St Hilda’s Harpenden Kittiwakes Nursery News 4th October 2024
4th October 24
Welcome to the Kittiwakes Nursery News. We began our week in Nursery thinking about our first school value of ‘Kindness’. Our class toys Peter, Lily and Spot helped us to role-play some ‘kind’ and ‘unkind’ ways of behaving. We all thought it was much nicer to be kind to one another and thought of different ways that we can be kind to our friends, families, and teachers. Millie asked her friend Maya ‘Are you ok?’ when she was coughing and Zayden told us ‘I share my toys with Kenza’. What great examples of kindness.
We have been working hard on our Busy Fingers skills in preparation for all our future writing. On Tuesday morning we learnt to use scissors safely with a correct hold and snipped some beautiful smelling rosemary for Mrs Houten’s garden. We have been working on completing jigsaw puzzles thinking about shapes, corners and sides.
In our adult-led Maths activity this week we worked on the numbers zero to five. We sang the song ‘5 Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day’ and thought about how many we had left each time one swam away. We matched the numeral to the quantity and ordered the ducks one to five. Some of us were able to subitise and knew how many ducks there were without even counting.
Mrs Halliday was with the big girls and wasn’t able to see us for our PE lesson but we decided to enjoy some yoga instead to one of our favourite stories ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We were so good at following the instructions from Jaime and our teachers and loved all the different movements.
During our afternoon activity we enjoyed a music session with Mrs Houten. We sang lots of well known nursery rhymes and added percussion with egg shakers and claves. We played our instruments loudly, softly, quickly and slowly. We enjoyed being the ‘Grand Old Duke of York’ and learning some funny words to ‘Baa Baa Blacksheep’.
On Wednesday we enjoyed a great listening game as part of our Phase 1 phonic lessons. Peter Rabbit decided that he wanted to hide in the classroom. Mrs Hughes and one of our Nursery friends hid Peter whilst all but one child watched. The finder shut their eyes with Mrs Radgman and waited for musical instructions from the children playing claves, to guide them to find Peter. When the children played claves slowly and quietly Peter was a long way away. When the children played the claves loud and fast Peter was nearby and was soon found. We had a lovely game and the children were very good at our new listening game.
We had a lovely day on Thursday and were busy little bees as usual. In our Busy Fingers session we worked on our fine motor skills using tweezers to pick up pompoms and put them into chocolate box containers. Some of us spent time in our calm corner with our friends and enjoyed exploring the textured resources, like shells and emotion stones, that help us to feel calm in our busy environment. In the beautiful autumn sunshine we worked on our balancing skills using the wooden climbing frame. Some of us can stand balancing alone now and will soon be able to navigate the whole frame independently. We also enjoyed some gardening with Mrs Balaceanu and planted spring bulbs, including daffodils, crocus and tulips. We look forward to seeing them in the spring next year.
Friday was our Welly Walk day and today Peter Rabbit had left us a giant parachute on the playground. We played lots of games using our listening ears to follow instructions and our strong arms to move the parachute with our friends. We played a game called fruit salad, we enjoyed singing ‘5 Little Toys Jumping on the Bed’ and used strong arm movements to toss the toys off the parachute bed. We rowed our boats down the river singing ‘Row, Row Your Boat’ and finally played Popcorn where we shake the frying pan parachute so hard that all the popcorn balls flew all over the tennis court. What fun!
Well done Kittiwakes on such a busy week of fun and learning.
