We already love mark making in our nursery! We have been learning to hold our pens and pencils correctly and to talk about the marks we have made. We have practised patterns such as circles, zig-zags and crosses and some of us have been drawing faces too. 
This is our display in our mark making area, showing off some of the work we are proud of so far: 

Our Maths song of the week has been Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer." At group time, we have enjoyed singing the song together with props and children to represent the objects in the song. The children have been showing the amount of men on their fingers, taking one away and talking about how many are left. Some of the children are really quick at this! 
In our Maths area, we have added the props and the children have enjoyed singing the song, counting and exploring the resources with their friends. 

This afternoon, the children enjoyed our first baking activity of the year. The focus was to decorate a biscuit by spreading the icing and sprinkling the toppings. This is great for fine motor development as the children used their hands and fingers to carefully spread and sprinkle, Here are the finished biscuits. I hope they tasted as good as they look!

This week the children have enjoyed exploring mark making in our tray of foam. This is great for developing their fine motor and pre-writing skills,. They have explored different patterns such as circles, zig-zags, spirals, dots. crosses and lines going up, down and across., 

We have been sharing the story of The Colour Monster" and talking about the feelings from the book- happy, sad, calm, fear, anger and loved. We have set up an area in our reading garden with copies of this book and the colour monster soft toys and the children have enjoyed reading the books and matching the feelings with the coloured soft toys. We will continue to explore these over the coming weeks and relate this to feelings the children may experience in nursery. 

This week in nursery we are learning about our families and our focus book is "Love Makes a Family." The children will have the opportunity to share their family photos from home and we will be learning how to say and sign, using Makaton, the different family members. 
In our mark making area, we are learning how to draw a face using a circle and then add features such as eyes, nose, mouth and hair. Some children will be drawing and painting their family portrait while talking about who is in their family. 

In our investigation area this week, we have mixed cornflour with water to make gloop and the children have loved exploring it with their hands and fingers. There has been lots of excitement as they noticed how it changed and they have been using words such as hard, slimy, wet, soft and sticky to describe the texture. 

Our song of the week is Head. Shoulders, Knees and Toes to support our learning about the parts of the body. We have been singing the song together and having lots of fun with the actions. 
See if you and your child can sing the song together at home. 

In our group times this week, we are singing different counting songs to support our early Mathematical development. We will be focusing on "5 Little Speckled Frogs" and "Five Little Ducks" and the children will be counting the frogs or ducks, showing the amounts on their fingers and finding how many are left. 
In our Maths and water areas, we have books and props of these songs so the children can practise their learning as they play. 

"This is our first full week in nursery together and we are learning to make friends and play together. Our book of the week is Pip and Posy: The New Friend" and we will be reading lots of other books about friends too. We will be learning to play together, talk to each other, take turns and share the toys- such important skills!