Phoenix Nursery School

We would like to say a big thank you for all your lovely gifts and kind words. We really appreciate your thoughtfulness as we end this school year. During our last week together, the children have harvested the potatoes, carrots and peas that they planted earlier in the term. The excitement and wonder of what has been growing under the soil truly amazes the children. We have cooked the potatoes, mashed them and ate them too. Having opportunities to grow food, nurture plants and harvest is very important to us as we see it as helping our children learn about nature and how important it is to care for environment.

As part of our last day together the staff and children have enjoyed a picnic together as a way of celebrating our time together and the end of the school year. Also, today marks the end of many families nursery education with us and so we would like to say that we have enjoyed working with both you and your children and we wish them all a smooth transition into their new schools in September. Good luck everyone and keep in touch.

The children have had a wonderful last week at Nursery. We have ended the school year by harvesting the potatoes that the children planted in the spring term, learning about the possibilities of what potatoes can transform into and then helping to cook them once the decision was made to turn them into chips.
We have also tried a pea from the pea pods we have grown and enjoyed a picnic with our party hats and friends.
Finally we would just like to say a huge thank you for all your lovely gifts. It has been a pleasure working with such amazing children and we appreciate your generosity.
We wish all our families who are leaving us a happy, healthy and safe summer. We hope you make lots of special memories together and we will see out returning parents in September 😊☀️

Thank you so much to all of our wonderful parents for attending our leavers celebration last week.
We hope you all enjoyed our last little get together as a group.
As you could see from the beautiful work that was celebrated yesterday, we are so proud of our children and the amazing drawings, paintings, stories and clay work they have created throughout the year.
Here are a few photographs of the day -

We have upcoming Pay As You Feel activities during the summer holidays for children under 7 and their caregivers. Please see the information below:

Play in the Park
Tuesday 4th August
Tuesday 11th August
10-12 & 12-2pm
Ward Street Park, WV2 2RE
Book spaces online - www.wolvesplaycafe.org/playinthepark

A Walk in the Woods
Thursday 23rd July
Thursday 30th July
45 minute sessions from, 10am, 11.15am, 12.30pm
West Park, WV1 4PH
Book spaces online - https://wolvesplaycafe.org/awalkinthewoods/

Super Saturdays Men's Play
10.15-11.30am
Saturdays Weekly for all male caregivers and their children under 7
Boundary Way Allotments, WV4 4NT
Book spaces online - www.wolvesplaycafe.org/natureplay

For weekly indoor and outdoor play sessions, book on our website at - www.wolvesplaycafe.org

A few weeks ago at nursery, Claire’s children revisited the pea plants that the group planted in May.
We looked carefully at the changes that had occurred over the last 7 weeks with the intention to look closely at the different shapes that were visible creating some observational drawings of what the children could see and noticed, using a large piece of paper covering the table with thinking pens.
‘I can see a circle shape, it’s like the sun’
‘That one is a line down’
The children were very excited that the peas had changed and ideas of how they had grown emerged-
‘The sun and the water grow it’
‘They grow in the house’ (greenhouse)
Once the drawings were complete shades of green inks were offered to the children to bring their pea drawings to life

On Wednesday Little Kid Town came to visit Phoenix Nursery and the children had an amazing time exploring all of the different role play stations.
These included -
A shop
Cake shop
Police station
Fire station
Farm
Construction site and post office
It was a fantastic summer treat for the children and it was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Last week we had a special delivery at nursery.
Some tiny caterpillars arrived and we have been observing them closely, watching them change as they eat their special food.
It has been interesting to hear the children’s ideas about what they see and what they notice, what they think is inside the tub and their predictions of what will happen to the caterpillars over the next few weeks. We will share more photographs with you as the caterpillars continue to change and transform.
Here are some of the children thoughts and ideas -
"Is that a caterpillar, its moving its a real one!"
"He’s going to eat and sleep and then turn into a butterfly. He likes to eat snacks. He like junk food. He’s very long."
"He wants to go to his mummy. This one is awake. He plays outside when he is big"
"He’s not playing outside he’s playing inside"
"This one is black, he is moving and doing the rainbow shape now a circle shape it got spikes in her neck. I think he will like flowers.

As you know the children have been very interested in the birds in our nursery garden and after creating nests for them last week, this week we have co constructed a story together as a group, learning about how a story is structured with a beginning, middle and an end and thinking about the characters within the story such as ‘sparrow tweet,tweet,’ baby bird and the egg. We also talked about the setting which was the nest.
The children thoroughly enjoyed offering their ideas to the shared story and it was wonderful to hear the children share their knowledge and understanding of birds built through thoughtful research and a range of rich hands on experiences.
This is our bird 🦅 story

Once upon a time there was a bird
She was making her nest in the trees
She put the sticks and the leaves and the rocks and the feather in her nest
The nest was very hot and soft
The bird found an egg. She sat on her egg
The egg crack
With her head
A baby chick came out, tweet, tweet
The baby chick said I want to eat
Mummy fly
Mummy bird get some snails and spiders and worms and cherries and tomatoes and ants
Baby said I want to sleep
And mummy bird said ‘ok go to sleep honey’
And then she sleeps and she wakes up and go to school
And then go back home
The End.

We have been taking good care of the seeds and potatoes that we planted, watering them regularly and they have started to grow!
One of the parents has donated a mint plant and we have potted it outside.

The cress that we planted inside was ready to cut. We cut the storks and all tried a little bit, we thought that it tasted delicious! We are looking forward to the carrots, peas and potatoes being ready to harvest at the end of term.

As part of our nursery project 'What lives with us in nursery garden?' Katharine and Bal's children have taken a keen interest in the squirrels. We have watched them running along the nursery fence and climbing in the trees. The children have learnt about what squirrels like to eat and how they build dreys in the trees to live in. We even have our own pretend squirrel 'Rocky' who we look after in the nursery.

The children have been looking closely at the squirrel's features and creating observational drawings, using the inks to add colour. We also used the construction materials to create a home for the squirrel. Over the next half term we will be creating stories using the squirrel as our main character.