Santa is coming to town!

One cold winter's afternoon there was chaos in the town. The roads were jammed and the train station was full, the city was filled with trees and presents galore.

Elizabeth, Scarlett, Amy and Phoebe made the decorations, trees and presents. Amy said “ We need lights and a tree.” Like little elves they set to drawing and cutting. Each designer placed their drawing with pride. “ We need more presents for the children” Phoebe stated. “I will make some” replied Scarlett. Jake the builder made the city as tall as he could, “ I will help” shouted Finley as the roof fell down. Together they placed the bricks to create a tower, “it's huge” Finley exclaimed.

Meanwhile disaster struck in the city and Leighton brought the policeman to the rescue. Jude, Archie and Leighton had made a traffic jam. Jude shouted “The police car will stop the cars going too fast”.  

Mimi and Joseph spent time driving the trains into the city. They were very busy going through the tunnel when Mimi found a “fire engine.” Jake shouted “ we need a fire engine because there might be a fire in the house.” Fireman Finley then came to the rescue and put out the fire.

Space adventures!

The group were clearly excited after discussing their space mission and couldn't wait for blast off. The adventure to the Moon, Mars and back to Earth was planned. Before building their rocket using the large shapes they put their space boots on, Scarlett reminded them about having enough rocket petrol. Albert drew a blue rocket using the chalk and Isobel drew the Earth. She used the green and blue chalk. “The blue is the water and the green is the grass.”

As blast off approached they chatted and giggled. “We might see some naughty Aliens.” Shouted Harry. Countdown began 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 BLAST OFF!

Leah steered the rocket into space. Within seconds they'd arrived on the moon.

“Let's be naughty Aliens.” Laughed Harry.

Bentley smiled and said, “okay.”

The children jumped off the rocket and pretended to space walk across the grass. When they reached the bark area they jumped up and down.

“We’re on the moon.” Laughed Ruby.

Harry and Bentley hid in the wooden box. The rest of the group crept into the other one. James, Ruby and Isobel wanted to get the Aliens some food. “I think they'll eat this” Isobel held up some bark and James held up a leaf. Harry wanted to know how they were going to get back to school. Problem sorted, “We can count backwards to blast off.” he said. No time to visit Mars, we’ll save that for another day. They boarded the rocket and landed safely at 2.30pm just in time for snack.

A great session with some very enthusiastic Astronauts.

Stuck in the mud!

On a cold Autumn morning Henry, Sienna, Jack, Joel and Nevaeh wanted to get the tractors stuck in the sticky mud. The first challenge of the day was finding our wellies, unfortunately Sienna was upset as her wellies were “cold” Jack came to the rescue and said “put them on the radiator”.  Whilst Sienna wellies warmed up we put our suits on ready to get muddy!

Running to the mud pit they each selected their tractor. “my tractor is red” Henry shouted excitedly “mines yellow” replied Jack. Soon the tractors were digging in the mud but the mud was too dry so we made it rain!

Nevaeh said the water was “cold” when filling up her watering can. Joel found it difficult to carry his watering can “its too heavy!!!!” The leader of the group Henry set to work, making two tractors work together to dig. He filled up the “tipper truck” using the “tractor”. Jack soon spotted a problem !! The tractor has a flat tyre, let's fix it” Jack agreed. Henry and Jack turned the tractor over and changed the tyre.

Meanwhile Joel spent time observing his work friends taking on the role as manager. He spent time telling Nevaeh, ‘turn off the tap!” Joel was quick to help Jack when he tripped over and lost his water out of his can.

To finish off a long morning of work they all worked together to wash the tractor and enjoyed a long tea break! 

Celebration

Here in Nursery we like to celebrate children's achievements outside of school as well as in school. At the weekend Amy took part in her first show. She came into school telling us all about dancing on the stage!  Well done Amy and thank you to Amy's mum for sending in the fab photos.

If your child has something you would like us to celebrate in school please send in some photos, we can't wait to hear all about them.

Diwali Dinner

While learning about Diwali, we took part in a tasting activity. We tried all kinds of Indian food like raita dip, mango chutney, coriander naan, poppadoms and pilau rice. Some of us have already eaten Indian food but some of us had never tried it before.

I was really proud of the children because everyone tried a bit of everything and we really enjoyed trying new things.

How many times have you read this week?

This half term  Fred Fox, Spotty Dog and Marvin will be going home with the children who are reading lots at home. 

Remember even reading a bedtime counts! 

All you need to do is make sure the diary is signed every time you look at a book or read together.

Diwali

Fireworks!

This week we are learning about Diwali. One way Hindu's celebrate Diwali is by setting off big fireworks! Last week the children were fascinated with the colours in fireworks so this week we have focused on colour. We decided to make some HUGE fireworks in the outside classroom, we made the floor really wet using the water from our water butt and then attacked it with different colours of powder paint! The children loved throwing different colours on and talking about what happened when they mixed together! This learning was then taken back inside with some of our indoor colour mixing activities. 

Our Hunt for Signs of Autumn

The Gun Powder Plot

In Reception, we have been learning about the story of Guy Fawkes. The children have been using masks to act out the story in the outside classroom. Here, Guy and his gang have just been caught by the kings soldiers hiding barrels of gunpowder in the basement of the Houses of Parliament. Off to prison!

Fire engines to the rescue!

During our Bonfire Night topic this week red group decided that they needed a fire engine to put the fire out otherwise it would be dangerous! What a brilliant idea! So everyone worked very hard to plan what the fire engine would look like, they used their nip nip skills to draw their ideal fire engines. With all the resources at the ready they worked really hard to make their fire engine in the outside classroom. The climbing frame became their base and with material, tubes and cones a fire engine was born! Some of the boys then got very creative and decided to use the orange and red cones as the fire so they had something to put out! They were so engaged for the whole afternoon and we loved watching their ideas flow!

 In review time they decided they wanted to make a real fire to see what happens and toast marshmallows on it, so that's exactly what we are going to do tomorrow! 

Baking at home!

Last term I posted about the children's love for our new baking area! This love is still going strong as I'm sure your aware from the cakes coming home!! I posted the recipe on our blog for you to have a go at home and to my delight I received an email over the holiday from Jake and his Mummy who had followed our recipe and made some delicious fairy cakes! They added vanilla buttercream and sprinkles to make them even better! They looked delicious and apparently tasted "very yummy indeed".
Thank you to Jake and his Mummy for sending the photos in. 
I would love to see other baking photos from home so please do email them to me! 

Happy baking! 

Mud!

On a cold and wet Wednesday morning what better to do than don your all in one waterproofs, push on your wellies and venture outside and this is exactly what green group did! As soon as they were outside they were straight over to the mud pit filling up pots and pans with water from our water butt and started to make the most enormous puddles! The pure joy on their little faces was priceless! Some children that normally shy away from mess were jumping two feet straight in, even occasionally ending up on their bottoms! As the puddles grew so did their enthusiasm, the mud pit soon ended up like a mud bath with the children talking all the time about what they were going to do next and how they were going to make it EVEN BIGGER!! Whilst everyone was busy at work, Eliza was focused on making everyone some delicious mud soup to warm them up on this cold morning! I have to admit I even enjoyed some good old fashioned puddle jumping fun!

Resistant Materials Artwork!

This week, we will have a go at water resistant paintings.

We will be drawing wibbly, wobbly jelly fish with wax crayons and washing with water paints. I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Ready To Set Sail

After learning about the different parts of a pirate ship, the children decided that they would build their own. What a brilliant boat.

They even added a propeller to help them sail faster!

A Message in a Bottle

When Thomas opened his locker on Monday morning 

he couldn’t believe his eyes! 

There was a message in a bottle!

Who could it be from? 

What did they want?

It was from Pirate Martin. 

His boat had sunk and Blue Beard was chasing him!

So, we wrote letters, put them into bottles and threw them 

into the pond.

We really hope he gets our messages soon!

Paper Fish

This week we will be making some paper fish. 

Why not have a go at home!

Can you follow the instructions?

I look forward to seeing your efforts!

An Icy Investigation

As part of our underwater week we had blocks of ice with 

sea creatures trapped inside!

How do you think we could get them out?

We soon learnt that a combination of salt and warm water helped the ice to melt! 

We then used our nip, nip grip and tweezers to carefully pull out the sea creatures.

Doctors and nurses

On a rainy October afternoon the children are busy saving lives and wrapping each other up in bandages! Scarlett and Leah had spent the whole session the previous day making beds in the outside classroom and taking it in turns to be the patient and the nurse. During review time Scarlett was so excited and animated to tell me all about what they had been doing and their illnesses, although Scarlett reassured me “don’t worry Mrs Jarrett it's only pretend!”

So the following day we set about setting up a hospital for them, we used the giant beanbags from the chill out area and got blankets and the hospital prop box.  At first the children were so excited about all the different equipment and spent time exploring it and the different things it could do! Then disaster, Leah was struck down by multiple equally horrendous illnesses. So operation rescue Leah was on, the doctors and nurses got appropriately dressed and led Leah down on a comfy bed. James checked her heart and gave her an oxygen mask! She was then given several injections and medicines and wrapped in multiple bandages! It was so lovely to watch and listen, as their play developed so did their language. Whilst Theo was checking inside Leah’s ear she turned to

him and said,

“What's inside? What can you see?”

Theo then very kindly replied “don’t worry there's just a hole in your ear!”

They continued this all afternoon with new doctors, nurses and patients coming to join the nursery hospital. I think the nursery hospital will continue all week, I can't wait to see what other patients and illnesses arrive!

Castle life!

The children are so excited about our new role-play area next week! I wonder what adventures they will get up to! 

Dinosaurs!

We are really excited for the children to see our new spectacular sensory dino world tray! 

Baking

This week all groups have been investigating our new baking area. We are working hard to teach the children the skills they need to bake independently. They have all the resources they need to hand and we are showing them how to follow a simple pictorial recipe. 

We have attached the recipe we follow if you want to give it a try at home! 

We'd love to see some of your home baking pictures, email them to sarah.jarrett@fosse-way-academy.org and we can post some on the blog. 

Happy baking! 

Day 3 of marvellous muddy mayhem!

Red group were raring to go this morning after seeing everyone in the muddy area on previous days. They worked really hard to get their suits on and had oodles of messy muddy fun! 

How high can you jump?

Day 2 of marvellous muddy mayhem!

It was blue groups turn today to get all wet and muddy and they loved it! They even found some wriggly worms whilst digging in the mud pit! There was some tasty looking mud soup being made in the kitchen! Can't wait to see what red group get up to tomorrow.

Marvellous muddy mayhem!

Our mud kitchen has reopened and what muddy messy fun we've had! Green group practised putting their suits on and jumped straight in! They loved making mud pies and digging giant muddy puddles to jump in! Keep checking our blog to see what the other groups get up to this week in the mud! 

Ship Ahoy!

Look at the all fun we had on Pirate Day!

We read stories, searched for pirate treasure AND 

met a real life pirate!

Baking fun!

Today has been the first day we have started to explore our brand new baking area!  A group of children worked with Mrs O'Boyle to make some fairy cakes.  They enjoyed learning the new skills they needed. The best bit was the tasting; they were so yummy!

Click here for some more baking ideas you could try at home with your child.

Getting Ready for Pirate Day!

Marvin is dressed up and ready to go!

All we need now are a few more pirates!

Click on this link to hear our favourite pirate song

Ship Building!

Today we have been using Duplo to construct a pirate ship, Treasure Island and a little row boat.