West Park Academy Early Years

This week we have been busy enjoying the sunshine and welcoming lots of new children into our setting. The children took their roles in making the new children feel welcome very seriously and we are very proud of them. The new children are excited to come for a visit again next week.

This week we have started to practice our song and dance for graduation. We are sure you are going to enjoy them!

Older Nursery Children Only: A reminder that next Thursday and Friday the older nursery children will be having their transition days in Reception. Your child will either have a morning or afternoon visit on the Thursday and a morning visit on the Friday. If your child stays all day normally, staff will bring them back to nursery/deliver them to reception for their session. On Friday, the children will stay for their lunch and be picked up at 12pm from the main office.

Have a lovely weekend,

The Nursery Team.

We have had another busy week in nursery. Lots of our children have been away recently and so naturally, our conversations in nursery have turned to holidays. Thank you to everyone who has sent in pictures of their holidays. We have used these to create a display and looked at the map of the world and UK to talk about all the different places we have been. Some of us have travelled far and other a little nearer. We discussed all the different ways we have got to our holiday destinations such as by train, airplane and car. We have enjoyed using shapes to make our own train carriage, thinking carefully about which shapes would be appropriate for the wheels, windows and carriage shape, which we have put together to make one big train. We have also shared stories about different modes of transport and holidays.

Over the next two weeks we will be welcoming the new nursery children on their visits to nursery. We know our current nursery children will make them feel very welcome.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team

Welcome back to the final term of this academic year! Where is the time going? The children were keen to chat about what they had done in the holidays with their friends.
This can be quite an emotional term for children as they begin to realise that their time in Reception is coming to an end. We have been chatting to the children about this term being the term where they grow even more, become more confident with their reading, writing, their numbers and ability to deal with challenging situations. We have chatted about their favourite things in Reception and what they want to get even better at. We will continue to chat about transitions into Year 1 and support them with this.

In phonics, we have continued to practise our phonemes and reading words with this week with the long vowel sunders. The children are really doing well spotting digraphs and trigraphs in words. For some children, the tricky words are still… tricky! Please keep practising these at home.
In maths, the children have been practising counting down from 10 to 0 and then from 20 to 0. Can your child show you how they do it?

It was lovely to see all of the children wearing green today, we have been on a litter pick in the Wilderness area and we have talked about how to keep our planet clean and tidy!

We have had a very busy first week back! We began the week learning about minibeasts, this sparked a bug hunt outside, where we found 3 snails which we brought into nursery so we could have a closer look. We read a non-fiction book which told us how to take care of snails, and the children were very eager to help, they created some wonderful observational drawings. We also made some cheese and tomato pin wheels for snack, which looked like the spiral of a snail shell.

We enjoyed our PE session in the Muga this week, encouraging the children to take part in some turn taking games and following instructions.

On Friday we explained to the children why we were wearing green and talked about how we can help our world by recycling and picking up litter. This led to a discussion on how rubbish can harm wildlife and the children loved listening to the story ‘Somebody swallowed Stanley.’

Have a lovely weekend

What a busy week we have had in Nursery. This week, we have been reading “Superworm” by Julia Donaldson. We have talked about our favourite superheroes and thought about what super power we would like to have if we were a superhero. We have also thought about real life heroes and what we would do if we were in an emergency. We have discussed the roles of the police, fire brigade and ambulance service and talked about the number we would need to call if we were in an emergency.
We have also been looking at 2d shapes, naming them and talking about their properties. We have had lots of fun using them to draw pictures and went on a shape hunt around the classroom. You may want to have a go at home too.

Can you believe next half term is the last in the academic year? Our children have grown so much this year and we are ready to support them in their journey to Reception.

If your child is moving up this year, just a reminder that there is a ‘New to Reception’ meeting on Wednesday 3rd June at 5pm. This will be hosted by Mrs Thompson and Mrs Dixon in the main school hall. You will be able to access the hall via the side door to the right of the main entrance.

Over the holidays, we would like to challenge the children to learn how to put their shoes and coats independently. This will be a big help in preparing them for Reception.

Next half term we will also be welcoming our September starters on their visits to Nursery. We are sure the children will make them feel welcome and will be excited to make some new friends.

We hope you have a wonderful half-term holiday and enjoy the promised sunshine!

The Nursery Team.

Butterfly World Part 4

Photos Part 3

Part 2

What a lovely end to this half term with our trip to Butterfly World and Preston Park Museum. The children had a great time exploring the very warm conservatory where some beautiful butterflies were spotted along with huge carp fish and meerkats. The children had the opportunity to hold caterpillars and butterflies and to feed the fish.

Over in the museum, the children explored the old street with its blacksmiths, police station and haberdashery before venturing into the All Aboard space where they had fun driving a locomotion, playing with trains and creating bridges etc with the construction kits. What a lovely day.

Dates for your diary:
Back to school: Monday June 1st
Transition Days: Thurs/Fri June 25th and 26th
Sport’s Day: Friday July 3rd 2:15pm
Colour Run: Wednesday 15th July
End of term: Friday 17th July
Back to school: Thursday September 3rd

Photos Part 1

This week in Nursery we have been reading “What the Ladybird Heard”. The children loved sharing this story and joining in with all the different animal noises. We compared the map in the story to the map of the farm we visited on our trip. We talked about why we might need a map and if the children had seen one before and it inspired us to make our own maps.

We also thought about how well the ladybird listened and have played lots of listening games. The children have listened for initial sounds in words, identified animal noises and whispered messages around the group.

We can’t quite believe we are almost at the end of the first half of the summer term. Next half term will be a busy children and exciting one as we welcome our new Nursery on their visits and prepare our older children for their transition into Reception.

A few key dates for your diary:

Wednesday 3rd June 5pm -New to Reception Meeting

Wednesday 8th July 1.30pm -Nursery Graduation

Wednesday 8th July 2.30pm -Summer Fayre

Friday 17th July -Last day of term.

Have a lovely weekend,

The Nursery Team