Rosegrove Nursery School

We have been busy getting our classrooms ready for the new school year. We can't wait to see the children learning from all our new resources! 

For two weeks we focus on a 'core book'. By doing this this helps us to really understand the story and learn lots about the charaters. After reading the book it enables us to join in with lots of fun activities based around the story. This helps us to learn in all areas of the curriculum.

The Worrysaurus by Rachel Bright ... ( 04/09/23- 15/09/23)

It's a beautiful day and the worrysaurus has planned a special picnic. But it isn't long before a small butterfly of worry starts fluttering in his tummy ... What if it rains? What if he hasn't brought enough food? 
This story is full of fears and 'what ifs', but Worrysaurus learns some useful ways to cope with his challenging emotions.

We have really enjoyed sharing this story, we have enjoyed making our own Worrysaurus's and sharing some of our own worries that we sometimes get. We also joined in with lots of different activities based around the story. Such as creating our own picnic, making 'calming' callages and making calming music using musical instruments ...

Only one you by Inda Kranz ( 18th - 29th September 2023)

This story is about deep love that is shared between parents and their child, sharing wisdom from one generation to another. This story is helping us to celebrate our own uniqueness. 

We have enjoyed creating our own unique fish, making lots of different patterns. We have been making fish collages, doing observational paintings of our own fish that we have in the Nursery fish tank and we have also been busy drawing our self portraits.

The run away pea by KJartan Poskit ...
Over the next two weeks are are sharing 'The run away pea' story.

It's time for tea, but one pesky pea has decided to ping himself off the plate in search of a party!
This is a lovely story that has lots of rhyming text. There are lots of things to talk about, from the details in the pictures to the range of emotions the pea experiences on his journey.
We have been busy taking our own peas on lots of exciting adventures such as buiding obstacle courses for the pea to travel along, mixing the powder paints to make the colour green, exploring different vegetables playing vegetable 'snap' games and lots lots more ...

Autumn time ...

We enjoyed exploring all the Autumn leaves that have fallen from the trees. It was lots of fun walking and running through them, the leaves made lots of rustling and crunching sounds! We then collected lots of leaves to make an Autumn collage ...

Stay & play ... (11/10/23)
Today our mum's, dad's nanna's & grandad's were invited to the stay & play session. There were lots of exciting activities based around our core book 'The Runaway Pea'. We enjoyed exploring different vegetables, mixing green paint to make different shades of green, making shakers using dried peas, making obstacle courses for the peas to travel along and digging for vegetables in our forest school ...

The Little red hen ... (16th-18th October)

This week we are learning all about 'The little red hen' story. This is a classic tale, this story is a cautionary tale about how we reap what we sow. When the hen asks duck, cat and dog for help planting some wheat she gets no takers. So guess who eats the bread by herself at the end?

We have enjoyed pretending to make our own bread using play dough, sorting and setting up a farm, making a 'farm' themed obstacle course for the tractors to travel around, drawing pictures of our favourite farm animals and we had a go at acting out the story using puppets and masks ...

Concept cat ... (18th October 2023)

We are proud to be part of the 'Concept Cat' programme 2023/2024 from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), supported by the Department for Education (DfE). 

Concept Cat is designed to improve Early Years language development.

The Early Years are when children learn so much about the world around them. Talking and understanding are the bridge to this development, allowing children to interact with others and learn more. For example, when a child learns a word such as ‘first’, they can talk about how objects, people and letters can be placed in order.

Words such as ‘first, through, before, next and forward’ are what we call ‘concepts.’ Concepts are words that are linked to ideas, and so really important for developing thinking. They are more than ‘just another word.’

‘Concept Cat’ is a whole class or group teaching method for early verbal concepts. It was developed by two leading experts in the field Stephen Parsons and Anna Branagan and is part of their ‘Word Aware’ approach. Concept Cat has been used successfully in a range of early years settings, nurseries and schools. The teaching process involves acting out a short story (with a toy cat), singing songs and providing play based opportunities for children. Families are encouraged to be involved too.

Christopher Pumpkin ...
Over the next two weeks we are thinking lots about this story, this is a funny rhyming story, a pumpkin who is different from all the others, he's not an evil pumpkin like the others, Christopher prefers cupcakes and hugs to cobwebs and slugs!

We have enjoyed getting into the Halloween spirit, we have been busy making magic potions, carving pumpkins, building spooky houses, making long broomsticks, making magic wands and going on pumpkin hunts ...

Halloween's coming ...

This week in music & movement we had lots of fun joining in with lots of spooky dancing, we used scarves and we danced around like ghosts & zombies, and we flew around on our broom sticks casting lots of magic spells, we turned everyone into slimy frogs!

Bonfire night ... 

We have enjoyed talking all about the bonfires and fireworks that we saw over the weekend, We had lots of fun recreating the fire works that we saw using, glitter and ribbons we also made firework sounds using musical instruments ...

Diwali ...

This week we are learning all about Diwali we have also been busy making Diva lamps out of clay.

What is Diwali and why is it celebrated?
Diwali, India's biggest and most important holiday of the year, is the festival of lights that celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil and the human ability to overcome.

Remembrance Day ...
We have been learning all about Remembrance day. We have been painting pictures of poppies and making poppy badges.

Remembrance day is a national opportunity to remember the service and sacrifice of all those that have defended our freedoms and protected our way of life.

Tidy by Emily Gravett ...

This story is all about Pete the badger who likes everything in the forest to be neat and tidy. But his over zealous tidying begins to have a damaging impact on the forest and its inhabitants. 
This story is helping us to understand the importance of caring for the environment appropriately. We have enjoyed joining in with lots of activities based around this story, we have been colllecting leaves to make an Autumn collage, building cosy homes for the woodland animals to sleep in, making up stories and acting them out using puppets, sweeping leaves up to make the play area tidy and creating a woodland forest etc. ...

Children In need ... (27th November 2023)

To help raise money for 'Children In Need' everyone made a donation and wore their spotty clothes to Nursery, some of us even painted our nails and faces spotty! We have also enjoyed joining in with lots of Pudsey bear activities, we especially enjoyed learning a Pudsey dance routine.

It was a cold dark night by Tim Hopgood ...

Ned the hedgehog is looking for a home in the cold dark forest. He needs somewhere to sleep, but all he keeps finding are other creatures homes. Will he ever find a safe snug bed of his own?
This is a great Autumn story. We have enjoyed making our own hedgehogs out of clay, building a cosy home for the hedgehogs to live in and learning about the different habitats that different animals live in ...

New Kitchen ...

Everyone enjoyed exploring the new kitchen in the home corner. We were so excited to get in there and make breakfast, and get on with our daily chores, doing the washing, cleaning, and hoovering! Cup of tea anyone? Running a home is very hard work!

Winter wonderland ...

We couldn't wait to play outside and explore the winter wonderland. We put on our coats, hats, scarves and gloves and off we went ...

Playing outside in winter is lots of fun, there are so many things that we can learn about ... Winter sees the grass turning brown, the trees losing its leaves, the cold wind blowing the red and orange leaves off the trees, the grey, foggy mornings and frost on the ground.  There are lots of questions to be asked and answered – what happens to the animals in winter?  Are the clouds and sun different in winter? What can you smell as the wind blows?

By exploring outside and experiencing different activities physically, we learn new words through different movements and physical processes associated with winter outdoor adventures.

It's the 1st of December! 

Today everyone arrived at Nursery wearing something red and donated chocolate to the Christmas tombola. We also opened our advent calendar, inside was a chocolate! We are so excited about counting down to Christmas! We then received a special delivery, you will never guess who from?? 
It was from a Christmas Elf! ... "To Rosegrove Nursery I am your Nursery Elf! Santa sent me from the north pole to meet you. He asked me to watch over you until Christmas so that I can tell him how good you have been, Love form the Elf!" Everyone was really excited to meet him! What a busy day we have had at Nursery today! 

Christmas stay & play ...
Everyone were invited to join us at Nursery, we all had an amazing time joining in with lots of Christmas activites. There was so many fun things to do, such as making reindeer food, building a sleigh for Santa, making Christmas cookies, making decorations, sharing Christmas stories, singing Christmas songs and having hot chocolate! 

Christmas Jumper day ...

To help raise money for 'Save the children' charity everyone wore their Christmas jumpers to Nursery and made a donation. 
'Christmas Jumper day is all about creating a colourful and happy place to live in as well as raising money for Save the children charity'.

Shhh! by Juile Sykes ...
We are all super excited that Christmas will soon be here!  This week we are enjoying sharing lots of different Christmas stories. We have been busy building sleighs, making cookies for Santa, decorating Christmas trees, designing toys in Santa's workshop and lots lots more ...

Library bus ...

Everyone enjoyed visiting the library bus today. We were all really excited about listening to stories on a bus! Dawn the librarian read us lots of Christmas stories. She was amazing! Our favourite story was 'There's an elf in your book'. We enjoyed taking on lots of elf challenges! And guess what ... we all passed! 

Christmas party ...

Everyone had a wonderful time at the Christmas party! We watched a magician do lots of tricks, we danced and played party games, had some yummy party food and to finish off we had a special visitor ... SANTA! He was so pleased that everyone had been really good and he gave us all a present!