The Orchard Nursery at Shiphay Learning Academy

Our Orchard Garden Keeps Growing 🌱🍅🥒🍓✨

Thanks to the daily care of all our wonderful nursery gardeners, the Orchard Garden continues to grow from strength to strength.

We now have even more tomatoes and cucumbers growing beautifully, and our very first strawberries are nearly ready to eat! The children have been so excited to spot the changes, notice what has grown, and see the results of all their hard work and care.

During the summer holidays, we will be relying on the nursery children attending Holiday Hub to continue looking after the Nursery garden and caring for all the plants. As a reward for their hard work, they will be able to enjoy eating the fruit and vegetables that have grown.

We can’t wait to hear how delicious everything tastes!

What fantastic little gardeners we have in Orchard Nursery. 🌱🍅🥒🍓✨

Our Beautiful Butterfly Mural 🦋🎨✨

Ready to exhibit for Open Evening, some of the children helped to paint the background of the beautiful butterfly mural they had created together.

The children worked carefully to add colour and detail, helping to bring the whole piece of artwork to life. It was wonderful to see how proud they were as the mural became one stunning collaborative display.

This activity celebrated the children’s creativity, teamwork, fine motor skills, colour exploration, and sense of pride in their learning.

The end result was absolutely beautiful — a perfect celebration of our Orchard Nursery artists and all their wonderful work. 🦋✨

Our Fin-tastic Shell Fish Artwork 🐚🐟🌊✨

Ready for Open Evening, some of the children helped to paint the background for our shell fish and added tissue paper seaweed to create a truly fin-tastic piece of collaborative artwork.

The children worked carefully together, adding colour, texture, and detail to bring the underwater scene to life. It was wonderful to see how proud they were as the artwork became one beautiful shared display.

An extra special thank you to Nanny Lesley, who kindly donated the shells she had collected on one of her exciting holidays to the beach. The children loved using them as part of their artwork, and they helped to make the finished piece even more special.

The end result was absolutely stunning — a beautiful celebration of creativity, teamwork, and our under-the-sea learning. 🐚🐟✨

Ocean Plate with Bubble-Wrap Fish 🌊🐠✨

Over the past two weeks, the children in Orchard Nursery have been busy creating their beautiful Ocean Plate with Bubble-Wrap Fish artwork.

The children began by painting their paper plates blue to create an ocean background. They explored different shades of blue, used big brush strokes, and talked about how their marks looked like moving water.

Next, the children used bubble wrap to create colourful printed patterns. They dabbed paint onto the bubble wrap, pressed the paper down, and lifted it carefully to reveal their wonderful textured prints. Once dry, these prints were turned into fish and added to their ocean scenes.

The children then added seaweed, sand, shells, and other underwater details to bring their rock pool and ocean plates to life. They used lots of fine motor skills as they painted, printed, cut, glued, arranged, and decorated their work.

This project supported the children’s creativity, fine motor control, ocean vocabulary, communication and language, and understanding of different materials and textures.

What beautiful underwater worlds our Orchard Nursery artists have created! 🌊🐠✨

Our Nursery Garden Is Blossoming 🌱🍓🥒🍅✨

The Nursery Garden is continuing to blossom, thanks to the care and attention of our wonderful Orchard Nursery gardeners.

This week, the children were very excited to spot fresh new cucumbers and tomatoes growing beautifully in the garden. After lots of patient watering, looking after the plants, and checking for changes, we also finally have strawberries!

The children have loved observing how the fruits and vegetables are growing and talking about what they might need to help them ripen. We are hoping our strawberries will be ready to eat soon — we can’t wait to taste them!

Through caring for the garden, the children are developing a meaningful understanding of growth, responsibility, healthy eating, and where food comes from.

Well done, little gardeners — our garden is looking blooming marvellous! 🌱🍓🥒🍅✨

Rock Pool Rice Cakes 🐚🦀🌊✨

The children enjoyed making their own rock pool rice cakes, inspired by the story Sharing a Shell.

The children carefully spread their rice cakes before adding different toppings to create their own rock pool scenes. They used lots of concentration as they placed cucumber, peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and other ingredients to represent seaweed, shells, rockpool creatures, and colourful underwater details.

This no-bake cooking activity encouraged the children to develop their fine motor skills through spreading, placing, and arranging ingredients. It also supported communication and language as the children talked about what they were making, named ingredients, and shared ideas with their friends.

The activity linked beautifully to our learning about rock pools, sea creatures, sharing, and friendship. The children were very proud of their tasty creations!

What wonderful little chefs and rock pool explorers we have in Orchard Nursery! 🐚🦀🌊✨

Chalk Obstacle Course Fun 🌈👣✨
The children enjoyed taking part in a colourful chalk obstacle course outdoors.

The course was drawn on the pavement using different movement prompts, including footprints for walking, circles for jumping, stars for spinning, arrows for hopping, spirals for twirling, handprints for placing hands down, and zigzag lines for careful heel-to-toe walking.

The children watched each movement being demonstrated before having a go at completing the course from start to finish. They showed great concentration as they followed the sequence, balanced carefully, and moved their bodies in lots of different ways.

Some children also enjoyed helping to design parts of the obstacle course for their friends to try, using their creativity and problem-solving skills.

This activity supported the children’s gross motor skills, balance, coordination, listening skills, confidence, sequencing, and outdoor physical play.

What fantastic active learners we have in Orchard Nursery! 🌈👣✨

Paper Plate Flower Painting 🌸🎨✨

The children enjoyed creating a beautiful paper plate flower painting outdoors.

The paper plates were arranged into a large flower shape and attached to the fence, ready for the children to paint together. The children chose different colours and used big brush strokes to cover the petals, exploring how the paint moved across the plates.

As they painted, the children talked about the colours they were using and noticed what happened when colours mixed together. They also practised taking turns, sharing the paintbrushes, and working alongside their friends to create one big collaborative piece of artwork.

This activity supported the children’s creativity, colour recognition, fine motor control, large movements, communication and language, and teamwork.

What a bright and beautiful flower our Orchard Nursery artists created! 🌸🎨✨

Stick the Ocean Bubbles 🫧🌊✨

In the forest area, our learning in Orchard Nursery continued to be inspired by our class text, There’s a Shark in the Park.

The children had lots of fun taking part in a Stick the Ocean Bubbles challenge. Colourful lightweight balls became our ocean bubbles, and the children carefully picked them up and pressed them onto sticky tape stretched between two chairs.

The children chose one bubble at a time, named the colours they could see, and used controlled movements to reach, position, and press each ball onto the sticky surface. They worked hard to be gentle and careful, making sure the bubbles stayed in place.

We also explored simple challenges, such as finding particular colours, repeated patterns, counting the bubbles, and noticing which tape line had more or fewer bubbles.

This activity supported the children’s hand-eye coordination, controlled arm movements, colour recognition, counting, concentration, turn-taking, and problem-solving.

What fantastic underwater bubble makers we have in Orchard Nursery! 🫧🌊✨

Under-the-Sea Fine Motor Fun 🦈🌊✨

This week, our early morning fine motor activities have all been inspired by our class text, There’s a Shark in the Park.

The children have enjoyed using colourful pasta shapes to create coral reefs and sea creatures in the playdough, carefully pressing, shaping, and arranging their underwater designs.

They also practised threading pasta onto octopus tentacles, developing their hand-eye coordination, concentration, and finger strength as they carefully added each piece.

Another favourite activity was fishing for pipe cleaner fish using tweezers. The children worked hard to squeeze, grip, and pick up the fish, strengthening the small muscles in their hands.

These activities supported the children’s fine motor skills, creativity, coordination, concentration, problem-solving, and imaginative play.

What a busy week of under-the-sea learning for our little ocean explorers! 🦈🐙🐠✨