such as coming into Nursery.

We have also worked on being independent in all areas, such as self-serving and eating at snack times, in toileting, tidying up, putting our coats on, and being responsible for our own belongings. For some of us, this has been a challenge, but we are becoming more resilient and persevering to become more independent.

Throughout the week we painted our faces, discussing the colour of our skin, hair, lips and eyes. We observed ourselves in the mirror and selected the material to use that looked most like our hair. We discussed how many of each feature we had and then recreated our own faces.

We played some instruction games whilst playing and were working on following one and two part instructions.

We practise recognising our name every day when we come into Nursery an before we go to play. We are starting to get better at this.

The children practised making their names using Velcro letters. We focused on recognising the order of the sounds and knowing that we start from left to right. This helps to support us when it comes to writing our names throughout the year.

The children went on a colour hunt, they rolled the coloured die, named the colours and looked around the outdoor area to find something of that colour. The children focused on learning the colour names, active listening skills to follow instructions and their observational skills to identify objects. They had lots of fun hunting.

We stamped different shapes using paint onto our footprints. These will help us to line up nicely behind each other and support us with recognising our numbers.

We practised our cutting skills, ensuring that we learn to hold the scissors correctly to make snips or cut along lines.  

We carried out some baseline assessments of the children to identify their knowledge and skills. This will help us plan for their individual needs.