Kirkley Nursery& Centre of Excellence

What a lovely week we have had in our Owl room. The children have been focusing on our fine motor skills, using the pincer grip to pinch pegs and hang out the washing in the role play area. We have been using child safety knives to practice cutting up snack. The children also made fireworks picture with cardboard tubes and cotton buds. Outside the children have been practicing their gross motor skills and strength pulling each other around the garden on the body boards.

We have had a lovely first week back in the Hedgehog room after October half term! We have started reading our new core text 'That's not my hedgehog...' as well as looking at and talking about bonfire night and Diwali! This week, we have been developing our fine and gross motor skills, exploring in the sensory tuff trays which have been filled with a variety of resources such as pasta, rice and musical instruments. We created our own firework pictures and used the ribbons to create a variety of movements whilst performing some lovely dance moves🦔

This week we welcomed back our Squirrels after our half term break 🐿 We've had some new children start with us and it has been amazing to see how settled they are already The core text this week is 'Rosie's walk' and we have been looking at all activities surrounding the farm. 🐐 🐮 🐴.

What a super busy week we have had in the Owl room. The children baked Halloween cookies which they had fun mixing the ingredients together and discussing what ingredients they needed next. We explored how tall some of the children are using our height chart and a measuring tape. The children also had some ribbon to compare sizes with and have a go at measuring on the meter ruler. The children discovered lots of wiggly worms underneath a pallet in the garden which turned into a worm rescue effort where the worms were safely put in the vegetable garden. This afternoon was full of puddle jumping and finding all the places that had filled up with rain water!. We also made spooky cauldron pictures by dipping cardboard tubes into bubbly paint.

What a lovely last week before half term we have had in Hedgehogs! Most of the children have enjoyed engaging in many Halloween themed activities as well as keeping on theme also with our core text, but the Halloween version of 'We're Going on a Pumpkin Hunt' The children have been exploring in the spiders web tuff tray, creating their own cauldron pictures using toilet rolls and pipettes, trying to free the pumpkin seeds from the frozen jelly using the tweezers as well as reading many Halloween stories and dressing up in a variety of costumes Wishing those of you who are term time only a lovely week and we welcome you back on Monday 2nd November!🦔

The last few weeks the Squirrels have been taking part in activities surrounding our new core text 'We're going on a leaf hunt' 🍂 🍁 This has also included exploring 'Autumn' themed activities 🎃 We have been focusing on developing our fine motor skills, exploring different textures and expressing our ideas through play 🎨. We have also been enjoying the change in the weather and jumping in muddle puddles Last week was the start of internal transitions between rooms. All of our children were absolutely amazing and settled very quickly. 😊 🌟

It has been another busy week in our Owl Room. The child have been very creative making Autumn trees by painting their hands and making a handprint tree. The children collected leaves of many different sizes so we could make leaf people pictures. Outside the children decided to make a ball run by connecting drain pipes they showed good problem solving skills and teamwork whilst building the ball run.

We've been very creative in the Hedgehog room this week! The children created their own snowstorm sensory tray, using shaving foam and cotton wool, seeing if they were able to use the tweezers to pick up the cotton wool balls! As well as making cornflake cakes, their own bear hunt footprints and watching/gathering leaves in the garden. It has also been lovely to see our new children fully settled now and engaging well with their friends and practitioners, as well as having developed a strong understanding of the routine also!🦔

What a busy week we have had in our Owl room. The children have enjoyed loose parts play being imaginative arranging the corks, acorns and stacking stones. We have been doing some really good turn taking with the rocket game, waiting our turn and then counting who had the most loops. We have also been making patterns with peg boards arranging the colours using our fine motor skills. The children have been talking about shapes and matching shapes to their pictures.