Duckling

 

Welcome to Brookside Nursery!

We are open 7:30am-6:00pm term time and during the holidays 8:00am-5:30pm, with our closures consistently being the last 2 weeks of the summer holidays and the Christmas holidays.

We are a mixed room nursery, taking ages from 2-4 year olds where our aim is to create a safe, happy and stimulating environment for your children to thrive. We spend lots of time both inside and out and on Fridays we go to the forest for Forest school, where we look at our lovely natural environment and have some marshmallows! We enjoy weekly Diddy Dribblers physical sessions held by Prosport coaching.

We aim to go on lots of trips throughout each term and we visit Abbeyfield care home alternative Mondays and Sawley care home alternative Tuesdays! We also like to go to the Market, Salthill Park and Springwood 🙂

Please have a look through the links to meet our lovely team, find our routines and see what we have been up to in nursery! 🙂

Please see all our formal information on the Parents information link, Out of School Club page, Brookside Nursery class.

 

Look what we've been up to in Nursery

MARCH!!

We have been super busy in march. The preschoolers went on a number walk around around Highmoor and managed to spot lots of different numbers. We also celebrate Eid! Miss Ishak spoke to children about what Eid means and how people celebrate it. We also took part in World Book Day! There was lots of fabulous costumes! We have also enjoyed getting back into the forest every Friday and getting muddy! The children have had lots of fun spending time in our new role play area which is currently a spa! We have been celebrating Easter and doing lots of Easter activities such as carrot printing, cutting and sticking easter chicks, doing an easter egg hunt and decorating our own easter eggs! 🙂

FEBRUARY!! 🙂

What a super fun month we have had! We had lots to celebrate in February. We started by learning all about Elmer and how we all have similarities and differences, we made Elmer hats and our own colourful Elmer pictures. We celebrated Pancake day and made lots of yummy pancakes and chose our own toppings. We also celebrated Valentines day and had our parents in for a stay and play. We made some lovely crafts with them. It was nice for the parents to see what we get up to during the day! We also celebrated Chinese New Year! We made some lovely crafts, played a game using chopsticks and marshmellows, tried on some traditional Chinese clothing and tried some Chinese food! We have been really busy this month!! 🙂

WOW! What a busy and funfilled January we have had! We started off by coming back to nursery in the snow! We had lots of fun making snow angels and making snowballs! We made snowmen with our wintery playdough. We also had a go at making and decorating our own snowflakes with lots of glitter and sequins! We went on a cold and wintery walk around the school ground to se our footprints in the snow and frost on the branches. We have been practicing our cutting skills by having a go at cutting and sticking our own snowmen! We've been looking at different 2D shapes and trying to make different shaped faces with them. We celebrated Winnie the Pooh day by wearing yellow, trying honey on toast, having our faces painted and reading the book 'All about Pooh'! We've also looked at brushing teeth and going to dentist and spoken about why we brush our teeth and why we need to visit the dentist sometimes.

 

What a fabulous day we had at Mrs Dowsons christmas experience! We started the day by going to see some animals! We saw a little tiny bunny that was only a few weeks old! We saw the guinea pigs and went on the Wallaby walk! We then went to see the bigger animals. We saw two pigs, sheep and a capybara which was very stubborn and didn't want to get out of bed to see us! We some some calfs, water buffalo's Llama's goats a horse and a donkey! We then went to see Mrs Claus to decorate our gingerbread! They looked really yummy! 🙂 We then went on to see Father Christmas and his elves! He gave us a little animal present! We finished our day by going to play on the indoor play area which we all enjoyed very much! We had a lovely time!! 🙂

 

We had a really good time at Abbeyfield care home today! We loved walking uptown to get the bus and seeing some christmas decorations on the way including the town christmas tree! We sang some of songs for the nativity to the residents and made some biscuits which we were able to take home! 🙂

 

Children in need 2025..

We had lots of fun in nursery learning about children in need! We looked at some videos about why people raise money and who they raise money for. The children showed their support by wearing yellow or spotty clothing! We made some Pudsey pictures, Pudsey masks and headbands. We decorated some biscuits which were really yummy! And Mrs Dreyer painted our faces to make us look like Pudsey bear!

Remembrance day 2025..

Nursery have really enjoyed learning all about Remembrance day. We have looked at the different coloured poppies people wear and why. We have also been up to Clitheroe Cenotaph to look at all the poppies and wreaths and put our wreath on. Whilst we were walking through town we also saw the poppies that had been put up and the soldiers throughout town. In nursery we have also been having a go at painting our own poppies and making our own poppy wreaths.

 

Celebrating Diwali!

We have enjoyed looking at how others celebrated Diwali. We made our own Diva lamps out of saltdough. We made paper plate Diva lamps and made them using different coloured tissue paper, sparkly paint and glitter! Miss Ishak did us some lovely Henna on our hands and we sat really still and loved it! We also looked at Bollywood dancing and tried our best to copy! We looked at different Rangoli patterns and had a go at making our own.

 

HALLOWEEN!!

We have really enjoyed looking at Halloween this week! We have been reading meg and mog and looking at the different things she puts in her potion. We have been dressing up in our witches and pumpkin outfits. Making lots of different potions with the pumpkins and even made an exploding potion in the cauldron! We made a bubbling potion picture, a pumpkin picture using shaving foam and orange paint, gluing and sticking what we would put in our own potions and a mini pumpkin picture using a potato masher! We also had a halloween party where we played some party games, had our face painted and wore our own fancy dress costumes and looked really scary!

 

This week we have been looking at the start of autumn! We have been reading the leaf thief and enjoyed creating our own autumnal pictures! We have used different spiky tools to create leaves on a tree and also been practicing our cutting skills by choosing and cutting what we want on our autumn trees. We have also been on a walk around the school grounds and visited our conker tree to find autumn treasure!! We found different coloured leaves, lots of conkers and some spiky Conker shells!

 

What a lovely week! We have been looking at Claude Monet and his life and we have been looking at all his different paintings, the children even had a go at copying one of his paintings! We also did a colour hunt in our garden using the magnifying glasses and also had a go at finding some insects. We have also been reading the three little pigs, so we tried to build them 3 different houses out of straw, bricks and sticks. We have also been making our own spiders due to the children's interests, we counted out how many they should have and how many eyes.

 

Our trip to Clitheroe market!

We had a lovely walk to the market to look at all the different stalls. We saw all the different fruit and vegetable stalls and the different fruits that they sell, some of which we hadn't seen before such as a prickly pear! We also loved looking in all the shop windows through town, especially the toy shop!! 🙂

 

What an excellent and busy first week back we have had!! We have been apple picking in out garden, painting and printing our handprints, looking at our faces in the mirror and drawing them and choosing and painting the outfits that we would like to wear! We've also been looking at the importance of handwashing and how how to get rid of the germs off our hands. We also went on a nature hunt to collect leaves which we will use in our creative activities.

Our trip to Thornton Hall Farm!!

Firstly, we went into the play centre area and had lots of fun on the big slides and soft play. After that we went to feed the animals! There were calves, lambs, goats, alpacas, llamas. We saw two horses and some donkeys! We also went on the jumping pillows before the rain started!! We then went on a short walk to see some baby alpacas and to feed some chickens! We also loved stroking the rabbits and guinea pigs as they were so cute and fluffy!! We then finished the day by going on the caterpillar ride!! The children loved going "super fast"!!

 

Out teddy bears picnic!! We had lots of fun at the park with our teddy bears and we enjoyed some teddy bear snacks whist reading the teddy bears picnic!!

 

Nursery have really enjoyed looking and learning all about bees. We have been looking at their striped patterns, cutting and sticking the bees onto their hive. A childs grandparent also brought in some of their homemade honey for us to try and a beekeeper outfit for us to try on. Mrs Dreyer also turned us all in buzzy bees by painting our faces! 🙂

 

Our trip to Springwood! The 2-3s had lots of fun taking the bus to Springwood and having a walk around. We followed the different signs and looked at the different flowers. We also found a bug house that had been made and tried to find some bugs in there. We went to look at the pond but we didn't see any animals 🙁

 

VE DAY!! We had lots of fun teaching the children all about VE day and what it is. We dressed up in red, white and blue and made our own flags. We also had a picnic for our dinner which was really yummy! The children in nursery did really well at completing the 2 minutes silence at 12pm.

Our trip to spring wood! We had lots of fun exploring, finding different paths and looking at all the bluebells! We also enjoyed looking at the pond and listening to what sounds we could hear.

 

Easter holidays!!

We had lots of fun over the easter holidays. We met the Easter bunny who brought us all some chocolate eggs!! We made and decorated cakes and biscuits. We had a planting day where we made pictures from cutting and sticking, planted some sunflowers, and changed our garden around and made a snug area.

With the weather getting nicer, we have really enjoyed playing outside! We have been playing in the mud kitchen, playing on the slide and playing on our new scooters!

Red Nose Day! We enjoyed dressing up in red. Decorating biscuits and making our own red faces! We also had our faces painted by Mrs Dreyer1 We had lots of fun!

Nursery have been enjoying going to Whalley library. We have been looking at lots of different books and bringing them back to nursery to read throughout the week. We also enjoy doing some colouring whilst we are there.

 

WORLD BOOK DAY <3

We had lots of fun on World Book Day! We loved seeing everyone in their fabulous costumes! We made some sheep biscuits. Did some fairytale colouring. Created our own book front covers and made some bookmarks.

With the weather starting to become nicer, we have enjoyed playing outside. We have been playing with the bubbles, digging and planting.

PANCAKE DAY 🙂 We had lots of fun colouring pancakes. We also made our own pancakes and got the chance to try lots of different toppings. We also did some cutting and sticking and chose which topping we liked best to put on our pancakes.

 

VALENTINES DAY!!

What a busy week we have had! We have been making lots of valentines crafts and cards for our family. We enjoyed making rice crispy cakes. Today we have welcomed parents into nursery for a valentines afternoon, we made different crafts, played outside, read stories and played with all our toys!! We have ALL really enjoyed it and can't wait to do something similar again soon! 🙂

 

Our walk to Spring wood! We had lots of fun walking around Springwood, we found some "woodland treasure" and looked at the different coloured leaves on the trees!

 

Last week we looked at weather! We were looking at the different types of weather and what we would need to wear in all types of weather. We looked at rain in the water tray. Made our own water printed rainbows. Looked at muddy footprints by using wellies and paint. And painted our own rain cloud and raindrops.

 

CHINESE NEW YEAR!!

We have loved celebrating Chinese new year! We have made our own card lanterns, used yellow and red tissue paper to make a paper lantern. The children have also enjoyed trying on some traditional outfits and some Chinese food. We watched videos of how they celebrate Chinese new year and some of the special traditions they do.

 

Fun in the snow! The children had lots of fun playing in the snow this week! We were listening to the sounds the snow makes when we stand on it.

 

WOW!! What a fun day we've had at Mrs Dowsons Christmas Experience!!

We started off by walking into the Winter Wonderland which was full of christmas trees and snow and then sat down to decorate our own gingerbread! We then went into Santa's mail room which was so messy! So we had to help pick the bag of letters up and put them back into the boxes! We also made some reindeer food to take home to sprinkle on Christmas eve! We then went to read a Christmas story before we got to meet Father Christmas!! When we went in, Father Christmas was fast asleep! We had to shout really loud to wake him up! We then all had chance to sit next to him and tell him all about the things we have wished for on our christmas lists and he then gave us all a candy cane! It was then time to go and see some animals! We saw horses, donkeys, llamas, goats, cows and even some calves which were only 5 days old and so cute!! After dinner we played on the play area before going to visit the rabbits! We stroked them and talked about how soft and fluffy they were.

What a fantastic start to the christmas celebrations 🙂

 

Nursery Rhyme Week!! 🙂 We have been looking at lots of different nursery rhymes this week and doing lots of fun activities as well. We played with the boats in the water, made our own twinkly stars. Tried cutting the wool of Baa Baa black sheep. Did some cutting and sticking to make a 5 little speckled frog picture. We also played in the ice outside and tried to free the fish using different tools.

 

The children have enjoyed playing outside on our new stage! They have been creating performances whether its singing, dancing, counting or even just talking! Some children have loved just watching their friends!

 

Children In Need!!

For Children In Need, we wore yellow clothes and did lots of fun activities. We had to paint Pudseys spots back onto his bandana. We had our face painted to look like Pudsey! We even painted a big Pudsey in the tuff tray and had to paint him using cotton buds.We also decorated some Pudsey biscuits which the children said were really yummy!! 🙂

 

After visiting the cenotaph, we decided to make poppy related crafts. We painted a giant poppy in the tuff tray using cotton buds! We painted our own poppies either using our fingers or paint brushes We also created our own poppies using the playdough! Some children made one big one or some made several tiny ones. The children practiced their cutting skills by cutting out different sized poppies to make into a wreath on a paper plate.

 

Some of our preschoolers enjoyed walking up to the cenotaph to place our wreath we had made. In nursery we have talked about why we celebrate Remembrance Day and completed our 2 minutes silence. We also had a look in some of the shop windows and saw a Paddington teddy which some children were very excited about ad they were going to watch Paddington 3 at the cinema!!

 

The children have loved talking about Bonfire night! We have used cardboard tubes to make firework pictures. We have been chalking in the tuff tray trying to draw our own fireworks. We even made our own sparkler breadsticks for our snack and they were very yummy!:) We also used the playdough to try and make different types of fireworks and sparklers!

 

HALLOWEEN!!

Wow! What a busy week! We have done lots of spooky and fun activities this week. We have been gluing and sticking to make our own cauldrons. We have been using a potato masher to make our pumpkin pictures! We have had the gellibaff in the water tray with mini cauldrons and pumpkins. We have even made our own pumpkin tea light holders and painted spooky faces on them!

We made spiders out of the playdough! Had a Halloween party where we dressed up in our scary costumes and Miss Ishack painted our faces! We had a pumpkin soup tuff tray which the children loved mixing all the different ingredients together!

We've had such a fun week! 🙂

HALF TERM!! 🙂

Nursery had lots of Halloween fun over half term! We made bat and pumpkin paper plates! We also made some 'mummy' biscuits and decorated them! We made a halloween cake using lots of different halloween treats! We also made some autumn crafts using hedgehog templates and leaves that we had collected!

 

This week we have really enjoyed reading Room on the broom!! We have been dressing up like the witch from the story and talking about all the other different characters. We have made some mini witches and been colouring different witch pictures!

 

Last week nursery had lots of fun going to the market! We looked at all the different stalls and even tried some of their different foods! We tried some different cheeses and looked at all the different vegetables. We also bought some new things to try for our snack 🙂

 

We have recently been on a walk around the school grounds looking and talking about preposition! The children enjoyed finding the different animals on different objects!

Our trip to Springwood!

Some of the preschoolers enjoyed a walk through Springwood! We saw lots of 'Autumnal treasure' such as pine cones, acorns and leaves of an oak tree! We also saw a small waterfall that a bird was drinking out of! We also played a listening game and we heard cows, sirens and lots of cars! 🙂

 

Nursery have really enjoyed doing some autumnal crafts this week! We have been using the leaves we collected to print on the hedgehogs and using a scrubbing brush to create autumn leaves on the trees!

 

Whilst at the library the children showed interest in volcanos so in nursery we have been trying out an experiment! We made our own paper mache volcano and used vinegar and baking soda to make it fizz and explode!

 

This week in the forest we enjoyed using the scissors to cut the leaves and weeds. We talked about things that happen in autumn such as the leaves changing colour and how they start to fall of the trees! We also found some mushrooms!

 

In nursery we have enjoyed making our own scarecrow faces! We painted their faces and chose what colour eyes they wanted them to have!

 

The preschoolers enjoyed going on a trip to Whalley library! We did lots of different activities whilst we were there such as colouring, building with the blocks and dressing up! We went on the bus on the way there and got the train back! The children got their own 'travel card' which they were very excited about and can't wait to go back! 🙂

 

In September we have enjoyed celebrating lots of birthdays! The children enjoyed bringing in their cakes to share with their friends 🙂

 

On woodland Wednesday we enjoyed doing a colour scavenger hunt and found lots of autumnal things! We also saw lots of insects and bugs such as snails, slugs and a beetle! We read our new book "The Leaf Thief" and had some marshmallows! 🙂

 

We finally had some sun!! 🙂 The children had lots of fun playing with our new water wall! We enjoyed filling and emptying the containers and watching the water come out of the funnels and tubes!

 

Nursery have enjoyed looking at the signs of the start of autumn! We had lots of fun using our fingers to paint the different coloured leaves on the tree 🙂

 

We had lots of fun at our first week back at Diddy Dribblers! We played different cone games and practiced balancing on our footballs!

 

After talking to the children about their interests, nursery have had lots of fun using the dinosaurs and other animals to free paint! 🙂

Nursery has recently visited the forest. we read Owl Babies, listened to the different noises around us, collected leaves for our craft owls and had fun playing in the mud.

We collected Broad Beans from our garden and the children enjoyed making a curry using spices with Miss Ishack 🙂

 

We are so excited to start the Autumn term, we have enjoyed lots of activities to settle in. We visited the garden and found lots of apples on the tree which we have used in our learning.

 

We've had lots of fun looking at the alphabet this week, we've used the magnetic letters to match them!

 

We have been looking at different vehicles this week. We loved making vehicles out of biscuits and sweeties 🙂

 

We enjoyed playing in the sunshine last week and made the most of playing on the trim trail and the grass. The children loved balancing and climbing 🙂

 

We had so much fun making our zoo tuff tray! We talked about what animals live in a zoo and what kind of habitat they live in. The children then made the tuff tray themselves 🙂

 

We had fun in the tuff tray playing with shaving foam, we made ice creams and took turns with our friends 🙂

 

We've been reading Teddy Bears picnic this week and singing the song. We have made teddy bears out of playdough, had a picnic in the water tray and watched the teddy bear dance on the screen. On Friday we had a picnic at the park, we played on the equipment and ate barney bears with our friends 🙂

 

We had so much fun at diddy dribblers with our parents! They joined in with some of the skills we have learned 🙂

 

The children loved making fathers day cards this week. They chose different designs and practiced there writing 🙂

This week at nursery the children have been learning about patterns. They have been working together to copy the different patterns with our different coloured bricks 🙂

 

We have been to the tree hut this week practicing our listening skills. We've been listening to the different sounds and describing what we can see. The children also really enjoyed reading stories in the tree hut 🙂

 

We have had lots of fun at Diddy Dribblers, we learnt different balancing skills, turn taking, football skills and new gross motor skills 🙂

We have been practicing cutting our own snack at nursery, we've been using knives to chop fruit for our friends 🙂

 

We have been planting sunflower seeds in our greenhouse. We scooped our soil in to the pot, buried our seeds and watered them. We then painted our own sunflowers in nursery 🙂

 

We've had so much fun at our Teddy Bears picnic! We all brought in our teddy bears, had our faces painted and made head bands for our picnic. We made teddy bear pictures and enjoyed talking about our teddies from home 🙂

 

We've been reading Superworm in nursery and talking about the different sizes of the insects in the story. We went digging in the garden looking for worms. We've been using tweezers to find insects in the sand and using our motor skills to make wiggly worms out of playdough.

 

We have been reading the hungry caterpillar book in nursery and watching our caterpillars grow. They turned in to cocoons and we waited patiently for them to turn in to butterflies. We talked about healthy food and made fruit kebabs. Once the butterflies had hatched from there cocoons we took them outside to let them go 🙂

 

We had so much fun visiting the care home! We went down to the river and did a bug hunt! We sat and watched ducklings and goslings in the river with some of the residents from the care home 🙂

 

We've had fun in the sun! We have been exploring the garden, digging in the soil and looking for bugs! We found some dandelions and watered the flowers. We had fun on the slide and playing on the trim trail. We also made an obstacle course to practice our balancing.

 

We have had so much fun exploring in the forest and making tree decorations using sticks and string!

 

We have been busy playing in our outdoor ice cream shop! We have taken it in turns to be the shop keeper and serve ice cream to our friends 🙂

 

Our Nursery trip to Mrs Dowsons farm 🙂

We fed the lambs, goats, llamas, cows, horses, water buffalo, mules and donkey. We met Flopsy, Dopsy and Marshmallow the rabbits. Then it was time for our lunch and to have a little recharge before playtime!!! Finally our day ended with an ice cream tasting session 🙂

 

Over the past few weeks, we have read the books Elmer, where we explored colour and similarities and differences, the book Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, where we explored sizes and also made and tasted porridge!!! Outside we've had fun making and listening to environmental sounds, and enjoyed time developing our physical skills. Balancing has been a focus skill we have been learning. We went on a signs of spring hunt round our school grounds, we learnt lots of new words and looked at the seasonal changes happening such as finding buds and blossom. The term has been wound up enjoying Easter fun, we made Easter decorations at the care home on our visit, and had an egg hunt in nursery! We are all ready for a rest over the Easter holidays.

 

This week we have continued with People who help us and the occupations were Doctors, Lollipop people and Dentists. Our boxes from junk modelling were transformed into boats by the children and we rowed the boats merrily down the stream. Home learning was to fill in a toothbrushing chart and the children got a certificate for this task. As it was St. Davids day, we looked at Daffodils and had a go at painting them using our visual art skills.

 

Our topic is People Who Help Us and what a fun time we are having learning about them all!!! We've learnt what vets do when they look after animals, made a fire engine so we can all be fire fighters and been following the rules being police!! We've been working on our fine motor skills with playdough, stickers and tweezers. In Diddy Dribblers this week we have practised our climbing, balancing and jumping!!!

 

Nursery have been so busy!!! Our books have been Lost and Found, so we learnt about Penguins - making icecaps in the water, looking at maps of the world seeing where Penguins live and doing visual art of Penguins! Emotions are mentioned in the story so we talked about this using The Colour Monsters, and enjoyed threading friendships bracelets whilst chatting about being a good friend. To support math we used the octopus and put the correct numbers of cheerios on the numbered 1-8 legs! On the bus this week we enjoyed a trip to Whalley library, we listened to some stories and had to vote for our favourite book. Another book we have looked at is When will it be Spring, discussing the emerging signs of spring and that it is still winter and animals are hibernating. We made animal nests out of different medias and materials, and baked a hedgehog cake as nursery said this is their favourite animal, whilst baking we explored the weighing scales We made hedgehogs out of playdough too.

 

Nursery have not stopped these last 2 weeks! We've welcomed back faces old and new and settled back into our routines. We've reflected on Christmas and enjoyed learning all about the new year. Our books have been Ten Little Lights and Whatever Next which the children particularly enjoyed! We've zoomed to the moon, wearing our colander space helmets and eaten our picnics! Diddy Dribblers has focused on not only ball skills, but listening skills too. Then the snow arrived and it was all about exploring it and having fun, we built a snowman and made snow angels. In our water tray we investigated the ice!

 

What a December! We've had Nativity, a visit from The Nest farm School, 2 christmas parties, 1 at Violets cafe in Clitheroe and 1 in the school hall. We've made cards, calendars, reindeer food, stockings, elfie selfies and so many more sparkly Christmas crafts. We've posted wish lists to santa and visited the crib. We decorated the nursery with Christmas decorations and enjoyed Mr. Jingle, our elf, causing mischief everyday! We've enjoyed dress up and jumper day, Christmas lunch and we have visited our friends at the nursing home to sing Christmas songs!

Since our last update, nursery have enjoyed Nursery Rhyme week, Children in Need day, Forest School, Going on a Bear Hunt and a visit to Whalley Abbey! We have practised our scissor skills using leaves and other natural resources.

 

We've had a busy 2 weeks since we returned after the half term. We've enjoyed the seasonal themes of Halloween and Bonfire, learning all about staying safe but having fun. We have printed, glued, cut, painted and explored different media making different pictures and crafts. We have also learnt about Diwali, our book 'Dipal's Diwali' taught us all about the Hindu festival of lights and we had fun with saltdough making tealight holders. For Harvest festival we had a visit from Rev. Humphreys who talked to us all about the meaning of Harvest and the importance of it. For Remembrance day we visited to Cenotaph to take a wreath we had made out of our handprints. On our walk to the Castle we had so much fun looking for numbers, letters, poppies and we looked in the shop windows.........they are beginning to look alot like Christmas!

 

Wow, what a busy past few weeks since our last update! We enjoyed the last burst of sunshine we had and spent lots of time ouside, visiting the garden, building and constructing, practising on the scooters. We went on a shape hunt around the local housing estate pointing out and spotting shapes in our environment. The school rounds are the perfect host for our autumn walk where we found lots of autumn treasure and learnt new vocabulary, we also ventured further out to Springwood to observe and look at seasonal changes. We've explored Autumn colours in lots of different ways. In our playdough area we've made spiders, pumpkins and cakes! Language for size has also been explored as well as positional language and sounds we can hear. Our books have been a big part of our learning, enjoying Funnybones stories, looking at body parts, Room on the Broom for story sequencing and looking at characters and Meg and Mog for a seasonal book!

 

Welcome to our new year in nursery, we have welcomed back our friends and made new ones too! Our theme is 'All about me', looking at our families and friends, and looking at our facial features and hair colour. We have introduced 2D shapes, talking about their names and properties and finding them around our room. Diddy Dribblers has started again for this school year, we have been having fun with the balls and practising jumping. We have made a Family photo album of photos and drawings and had a great time talking about our families, we are practising our good listening skills to listen to each other.

 

Its the final week of the term and the academic year! We aren't sure we could have fit anymore in 🙂 We've held our Pre-school leavers celebrations, including a buffet lunch, we are sad to see them go but happy that they are starting the new chapter of their learning journey. We visited the garden to see how our seedlings were growing and the 'Fairies' had left us a treat for such a good year! In nursery we've explore the sensory circle textures with our feet, and in our home corner the children have enjoyed trying on uniform in the dress up area. We brought our favourite teddy to nursery for show and tell, and we held a teddy bears picnic whilst visiting the park. We have also enjoyed end of term treats, Shake Magic visited nursery and school and we enjoyed lovely milkshakes, and the bouncy castles came for a day, that was great fun! This week was also our last visit to the nursing home before the summer break, traditional games were enjoyed. We hope everyone has a fabulous summer break 🙂

 

The children have had a great time observing the lifecycle of our caterpillars, we waited, checking daily until eventually 5 beautiful butterfly's emerged. We continued to look after them for a few days before we let them go outside to start the lifecycle again! We have read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to support this and we also used this theme in our creative activities. We printed our own caterpillar pictures, painted our own butterflies using a picture as a visual, and decorating our own butterflies by gluing and sticking! We've enjoyed bubbles, mini beast themed tuff tray activities, football on the top field, fun in the home corner and water tray and our visit to the nursing home was to enjoy traditional games of targets and boules! What a busy time 🙂

 

Phew! What a hot couple of weeks we've had! The only thing for it was lots and lots of water play in the shade! We used pots, pans, pipes, squeezy bottles and funnels to explore whilst cooling off!!! Fathers day cards were our main messy activity this week. Our caterpillars have arrived to observe the lifecycle from caterpillar to a butterfly and they are big already.........watch this space.....! Last week we enjoyed a trip on the bus to Springwood where we looked at the seasonal summer changes looked for insects and at the plants and flora!

 

This week the fairies have visited our garden area and we have had lots of interest from the children, we can't wait to see what we can learn from them! Outdoor play has been a big focus this week, enjoying the glorious weather, the cosy book nook has been a well visited area as its lovely and shady! Outdoors we have also been practising our balance skills. This week we visited the care home, we helped celebrate one of the residents 80th birthday, we made him a card and sang happy birthday. We went on a walk into Sawley and looked around the Abbey. The children learn't the words fragile, as some areas were fenced off due to them being fragile, and also ruins, as a words to describe the buildings/stones that are left. As well as a good run around we discovered a tunnel and had a chat about what it once was and we also looked at the signs showing pictures of how the Abbey used to look. When we got back to nursery we had a look at all our photos and decided we would like to visit Whalley Abbey in the future too.

The Kings Coronation has been the focus of our activities over the last couple of weeks, we wore red white and blue, enjoyed a picnic lunch and made The King a card which we posted to Buckingham Palace. The children have decorated crowns and got messy in our coronation themed trays. We also visited the nursing home where we went on a walk to feed the ducks by the river, we had a little quiz answering questions about out surroundings such as 'How many ducks could we see?'. Carrying on our topic of natural world and garden, we planted some flower seeds and vegetable seeds and we also tried some Honey as we have been talking about Bees!

 

Our themes after the Easter holidays have been Elmer, and looking at similarities and differences, we have also learnt all about St. George and the dragon as it has been St Georges day and how we can look after Planet Earth as it has been Earth day! We have enjoyed our new outdoor areas also and had a whole nursery visit to the school forest and garden!

 

The last couple of weeks before we break up for Easter have been lots of fun!! We've enjoyed learning about 'Healthy Body Happy Me' which involved activities around stories, movement, water play, STEM and nature. We planted sunflower seeds and looked at their life cycle, how to care for them and we also used our physical skills to pretend we were a seed and rose and stretched up to be a tall plant. Easter activities included cards, number reel printing, painting and egg matching. The police visited nursery and we all got a turn in the back of the van and pressing the siren....that was great fun. We visited Ribble Valley care home again and enjoyed a hunt for the Easter Bunny's carrots, we also exchanged Easter cards.

It was hard to choose which photos to share this week, Nursery have been so busy! We enjoyed colour activities and learning about the 'Holi' festival, we expanded it by looking at mixing colours too. Outside we have been building obstacle courses as a way to practice balancing. Mothers Day crafts, water play, builders, and number learning have also been focus activities this week. Ridley and Evie were our sporting superstars for Diddy Dribblers 🙂

Nursery are very lucky to have started making links with Ribble valley Care Home in Sawley and we enjoyed our first visit on Monday. We had to go on the bus which was very exciting! At the care home we met some lovely residents, we enjoyed singing nursery rhymes, colouring and building blocks.

 

Such a lot going on in Nursery over the last few weeks. We enjoyed pancake day, we talked about toppings, healthy and treat ones, and then had fun topping our own! The children chose the train track in the tuff tray this week. At forest school we had a go at using tools and scissors to support our fine motor development and we enjoyed a hot chocolate around the camp fire. The preschoolers enjoyed outdoor games to support maths such as 'What time is it Mr. Wolf'. For St. Davids days we explored the parts of a daffodil and then had a go at painting our own! On Thursday we celebrated World Book Day, it was great to see the children's favourite characters and talk about their favourite books.

 

We have celebrated Chinese New Year at nursery. We decorated lanterns and Chinese Dragons, we tried prawn crackers and spring rolls and discussed what this celebration means. We danced like Chinese dragons using materials too.

We have also been reading lots of stories as part of National Storytelling week, nursery's favourite being 'The 3 Little Pigs'. In our tuff tray we experimented building using hay, sticks and blocks to see which was the 'strongest' material. The children were very excited to show us their 'written' plans of building their houses! Outside we practiced directions and balancing.

 

This week the children helped us get our nursery shopping from Lidl, it was a great opportunity to look at numbers on price tags, discuss healthy snacks and what we have as treats, pay at the till and even share and take turns with the little trolleys! 'Whatever Next' has been our book this week, we used this as an opportunity to build rocket for nursery and also have a go at making our own individual ones too. We couldn't miss out on an opportunity to enjoy the seasonal weather and we had great fun exploring the snow, we learnt lots of words to describe it using our senses to explore it!

 

Happy New Year! The children quickly settled back into nursery after our break for the holidays. We have been reading 'Ten Little Lights' looking at the different animals, numbers 1-10 and winter, using the story to practice sequencing. The preschoolers have been practicing their 'writing' with thank you letters to Father Christmas. We have been using our fine motor skills to make bird feeders to help the birds through winter. In the creative workshop we looked at different colours and matched them in a finger painting activity.

Christmas has hit nursery these last couple of weeks..........and what fun we have had!!! Mr Jingles has been causing mischief since his arrival from the North Pole, the children have enjoyed arriving each morning to see what messages he left us! We've made Reindeer food, snowman soup, Christmas cards and spread glittery cheer all over! The children performed their Nativity, it was so nice to see everyone's mummy's, daddy's and grandparents when they came to watch. We have also used the cold weather in our learning looking at the elements of winter, we explored the ice!

Brookside Nursery wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

 

Children in need activities were so much fun in nursery, we enjoyed talking about Pudsey, who visited nursery and set us a number hunt around school! We talked about the spots on his bandana, using our fingers to paint out own! We also had sensory Pudsey activities in our tuff tray, the week ended with a pyjama day. The preschoolers are learning great skills with Diddy Dribblers! We were very lucky to be given some big boxes, it was brilliant, ho knew how many ways the children could use it!!! Next stop in nursery........Christmas 🙂

 

We enjoyed a visit to the Cenotaph on Monday to place our wreath. We made a wreath using the children's handprints to create a poppy. We talked about the words Cenotaph, Statue, Soldier, Poppy, and Wreath. Whilst out and about we used the opportunity to talk about what we could see, the children were eager to point out poppies and wooden soldiers in the town and shops windows! On the way back we called in Tesco to do some shopping, the children chose lots of healthy fruit and snacks. We also placed our harvest festival tins in the foodbank whilst we were there.

 

Nursery have been so busy these last couple of weeks! Halloween was a great time, we enjoyed dressing up and playing spooky games, we even decorated a cake with spooky treats! The children visited the market one very wet Thursday and they chose the biggest pumpkin they could find! We learnt new words for size! Before we visited the market we wrote shopping lists in our writing area. We celebrated Harvest festival by collecting donations for us to deliver to the foodbank and enjoyed some harvest dancing with the scarecrows. The boys asked for the diggers in the sand this week so we've had a great time building and constructing.

 

Carrying on our Autumn theme at nursery we have had lots of opportunities to explore the seasonal items in lots of various ways such as apple printing, playdough sensory trays and tree handprints. Forest school session begun as part of the journey on nursery and school having qualified forest school leaders. Dinosaur world was built in the tuff tray, the children had great fun and we discussed lots of new words for our word jar.

 

We have enjoyed our Autumn walk around Highmoor, we invited our Mummy's and Daddy's too! We looked for Autumn treasures such as berries, leaves, nuts and conkers......and found other natural items such as feathers and wool. We talked about safety when we found barbed wire and the cattle grid. When we got back to nursery we explored our treasures using all our senses, having a look at the plant names, which berries are safe to eat and talked about which birds the feathers could have come from! We had a great time.

 

We have had a very fun start to our year in nursery, we have welcomed back our friends and made new ones too! We have been looking at the theme 'All About Me' talking about our families and friends, and looking at our facial features and hair colour. We have been reading 'The Gruffalo', and even had a go at making Gruffalo Crumble, using the apples from our trees in the garden, It was delicious. Diddy Dribblers has started again for this school year, it's great practising our ball skills and using our gross motor skills. We brought our favourite teddy in to share at circle time, we took turns telling our friends all about them and then used good listening skills to listen to each other.