Nursery
Wharton's Nursery 2023-2024
Welcome to our Nursery at Wharton Primary School!
Please log into seesaw via the app to receive daily updates about your child's individual learning journey and also key messages from the nursery team and any whole school announcements.
Our Nursery Team includes:
Class Teacher: Miss Clancy
Early Years Lead: Mrs Richardson
Support Staff: Miss Joanne, Miss Jess, Miss Catherine and Miss Laura.
Key Dates:
Monday 15th April: Return to School.
Week's Commencing 15th April & 22nd April : Nursery Farm visits to Cockfield Farm- More information via Seesaw.
Parent's Evening: Wednesday 17th April from 3:10pm
Spring Walk to ParrFold Park TBC
What we are learning over the Summer Term...
Our theme this half term is all about the farm. We will enquire about farm animals, what a farmer is and what are their jobs, explore baby animals and grown up animal names, explore produce and how it is produced and much more! We will start the topic by visiting Cockfield's Farm!
Within this half term, we will also be combining the topic with growth, fruit and vegetables. We will be completing a mini topic called Roots, Shoots and Muddy Boots towards the end of the half term. Within this topic, we will be growing our own flowers, fruit and vegetables within our nursery garden!
Week 1:
• An introduction to the Farm (Who lives on a farm? What is a farmer?)
• Sequencing, using the text, The Enormous Turnip
Week 2:
• Continue learning all about the farm. After our farm visit, we will explore animal babies and their grown ups.
• In maths, our focus will be positional language and we will use the text, What the ladybird heard. Throughout the week, we will make our own maps and follow Wharton's orienteering scheme to develop our mapping skills outside.
Week 3:
• Continuing to learn all about the farm. We will learn all about the produce that some of the animals make, such as, cheese, milk and eggs. We will then have an afternoon of food tasting!
• In maths, our focus will be learning the mathematical language more and fewer.
Week 4:
• We will consolidate all of our learning about the farm and continue to share a range of stories and songs.
• In maths, we will be re-vising the topic of 2D shapes (circle, triangle, rectangle and square).
Week 5 and 6:
For the last two weeks, we will be exploring growth, planting and growing within our topic of Roots, Shoots and Muddy Boots! We will spend lots of time outside, getting our Nursery garden ready for the end of our summer term.
We will be learning lots of songs and listening to many stories such as Jasper's Beanstalk and Jack and the Beanstalk! We will get to enjoy the outdoors even more.
As we will be outside, please provide a sun hat, water proof coat, wellies and sun cream (if needed).
In mathematics, we will continue our daily counting and number work, as well as, re-capping our half terms learning and mathematical concepts! :)
Alongside the weekly focus, we embed the following skills everyday...
Self Help Skills (Personal, Social and Emotional Well-being)- We will be learning to put on and zip up our coats, continue good hygiene by washing our hands, using cutlery correctly and sharing lots of talking time learning all about emotions and feelings.
We have also been encouraging lots of turn taking and collaborative play scenarios and activities!
Physical Development (Movement and Writing)- Throughout this half term, we will be focusing on moving our bodies using our dough disco and squiggle programme. We also include 3 active hours of movement a day.
Alongside this, we will be using fine motor skills to prepare our hands to hold a pen and form our letter shapes for our initial sounds.
English (Literacy)- We will be exploring lots of story books, acting out stories using puppets and small world enhancements and extend storytelling through songs. Within this, we will be learning all about initial sounds of our names and exploring the others letter shapes too.
Mathematics- In maths, we will re-cap colours, matching and sorting from the previous term. As well as this, we will be learning all about the numbers 3, 4 and 5. The children will be exposed to the numerals, subitising and counting. We will be learning lots of lovely number nursery rhymes to enhance the children’s memory and understanding.
Science (Understanding the World)- We will be using all of our senses to explore a range of sensory materials. Alongside this, exploring growth, change and planting fruit and vegetables.
Art and DT- (Expressive Arts and Design)- Throughout the term, the children will be exposed to music, dance, movement, expressive arts materials and a range of equipment for the children to develop their self-help and creative imaginative skills.
Geography- (Understanding the World)-We hope to take our mapping skills around the school grounds to complete number hunts and more around our environment. We will be using virtual mapping skills to follow the number trails.
RE- Exploring different cultures and points of view, including Shrove Tuesday, families and communities and learning all about Chinese New Year.. During the term, we will also be sharing a range of stories to share and celebrate different cultures and traditions from around the world.
Our Nursery Provision
All of our nursery sessions are planned with a balance of child initiated and adult led activities (including carpet times). Although we run our setting with stories, themes and topics, we very are very much inspired and led by the children’s ideas and interests. With this, all of our resources are introduced throughout the year to support children in the seven areas of learning both through self-directed play, and with adults supporting and extending their play.
Each day and within all weathers, your child will have access to the indoor and outdoor areas of provision. During our short carpet sessions, the children will enjoy and listen to stories, learn to sing songs, take part in phonics and mathematics activities. They also have the opportunity to listen to adults and to listen to each other for information and ideas.
Squiggle Time and 'Flipper Flappers'- We use part of each day to cross our mid-line to prepare our children for mark making and writing. These are active sessions and show clear progression throughout the year! The children really enjoy this physical session which develops with a specific programme throughout Nursery up until the end of Year 1!
Disco Dough- Each morning we start the day by diving straight into strengthening our fine finger muscles and developing our gross motor movements. We complete every morning by warming up our hands and developing onto manipulating each muscle in our hands to support each child's development. This supports balance, muscle development, communication, mark making and handwriting and much more! We use the Dough Disco programme by Shonette. If you would like to continue this activity at home- you can find all of her videos on YouTube.
Snack Time-During Morning snack time, all children have toast with water or milk and during afternoon snack, the children have fruit and a drink of juice or water.
Lunchtime-At 11:45, we prepare for lunch and go into the infant Hall to eat our lunch. If your child has a school dinner, please ensure you pre order your child's lunch on the School Grid site.
Packed Lunch friends eat with the other children - please ensure that all food sent into school does not contain any traces of nuts as we are a nut free school.
At lunchtime children are encouraged to eat using knives, forks and spoons. Social eating and drinking are an important part of your childs personal, social and emotional development.
Nursery Areas of Provision...
Each area in Nursery is carefully laid out to allow children to access the resources they need to play, linking both their own learning needs and interests to the current Nursery theme.
Linked to our whole school phonics scheme, Supersonic Phonics, we have a phonics area with resources currently linked to the phase 1-7 phonic aspects. This includes books, musical instruments, puppets, talk buttons, mirrors and microphones.
A mark making area, with resources for drawing, writing and mark making which includes flat working spaces, vertical easels and belly writing to strengthen all areas of the body to prepare your child to mark make and begin to form letter shapes.
Our role play area is a domestic home corner. We use this style of role play as it is an area that most children have prior language, knowledge and modelling of to encourage and enhance imaginative play. Later in the year, we enhance the role play with both topic and child led ideas.
A mathematics area is filled with puzzles, puppets, rhymes, numbers, scales, colour sorting and much more!
Our wet and dry sand area is open ended to explore textures and to manipulate different types of sand for different purposes. The area contains various resources such as spades, buckets, sticks and small world toys, sieves, spoons and more.
The wet and messy area contains various resources such as slime, gloop, jelly, water, beans etc. This area enhances sensory play. It includes a variety of resources such as funnels, containers and small world toys, which allows the children to pour, fill and empty containers and play imaginatively.
A painting and creative area for children to access a range of tools such as glue, paint, chalk, textiles, collage, scissors, hammers, hole punches, stamps and more is used to enable and encourage children to use their own imaginations and become expressive learners.
Our calm and sensory book tent contains books related to our current focus, as well as a wide range of information, fiction and poetry books to choose from. This area also includes microphones, writing opportunities, finger puppets and small world figures to engage story telling.
The large construction areas include large and small construction toys, transport vehicles, small word figures, natural materials, tools, and role play opportunities. Included in this area is reading, writing and mathematics opportunities.
Thank you,
Miss Clancy and the Nursery Team