The Pickford Nursery

December has been a very exciting month for the children of the Pickford nursery. We have been doing lots of Christmas activities including;
Decorating our classroom Christmas tree
Making Christmas cards, calendars and tree decorations
Exploring the snow
Hand print Christmas tree
Cutting wrapping paper
Designing Christmas cards
Festive Chalk drawing
Reading Christmas stories by the fireplace
Christmas performances for our parents
Being imaginative with our polar express train ride and construction materials
We have covered the 7 areas of learning throughout the month with our variety of activities and the children have produced some lovely craft work to take home with them.
Merry Christmas and Happy new year from all the children and staff from caterpillars room.

To celebrate National Robin day the children made some bird feeders to hang in our garden.

This activity meant the children were developing their physical development by using their fine motor skills to pick seeds and roll the balls, they used their Expressive Arts and Design to choose what they wanted to use, conversations about Robins and birds develop the children’s communication and language as well as their understanding of the world around them.

All the children are now excited and waiting to see the birds feed.

The ladybirds have been so busy throughout December, they were so exited when they came in on the 2 nd of December to find out the fairies and Elf’s had decorated the room into a magical Christmas land and even given the ladybirds some early presents. The elf’s and fairies left a list of some special errands to show how much they love their families this involved lots of arts and crafts, and they really did some amazing creations. The ladybirds have been using lots of language when playing with the happy land and really explored the town and characters and read so many Christmas books ,We have also been very kind to the birds and made some bird feeders we can’t wait to see if they have eaten them when we get back in the new year. Are Christmas singing show was a success and it was lovely to get our parents involved what a great year it has been can’t wait to hear all about the ladybirds Christmas holiday adventures.
Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone 🥳

Areas of learning
Communication and language
Personal social and emotional
Physical
Understanding of the world
Literacy
Expressive arts and design

Wednesday 14 December 2022 - a lovely snowy day, Christmas music playing, party hats ready - perfect for our nursery Christmas lunch. Thankyou to our super chefs and our wonderful staff for making it so magical.

Nothing like a good hot and healthy breakfast to start the day, especially on a snow day like today - porridge bananas and/or toast - perfect

The ladybirds were so exited 🥰 when they arrived to see the fairies 🧚‍♀️ had turned the room into Christmas 🎅 Land they could not wait to investigate all the new toys, they played alongside each other so kind, gracious and imaginatively. The word of the day definitely seemed to be “WOW” we have been learning about a different colour every day this week, today it was white, we also spoke about the transport and family members with the happy land toys.
Areas of Leaning
Personal social emotional:
Communication and language:
Physical:
Understanding of the world:
Expressions arts and design:

The ladybirds have had a very busy week starting to prepare for winter and Christmas 🌲 they have explored so many different visual and texture activities, and really used there own imagination and creativity. We have spoken about colours, what we can feel, see, and spoke about emotions, especially being kind, sharing and taking turns when using equipment. We also Dressed up in our beautiful fabrics and outfits, made Christmas decorations for our tree, mark marked, we painted our own flag to celebrate Saint Andrews day and read so many books especially ten little ten little toes and well done to one clever little ladybird who has learnt to count with his fingers.
Areas of learning :
Personal social and emotional:
Communication and language:
Physical:
Understanding of the world:
Literacy:
Expressive arts and Design:
Mathematics:

Today the ladybirds are going to be learning about the world we created a vibrantly coloured tuff tray with sea and sailing ships, where we whale dolphin and turtle watched. We marched the lions and tigers through the sand and grass and hid the giraffes in the tree we even saw rainbows and waterfalls ❤️ The ladybirds were very inspired and painted there own amazing worlds x

Areas of learning:
Personal social and emotional:
Expressive arts and design:
Understanding of the world:

This month we have been focusing on space and planets at the Pickford nursery. Today the caterpillars and butterflies explored our space tuff tray which was filled with flour, glitter and planets, they were given lollipop sticks to make marks in the ‘space dust’ this activity promoted social skills in the children as they laughed and played together, it also promoted sharing skills, the children were aware of each other and gave each other space to explore, they shared the resources well and had lots of fun making marks in the tray whilst covering themselves in the ‘space dust’. They also had the opportunity to be imaginative about what space may be like, colours and textures you may find.

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

The ladybirds have had a very busy few weeks learning nursery rhymes with props, they particularly seemed to enjoy pushing Humpty Dumpty of the wall and knocking down the towers in London Bridge is falling down. The ladybirds also joined in a road safety activity where they helped make a zebra crossing. And have explored some fantastic sensory play and arts and crafts,including polar bear biscuits and masks.
Areas of learning
Personal social and emotional:
Communication and language:
Physical:
Understanding of the world:
Expressive arts and design:

Good morning 🙂

Parents, you're doing a great job ⭐️ ☺️ Be kind to yourself, lower your expectations and remember - no one is perfect! 😘

Ladybirds have been raising awareness for children in need, and having some fun activities we have been transferring and pouring bright yellow water, collecting yellow objects around the room and making pudsy bear yellow play-dough cakes. The children used some language they said “yellow “ “more” and “all done” It was an exhausting day for one little ladybird ❤️

Areas of learning:
Communication and language:
Physical:
Personal social and emotional:
Understanding of the world:

Rememberance day activities at The Pickford Nursery have been very creative.

Creative opportunities allow children freedom to explore. They feel textures, see different colours and talk about what they are doing.

Our children got very involved with exploring the paint, some liked the feeling of paint on their hands and enjoyed rubbing their hands together with it squelching through their fingers whilst others said it was “cold” and “yucky” and washed it off straight all of them produced some amazing art work.

This week in ladybirds we have been celebrating science, we have been experimenting with different liquids and solutions opening up our and minds into texture colour and sight and sound. We needed to measure amounts, pour-and transfer for these activities what really helped with our hand and eye coordination. Ladybird’s have also used there imagination and had lots of adventures in the spaceship we made and are learning the song zoom zoom zoom. And been reading aliens love underpants.

Areas of learning:
Communication and language:
Personal social and emotional:
Physical:
Literacy:
Matmatical development:
Understanding of the world:
Expressive Arts and design:

🕷🕸🎃 Happy Halloween 🎃 🕷 👻
At the Pickford nursery we have been very busy celebrating Halloween.
In the caterpillars room the children were invited to dress up and participate in a range of activities including:
Monster Mash Disco- where the children were following different moves from the Halloween songs.
Pumpkin exploration tuff tray - where children were encouraged to explore the texture of the pumpkin, we then added other Halloween objects to the tray in enchance our learning.
Spooky potion making - where children were given a variety of different materials to mix to make a witchy potion
Decorating Halloween cookies - children were provided with different coloured icing to create their own Halloween biscuit, children were able to spread their own icing and select decorations.

Area of development: personal social and emotional, expressive arts and design, physical and communication and language

We have had a wonderful time learning about Diwali. We have made our own diwa lamps from salt dough and decorated them using different colours and glitter. We have created lots of art work, lamps, firework pictures, rangoli patterns and decorated hands. We have listened to the story of Diwali and some lovely music to dance to. We have had so much fun celebrating here at The Pickford Nursery.

Areas of development:
Expressive arts and design
Understanding the world
Literacy
Physical development
Maths
Communication and language
PSED

Diwali 🪔 and Halloween 👻 🎃 party for staff team and their families !

Halloween pumpkins are growing nicely - we can’t wait to find out how big they have grown. The children in Bumblebees have loved every minute of watching these grow.

First of all they noticed the “little pumpkin bits” then the “scratchy sticks” and then the “massive flowers” each day there is something different to see - today we found a snail inside our flower and it has eaten the flowers petals!

Understanding of the world
Communication and language

Today the Ladybirds and the Caterpillars joined together to take part in a food tasting activity.
We spoke about the different fruits that we could see and the colours of them.
All the children had their own individual plates with their fruit on and a childrens knife so they were able to independently cut up the fruit and taste them in their own time. All of the older children enjoyed eating them and some of the babies used their hands to feel the textures before placing them in their mouths.
We learnt some new words such as soft, wet , squidgy , tasty!
Once we had finished the food tasting we got the rest of the fruit and mixed it altogether where the children were able to drink it as a smoothie.

A lovely experience for all the children involved and some fantastic learning about healthy foods and the benefits to our bodies!

Learning Outcomes : Physical development, Communication and Language, Personal Social and Emotional development and Knowledge and understanding of the World.

With the wet, colder and darker weather approaching quickly it makes us think back to the glorious summer we had, and how much fun we all had at our beach day. Beautiful sunshine, lots of sun cream and sun hats, water sprays, pools and sand pits filled with toys. The children were free to try everything, splashing the grownups seemed to be a favourite activity and the whole day was full of fun and laughter - a perfect day at the Pickford beach

Following on from our healthy lifestyle theme, today the children participated in a brushing your teeth sequence activity which involved cutting out images of teeth brushing and putting them in the right order sequence of how you would brush your teeth step by step. Once children cut out the image they were asked to stick them down in the right order. Children demonstrated understanding of brushing their teeth and where talking amongst other children on the table of how they brush their teeth.

Areas covered - literacy, personal social development, understanding world, physical development, communication and language

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We were involved in sorting colours. Children were using tweezers to pickup the objects and they were facing obstacles as there was tape around the objects. Children were finding different ways to pick up the object they wanted. They were talking about colours and described the objects they were trying to pick up. One of the children picked up an aeroplane and talked about her experience going on holiday. Children were matching the colour with the basket and counted how many items they were able to collect.

Area of learning: communication and language, maths, physical development,

As part of our monthly theme ‘healthy lifestyles’ the caterpillars classroom have focused on the very hungry caterpillar story. Today we read the story using props and then went on to paint our own caterpillar.
The children have also enjoyed exploring green playdough rolling it with our hands and adding eyes to make their own caterpillars and feeding them the different fruits.
The children were able to take turns and share the resources, they were also able to name the fruits and practice counting 1 to 5.
Areas of development: physical development, expressive arts and design, communication and language and personal social and emotional

Today all of the rooms joined together to take part in some Yoga!

We had such a lot of fun using our bodies to stretch and move in different positions.
Whilst watching Cosmic yoga the children were able to sing along to the main theme song of Old McDonald’s Farm and then put their bodies into certain animal positions.
The animals that we were able to recreate were Horse, Cow , Pig and Chicks.

The children done so well listening and following the instructions. They were able to move their bodies and stretch themselves all whilst having lots of fun!

Areas of development : Physical Development, Communication and Language, Personal Social and Emotional Development, Expressive Arts and Design.

Today we learned about how to keep our teeth clean. We were using the brush to brush the germs from the sheet. Children were excited and talked about how they should brush their teeth twice a day. We talked about how important it is to brush our teeth and keep them clean. Children talked about eating healthy food and how sweets are not good for their teeth. One child said “sweets give teeth germs”.

Area of development: physical development, understanding world, communication and language

Today is world smile day and at the Pickford nursery we have been smiling all day whilst having fun with all our activities.
To celebrate world smile day the children got to practice their smiles in front of a mirror, sing and join in with action songs such as if your happy and you know it and explore our world smile day playdough tuff tray where we were able to make our own playdough smiley faces.

The children extended our activities by showing their understanding of other emotions and wanted to explore sad faces as well as smiley faces

Areas covered: personal social and emotional, communication and language, expressive arts and design and physical development

Today we are celebrating Poetry day, the tuff tray is introducing the ladybirds to the book wriggle and roar, we are finding the dinosaurs in the balls while we sing where’s the dinosaur, singing the wheels on the bus,Miss Polly had a dolly, and making space sensory bottles to explore the ladybirds sensory development. The ladybirds explored the colourful tuff tray even climbing into it 🤣 they emptied the ball pool, threw the balls and then put them back while we counted,and joined in singing the nursery rhymes.

Area’s of development/ communication and language/ personal and emotional/ physical /literacy/expressive arts and design/mathematical development.

This morning in the Ladybirds room the children have been exploring Space.
We have had a Space Rocket making table , Space themed tuff tray using cornflour and we have listened to lots of space related songs and rhymes.

Once the children made their space rockets we extended the tuff tray by adding these to the tray and allowing them to use these in their play whilst we were singing zoom zoom zoom we’re going to the moon 🌙
During their play with the space themed tuff tray the children were able to use all their senses to explore the cornflour and this also enabled us to encourage the children to use their language and social skills.
We even made our very own Space ship using a cardboard box and some fabric, this was a brilliant activity as the children initiated this role play.

Areas of Development : Communucation Language and Literacy, Personal Social and Emotional plus Physical Development

This week at the Pickford nursery we are celebrating science week.
The children in caterpilars room made their own rockets, they were able to select their own bottles and use glue to stick their materials on.

This activity also taught the children about sharing and turn taking.

After we made our rockets the children sang the Zoom Zoom Zoom song.

Areas of development: physical, personal social and emotional and expressive arts and designs.

Today in the Ladybird’s room we have really enjoyed being creative and using crayons to make marks on our paper.
Not only does this help with their hand eye coordination and gross motor skills, it also helps to encourage language and social skills with their peers including turn taking.

We decided to extend this activity as the children were trying hard with their babbling/talking so we set up a book area where we could all look at books together to help our communication and language skills. Whilst at this activity the children were also able to extend their senses by feeling the sensory books and learning a variety of new words such as soft, rough and fluffy.

Early learning goals : Communication and Language , Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Skills.

This week is space week therefore we have been involved in many space activities. Children were learning about spaceships where they talked about going to the moon. Children were pretending to look through the roll and say what planet they can see. They used their imagination to create a space ships using roll and tissue paper. They were moving their space ships and started creating a role play. Children were sharing the glue and waiting for their turns.

Children were also making Earth and other planets using playdough. They were using letter cutter to trace a letter on the planet. They were using the rollers and sharing with their friends. Children were using their creative thinking and named the planets as their own or their friends name. They were laughing and enjoying them self.

Areas of development: communication and language, understanding the world, Expressive art and design, physical development, personal social and Emotional development, Literacy.

The children in caterpillars room are exploring the sensory blocks and numbers today. We will be learning to count 1 -5 and using our senses of touch and see to explore the blocks. Let’s see if we can describe what’s in each block. We will be using number language as we stack the blocks.

Areas of development: Communication and language, personal social and emotional development, physical development

We are so proud of our children here at The Pickford Nursery - Graduation in the summer was such a success, singing, dancing, speeches and lots of fun and games all enjoyed by friends and families. We hope all our graduating children are now settling well in Reception and look forward to hearing all about it

Our biggest ever coffee morning (day) has started - thankyou for all your cake donations - please do come and join us for a coffee and cake, we look forward to seeing you later - I’ll have the kettle on ready.

The World’s Biggest Coffee Morning for Macmillan Cancer Support

Please join us for coffee, cake, conversations and to support a good cause.

See you on Friday

http://coffee.macmillan.org.uk/events/29lm84p3?Hdr=0

The World’s Biggest Coffee Morning for Macmillan Cancer Support Nothing stops a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Small or big, tea or coffee, socially distanced or on video call – Coffee Morning is whatever you make it.

OPEN WEEK AT OUR NURSERY.
Please, share with your friends & family.
Booking for show arounds required.
http://www.thepickfordnursery.com/contact.php

We grieve the loss of our beloved Queen.
Sometimes words are not enough, all we can say is we will miss you... so much.

Childhood vaccinations – Q&A

Are you a parent whose child is getting their vaccinations? Have questions about how vaccines work and just why we get them all?

Have your questions answered by London clinicians and experts from the UK Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England). Sign up at the link below.

Tuesday 13 September 2022
1-2pm
https://www.events.england.nhs.uk/events/parents-q-a-childhood-vaccines