The Pickford Nursery

The Bumblebees class are focusing on exploring various modes of transportation this month. As part of their learning journey, they are presented with a challenge that requires them to leverage their problem-solving skills. The challenge involves devising a way to transport toy cars across a make-believe river without getting them wet.

During the brainstorming session, the children develop creative ideas, such as suggesting that the cars could drive over the river or even jump across it. However, they quickly realise that these ideas wouldn't work. Eventually, the group reaches a consensus to build a bridge using small planks and bobbins provided by the educator.

The children work collaboratively, filled with enthusiasm as they eagerly set out to build a bridge spanning the river. However, they encounter many obstacles along the way and have to adjust the materials to achieve their goal.

During collaborative activities, children engage in sustained shared thinking and learn from each other's contributions. This experience fosters their ability to approach challenges systematically, develop problem-solving frameworks, and feel a sense of belonging as everyone's ideas are valued.

EYFS links:

Communication and language
Personal Social and Emotional Development
Maths
Understanding the World

The Bumblebees are exploring different modes of transportation in line with the topic of the month. They make boats from discarded materials such as yoghurt pots, food trays, kitchen towel rolls, etc. They use their critical thinking skills to visualise a 3D boat and create it using the resources provided. The children make small and large boats, sailboats, speedboats and even a submarine. This learning experience helps to build environmental awareness as the children create new things out of used items and it’s a great way to ignite children’s creativity while educating them about waste. It also sparks interesting conversations as the children explain the differences between their boats, e.g. "A submarine is like a boat but it goes underneath the water", "This speedboat is very fast. It's faster than a sailing boat”.

The experience continues in circle time where the children test the buoyancy of the boats they have made. They sit in a circle and talk about the boats they have made and the materials and tools they have used. The teacher takes each one to check if it floats or sinks, while the children make predictions e.g. "This boat won't float because it's too heavy", "It will get all wet because it's made of cardboard and will sink", “This one will float because is light”.This experiment allows the children to develop early maths skills as well as explore the concepts of density and buoyancy in a fun way.

EYFS links:

Communication and Language

Physical Development

Maths

Understanding the World

Expressive Arts and Design

What a success beach day was!
The children had so much fun exploring the sand, building castles, scooping and filling buckets while also enjoying the pools, running through the flamingo sprinkler splashing the water and getting everyone wet. The children filled the pots up with water and poured them over the staff and their friends, We all had the best beach day!

All the activities we had through beach day are super beneficial to children and help then learn through play.
Water play is so important as is supports the children’s development, water play activities help to develop and strengthen children's gross and fine motor skills. Children enhance their gross motor skills, coordination and physical fitness through lifting, pouring, carrying, running and splashing, while actions such as squeezing help to develop the small muscles in a child's hands.
Sand is the perfect natural resource for developing fine motor skills - building strength and control. For example, building and creating marks whilst using our fingers to mark make.

Caterpillars were also able to talk about their past experiences of going to the beach and what their favourite thing to do at the beach is and who they go with ie families or friends. This also allowed the children to build relationships with each other- especially for our new starters to join in and play alongside their new peers allowing them to form friendships.

EYFS links:
Communication and language
Physical development
Personal, social and emotional development
Understanding of the world
Mathematics

Staff Training Day with all our staff at the three nurseries getting together.

Yet another brilliant day, exchanging notes, ideas and solving problems. It is great that we have so much talent and knowledge and energy within our organisation to share around.🌟

20240809 Staff Trainings in Teams

The Bumblebees are involved in an ice-painting experience. They first discuss the properties of ice and different scientific concepts such as: temperature (hot or cold) and change of texture (from solid to liquid). They then move to the art table and explore the marks and patterns they can make with coloured ice cubes. This experience is linked to the book of the month "Elmer the Patchwork Elephant" and "Elmer in the Snow".

The children also work on developing their social skills by negotiating with others, generating hypothesis and exchanging experiences. This learning experience fosters a sense of community as everyone is involved in scientific research to find out what causes the ice to melt and how it becomes water again. Children are encouraged to express their thoughts and listen to the ideas of their peers.

EYFS links:

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Expressive Arts and Design
Understanding the World

This week in ladybirds we have been enjoying all different activities exploring the book of the month Elmer the elephant.

We have been using all different equipment to create different coloured drawings and creations. The children have been using paint brushes and their hands to create a big elephant picture that looked very colourful and bright, they have also decorated biscuits with different coloured icing, showing could understanding of what had been asked of them.

The children enjoyed using different coloured crayons to draw their own Elmer pictures, talking about the colours they could see.

The Bumblebees begin their journey with Elmer, the patchwork or "rainbow" elephant. Children read the book in circle time and discuss the similarities and differences between Elmer and the other elephants. They then discuss similarities and differences between the children in the classroom. We are all different, but we all like to play, eat ice cream and dance! Then, they move to the arts table to create their own Elmers using a variety of media and material.

The children also read "Elmer's Birthday Cake" and see a big rectangle filled with little squares on the cake. They go to the art table and make their own cake using playdough and tissue paper cutouts. They make cakes of all shapes and sizes. Then they put candles on their cakes and sing the phonics song for the letter P: "Blow out the candles on the big pink cake - pppp! The children think of words that start with a P and then, with adult support, create a short story; "A pirate and his parrot went to Peppa Pig's house but found purple and pink penguins cooking pancakes and sausages in a frying pan". The children illustrate the story using felt- tip pens and then the educator relaunches it at circle time. We have our own phonics story!

Throughout these experiences the children immerse in a learning journey where they expand their vocabulary, explore shapes and use their imagination to create stories and illustrate them with a sound in mind. The children lead their own path, creating an harmonious learning environment where the educator act as a guide.

As we finish our book of the month ‘we’re going on a bear hunt’, Catepillars were able to participate in a bear hunt sensory walk. In the tuff tray, we had different textures for the children to use their feet to explore the different textures and use different parts of their body to explore. In the tuff trays these included, water, fake grass, flour and flour mixed with water to make gloopy mud.

While going on a bear hunt, an adult was reading ‘we’re going on a bear hunt’ allowing the children to go through the different scenes in the story and resighting all of the scenes. The children were then able to use the stepping stones to tiptoe into the cave to find the BEAR!!

This is supporting their sensory processing issues, balancing skills and hand eye coordination.

EYFS links:
Communication and language
Physical development
Personal, social and emotional
Literacy

GRADUATION 2024 ❤️🧑‍🎓👩‍🎓🎓🎓

Our bumble bees were joined by parents, carers, siblings and even some grandparents last week to come together and celebrate them in their graduation day .
We had a very lovely and emotional day.
We wish them all the best in their new schools and bright futures and will miss all our bumble bees dearly.

The Caterpillars go on a learning journey based on the story of the month "We are going on a bear hunt”. They use a variety of media and materials to recreate the different settings described in the book. For example, they use natural leaves to represent the forest.

The Caterpillars are invited to take part in a mark-making experience where they share their ideas to draw different scenes such as going through the clouds, a tunnel, a giant pizza or the mountains.

Teachers revisit the chapter they previously created during circle time and the children engage in storytelling, inventing new sounds and settings. They are then invited to take part in a cutting experience where they explore one-handed tools and different types of paper. They use all their senses to explore the materials provided and discover that paper has a different texture, makes different sounds when crumpled and has endless possibilities. The children create dinosaurs of different sizes and a snowstorm.The children's work is shared in circle time. They look at the sizes of the dinosaurs and then create a story about a family walking through a snowstorm and finding a dinosaur in a cave. Then they go back through the snowstorm and find a house for shelter, but there is a dinosaur and a bear inside!

These learning experiences allow children to use their critical thinking skills and creativity to create a variety of narratives and enrich the story. The children share their ideas and thoughts in the group, which helps them to build confidence. In addition, focusing on the concept of size and highlighting key words helps them to develop their vocabulary and lays the foundations for the introduction of measurement.

EYFS links:

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Literacy
Expressive Arts and Design
Mathematics

This week in ladybirds we have been very busy celebrating the book of the month of we’re going on a bear hunt. The children have been joining in with all different activities.

They have created their very own bears using paper plates, paints and crayons showing great fine motor skills, they have also been looking at the book and listening to the story joining in with the actions and telling the story saying words from the book.

The children also helped create their very own bear hunt using the soft play equipment and Tunnel using their imagination to tell the story through play. They used the tunnel as the swishy Swashy grass where thery have to go through it.

We even created our very own binoculars so they could go and find the bear in the cave which they used the book tent as the cave.

The children helped st up the tuft trays with different activities from using flour to show the swirly whirly snow storm to using brown paint to show thick oozy mud.

It has been such a lovely week of fun and friendships from helping each other, sharing toys and taking turns with activities.

Have a lovely weekend.

This week Ladybirds have been very busy doing sports day, the children all took it in turns to move freely over the slide, across the soft play and through the tunnel. The children we able to jump, climb and crawl using great gross motor skills.

Their Mummies and Daddies and even their Grandparents come to watch them and cheer them all on and able to watch how good they are doing and how much fun they were having.

Well done ladybirds you were all amazing, the whole of ladybirds ladies and your family are very proud of you.

The Bumblebees take part in Sports Day.

The preschoolers showed that they can follow instructions and wait their turn to participate and have a go. The Bumblebees show determination in the pursuit of their goals and had lots of fun taking part at all of the sports day activities.

The activities set up for the sports day include two obstacle courses, hurdles, bean bag races, throwing a bean bag in hoop and running races.

These activities help the children to develop their balance and hand-eye coordination and further improve their gross motor skills. This experience is also a training ground for their listening skills, as they have to listen to the instructions.

The Bumblebees had some much fun⚽️🏅

The Caterpillars take part in Sports Day. They show that they can follow simple instructions and wait their turn to participate. The children show determination in the pursuit of their goals and have fun demonstrating their skills.

The activities set up for the sports day include two obstacle courses, a bean bag toss and a race. These activities help the children to develop their balance and hand-eye coordination and further improve their gross motor skills. This experience is also a training ground for their listening skills, as they have to listen to the instructions.

The Bumblebees are working together to create a bear using a variety of materials, as part of “ We are going on a bear hunt”experience. They engage in group discussions and decide to use brown and white wool, green and blue tissue paper, and brown corrugated card. This collaborative decision-making process reflects the principles of Democracy and Individual liberty, which are core British values. The children have the freedom to choose the materials they wish to use and work towards a consensus. Throughout the activity, the children engage in conversations about bears and their habitats. For instance, they share their knowledge about polar bears, noting that they are white, live on ice, and eat fish. They also learn about pandas, discussing their striking black-and-white appearance. These conversations spark curiosity and deepen the children's understanding of different bears and their characteristics.

Throughout this learning experience, children can enhance their fine motor skills as they carefully use scissors to cut paper and wool into smaller, intricate pieces. Additionally, they utilise glue spreaders to meticulously adhere the material to the collage, thus engaging in a tactile and creative process.

EYFS links:

Communication and Language

Physical Development

Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

Understanding the World

Expressive Arts and Design

Ladybirds room have had lots of fun this week doing lots of different activities to go with the theme of awe and wonder and we’re going on a bear hunt story.

We have been doing different experiments, creating colourful droplets in oil using different coloured food colouring and letting the children use the pippets to form the droplets. We have been learning about colours helping with colour recognition by creating rainbow pictures letting the children mix the colours together to learn what colours can change.

The children have been enjoying the story of we’re going in a bear hunt where they explored different textures in a tuft tray to create we’re going on a bear tray using flour for snow, brown paint for the mud, wooden bridges put together for the cave, fake grass for the long wavy grass and blue bathtime foam for water. The children enjoyed feeling all the different texture.

We even had time to create our own musical band.

We are hiring!

Positions at the Pickford nursery include Early Years Teacher, Nursery Room Lead, Senior Early Years Educators, and Early Years Educators.

Our pay scale up to £26,000 per annum. This of course is dependent on experience and existing pay proofs.

Other benefits of working with us are:
1. Employer contribution to Pensions.
2. Access to exclusive discounts with major retailers for staff through my work life solutions / edenred.
3. Staff health Insurance Cash Plan.
4. The nursery is closed between the dates of Christmas and New Year that is part of the statutory holiday entitlement. These dates will be advised to you in advance.
5. Birthday Leave in addition to your statutory holidays.

We look forward to meeting you soon.

Call 01322 838181
Email [email protected]

To book an interview click this link - https://calendly.com/thepickfordnursery/job-interview

To apply click this link -
https://uk.indeed.com/job/senior-early-years-educator-26b2d3fc7ce83ac2

The Pickford Nursery The Pickford Nursery is a purpose-built nursery at 79 Pickford Lane, Bexleyheath. This is 5 minutes

The children have had lots of fun doing lots of different activities to do with a theme of the month ‘the tiger who came to tea’. They have been busy having a tea party with their very own tiger, creating tiger mask using paper plates with orange and black paint. The children have also been busy creating tiger faces by doing painting and sticking helping support their fine motor skills using the grasp hand to support holding the paint brushes and glue sticks.

The children was able to use chalk mark making and drawing a tiger and some food having the choice of what colours they wanted to use. We also spent some time talking about healthy eating what food is good for us and what food is not good for us. The children have enjoyed listening to the story of the tiger who came to tea and doing the actions and noises that tigers make and do.

Personal, social and emotional
Communication and language
Physical development
Expressive arts and design

The Caterpillars are engaged in the process of creating their own paper by tearing discarded paper into small pieces and soaking it in water. Afterwards, they beat the paper with a whisker and pour the resulting pulp into a mesh net to facilitate the drying process. This experience plays a pivotal role in the development of fine motor skills and in enhancing the children's ability to sustain concentration for extended periods. Moreover, with a defined objective in sight, the children diligently follow a step-by-step approach to project completion and apply critical thinking to make necessary adjustments, such as utilizing various tools for pressing the pulp, including their hands. Engaging in critical thinking activities provides opportunities to explore their own ideas and find innovative methods to achieve a goal.



The project fosters a collaborative atmosphere, as the children work collectively towards a shared objective. This collaborative endeavour serves as a valuable platform for honing communication skills and facilitating the development of social competencies. Notably, such activities also promote environmental awareness as they entail the repurposing of discarded materials to create new things.

The Caterpillars eagerly participate in a variety of captivating learning experiences based on the book of the month, "The Tiger That Came to Tea." They animate the story through dramatic play in a small-world setup and embark on an exciting "Tiger hunt." As part of their quest to find the elusive tiger, the children enthusiastically cross a cold river, fully engaging their sensory perception. This multifaceted experience skilfully intertwine elements from two cherished tales, allowing the children to deeply explore the narrative through a sensory adventure that ignites their creativity and imagination.

These hands-on experiences deepen the children's understanding of the story and nurture a genuine passion for reading, laying a solid foundation for a lifelong love of literature.

EYFS links:

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Literacy
Expressive arts and design.

This week in Ladybirds room we have been doing lots of activities that the children really enjoy and get involved in. We have been having tea parties covering our book of the month, ‘The tiger who came to tea’. A great opportunity to be looking at healthy food that is good for us to eat, such as fruits and vegetables which help us grow big and strong!

We have explored how to create our very own music by playing different musical instruments, listening attentive to the different sounds that they all make, singing nursery rhymes and moving our body along music.

We have been learning about recycling and how we can use old plastic bottles to create something fun and exciting. Our babies have helped to make sensory bottles using plastic bottles and adding different items in each bottle, filling them up with water or oil.

Our Ladybirds have also been learning about sea animals and how our rubbish hurts them making them feel very sad, also looking at emotions and what make us feel happy or sad by showing our friends our happy and sad faces.

We also enjoyed playing play doh using our fine motor skills to use the rolling pins and the cutters to make different shapes.

As all over the world we are celebrating the Euro 2024 football we have been creating our very own flags and playing ball in the garden.

Physical development-supporting our gross motor skills climbing, balancing,running.
Communication and language-repeating single words, understanding simple questions.
PSED- talking about how we are feeling, what makes us happy or sad

Our bumblebees did a science experiment forming magic bouncing bubbles. For our magic bubble experiment we needed two main magic ingredients sugar and washing up liquid and a cup of water. Our bumblebees were so curious to see the magic bubbles form. Our bumblebees had so many questions such as one of them being “why are we using using sugar to make bubbles” and we explained to our bumblebees that the sugar binds to the water in a way that stops the bubbles from drying out and popping much quicker and acts as a barrier. Explaining to the bumblebees that the bubbles are less likely to pop quicker.

EYFS
Understanding the world
Expressive Arts and design
Communication and language
Personal social and emotional development

We have spaces here at The Pickford Nursery from now, more coming up as from September for the Autumn term. Please contact us to book a tour and secure your child's space now!
Funding is accessible all year round, we accept funding for children aged between 9 months to 4 years old.

https://www.thepickfordnursery.com/contact.php
www.thepickfordnursery.com

We have been busy doing lots of activities we made our very own tiger using orange and black paint using our fine motor skills and exploring the colours and the feel of the paint having the choice to use the paint brush or our hands. As it was a nice sunny day outside ladybirds room decided to have a tea party in the garden we talked about healthy eating, what is good for our bodies and what food is good for us and what is not good for us. Ladybirds have been exploring the different sensory toys how the textures feel if they are soft, rough, hard, spiky. After circle time the children had the choice of what they wanted to play with from cars or trains, they picked trains some of the children helped set the train track up.

EYFS:

Communication and understanding
Physical development
Creating and thinking critically
Playing and exploring
Self care and self awareness
Understanding the world

This week the bumblebees have had a lovely and busy week.
The children have enjoyed creating tiger hand prints , the children independently use the paint brushes and pained their hands to make tiger prints. We spoke about the story and what happened to the characters in the story.

We have also enjoyed a messy under the sea tuff tray, the children enjoyed feeling the different textures of the shaving foam, flour and tissue paper. We spoke about the different animals in the sea and big and small sea animals. We also talked about recycling and making the sea safe. The children were able to identify some of the animals too.

EYFS
Communication and language
Physical development
Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the world
Express arts and design
Personal, social and emotional

The Caterpillars were actively involved in a learning experience inspired by "The Tiger that Came to Tea." During circle time, the children and the educator engaged in discussion and collectively decided to depict a tiger.

They mixed yellow and red paint to create orange. The children had fun taking turns mixing and passing the paint around to observe the changes.

Next, they explored different mark-making tools, including various paintbrushes, sponges, and rollers, to create sensory experiences. The learning objective was to develop their fine motor skills and sensory perception. As the children experimented with the tools, the educator verbalised their actions to make the mark-making process visible: "Look at the mark you just made. It's very long. I wonder where it goes. I wonder what kind of marks that paintbrush would make!"

EYFS links:
Communication and language
Physical development
Expressive Arts and Design
Personal, Social and Emotional

Active Play is BACK this Saturday!
This term it's multi-sports with Ru and ProInfinity Coaching and all disabilities/abilities welcome.

If you have a child with SEND and want to become a part of this supportive, fun, friendly and engaging group, please get in touch.

All our sessions are run by trained coaches, SEND specialists and volunteers with lived experience.

Fully funded by BBC Children in Need

[email protected]
www.thebridgese10.co.uk/SEND

xx