St Hilda’s Harpenden, Nursery News 31st January 2025 – Library outing and meeting Maisie the dog

We have had a very exciting week in Nursery. On Tuesday we went on our very first outing to Harpenden library. We walked all the way to the library in town, being careful to listen for traffic along the way to keep ourselves safe. We spotted numbers on houses and cars and enjoyed chatting with our friends and teachers. At the library we met Richard who told us all about the fun things you can do at the library. We learnt that you can take 30 books home to enjoy for free. We read lots of stories with our teachers and then chose a book to take home to share with our families. We even used the machines ourselves to scan our library cards and issue our own books. Richard read us a great story at the end of our session and then we walked back to school in the pouring rain. Our teachers were very proud of our behaviour at the library and many people in town stopped to say how well behaved we were.

Our topic this term is ‘Animals’ and this week we are learning all about ‘Pets’. On Thursday Mrs Johnstone our Reception teacher kindly brought in Maisie, her pet dog. We learnt how to look after Maisie and looked at the food that she eats to keep her healthy. We filled her bowl with water and Maisie enjoyed a nice drink and some food. We sat really quietly as we didn’t want to frighten Maisie. Mrs Johnstone asked if we would like to take her for a walk, so we popped on our wellies and coats and went on a doggy Welly Walk. Mrs Johnstone had an extra long training lead and all 14 of us were able to hold the lead and walk Maisie around the field. She stopped for a wee and a poo and Mrs Johnstone explained that responsible dog owners always pick up the poo and put it in a special bin, so that’s what she did. After a good few laps of the field we took Maisie back to the Reception classroom and she popped into her cosy bed for a rest. Thank you Mrs Johnstone and Maisie, we learnt so much about how to look after a pet dog today.