We are a happy, thriving, busy and friendly Nursery where our staff will welcome your child and endeavour to make him or her feel safe, secure and eager to come and 'play' every day.
Your child's 'play' is planned carefully by the staff to nurture their enthusiasm for learning, to enhance knowledge and skills and to help provide the foundation for all their future learning.
The Powerpoint below will briefly explain the Early Years Foundation Curriculum and will show you, with photographs, the kinds of activities that your child will be taking part in as they enjoy their days at Linaker Seedlings Nursery.
We visited the school kitchen and the school canteen. We talked to the chefs, that cook and make sandwiches for the children, that are at the school. We saw how the little cupcakes were being decorated and we also compared the sizes of the bake beans tins. Dave, the chef showed us the tools and equipment he uses to cook for many children and Elaine demonstrated to us how she uses a big tap that looked like a shower! We sat in the canteen and had some juice and ate tasty biscuits.
After visiting the chefs in our school kitchen, we decided to make a cake. We looked for ingredients in our kitchen cupboards and found many things that we can put into cake mixture: flour, baking powder, oats, salt, milk, water, pasta, spices and carrots. We decided to call it "A Very Tasty Carrot Cake"
Cooking is a messy, deliciuous, sometimes time-consuming ctivity, especially when done with young children. You are not just making food; you are teaching science in actions; helping to lay down basic maths, reading and time-telling skills; encouraging healthy food choices; building confidence and creativity and enhancing communication and most of all having a great time!
In the wide-ranging topic of "People That Help Us" there is plenty of opportunities to make connections between people and places; we began to explore the role of people that help us in our school such a chef and canteen service and now we are exploring people that help us in our local community. Our interest was inspired by the role of the Fire Fighters. We discussed how they could use various equipment in their work of rescuing people and animals. The ladder was one of the pieces of the equipment that caught our attention. We tried to use it with the support of an adult and test our firefighter skills in climbing.
Being a Fireman!
Music
During the music session, we enjoyed dancing and singing. We learned a new song with action called: "When you put this hat on". During the singing we choose the hat from the box and then we had to guess what job we had to do. We pretended to be a firefighter, builder, police officer, postman, doctor, lollypop person, Spiderman or mechanic. We joined in with singing and actions!
We acted out the song "The Wheels on The Bus" using simple percussion instruments. We used them to imitate the sound of wipers, bells, horn, opening and closing the door and driving over the bumps. We loved joining in with well known words of one of our favourite song.
"When I Put This Hat On"
When I put this hat on
I'll be someone else!
Can you guess who I am
If I am not myself!
Now I am a Policeman.
In the Policeman's hat,
When I am a Policeman,
I do this and that!
I am Policeman!
I am a Lollypop Lady!
I am a Docor!
We all like to help others!
I am a Fire Lady
I am a Policeman!
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
The door on the bus go open and shut!
Role play - Hair Saloon
The "Hair Saloon" provides many opportunities for us to play together or in pairs. We can brush, wash and spray the hair using our pretend tools. We talk about different hair we have and the type of the haircut and hair style we would like to have. We use the telephone to arrange the appointment and speak to our customers about the service we provide in our hairdressing saloon.
Who can help us to fix broken cooker?
We noticed that the small toy cooker from the home corner came apart. We tried to fix it. It was not an easy job. We helped each other and gave suggestions on how to put the pieces together. Some of us tried to use some tools such as hammers, tweezers and sticky tape. Theo even tried to use the doctor's set to check the cooker's state.
We decided to write letter to Barry, our school caretaker. He knows how to fix things and he will be able to help us.
Barry came next day and showed us what tools he will use to fix our broken cooker. We helped him with his job! Thank you Barry for helping us!
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is also known as the Spring Festival. It is the most important celebration in the Chinese calendar. In Chinese tradition, each year is names after one of 12 animals, which feature in the Chinese Zodiac: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. 2018 was the years of the Dog, 2019 was the year of the Pig and 2020 will be the year of the Rat.
In the nursery, we talked about the animal race, dressed up in traditional Chinese clothes, arranged the Dragon dance and pretended to make noodle and rice dishes using traditional Chinese dinner set.
Discovering wildlife in our garden.
Exploring nature with young children builds sense of wonder about nature and invites them to explore wildlife and the world around them. Those experiences provide a foundation for developing positive impressions about nature, while also building lifelong social and cognitive skills.
In our garden we have found a family of worms. We liked to explore and observe them moving around our flower bed. We have learned many facts about the worms and we know that worms do not like light and breathing through their skin. We have made a "wormery" and we often observe and count how many worms we can see through the transparent walls.
When looking for worms and observing their natural habitat we discovered other garden creatures hiding under the log. We used our information sheet to identify the specie of this creature. It had a body of worm, lots of tiny legs and two long feelers. It was a millipede!
Observing changes in the weather
During our play in the garden the weather changed suddenly. We noticed that the sky grew darker and small pieces of ice began to fall. We observed hailstones falling on the grass, our coats and floor. Some of us tried to pick small frozen balls and collect in our hands. They melted very quickly, leaving small droplets of water and wet marks on hats and coats.
Giving children responsibilities
In our nursery children enjoy carrying reponsibilities. Some of the reponsibilities include: sorting toys, choosing the book for story time, collecting register, sorting name labels, helping to sort library book or setting the table for a snack.
Children often feel empowered, when they are given a small reponsibility and take their role very seriously. This leads to children with increased confidence, maturity and self-esteem.
All this is important in creating active learners and supporting development in all areas of the EYFS. By giving these jobs out to children, it shows them that they are trusted, and valuable members of the group and the children often see them as a reward rahter than a chore.
Children often are asked to choose what they would like to help with and what responsibility they would like to carry out. In our nursery this part of learning promotes the British Value of democracy by showing children that they have the choice and they can vote and show interest, but may not always get their choosing.
Thomas and Lucas are setting the table for the snack.
Tidying up the toys into their boxes.
Putting away boxes on the shelf.
Putting chairs to the table.
Choosing placemats.
Putting placemats on the table.
Coutning the spaces for snack.
Preparing plates.
... more plates...
... and cups.
More cups!
We are ready for snack.
Choosing own snack and drink
Tidying up after the snack.
World Book Day 2020
We celebrated the World Book Day by reading the story written by Judith Kerr "The Tiger Who Came To Tea".
We dressed up as animals and had a very special "tea" for our snack.
Hablando en español!
We believe that learning a foreign language provides a valuable educational, social and cultural experience for all children. As a school we have chosen to study Spanish. A link has been established with a school in Southern Spain in Almuñécar.
We are keen to promote the introduction of Spanish language to the children in our nursery and we started to learn how to say 'hello', 'goodbye', and 'thank you' in Spanish. We are also learning names for some colours and names of some food.
The teachers from Spanish school have visited us in the nursery - Monica and Nuria. They sang, danced and painted pictures with us. We enjoyed singing and dancing to many Songs in Spanish.
"El Baile de la Fruta" is our favourite song in Spanish. We sing and dance to the song almost every day!