Wow! This first term in nursery has certainly flown by with lots of learning and new friendships formed.
We would like to wish all our families a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you all in 2023. 

Today we learnt about Santa's reindeer using the song "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Firstly, we sang the song together and learnt some Makaton signs to accompany it. Then we looked at how we could create our own reindeer and talked about the different parts they would need. We learnt the word "antlers." The children then had a go at creating their own reindeer using chocolate. They recalled how to melt the chocolate from previous activities and then used a spoon to carefully pour it onto greaseproof paper to make the head. They then carefully added the different parts which was great for their fine motor skills. The children talked about how the chocolate was hard and then runny when melted. They knew that by hometime it would be hard again and they were right as we had left it to set in the fridge. Lots of super learning from our Shooting Stars! 

Today the children were very excited to all come together in the afternoon for our Christmas party. They all had a wonderful time with lots of singing, dancing and party games. The children sat together for a lovely party picnic and then they were excited to receive a special gift from Santa! 

It was freezing outside today and when we got into nursery, we discovered that our cheeky elf had left us some ice in our water tray but also a note saying "I have frozen your toys!!" We discovered that he had indeed frozen some of our small world animals in the ice. Our challenge was to try to free the animals. The children loved exploring the ice and there was so much Scientific learning! As they played, the children used words such as cold, freezing, icy, wet, slippery, melt and melting. We talked about why the ice was melting and if we could get it back into ice again. The children found out that, as the ice melted in their warm hands, they were able to free the toys. Some of the amazing comments from the children included:
"It's melting because it's hot in here." 
"It's so cold and freezing, it's all slippery in my hands."
"We can freeze it again in the freezer." 

Songs are a massive part of our learning in nursery as young children learn so much from singing. We have been learning lots of different counting songs to help us with our understanding of numbers. We have been reciting numbers in sequence, showing amounts on our fingers and finding one more and one less while having lots of fun singing together. We have some brilliant Mathematicians in our nursery! 

Today we learnt about the season of Winter as it has been so cold and frosty recently. Firstly, we spoke about the weather outside and used the words cold, freezing, icy and frosty. We shared a story book about Winter and talked about the weather during this season. 
In the provision, the children had the opportunity to explore fake snow, paint with white paint onto dark coloured paper and create wintery collage pictures using a range of different materials. 

It was lovely to see everyone dressed in their Christmas jumpers for nursery today. The children all had the opportunity to show their jumper to their friends and talk about the different colours and pictures on them- each one was different! You all looked very festive, Shooting Stars! 

All the children made their own bag of reindeer food to bring home and sprinkle onto their garden on Christmas eve. They carefully spooned oats into a bowl and counted out the spoonfuls as they did so. They sprinkled glitter and gave it a good stir while making their very own wish. I hope your wishes come true! 

For a focused activity, the children learnt to hold scissors correctly and then use them to cut and snip paper in order to make snowflakes. Each one was unique, just like our wonderful children! 

We have been developing our reading area and the children have loved snuggling up to read a book. We love to see our children developing a love for reading and sharing books together.