Home Early years Sandown nursery

Sandown Nursery

Teachers:

Gina Wright

Teacher: Nursery Manager

Emma Smith

Teacher: Nursery Deputy Manager

TAs:

Michaela McCabe

TA: Acorns and Saplings Class

Becky Williams

TA: Acorns and Saplings Class

Claire Taylor

TA: Acorns and Saplings Class

Steph Moore

TA: Acorns and Saplings Class

Laura Boyle

TA: Acorns and Saplings Class

Lauren Phillips

TA: Acorns and Saplings Class

Welcome to the nursery!

In the nursery our approach to development and learning is a mixture of focused activities and child-centred, play-based learning.

The value of quality play in early child development is well-documented and we provide children with rich and meaningful play experiences through a responsive and flexible learning environment supported by caring and skillful interactions from the nursery practitioners.

Children are encouraged to develop and learn through playing, exploring, being actively involved, risk taking, problem solving and thinking creatively. They are encouraged to be independent through accessing resources freely, making choices and taking responsibility for their own learning within the supportive environment.

The value of this approach is evidenced in the overall progress children make from their initial starting points in the seven areas of learning within The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.

Seeds to Snack

Over the last academic year, the children have had the opportunity to grow and harvest their own flowers and vegetables. Alongside planting the seeds of various vegetables and flowers, the children have been learning about the lifecycle of plants and how to take care of them. The children’s kind and nurturing attitude towards the garden area led to some amazing results and some sky-high sunflowers! Every day the garden would change, the children were delighted as they went out to water the plants. As well as growing the vegetables, the children had the opportunity to taste them. At snack time the children would go out to the garden area and pick their own fresh produce. They felt an immense sense of pride as they were able to try the delicious vegetables they had grown. The garden area attracted a lot of attention from local wildlife and insects, such as slugs, bees and caterpillars. This really ignited a passion in the children to explore all living things. The children were particularly interested in the family of caterpillars that visited. Their curiosity led them to explore the life cycle of the caterpillar and how they change into beautiful butterflies. The growing area will be an ongoing feature outside and all children are encouraged to get involved and learn about nature.

Cooking

Within the nursery setting, we encourage healthy eating and this follows through into our cooking sessions with all the children. Cooking covers many areas within the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework such as maths where we encourage children to measure out ingredients and use their counting skills, Physical development is explored through cutting and chopping where important fine motor skills are developed. Cooking activities also encourage children to ask questions and have conversations with adults and their peers about what is happening and what they think might happen next which supports language development and strengthens relationships while building confidence.

Having such great outdoor grounds means the nursery are able to grow their own seasonal fruits and vegetables, which the children can harvest and bring to table for snack time or to use as ingredients in their cooking activities.

The added bonus to all of our fabulous cooking is that the children can enjoy healthy and tasty treats together and we encourage our families to have a go at home.

Storytelling week

This term we took part in National storytelling week and as part is this, the children enjoyed dressing up and taking part in some exciting activities for Roald Dahl day.

One of the highlights was making potions like in one of the famous stories. The children were all so enthusiastic to join in and make their very own concoctions using a variety of colours buttons, glitter bubbles and oil. The activity allowed lots of speech to be explored and the children used a range of words including “Fizzy”, “Smokey” and “Magical”. Throughout the activity we also were able to explore measuring, pouring and weight as we each helped to mix, add and pour the mixtures.

Also during Storytelling week, we were lucky enough to have a visit from The London Mozart Players and the children were able to explore storytelling through music. The musicians bought a range of different instruments which the children loved to listen to and play themselves.

It was a lovely experience for the children as The London Mozart Players are one of the original pioneers of orchestral outreach work. The London Mozart Players have enjoyed a host of relationships with nurseries, schools and music hubs across the UK (and also in Dubai and Hong Kong), working with teachers and heads of music to inspire the next generation of musicians and music lovers.

Sensory play

Throughout the year when the children are, exploring their curious questions linked to their termly themes eg: Autumn – Why do leaves go crispy? We set out a range of sensory trays linked to the theme to spark their imagination and to provoke the children to ask questions and broaden their knowledge.

Practitioners set out these sensory trays to ignite curiosity and interest and to link in with the seven areas of learning to support children’s learning and development in a fun and exciting way.

Project board

This term our theme and curious questions was ‘Why do leaves go crispy?’

The children explored a range of activities covering the season of autumn, woodland animals, conkers and other natural objects in a sensory tray, changes in the weather and world around them.

Making Potions

The children explored making potions for Halloween, they used a range of materials (food dye, glitter, feathers, water, sequins) mixing them together.

Forest School

We have been out on our forest school adventures developing our core strength to be able to swing across the muddy puddles and use the natural resources within our environment to make our brilliant craft creations and keeping our hands warm by the fire.

Number game

The children had a fantastic time rolling the balls down the guttering to see what number they landed on learning our numbers 1-3 through play.

Christmas

The nursery children had a surprise visit from Santa, this was very exciting and they told Santa what they wished for for Christmas. We also took part in the Santa dash running, walking and dancing along the track to some Christmas songs.

Project board

This term our theme and curious questions was ‘Where does snow go?’

The children explored a range of activities covering the season of winter, artic animals, clothes we wear when it snows, how we keep warm in the winter, places in the world that have snow and places that don’t.

Where does snow go activities

The children used a range of sensory activities to make snow from flour, corn flour, foam, fake snow that expands when you add water. They were able to develop their mark making and creative skills whilst playing with these, adding materials to make snowmen.

We had an igloo in our role play area, the children added blankets and made a camp fire to keep warm, we also investigated how to make igloos when using snow to build them.

The children explore different sized ice cubes and had ago at building their own igloos, this gave the children opportunities to use mathematical language during play.

Cooking

As part of our theme the children had great fun making healthy ice creams using natural yoghurt, fruits and fresh juice (The natural yoghurt and blueberries was a firm favourite) they were amazed when the colour changed from white to purple and questioned why it when purple when they are called blueberries?

They also made snowflake cinnamon tortillas for snack.

Chinese new year

The children celebrated the year of the Tiger by making yummy spring rolls to eat during our snack time and tiger masks.

Forest School

We have been exploring our natural environment during forest school, creating mud pies with mud, sticks and leaves, climbing up the tallest mountain and keeping warm by the fire whilst learning about fire safety.

Beat the bear

Our pre-school children have found a love for our phonics game ‘Beat the bear’. They have been practicing their phonic sounds, finding the correct pictures and working as a team to beat the bear.

Project Board

This term our theme and curious questions was ‘Do Dragons Exist?’

The children explored a range of activities covering dragons, castles, kings and queens, medieval music, fairy tales, season of spring and new beginnings.

Castle building and small world play

The children have been using a range of materials to build and construct their own castles, we have explored what castles look like, what they are made of and investigated what castles we have in East Sussex. They even made a castle for Zog to live in.

Dragon dough and drawing

The children have been creating their own dragons and dragon eggs using the dough working their fine motor skills, maths and creativity.

The children have been working on their pencil control drawing dragons and castles.

Shields and Castle weaving

The children have been making their own shields in the craft area, looking at patterns and symbols on shields. They also used a giant hoop to create weaving patterns with wool, looking at different tapestry’s found in castles.

Volcanoes

The children showed an interest in volcanoes after we spoke about dragon’s fire. We became scientist to do our experiment with the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, this was great fun making our volcanoes explode! The children then moved their own learning on by making a volcano in the garden for the dinosaurs.

Forest School

This term the children have been using their gross motor skills and coordination to go through the rabbit run, climb the mountain, toast marshmallows around the fire pit, take turns on the swing, plant sunflower seeds, digging, tree climbing and finding the frogs spawn in the pond.

Tiny Street

We had a visit from Tiny Street this term as part of the school’s careers day, the children had a fantastic time exploring the different role-play areas provided and we can’t wait for them to visit again. “I thought I could be a real Doctor,” “My favourite was riding the horsey and being a vet,” “It’s brilliant, I love shopping… all the kinds of foods.”

We look forward to exploring ‘Why is water wet?’ in term five.

Project board

This term our theme and curious questions was ‘Why is water wet?’

The children explored a range of activities covering water (puddles, ponds, rivers, lakes, oceans), how they use water daily, water safety, poems/ rhymes and the weather (how rain clouds form).

Water play

The children had fun exploring a range of water based activities such as tubes and tunnels, water painting, oil and water prints, stinky sink (citrus fruits), Boats and sea life, bubbles, watering the garden, floating and sinking activities, making up poems about water, discussions as a group creating a mind map on how they are going to use water today?

Forest School

The children have been very active in the woods at forest school over term 5, they have been taking safe risks whilst climbing trees, balancing on the ramps and logs, taking turns on the swings, hunting for bugs then relaxing in the hammock.

Picnic Time

Our Saplings showed their independent skills by making their own rolls for a picnic by the pond, due to the weather not being on our side that week they got creative and made their own indoor pond to eat their rolls by. This linked to their supporting story ‘Mrs Pepper pot learns to swim’.

Poetry Baskets

Our parental engagement was focused on Poetry baskets this term and the importance of poetry supporting early language and communication also links to maths developing rhythm and pattern.

Queens Platinum Jubilee

The children celebrated the Queens platinum jubilee at nursery with a street party style lunch time, wore red, white and blue, had red, white and blue play dough and made their own flags. We had a brilliant time celebrating and some even had more fun than others!

We look forward to exploring ‘How many pebbles on the beach?’ over term 6.

Project board

This term we have been exploring theme and curios question ‘How many pebbles on the beach?’

The children have explored a range of activities covering different kinds of beaches, the ocean, animals found in rock pools, life boats, poems and rhymes about the beach.

The children have used a range of materials to create their own beaches from role play to sensory trays. This has been lots of fun to create and exploring different materials and textures.

Our younger group made a café to sell their ice creams they had made, it was a very expensive café with ice creams costing £400!!!

Our younger group made a giant art attack with the practitioners of a light house, they created all of the parts and then worked together to create their masterpiece.

Our preschool children had fish and chips for lunch to represent having fish and chips on the beach. They practiced being able to use a knife and fork at lunch time like they will when they go to school.

The preschool children took part in sports day. They had a brilliant time taking part in the different physical activities such as running, egg and spoon, balancing, sack race and obstacles.

There was even meddles for the children at the end.

We have been practicing our hand eye coordination and fine motor skills by using tweezers to pick up and move objects within the squares on the tuff tray, we had to concentrate so the objects didn’t fall down.

We have had a fantastic year with the children exploring our exciting themes, we cannot wait until September when we get to play and learn some more.

We hope you have a great summer, from the nursery team.

Sandown Nursery

Teachers:

Gina Wright

Emma Smith

TAs:

Michaela McCabe

Becky Williams

Claire Taylor

Steph Moore

Laura Boyle

Lauren Phillips

Welcome to the nursery!

Term 1

Seeds to Snack

Cooking

Storytelling week

Sensory play

Term 2

Making Potions

Forest School

Number game

Christmas

Term 3

Where does snow go activities

Cooking

Chinese new year

Forest School

Beat the bear

Term 4

Castle building and small world play

Dragon dough and drawing

Shields and Castle weaving

Volcanoes

Forest School

Tiny Street

Term 5

Water play

Forest School

Picnic Time

Poetry Baskets

Queens Platinum Jubilee

Term 6