Nursery Class, Oldfield Brow Primary School

Welcome to Nursery

Please check our downloads section regularly for useful information regarding our learning in Nursery.

Please also check our new EYFS page that can be found under Parents/Carers on our website!

PLEASE NOTE

Change to time of pick-up in Nursery

We will now be finishing our school day at 3:15pm. The morning start time will remain as normal.

W.C 22nd May 2023
Buzz! We are learning all about bees this week! The children will be looking closely at real honeycomb pieces, exploring what it looks and feels like. We will be tasting honey on Friday when we will have toast and honey! We are also going to be investigating how bees make honey by conducting an experiment.

The children will be learning lots of new vocabulary and facts about the brilliant bee. As a class we will discuss the importance of looking after bees due to the amazing work they do. The class have already planted wildflower seeds and we will talk about why flowers are important for bees to live.

We will be continuing our development of rhythm, rhyme and alliteration this week by playing games such as the Wizard's Box and I-spy!

We hope you have a lovely week!
Miss Kelly

W.C 15th May 2023
This week, Oldfield Brow are learning about and celebrating the King’s Coronation! It is going to be a busy week indeed, and we will be finishing off the week of celebrations by enjoying a coronation party on Friday 19th May! To celebrate, we will watch highlights from the coronation and talk about what this means. The children will also make King Charles inspired artwork, make fruit kebabs and decorate biscuits. We will bring these treats along to our street party to enjoy as a class. We can’t wait!

In our phonics learning, the children are busy learning about words that start with the same sound (alliteration). The children will be playing silly soup, mixing up lots of objects that have the same initial sound. The children will also be learning tongue twisters, such as Peter Piper! This enables the children to confidently identify the initial sounds in words, a skill that will then progress into orally segmenting words and blending words together.

In our mathematics learning, the children will be making patterns of all kinds. We will talk about what a pattern is, then make patterns using body percussion (clap, stamp, clap, stamp), shapes, colours and more! We will make printed fruit patterns like the ones exemplified below.

What a jam-packed week we have ahead!
Miss Kelly

W.C 9th May 2023
This week, the children in Nursery will be learning all about spiders! We will be watching how a spider spins its web, and investigating questions such as ‘how many legs do spiders have?’ and ‘what do spiders eat?’. We will be singing one of our favourite nursery rhymes, ‘Incy Wincy spider’!

Have a good week,
Miss Kelly

W.C 17th April 2023
Hello and welcome back to a new term in Nursery! We hope you all had a lovely break and we look forward to getting straight back into our exciting learning.

The enquiry question we will be investigating this half-term is ‘Who lives in our garden?’. To kick off this investigation we will be reading ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. The children will be looking after caterpillars of our very own and we will watch them over the coming weeks as they transform into butterflies. We will learn all about the lifecycle of a caterpillar and we are very excited to be able to observe this in real life!

We are extremely excited to be having our ‘Outdoor Learning Day’ on Thursday 20th April. This is when we will be taking all of our learning outside – including our phonics and maths! The children will be outside for most of the day so please dress the children in clothes that you do not mind getting dirty – there may or may not be a slip and slide activity towards the end of the day. Please send your children in wearing a waterproof coat and appropriate shoes. The children will most likely come home a little bit dirty but the learning that will have taken place will be wonderful! We will have lots of activities, from large scale mark-making and threading to toasting marshmallows and exploring clay. We will share all the photographs on our school twitter page.

Nursery fund:
As we enter a new full term, we are once again asking for donations to our Nursery fund. This can be found on ParentPay. We use the money donated to buy resources that allow us to have exciting learning opportunities, just like the outdoor learning day mentioned above. This will be a donation that will cover this half-term and next, leading us to Summer. We thank you in advance for your generosity.

We hope you have a great week,
Miss Kelly

Monday 27th March 2023

Wow! I cannot believe we are at the end of another half-term in Nursery. What a fantastic half-term it has been. To finish off, we will be learning all about Easter! We will be making chocolate nests using cornflakes and melted chocolate. We may also have a special visit from the one and only Easter Bunny - keep your eyes peeled! If he arrives, I am sure there will be an Easter egg hunt in our EYFS garden if we are lucky!

In our maths, the children will be playing lots of games to consolidate their understanding of number.

OUTDOOR LEARNING DAY

We hope you have a lovely, restful break and we look forward to welcoming the children back in a few weeks time.

Thanks,

Miss Kelly

Monday 20th March 2023
Stomp, chomp, big roars, here come the dinosaurs! This week the children will be becoming palaeontologists and investigating all things dinosaur. We will look at dinosaurs closely, as well as real life fossils, including real, fossilised dinosaur poo! The children will be introduced to lots of new vocabulary such as fossil, carnivore, herbivore, omnivore and palaeontologist.

The children were shocked and excited to find huge footprints in our classroom. We looked carefully at the footprints and decided that they must have been from a dinosaur. We were then sent an amazing video of a dinosaur in our classroom – a t-rex to be precise! We followed the dinosaur footprints to find two dinosaur eggs! We could not believe it! The children have promised to look after the egg until it hatches.

In our phonics learning, the children will be continuing to develop our sense of rhythm and rhyme, while also beginning to introduce the concept of initial sounds and alliteration.

In our maths, we will measure dinosaur footprints. The children will be introduced to the language of long, longest, short and shortest. We will compare the footprints and apply this vocabulary throughout the week.

We hope you have a lovely week,
Miss Kelly, Mrs Naveed and Mrs Wood

W.C 13th March 2023
This week, Nursery are sharing the story ‘Handa’s Surprise’ by Eileen Browne. We will read the story and then investigate the African Savannah. We will look at and describe the different creatures you may find in this amazing environment. We will also use descriptive language to talk about what the African Savannah may look and feel like.

The children will also have the opportunity to make a fruit salad. We will ask the children to help us to carefully cut bananas and apples. The children will also help to peel tangerines. We will have lots of conversations about healthy food choices.

We will not be open on Wednesday or Thursday due to strikes.

Have a lovely week,
Miss Kelly

W.C 6th March 2023

This week, we are learning all about the zoo! We will be learning all about all kinds of animals, using descriptive language. The children will be going on a zoo walk within our EYFS garden, finding hidden animals and discussing their characteristics. We will discuss the importance of zoos like Chester, by teaching the children about endangered species and how vital it is to look after these special animals.

In mathematics, we will make comparisons between objects relating to size, length, weight and capacity, using key vocabulary such as heavier, lighter, full and empty.

We will begin to look at alliteration this week, where the children will be introduced to tongue twisters and consider the initial sounds in their names.

Mrs Plimmer

As you will have noticed, Mrs Plimmer has been unable to be in with us due to ill health. After spending some time in hospital, she is now resting at home with her family to ensure her full recovery. I am sure you will join me in wishing Mrs Plimmer a speedy recovery - we miss her lots and can't wait to welcome her back when she is fully better.

Have a fantastic week,
Miss Kelly

W.C 27th February 2023

This week we are celebrating World Book Day! From the moment the children walk into Nursery, we strive to instill a love of reading within each child. Reading can take us on so many adventures, developing vocabulary and imaginative play along the way. The whole school theme is 'fairy-tales'. We have had a go at writing our very own fairy tale. The children wrote a story about a cheeky goblin who stole our pizza in a dark cave. Then, a fairy godmother comes along and turns the goblin into a frog!

The children then had a great time acting out the story, improvising speech and actions for each character. We also built an ice castle using blocks of coloured ice.

Some of these books encourage the children to choose the characters, setting and plot of the story. This will help children develop their understanding of stories.

In our maths, we are beginning to introduce the concept of subtraction. We will do this using physical resources and through everyday contexts, such as how many sweets are left if we eat one or two.

In our phonics, we are learning about rhythm and rhyme. We will be clapping out syllables and identifying rhyming words. You can help at home by clapping out syllables in words and singing rhyming songs and poems together.

Have a lovely week,

Miss Kelly

W.C 20th February 2023
Hello and welcome to a brand-new half-term! We hope that everyone had a lovely week. As always, we begin investigating a new enquiry question each half-term, which we use as a basis for our learning. The enquiry question we will be investigating this half-term is ‘Who lives in our world?’.

There’s a rumble in the jungle! The children are learning all about the Rainforest this week! We will be using new vocabulary to describe what rainforests look, smell, feel and sound like. For example, we have described the rainforest as ‘humid’. The children will listen to the sounds of the rainforest and move like different animals. The children will be listening to the following books, including a poetry book called ‘Rumble in the Jungle!’.

The children will make posters to celebrate the rainforest, and we will discuss how it is so important to save the trees.

We look forward to seeing where this learning takes us next!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 6th February 2023
As our final investigation into our enquiry question ‘who wears a hat like this?,’ we will be learning all about Pirates! The children will be creating their own treasure maps and following clues to find treasure hidden in our Nursery classroom. We will be reading lots of books to help us learn through this theme.

Our maths learning will be focused around the vocabulary of ‘more’ and ‘less.’ We will compare numbers and quantities together to apply this vocabulary.
We hope you have a lovely half-term break,
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 30th January 2023

Hello and welcome to a new week in Nursery. I am sure you will join me in welcoming Mrs Naveed to our class. Mrs Naveed is an experienced Early Years practitioner who will be joining us for the next few weeks. She is very excited to get to know all the children just as much as we do.

This week, the children will be learning all about Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses and Knights! We have recieved a very royal letter from the King, who has invited us to a royal ball! We have made a list of the things we might need to prepare for the ball. We also will be practicing our ballroom dancing to get ready!

We looked closely at Google Earth, where we searched for Buckingham Palace. We talked about King Charles and looked at lots of other palaces and castles. The children were keen to make a castle themselves, both inside and outside!

National Storytelling Week

This week is also National Storytelling Week! To celebrate, we have invited members of staff to come and read a story to the children. This will show the children that everyone loves to read and that stories can take us on adventures. Mr Cash came and kicked off this celebration by reading 'Spinderella' by Julia Donaldson. The children loved hearing this story!

We hope you have a lovely week,

Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 23rd January 2023

This week, Nursery are blasting off into Space. As part of our enquiry question 'Who Wears a Hat Like This?', we will be learning all about Astronauts and Space! We will watch videos of Tim Peak, the English Astronaut who spent time on the International Space Station. We will look at how he lived in space with no gravity! The children will also conduct an experiement to learn about how craters are formed on the moon. There will be lots of new and scientific vocabulary introduced to the children and there will be lots of opportunities to apply this new language in the areas of our classroom.

In our phonics learning we will continue to introduce our new phonics scheme 'Phonics Shed'. We are learning about how to distinguish sounds and we will consider how to describe the sounds we hear.

In our mathematics learning, the children will be comparing quantities using vocabulary such as 'more', 'less' and the 'same'. We will do this in a variety of ways to embed this new learning.

We hope you have a lovely week.

Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 16th January 2023
Kung Hei Fat Choi!
Sunday 22nd January is Chinese New Year, and it will be the Year of the Rabbit. This week we will be learning all about this wonderful celebration. We will be listening to the story of the Great Race, and re-enacting the story using different movements. The children will look closely at Chinese traditions, while learning about how those who celebrate prepare and celebrate this time. We will be trying some traditional Chinese food, and we will also be making our very own Chinese Dragon!

We hope you have a good week!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 9th January 2023
Hello! To explore our enquiry question ‘Who wears a hat like this?’, the children will be learning about people who help us! We will be exploring lots of different jobs where people help us, from firefighters to cleaners. The children will consider what these jobs might be like. We will also be saying thank you to these people for all of their help.

We will be reading the information book ‘What Do Grown-Ups Do All Day?’ by Virginie Morgand, along with lots of other books to support this topic.

We will now be asking for a new donation to our Nursery fund, which will cover the full term until April. This donation is to pay for replenishable resources such as play-dough ingredients and craft supplies. The donation will be payable via ParentPay. We thank you in advance for your generosity.
We hope you have a great week!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 3rd January 2023
Welcome back to a brand-new half-term! We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! We are so excited to welcome the Nursery children back into our classroom. This half-term, our enquiry question is ‘Who wears a hat like this?’. We will be investigating this question in different ways as the weeks progress. This week, we will be reading the book ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers. We will learn about Winter and the Antarctic, as the main character in our book is a penguin! The children will learn about freezing and melting, as well as what the Antarctic looks like!

We hope you have a lovely week!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 12th December 2022

Wow! Mrs Plimmer and I can’t believe that we are already at the end of our first full half term. We have been having the most wonderful time learning together. The children have been fantastic and I cannot wait to see where our journey goes next. This week, we will be immersing ourselves in Christmas. The children will be having their party on Friday 16th December.

A reminder to parents that ALL CHILDREN will be going home at 11:40am on this day. The children will be collected from the office. This only applies to children in Nursery and no other class.

Nursery Fund
When we return after Christmas, we will be asking for a new donation to our Nursery fund, to cover the full Spring term (January-April). This donation is to pay for replenishable resources such as play-dough ingredients and craft supplies.

We hope you have a wonderful, relaxing Christmas. See you in the New Year!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 5th December 2022

Merry Christmas! This week, the children are learning all about Christmas. We will explore the Nativity Story and learn about Christmas traditions. The children will also have an exciting visit from Father Christmas! We will also be completing lots of Christmas craft activities. Expect lots of glitter!

EYFS Christmas Around the Tree – Tuesday 6th December
The children in Nursery and Reception will be taking part in a sing-along around the Christmas tree in our school hall on Tuesday 6th December. We would love it if you could join us to share in this celebration. After dropping the children off at the normal time, we ask that parents come to the office for 9:00am, ready to begin the singing at 9:15am. We will be singing Christmas songs and using actions to act out poems. It will last around 30-40 minutes. There will be some mince pies for adults too!

We ask that the children come to school wearing either a Christmas jumper or party clothes.

A note for Nursery parents: If your child is in Nursery and joins us for a morning session, you are free to take your child home after this time, however they are more than welcome to stay for their full morning session until 11:40am. The rest of the children will return to class. If your child comes in the afternoon, they are more than welcome to join us for the sing-along.

We have learnt all about each number to 10. We will now go back and consolidate this learning, along with the skills of counting 1 to 1 and adding small groups together.

Have a great week,
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 28th November 2022
“Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!” The children are exploring the story ‘The Gingerbread Man’ this week in Nursery. The children will be going on an exciting gingerbread hunt, where they will have to read the clues left by the Gingerbread Man! We will have to listen carefully to the positional language in the clues to find where he is hiding.

We are learning all about different representations of the number 9!

In our phonics learning, the children will be exploring body percussion. We will make sounds using our hands and feet, by stomping, clapping, and tapping. We will explore how to make the sounds louder and quieter. The children will even be challenged to make patterns such as ‘clap, stamp, clap, stamp!’.

Have a lovely week!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

We ask that the children come to school wearing either a Christmas jumper or party clothes.

W.C 21st November 2022
Who is that trip trapping over my bridge? We are sharing the story ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. The children will be creating a story map to help sequence the story. We will also be working together to build bridges both inside and outside.

The children will also be making bird feeders for the birds as it gets colder. We will be using nut-free bird feed and lard. We will then keep checking our bird feeders to see if any hungry birds are coming to eat the seeds.

The number we will be learning about is 8. Alongside this, we will be consolidating our mathematical skill of one-to-one correspondence e.g saying one number for each item in order.

We hope you have a lovely week!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 15th November 2021
Welcome to a new week of learning in Nursery! This week, we will be sharing the story ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. Together, the children will make a list of all the things we might need to take on our journey to visit Grandma. We will also be re-enacting to story together, using our bodies to show how each character might be feeling.

In our maths, the children will be learning about money! We will also be focusing on the number 7 and learning about how it can be represented in different ways.

Finally, in phonics, we will continue to investigate instrumental sounds. The children will hide instruments and use their listening skills to find them. The children will also be given the opportunity to perform using our instruments, playing them in different ways.
Have a great week!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 31st October 2022

Welcome back to a brand-new half-term! We are so excited to be starting a new half-term in Nursery, where we will be investigating the enquiry question ‘Where can stories take us?’ as our overarching topic. We are excited to go on the many journeys stories can take us on together. This week, we are learning all about the book 'Room on the Broom' and Bonfire Night!

On Saturday it is Bonfire Night! We will be learning about fire safety, showing the children sparklers but emphasising the importance of being safe. We will also be creating large-scale artwork outside, using big muscle movements to make a splatter painting, inspired by fireworks and the artist Jackson Pollock.

Fire Service Visit!

Next week, we are very lucky to be having a visit from Altrincham Fire Service. The children will have the opportunity to meet fire fighters and take a look at a real fire engine close up! We are so excited!

We have a busy week ahead but we are excited to get started.

Have a good week,
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

21.10.22 Sponsored Read

To celebrate and encourage a lifelong love of reading at home and school, we are running a sponsored read over half term 22/10/22-30/10/22.

The project is being organised in conjunction with our local Usborne Partner, and all the money raised will go towards brand new books for our school. In addition to the sponsorship money, Usborne will also donate up to 60% of the total raised in EXTRA FREE BOOKS to the school. So, for every £600 raised, we will get an extra £360 in FREE Usborne books!

We always aim to beat our last year’s target which was £1000 in sponsor money with Usborne donating an additional £600 of books for free if our target is met. This will give us a total of £1600 to spend on new books and resources for our children.

Please help us to enhance our reading resources for pupils by encouraging your child to spend a small amount of time each day either reading to themselves, to others, or being read to. They can read books, comics, magazines, newspapers, menus, websites, recipes, poems, leaflets, instructions – anything with words! For younger children in EYFS they can listen to the adult read their books and that still counts.

The class who have the most recorded minutes will win an extra free book and a small treat! All children will receive a certificate for taking part.

If you are able to support our sponsored read, please find on the reverse a sponsorship form and an extra reading log for your child if they wish to use it to record their reading. Please send any money in a named envelope with the class name and the amount raised alongside the forms by Friday 4th November.

W.C 17th October 2022

Wow! We cannot believe how fast the first term of Nursery has gone. We have had so much fun playing and learning together. It has been fantastic to get to know your children and find out all about them. Thank you for all your support during this time – we cannot wait to carry on our journey together after the half-term break. This week we are learning all about the Festival of Diwali, which takes place on Monday 24th October.

Diwali is a festival celebrated by Sikhs and Hindus all around the world. We will be exploring the story of Rama and Sita and investigating beautiful resources such as puppets and videos. The children will be making salt-dough Diva lamps, a traditional candle holder used to decorate houses during Diwali. The children will also be creating Rangoli and Mendhi patterns both inside and outside of our classroom, using chalk and coloured rice.

We hope you have a lovely half-term break and we look forward to seeing you again after the holidays.

Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 10th October 2022

Next week is Harvest Festival. This week, to learn all about the Festival, Nursery will be learning about fruit and vegetables. We will talk about where the food comes from, while investigating the food in hands-on explorations. We are also learning all about our 5 senses. We will look carefully at the seeds and talk about what we can see, smell, taste and feel. The children will be exploring taste and smell by completing taste tests and smell tests!

In our phonics learning, we will be listening carefully to instruments, playing them loudly and quietly, to help us play them with control. We will talk about the different sounds that we can hear and match them to the correct instrument.

Have a great week,
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 3rd October 2022

Welcome to Autumn! We are learning all about Autumn in Nursery this week! We will be investigating all of your wonderful autumn treasures and using them to make pictures. The children will also be leaf printing and exploring the colours of this beautiful season. We have looked for signs of autumn on our class autumn walk, where we will walk to the school field to search for pine cones, leaves and conkers.

Have a lovely week,
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

Christmas Cards:

Please complete a design for a Christmas card on a piece of A4 paper. Then attach this A4 piece of paper to the form sent out from Nursery. If you wish to place an order, please fill out the form, order online and return it to Nursery by the 13th October.

Examples of Christmas Cards:

W.C 26th September 2022

Each half-term we investigate an enrqiry question as a class. Within this enquiry question we also follow the children's interests and incorporate this into our planning and provision. Our enquiry question for this half-term is:

'What makes me so special?'

This week in Nursery we are learning all about our families. We have had a special circle time where we have talked about who is special to us. The children have loved sharing this with their friends. We will also be learning about birthdays! We have recieved a ery special invitation from Teddy, inviting us to his birthday party! This birthday party will take place on Friday. We have made a list of all the things we need for this birthday party. We will then have music and biscuits on Friday as a celebration.

We are continuing to develop our awareness of environmental sounds in our phonics learning. We will go on a sound walk and identify the sounds we can hear around school.

Our mathematical nursery rhyme is 5 little monkeys jumping on a bed. This helps us to devlop our understanding of number. We are beginning to learn all about specific numbers too, and our number of the week is 1!

Keep checking our class page and school twitter for updates.

Have a lovely week,

Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

W.C 20th September 2022

Welcome to a new week in Nursery. Last week, the children were superstars and we were so impressed with how well they settled into the routines of their new environment. We all had so much fun together! This week we will be learning about our families! We will share with each other who is in our family and talk about those we love. We will show that no family is the same, and this is what makes each family incredibly special!

In our phonics learning, the children will be listening to different instruments and playing them loudly and quietly. They will also have to listen carefully to different instruments to find them in the classroom.

The mathematical nursery rhyme we will share is ‘5 cheeky monkeys’.

We hope you have a lovely week!
Miss Kelly and Mrs Plimmer

Week Commencing 12th September 2022

Hello Everyone!

Thank you all so much for coming to visit us in Nursery this week. We are so excited to welcome you and your children to our Oldfield Brow family.

My name is Miss Kelly and I am the Nursery teacher here at Oldfield Brow Primary School. Mrs Plimmer is our Nursery nurse, and we are both extremely excited to have your children with us in Nursery. We are going to have lots and lots of fun, learning and playing together both inside and outside. We have so many exciting things planned already, so please keep checking our class page and school twitter to take a look at what we get up to!

Stay and Play:

Your child has been allocated a 2 hour stay and play session on either Wednesday 14th or Thursday 15th of September. We ask that the children be dropped off and picked up from the school office. We are having small group sessions on these days in order to familiarise the children with each other and their new classroom.

What to wear:
We like to explore lots of different materials in our learning, and we can sometimes make a little bit of mess as we learn. The children may come home a little bit mucky, so please do not send your child in wearing special clothes - comfortable clothes are best! As we spend lots of our time learning outside, we ask for you to please send your children in wearing velcro shoes, so that they do not trip up over laces. We go outside in (almost) all weathers, so a waterproof, warm, hooded coat is needed, especially as we head into autumn. We ask for you to please spend time teaching your child how to put their coat on by themselves.
We also encourage each child to bring a spare change of clothes, including underwear and socks in case they need to be changed during the day.

Nursery Fund:
In Nursery, we use lots of resources to enable the children to have exciting and engaging learning opportunities. In order for us to afford these resources, we ask for a donation of £1.50 a week to our Nursery fund, which you can find on ParentPay. We ask for this to be donated termly, (September-December, January-April, April-July). Therefore, this term we ask for a donation of £18 to cover the 12 weeks in this term.
We spend the money on craft materials, play dough and baking ingredients and activity enhancements. Lots of what we use in Nursery needs replenishing quite often and we really appreciate and value the donations we receive, as it allows for the best learning opportunities for the children. We thank you in advance!

Mrs Plimmer and I are so excited for the year ahead and cannot wait to start our adventure together as a class. If you have any queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to speak to myself or Mrs Plimmer at the door, or email us at the following address:

nursery@oldfield-brow.com

Starting Nursery:

Many parents ask what we want children to do before they come to Nursery.

Whilst reading, writing and maths are important areas of learning, please remember that in Nursery they only form part of the curriculum. Here is a list of ways that you can support yo ur child’s learning at home: