We love mark making in our nursery and it is one of our most popular areas! We are learning to hold our writing tool in a tripod grip and add pressure to the paper. We are also learning to give meaning to our different marks, talking about what we are drawing and writing. Some children are able to write their name and are learning to write letters and words to go with their pictures- WOW! We also have some amazing detailed pictures being drawn every day. Good job, Shooting Stars! 

We have been learning to print with different shaped sponges at our easel. This links in with our Maths learning of the week where we have been exploring different 2D shapes. It also links with our art learning as we have explored how to make a print. We have focused on the words print, press and dab as well as the shape names, circle, square and triangle. 

In our painting area this week, we have been learning how to mix pink so we can paint a pig from our story of the week. We have some amazing artists in our nursery! 

This week we are focusing our learning around the story of The Three Little Pigs. The children have done a great job so far of listening carefully to some different versions of the book and learning to say the repeated phrases. In the small world and construction area, the children have been using small and large wooden blocks and duplo to build different houses. They have then been using the puppets from the story to act it out using the phrases "Little pig, little pig, let me come in",  "Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin" and "Then I'll huff and I'll  puff and I'll blow your house down." 

In nursery we are developing our early phonics awareness by exploring the sounds in words. In our group times we have been listening to the sounds at the beginning of words and this week we are focusing on m for man. We have collected objects beginning with m such as monkey, milk and money. We also found some things that didn't begin with m and we listened carefully so we could hear what sound they did begin with. 
In our provision, we have enjoyed completing our letter puzzles, working together and solving problems as we did. 

This week we are continuing our journey into magical storyland with a focus on The Gingerbread Man. We have read the story and the children have learnt to join in with the repeated refrain "Run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." We have been developing our early phonics skills by listening to the rhyming words and generating our own rhymes- man, can, fan, pan etc. 
Our provision activities this week have included:
-reading and re-telling the story with puppets and props in our small world area.
-using our mark making skills to design our own gingerbread person.
-rolling, shaping and cutting our dough to make gingerbread people
-using cotton buds with paints to add details to gingerbread outlines
-cutting out gingerbread men using our scissors and then decorating them by sticking on different materials using glue.
-pouring and filling using different containers and gingerbread man shapes in the water tray. 

This week in our construction area, the children have loved exploring the magnetic blocks. The children began the week working with them flat on the table but as the week progressed, they learnt to stack them in different ways to create castles, houses, pens for the farm animals and much more! There has also been lots of team work as some of the children worked together to make joint constructions. 

In our creative area this week, we have been recalling how to mix paint to make different colours. The older children know how to mix their paint, paint their picture and then wash their palette so it is clean for the next person. 
We have also been using different materials to create collage pictures while learning how to stick with glue and cut and snip with scissors. 

This week we are beginning our Magical Storyland theme with the traditional tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, We will be reading and comparing different versions this week and the children will be learning to join in with the repeated phrases and to change their voices for the different characters. 
Our provision activities this week include:
-reading different versions of the story in our reading garden
-role playing the story using our puppets and props in the small world area
-mark making about the story and decorating our own bears with pens and crayons
-learning how to mix brown paint so we can paint the bears
-using brown chocolate flavoured dough to create bears

Welcome back to the Spring term in nursery! We hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed spending special time with your families. This week we are looking forward to welcoming back our children from last term and also getting to know our new starters. 
Our theme for learning is Magical Storyland and we will be focusing our learning around a different traditional tale or nursery rhyme each week.