Our Continuous Provision Areas in Nursery, set up ready for the Autumn Term.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We have been settling lots of new children into nursery and they are making relationships with new adults. For many children, this is the first time they have separated from their parent/carer. They are building friendships with each other too. They are all making wonderful progress.

Communication, Language and Literacy

We assessed all the children's language skills at the beginning of the term using the Wellcomm Language Assessment Tool. Following this, Ellie our Speech Therapist has organised children into groups and set focus targets for them. Some children see Ellie for 1:1 therapy and some children will also have onward referrals to the NHS Speech and Language therapist team.

Each week we have had a story focus. This has enabled the children to really get to know the story, hear new vocabulary and find out what that means and to join in with repeated refrains too. Alongside this, we have used some makaton and visual prompts too. On Fridays, we invite parents in at the end of the session to join us for story time, rhymes and to help change their child's library book.

We are using communication boards alongside some activities such as in the home corner, at snack time and with some games and puzzles. These help the children to develop their expressive language and sentence structures.

Physical Development

We promote a wide variety of physical opportunities including for gross motor and fine motor skills. We have started dough gym with the children to work on developing strength in their shoulders, arms, hands and fingers.

The movement area inside is always a popular choice and here they can work on their core strength and gaining spatial awareness.

We are a 'My Smile' school. This means we promote healthy eating, access to dental care and we brush teeth every day in school.

Mathematical Development

We have enjoyed singing counting rhymes together, e.g. One, two, three, four, five.... During nursery rhyme week we introduced a new classroom resource where we rolled the dice and subitised the spots and then this determined which rhyme we would sing as we matched this to the visual cards.

We have matched objects that are the same and have introduced the vocabulary of 'same' and 'different.'

We have talked about 'more.'

We have developed our noticing skills through a wide range of activities and this links to our ability to subitise too where we can recognise small groups of objects without needing to count them.

Understanding the World

We have noticed the changes in the seasons from Summer into Autumn. We looked at different leaves and noticed the colours and shapes of them. 

We had a visit from Tonya and her owls. Tonya shared the story of Owl Babies and we played a listening game. We explored what the owls feathers felt like and we were able to hold an owl.

In Early Years, our children reflect many different cultures. This term, we have been able to share and talk about Diwali, Bonfire Night, Halloween, Remembrance Day and Christmas.

Expressive Art and Design

A range of opportunities are on offer as part of our continuous provision each day. These include play dough, construction toys, painting and model making as examples. We also love getting the instruments out, dancing and acting out stories.

Nursery enjoyed role playing the Goldilocks story especially this term.

We also had a lovely morning at the end of term with our families creating Christmas crafts.