This week in nursery, we are exploring shapes in our Maths learning. At group time, we learnt a song to help us to say the shape names (triangle, circle and rectangle) and we drew the shapes in the air using our finger. 
In our provision, we have lots of resources to help us learn about and explore shapes:
-different shape cutters in the playdough
-shape printing in the paint area. We have learnt to dip the shape into the paint and press it onto the paper to make a print.
-shape turtles in the water area
-creating collage pictures with different shapes in the creative area
-threading with shape buttons
-exploring different shape jigsaws and puzzles
-mark making with shape stencils
-building using wooden blocks. 
Here are some photos of us playing together and learning in our provision areas so far this week. We have been very busy! 

Today we have enjoyed decorating biscuits in nursery and there was such a lot of learning! Firstly, we learnt that we need to wash our hands before we start to get rid of all the germs. Then we mixed up our icing. We spooned the icing sugar into a bowl, added water and then carefully stirred it with a spoon. The children noticed that the icing was very runny and wet as they poured and spread it onto their biscuit. Finally, they used their pincer grip to pick up some sprinkles and carefully sprinkled them onto the top of their biscuit. 
I hope they taste good, Shooting Stars! 

In our investigation tray this week, we have added the "treasure" that the children found on our welly walk. The children have been Scientists, exploring with their magnifying glasses. 
What can you see? What do you notice? What does it feel like?
There has been lots of wonderful talk and some of the words used to describe the objects so far are: prickled, spiky, sharp, red, orange, brown and hard. We will continue to explore and learn new language as the week progresses. 

This week in nursery, we are learning all about our families. We have shared the book "Love Makes a Family" and talked about all the different kinds of families we could see in the pictures. 
Lots of children have brought their family photos from home to share and we will display these in photo frames in our home corner. 
We have also been using the "Singing Hands" to help us to learn Makaton signs for the different family members. We say and sign the words and this is great for promoting the children's speech development and support them all in being able to communicate with each other. 

This afternoon we went on our first welly walk of the school year. Firstly, all the staff and children got dressed in their warm coats and boots and we spoke about how to be safe when walking down the school drive. 
In the nature reserve, we were excited to find lots of Autumn treasure while we were exploring. We found lots of different leaves and talked about the sizes and colours. We also found acorns and chestnuts and the children noticed that the chestnut cases were very spiky! We collected our treasure so we can explore it with our magnifying glasses in nursery next week. 
The children also loved exploring and playing with their new friends- collecting sticks, building a campfire, playing hide and seek and lots of running and chasing games. We are looking forward to our welly walk next week! 

Our focus song this week is "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes!" We have been learning the words and have been pointing to our body parts for the actions too. At group times, we have been singing the song fast and slow and we have also used our musical instruments to play along to the beat, 
See if your child can remember the song and sing at home too! 

In nursery it has been lovely to see that the children already love to share books! We have been learning to hold them the right way up, turn the pages and talk about what is happening in the pictures. Lots of children have been choosing to look at books independently, with their friends and with the adults too. Well done, Shooting Stars! 

This week our learning focus is all about getting to know our new friends and learning their names. We are learning to share and take turns with our toys and are using phrases such as "can I have a turn please?" or "can I play?" to talk with our friends. 
Our book of the week is Pip and Posy- The New Friend. We have been reading this and other Pip and Posy stories as they are all about friendship, being kind and how to be a good friend.
We are enjoying playing and learning together and it is is lovely to see some beautiful friendships being formed already. 

We have had an exciting delivery this afternoon of some new resources for our outdoor area. These have been purchased using the generous contributions from parents to our sponsored event in the Summer term. 
One of our new resources is a water wall which is great for encouraging the children to be Scientific explorers. The children loved adding the guttering into the wall to create their choice of waterways. They also used their gross motor skills to pump the water up to the top of the pipe and out onto the guttering, There was such a lot of learning and fun! ​

​It was lovely to welcome back our children who were with us last term into nursery today. We loved hearing their news and spending time with them and they absolutely loved seeing their friends again. 
Here are some photos of them engaged in learning through play

It has also been lovely to meet all our new children who have joined our nursery this term. Photos of our new children will be shared once all the permissions have been gained.