The Orchards Nursery School

🍕💙 Father's Day Pizza Party 💙🍕

A huge thank you to all the special grown-ups who joined us for our Father's Day Pizza Party! 💛 We had a wonderful time celebrating together, taking part in fun activities, creating special memories and, of course, making some delicious pizzas! 🍕✨

It was lovely to see so many smiling faces and to watch the children proudly share their nursery experiences with the people who mean so much to them.
Here are just a few beautiful moments between the children and their special grown-ups. 📸💙

☀️🌻✨ Our First Week of Summer ✨🌻☀️

This week we started our brand new topic all about summer! 🌞
It’s been lovely reflecting on how much we’ve learned this year, having now explored all four seasons. To make the week even more special, we enjoyed a visit from the local ice cream van! 🍦😋

🌼 Daisies
Daisies have had lots of fun learning all about summer. ☀️
They made their own sunshine crafts and fans to help keep cool, enjoyed lots of sensory and water play, and finished the week with a very exciting visit from the ice cream man! 🍦💛

🌸 Wildflowers
Wildflowers have been exploring summer through sand play and creativity. 🏖️ They used sand to create artwork, built sandcastles and even mixed sand and water on the floor to squelch between their toes - just like being at the beach! 🌊👣

🌿 The Meadow
The Meadow have been learning about protecting our planet and created their own Earth models. 🌍💚 They have also been exploring colour mixing, counting objects and making the most of the rainy weather with lots of puddle jumping! 🌈💦

🍕☀️ Looking Ahead
Next week brings another week of summer fun - hopefully the weather will actually feel like summer! 😄
We’re also looking forward to our Father’s Day Pizza Party, and we can’t wait to welcome our special visitors into Nursery. 🍕💙✨

🌼✨ Drum roll please... ✨🌼

A huge thank you to everyone who took part in our Nursery Classroom Naming Competition! We loved reading all of your thoughtful, creative, and imaginative ideas. 💛

After much discussion, we are delighted to announce our new room names:

🌼 The Base – Daisies
🌸 2 Year Old Room – Wildflowers
🌾 3 Year Old Room – Meadow

Don't they sound beautiful? We think they fit perfectly with our Orchards theme and can't wait to start using them! 🌿✨

Thank you again for all your wonderful suggestions and for helping us make our nursery even more special. 😊💛

🗺️✨ Our First REAL Event ✨🗺️

This week saw our very first REAL event, focusing on environmental print.

We have teamed up with the Reception staff at Cherry Tree to run a joint project to help support transition too!

A group of children and their families enjoyed taking part in a treasure trail, spotting signs, symbols and print in the environment along the way before ending their adventure at the park! 🌳🔍

It was wonderful to see so much excitement, exploration and learning shared together. 💛

🦋🌱✨ Our Final Week of Growing and Changing ✨🌱🦋

What a way to end our topic of growing and changing - and what a week of two weathers! ☀️🌧️
This week we finally released our butterflies back out into the wild after watching their amazing transformation from tiny caterpillars. The children have loved observing every stage of their journey. 🐛🦋✨

🎨 3YO Room
The 3s have been exploring some very exciting changes of their own, visiting the Reception classrooms ready for their next big adventure! ✨

🧸 BASE
The Base have been learning all about how different fruits and vegetables grow. 🍎🥕 They explored a variety of vegetables, enjoyed listening to a sensory story and took part in matching and pairing activities with fruits and vegetables.

✏️ 2YO Room
The 2s have loved learning about how minibeasts grow and change. 🐞✨They have also been keeping a very close eye on their ever-growing plants and noticing all the changes happening around them. 🌱

☀️🌊 Looking Ahead
We are now all going to enjoy a well-earned two weeks of rest before our final half term of the year!
Next half term will bring exciting topics such as summer and under the sea, along with lots of exciting enrichment opportunities. Watch this space… 🍦🐠

🌍✨ Celebrating World Culture Day ✨🌍

Today we celebrated World Culture Day as part of our Understanding the World learning. 🌎💛

It was wonderful to see so many amazing outfits and traditional clothing throughout Nursery. The children enjoyed sharing family photographs, creating flags from their home countries and learning more about the different cultures that make up our Nursery family. 🇬🇧🇵🇰🇮🇳🇳🇬🇵🇱✨

We are incredibly proud of the diversity within our school community and loved spending the day celebrating what makes us all unique and special. 💕

🌳✨ "Name our Nursery Classrooms" Competition! ✨🌳

We need your help! Our classrooms need a name!! We would love to continue with the “Orchards” theme, but as Green Fold School already use fruits and trees, we need to get a little more creative! 🍎🌲

You might want to think about things such as:
🌸 Flowers
🐦 Birds
🦋 Nature
…or any other fun and creative ideas that fit the theme!

We need 3 names altogether – one for:
✨ Our Base
✨ Our 2 Year Old Room
✨ Our 3 Year Old Room

You’ve got the 2 weeks over half-term to come up with your fantastic ideas before we choose and announce the winners at the end of the first week back! 🏆

Please send all ideas via comments or messages – we can’t wait to see your creative suggestions! 💛🌈

🐛🌱✨ Another Week of Growing and Changing ✨🌱🐛

This week has seen a very exciting change in Nursery - our caterpillars have curled up into their cocoons! 🐛➡️🦋
We are now patiently waiting and hoping they make their next amazing transformation in time for the holidays. 👀✨

✏️ 2YO Room
The 2s have been exploring all things caterpillars and sunflowers this week. 🌻🐛 They’ve enjoyed lots of craft activities, creating their own colourful caterpillars and beautiful sunflowers while learning more about how things grow and change.

🧸 BASE
The Base have been learning all about plants and how they grow. 🌱 They planted their own sunflowers, made sunflower sun catchers and created nature collages using real materials. 🌻✨ The children also enjoyed a fun Attention Autism session called Plant Pot Fun, watching colourful worms pop out of the plant pot! There has also been lots of exploration with real flowers, seeds and soil throughout the week. 🌼🪴

🎨 3YO Room
Update coming soon… 👀✨

🏅 Looking Ahead

Next week our 3 Year Olds are excited for Sports Day on Monday, where we will be joining our friends at Cherry Tree Primary School - a huge thank you to Mrs Parker for organising! 🏃✨

We will also be celebrating World Culture Day on Friday and launching our exciting “Name Our Rooms” competition! 🌍🎉

Your child will have lots of new activities and routines to get used to when they start school and there are some things they’ll need to do more independently than they might have before.

Research shows that a child’s relationship with their parents or carers, is the most important factor in their development, and there’s a lot you can do at home.

Practice the fun activities that you will see on this page over the next weeks. Some of these skills take time to master, so it’s good to introduce them gradually as part of your daily routine.

There are also many free family activity sessions and events that take place across Bolton in Best Start Family Hubs and other places like libraries that can prepare your child to become ready for Reception. You can see some of those sessions here: https://bit.ly/4ciRzZB

Drop into your nearest library or Best Start Family Hub to find out more.

🐛🌱✨ Our First Week of Growing and Changing ✨🌱🐛

This week we started our brand new topic all about growing and changing. We’ve been fascinated watching our caterpillars grow from tiny caterpillars into big, fat caterpillars - just like in The Very Hungry Caterpillar! 🐛🍎 We think we might know what happens next… 👀🦋

🎨 3YO Room
The 3s have been enjoying a week full of mark making and creativity. ✏️✨ We also loved welcoming our parents into Nursery for a maths Stay and Play session, packed with physical outdoor learning opportunities and lots of fun together. 🌳🔢

🧸 BASE
The Base have had a lovely week learning all about growing and changing, focusing on caterpillars and butterflies. 🦋
They made their own caterpillars using balloons and enjoyed looking closely at the real caterpillars too. The children loved listening to the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and took part in an exciting Attention Autism butterfly splat before creating their own beautiful butterflies. 🐛✨ We also enjoyed a special trip to the Family Hub for a creative session with Sugarlumps - what fun (and mess!) was had! 🎨😄

✏️ 2YO Room
The 2s have had a week full of growing! 🌱
They explored planting seeds, helping to look after the seedlings in our outdoor area, and learned about how to keep our bodies healthy and strong through lots of outdoor physical challenges. 💪☀️

🦋 Looking Ahead
Next week brings even more growing and changing… and hopefully some very exciting caterpillar updates! 👀🐛✨

Also keep your eyes peeled for an exciting competition over the May holiday to name our rooms!!