Goldstone Crescent
Dunstable
Beds
LU5 4QU
Phone: 01582 662600
Email: office@willownursery.co.uk
Nursery News 25th March 2024
NURSERY NEWS
25th March 2024 – Edition 329
Find out About
A. Term dates. Last day of Spring Term Thursday 28th March. School Re-opens Monday 15th April 2024 for the Summer Term.
B. Confirming parents choices for:
Catkins Class Offers for 3+ Nursery in September 2024 for children with dates of birth from 01/04/21 to 31/08/21 AND
Catkins Class Offers for 3+ Nursery in January 2025 for children with dates of birth from 01/09/21 to 31/12/21
C. What the children are learning about this week?
A. Term dates. Last day of Spring Term Thursday 28th March. School Re-opens Monday 15th April 2024 for the Summer term.
The last day of term for all children is Thursday 28th March. The Nursery is open for normal hours on this day. School re-opens for the Summer Term on Monday 15th April.
B. Confirming parents choices for:
Catkins Class Offers for 3+ Nursery in September 2024 for children with dates of birth from 01/04/21 to 31/08/21 AND
Catkins Class Offers for 3+ Nursery in January 2025 for children with dates of birth from 01/09/21 to 31/12/21
Thank you to all our parents who responded in a timely fashion when I sent out letters offering a place in our 3+Nursery. Parents were able to select which attendance pattern ‘Option’ they would like to choose for their child.
This is confirmation that all parents who returned their Options Form were able to have their first choice option.
We give parents in Catkins Class first choice of spaces for 3+ Nursery. We then go to our waitlist to fill all remaining spaces. All options forms are retained carefully and I begin building pupil lists.
Parents will receive 3+ Parent Packs, information about allocated Keyworkers and your child’s start date just before they begin in 3+ Nursery. So children joining 3+ in September 2024 will receive 3+ Parent Packs in July 2024. Children joining 3+ in January 2025 will receive 3+ Parent Packs in December 2024
C. What are the children are learning about this week?
The theme this week is Easter
In Catkins, the children will be using Lego to improve their fine motor skills. They will work hard to build with the Lego, while the staff talk to them about the colours of the bricks. Staff will model how to push and pull the pieces together and apart while encouraging the children to build big and small structures.
In the link, the children will be learning about Easter and decorating egg baskets and Easter cards. They will use fine motor skills to decorate simple baskets and bring home an egg from the Easter Bunny. Children will also be using pom poms dipped in paint to decorate cards and pictures to share with their families.
In the garden, staff will hide toy eggs for the children to find. They will look all around the garden for the collection of eggs and staff will model lots of language to describe where they might be hidden. Staff will explain to the children we sometimes we celebrate Easter with chocolate eggs.
In Room 3, the children will be retelling and acting out stories that we have learnt recently. Staff will support the children with remembering storylines and characters. The children will have access to toys, books and puppets to support their play. They can re-read some of these stories throughout the week.
In Room 2, children will be doing some still life painting. There will be some beautiful daffodils in a vase for the children to look at and paint. Staff will encourage the children to look closely at the colours of the flowers and the vase and to work carefully. They will be encouraged to really take their time and create a detailed piece of work.
In Room 1, the staff will be recapping the phonics sounds that the children have been learning while they play the ‘Bunny Hop’ game. Staff will encourage children to consider the sounds that each letter makes, and think of words that begin with those letters.
Outside, the children from Big Nursery will go on an Easter egg hunt, they will go out into the garden in small groups and search the area for a chocolate egg. When they have found their egg, the children can sit together in their group and eat their prize.
Throughout the week, the children will be making bunny hats. They can use these hats to pretend that they are the Easter Bunny. Children will be having lots of fun, taking part in Easter Bunny races and will be showing everyone how well they can hop.
NURSERY NEWS
18th March 2024 – Edition 328
Find out About
A. Term dates. Last day of Spring Term Thursday 28th March. School Re-opens Monday 15th April 2024 for the Summer Term.
B. Willow Nursery School Academic Calendar 2024-2025 is now available on our website.
C. An Open School Event: Big Nursery ‘Phonics’.
D. What the children are learning about this week?
A. Term dates. Last day of Spring Term Thursday 28th March. School Re-opens Monday 15th April 2024 for the Summer term.
The last day of term for all children is Thursday 28th March. The Nursery is open for normal hours on this day. School re-opens for the Summer Term on Monday 15th April.
B. Willow Nursery School Academic Calendar 2024-2025 is now available on our website:
If parents look on our website www.willownursery.co.uk and click on the calendar tab, you will be able to see our academic calendar for 2024-2025.
As a school, we always follow the calendar that Central Bedfordshire Local Authority suggests, however this year each school was required to select their own 5 training days.
(Training days are when schools are closed to pupils, to allow teachers and support staff to receive training.)
Therefore, please be aware that Willow’s training days may be different to other schools in the local area.
C. An Open School Event. Big Nursery ‘Phonics’.
Miss Howe would like to invite all parents of Big Nursery Children to come in and watch your child take part in their phonics session, during week beginning Monday 15th April. Sessions run at three different times throughout the week. The school office will send emails to parents this week, inviting parents to attend on a particular day and time (wk beginning 15th April), as groups are based on your child’s attendance days and not their Keyworker groups. Sessions last around 30 minutes.
We try to offer a variety of Open School Activities both during the school day and in the early evening, hoping that parents might be able to attend some of them. We understand parents have different family and work commitments, so we do not expect all parents to attend. It is just another option….
D What are the children are learning about this week?
The theme this week is ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’
In Catkins, the children will be listening to the story of We’re Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen throughout the week. They will also be taking a look at some colour matching skills, where they can post different coloured balls into pockets, pots and boxes. Staff will help the children name the colours as the children play.
In the Link, the children will be making binoculars and creating simple maps. The children will include simple representations of each area that the characters from our story visit as they go ‘on a bear hunt’. Staff will retell the story to the children as they work.
Outside, the staff will create an area for the children to collect and transport balls. There will be guttering slopes set up for the children to roll balls down and into trays, as well as buckets for them to practice throwing and posting balls towards targets. Moving the balls around the garden will support the children with their gross motor skills.
In Room 3, the children will have a small world story area set up where they can begin to retell the bear hunt story. There will be characters and scenes from the book for the children to use as they play. Staff will model language from the story to extend the children’s vocabulary and encourage them to join in with repeated refrains. (Repeated refrains are the sentences that are repeated over and over again in stories. The repeated refrains in this book include: ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ and ‘We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, oh no, we’ve got to go through it.)
In Room 2, the children will have story scenes and characters set up in the builder’s tray so that they can retell the ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’ book through play. Staff will work with children to help them recall key scenes from the book and they will emphasise phonics letters and sounds that we have been learning. Children will begin to recognise that words such as ‘swishy’, ‘swashy’ and ‘scared’ all begin with the letter ‘s’.
In Room 1, the children will make very detailed sensory maps that retrace the steps taken by the characters from the story. They will be encouraged to talk about what they can remember from the story and what the different scenes might have felt like to walk through. Staff will use descriptive language as they talk to the children.
Outside, the children will look for scenes from the story that will be placed around the garden. The children will take staff around the garden on the lookout for some bears. As the children hunt for bears, they will be encouraged to retell the story through song and actions.
On Wednesday, Mrs Patterson will take over Room 2 completely, and create a wonderful large scale sensory bear hunt trail for all of the children to take part in. Small groups of children will get to walk through sensory scenes that include, grass, water, mud, trees and snow until they reach a cave. They might even find a bear at the end of the trail!
