Phoenix Nursery School

Dear Parents/Carers
Please see below some information about 'Play in the Park" during the summer holidays.

Over the last few weeks we have been looking after some caterpillars in nursery. We watched them grow and change into butterflies. When they had transformed we let them go in the garden and watched them fly away.

This week Little Kid Town came to visit us for a day. The children had a fantastic time exploring the different role play areas and using their imagination skills to take on different roles such as builders, police, shop assistants and so much more. We hope that the children have enjoyed telling you all about this special experience.

We have been asked to remind our families and wider community of the importance of ensuring your child's vaccinations are up to date. This summer you don’t need to worry about children catching illnesses like tetanus, polio, smallpox or diphtheria. Since 1940 when the diphtheria vaccine was the first free vaccine to be given to British children on a national scale, these illnesses have become very rare thanks to children having vaccinations.
Other illnesses like measles and whooping cough are becoming more common though. There were outbreaks across the Midlands in 2024 and across the UK this year too. Most of the measles cases are in unvaccinated children under the age of 10. But vaccinations can also prevent these illnesses.
Get prepared for September and all the illnesses going back to school brings. If your child has not had their MMR vaccination to fight measles, mumps and rubella or the 4 in 1 pre-school booster to prevent diphtheria, polio, tetanus and whooping cough, please see your GP and get protected over the summer holiday. https://www.nhs.uk/.../nhs-vaccinations-and-when-to-have.../
In addition, please remember that a number of childhood ailments can be treated by your pharmacist, thank you.

This week the older nursery children have started to use the Bikeability bikes in the nursery garden. The children have enjoyed using them and have listened really carefully to the instructions on what to do with the bike. We will continue with weekly sessions until the end of term. We would like to say a big thank you to the 'Bikeability Trust' for providing us with the balance bikes, the helmets and the training so that our children can have these opportunities.

The children have continued to check in with our caterpillars throughout the week, watching as they grow bigger and bigger. We have shared our thoughts with friends when chatting, drawing, painting and using clay. The children have been developing their observation skills, communicating what they can see, sharing their knowledge, asking questions and making predictions.

At nursery this week we have had a special delivery- some tiny caterpillars to care for.
At small group time the children were very excited to take a closer look at our new arrivals and discuss what could be inside.
Without telling the children what they were, the children had a range of ideas around what the caterpillars could be -
‘I think it’s some black stuff, it’s snail food. The bugs are eating it’
‘I think it’s candy for the snails’
‘Maybe it’s brown food, the worms are eating it’
‘It’s so spiky’
‘They’re so wiggly, can they bite us?, they’re so interesting. I think them in the jar can be best friends with the snails. Can we put them in the snail pot?’

As part of our project work, we are thinking about what lives with us in the nursery garden. We have spent lots of our time together as a group outside getting to know our garden really well. We have also been representing our ideas with clay and drawing. It is important for us to understand the natural world and our role within it.

Dear Parents/Carer, Please click on the link below regarding Splash Safety in the garden
https://www.rlss.org.uk/splash-safety-in-the-garden?

Splash Safety in the Garden Having fun in the garden can make it easy to forget the risks water can bring.

Whilst the weather has been so nice, Claire’s afternoon children have enjoyed working outside, using their senses to explore a range of different textures such as water, dry/wet mud and stones.
We have also been taking good care of our garden space, watering the flowers and cooking in the mud kitchen.

The children in Laura's morning and afternoon groups have been using a range of collage materials to think about our nursery garden. These materials have been carefully chosen based on their sensory qualities (how they look, feel or sound). We also offered materials similar to those in the nursery garden: natural earthy tones and fresh vibrant greens, rough textures and delicate papery petal-like materials. Children with less experience using these tools and materials have been able to practise these skills, learning how to hold and use scissors or join pieces together with glue. Children with more experience have been able to cut smaller pieces and arrange them in a way which looks beautiful to them. Others have used the materials to represent their ideas, by creating a worm-house ,or a monkey character climbing a tree.

Over the last few weeks, the children in Claire’s group have been exploring colour mixing, noticing the relationship between a range of colours and what new shades can be created when they are mixed together. We used red, yellow and blue food colouring and blocks of paint in jars of water to experiment. The children also used the paint at the easel and paper to test out their ideas, theories and embed their knowledge.