Welcome to Nursery

The Nursery Team

• Mrs Volland- Class Teacher
• Miss Price- TA
• Mrs Price- TA
• Mrs Bass- PPA teacher
• Miss Jammeh - Dinner Supervisor
• Miss Patricia - Dinner Supervisor

Welcome to our Nursery Class page, we hope the information here helps you support your child and find out some more about how your child is learning and developing during their time in the Nursery Class. We have family meetings ahead of starting in September and two parent consultations during the year, however please do ask us any questions or let us know of any concerns as you see us on the door each day.

Nursery Checklist

Please ensure you name all of your child's clothes and possessions

It is helpful if children can manage their clothing as independently as possible. Please select trousers with elastic waistbands and shoes without laces.

You will need to bring the following into Nursery:

• A named water bottle, no squash or juice please
• Wellington Boots, please name
• Black velcro strapped PE pumps
• A book bag, big enough to keep a picture book flat
• A warm coat, hat and gloves when the weather gets colder - we try and go outside whatever the weather!
• Do not bring any toys from home as they could get lost or broken in school
• Do not leave any medicine in a child's bag. Please inform us if your child needs medicine of any kind in school and complete a permission form available from the Infant Office

Please note, unless your child has a spare change of clothes in a bag, please do not leave anything else in the cloakroom.

Nursery Opening Times

Nursery drop off is at 9.00am and pick up is at 3.00pm. The gates are shut at 9.10am and 3.10pm. Please be prompt. If you are delayed picking your child up, please inform the office so we can reassure your child. If someone else is picking your child up please inform us as we will not let your child leave without your permission.

We group the children for some activities. We have a Giraffe and a Zebra group. We create these groups as we get to know the children.

This is our secure home learning platform. Teachers post photographs of your child playing and learning in Nursery, as well as sending messages about your child or important information about up and coming events. You, as parents, are also able to upload photographs send messages to the Nursery staff. These are checked daily outside of teaching time, any urgent messages should be sent to the Infant Office.

You will have your own secure login which will be given out during the Autumn term.

When you are given the Home Learning Code, please login to Seesaw at https://app.seesaw.me/#/login as soon as possible. If you have any problems please speak to the Nursery staff.

A video explaining how to use Seesaw is given below, plus there is further information about how to login and set up Seesaw on our Home Learning page on the website.

Dates for your Diary

Please keep checking back here for more information

Our Curriculum - Autumn Term

Our topic this half term is 'All About Me'.

As part of our topic we will be looking carefully at out faces and the similarities and difference between ourselves and others. We will talk about our families and explore how we have changed since we were babies. We will begin to talk about our feelings and ask 'What is love?'. We will look carefully at who helps us in our community.

Religious Education

In Nursery at St Peter's we follow the Jack in the Box scheme which has been developed by Early Years Specialists. Our worship sessions follow a familiar, repeated pattern with fun songs set to well-known tunes and a variety of learning strategies guaranteed to engage our children in the Bible stories. Children travel with Jack the dog to meet the Big Bible Heroes of the Old Testament and then on to learn all about Jesus and his love for the world, and the adventures of his friends and followers.

Communication & Language

We will be learning how to listen carefully and why listening is important. Children will learn to respond to questions and instructions that have two parts, such as 'Please get you water bottle and sit down.' We will enjoy listening to longer stories and start to talk about what we have heard. We will start to use 'Word Aware' to help children use new vocabulary, especially relating to our topic work and use it within their play and learning (new words can be seen by parents on the Nursery door). We will also be using our role play and small world areas to encourage children to talk imaginatively to their peers.

Phonics

At St Peter's we use the Supersonic Phonic friends to support our phonics teaching.

We will be beginning Phase 1 Phonics in Nursery this term. Children will be joining in with action songs and nursery rhymes. We will listen to, remember and identify animal and environmental sounds and match and sort pictures and objects and spot which one is missing during memory games. We also listen to lots of stories and share non-fiction books to develop our listening skills and vocabulary- and most importantly to develop a love of books.

Literacy

In Literacy we will be focusing on key concepts about print, for example to understand that all print has meaning and a purpose. Children will learn how to use print in the classroom to locate their pegs, name cards and tidy up resources properly. We will be enjoying listening to simple stories and joining in with Nursery Rhymes. We will learn how to handle books, by turning pages carefully and learning the names of the different parts of a book, eg cover, title.

Our Spine Books this half term are: Dear Zoo, Where's Spot, Hug, Zekki Loves Daddy, Peppo and Paper Dolls.

Our Spine Books this half term are…….

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

Where's Spot by Eric Hill

Peepo by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

Hug by Jez Alborough

Zeki Loves Daddy by Anna McQuinn and Ruth Hearson

The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb

Mathematics

In Maths children will enjoy familiarising themselves with the Maths area, where they can explore shape and number. We will be exploring time and routines, by exploring how the days change and singing our daily 'Good Morning' song and familiarising the children with our daily visual timetable. We will also explore sorting and matching.

Understanding the World

We will be helping children to begin to make sense of their own life-story and family’s history. Children will be encouraged to look carefully at themselves and others and talk about similarities and differences. They will also be encouraged to express their likes and dislikes. We will begin to explore the outdoor learning environment and Forest School activities. Children will explore and sort natural objects in the classroom.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

This term the focus will be on becoming part of ‘Team Nursery’. Children will learn the rules and routines in the classroom, such as turn taking, good sitting and listening. This begins with the children thinking about what rules are, why we need them and following these rules in the classroom. We will also introduce our Growth Mindset characters, including ‘Have a go Joe’ and ‘Choosing Chimp’.

We also follow the My Happy Mind scheme created by the NHS. This supports the children's understanding of their emotions and promotes their well being and communication.

Physical Development

The key focus for this term will be to encourage ALL the children to be able to put on their coats, shoes and wellington boots independently, this usually takes a number of weeks. We will also focus on the importance of good hygiene in Nursery and how and when to wash our hands. During PE lessons we will focus on moving safely and sensibly in a space with consideration of others and stopping with control. We will play ring games to develop co-operative play as a group and of course, explore the equipment in the Nursery playground.

Expressive Arts and Design

We will start this term by looking at portraiture, exploring the paintings of Mary Cassat. Children will be looking carefully at their own faces and painting and drawing what they see. We will begin whole class drawing, to explore how to use a pencil and make marks using different lines. We will also be learning how to use the Art resources correctly.

Useful Website Links - Please click to open.

• Seesaw Video Tutorial for Parents For further information on how to set up Seesaw on the Home Learning page on the website
• Top Marks Fun maths game for your child
• Out of the Ark Songs and activities for your children
• Robin Hood EYFS Week by week learning scheme for young children
• Family Education Ways to build pre-reading skills.
• Heart Smart Activities to talk about feelings and positive behaviour.
• Value of Outdoor Play Information for parents about the benefits of outdoor play.
• More Early Years Games!
• Early Years Games