For the art exhibition for nursery, we displayed all our brilliant artwork on minibeasts. 

In the past few weeks after reading many stories about minibeasts, such as 'the very hungry caterpillar', 'the very busy spider', and 'what the ladybird heard', we took some of our minibeast artwork into the exhibition to be displayed. 

We took a selection of artwork that we had used different media to create. We displayed independent paintings, drawings, chalk drawings, collage work, and minibeast models that we had made using clay. 

We were really proud of our nursery display and how brilliant the nursery art work was.

It was also great to see the nursery children having a look at other year groups art. They had a great time looking and talking about the different art work. 

This week the nursery have been learning about owls. We read the story 'Wow! said the owl' and learned some facts about owls.

We learned owls wake up at night time, they have sharp claws to hunt, owl babies are called owlets and that they can nearly turn their head all the way round!

We created our own owls by firstly drawing an owl and then sticking brown feathers on our drawing. 

We selected the right colours to independently paint owls. 

This week has been a busy week taking part in lots of different creative activities for 'Access All Arts' week. 

We started the week with clay and enjoyed feeling the texture of the clay and moulding it into shape using our fingers. We created insects, caterpillars, ladybirds and spiders connected to stories that we had read about mini beasts.

When the clay had dried we painted our insects. 

In connection to our story 'Colour and Me'. We used mini rollers to mix lots of different colours together to create new colours.

We talked about what colours we were using and what happened after we mixed the colours together.

We mixed colours that helped us create orange, brown and purple. 

After using the mini rollers to mix paint together we used the large rollers outside to make patterns. We dipped the rollers into paint and then rolled them along long sheets of paper to create patterns. 

We created streamers by cutting and sticking tissue paper.

We used our streamers in a music and movement dance session. We had lots of fun moving our bodies to the rhythm of the beat and waving our streamers around. 

Finally we also used lots of junk modelling boxes, tubes, tubs and materials to create insects. 

We selected the boxes and materials we wanted to use and used sellotape to stick it together. We then painted the models we had created. 

This week we have continued the Wild Life Trust - 30 Days Wild challenge and combined it with our Sky Arts week. All of our learning has been based around the story 'Superworm'.

Each day we have used our creative talents in different ways....

We have been photographers, creating a scene to put our play dough creature into and then used the IPads to photograph our scene. With some fantastic results!

Superworm is super because he helps all of his friends. We thought about how we are all individuals and that we are SUPER too!
We all look different but we are all special. We looked at our hair and realised that although it might be the same colour, length, and style as each other, no one had the same hair.
We used charcoal to represent our faces and hair.

We have been actors, learning to use our voices in different ways as we chanted part of the rhyme from the 'Superworm' story. We started with quiet voices and each time got louder.

We have been musicians thinking about how music can make us feel and how it can change our mood.
We listened to a clip of music and matched it to different parts in our story. When the music was quiet and gentle, Superworm was happy. As the music got louder and lower, it matched the wicked wizard lizard, plotting to capture Superworm. At the end of the music, there was a drum roll which matched when there was a rumbling sound as Superworm re-appeared and was free.
We then explored how we could use different instruments to represent each creature in the story; a steady beat for the jumping frog, a tinkling tambourine for the bees flying and a scraping instrument for Superworm as he slithers through the earth.

We have used movement and made shapes with our bodies to represent many of the characters from the story. We stretched our bodies out long to make Superworm. We worked with our friends to make a caterpillar and a snail and we even managed to make a butterfly.

We have been poets by listening to the words in the story and identifying those words that rhyme. As the story was read, we joined in the the rhyming words.

We have really loved this Sky Arts week!

In maths this week we have continued to consolidate our doubles knowledge. We have used our ladybird cards, adding the same number to both wings so that we have the number twice, the number is doubled. We also played a game, rolling the dice and adding that double to our ladybirds.

In keeping with our 'Superworm' story, we have also ordered the numbers to 20 on a worm, using each number as a segment of the worms body.

We continue to practice our digraphs, trigraphs and tricky words during our phonic sessions.  The words we are reading are challenging us to use all that we have learned over the year, and we are trying extremely hard to read with more fluency. Here are some of the sentences we have been reading this week.

We write words and sentences daily, either linked to our phonics lessons, or based on our story of the week, this week 'Superworm'. 

We have continued our 30 Days Wild challenge during Forest school. We have picked litter, made bark rubbings, read stories, been on a scavenger hunt, listened to the sounds around us, hugged a tree and used our bodies to make different mini-beasts.

Over the past few weeks we have been learning about different insects. Last week we looked at caterpillars, so this week we based our learning on butterflies. We talked about life cycles and butterflies coming out of the cocoon. 

We got creative creating butterflies using different media. We used different printing objects to print on one side of the paper. We used the word 'symmetrical' as we printed on one side and then folded the paper over, pressed down and opened the paper to reveal a symmetrical pattern.

We used pencils to draw butterflies, we used chalk, we used collage materials such as tissue paper, we painted butterflies independently on the easel and we used construction toys and shapes to create butterflies. 

Individual butterfly paintings.

Our butterfly drawings.

This week we had a visit from a lady who works at HSBC.  She came to teach us about the coins we use when we go shopping.

We learned that there are 8 coins, all different shapes and sizes. We did some coin rubbings and tried really hard to remember which coin is which. 

We pretended to go on a treasure hunt, having to complete 8 different movements with our body to find the treasure. The 8 movements reminded us that there are 8 different coins.

She talked to us about saving our money either in a money box at home or in an account at the bank.

Over the last few weeks we have loved learning about different insects, so continued this week with bees. This links in with the '30 Days Wild' challenge that the Wildlife Trust promotes. 

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/30dayswild - see here for more details

We have based some of our learning around the story; 'Bee my friend' alongside non-fiction books, giving us interesting facts. 

He have learned that bees live in a hive and they make honey using the nectar from flowers.  Bees have a straw-like mouth the same as the butterflies to drink the nectar. 

We have created bees and hives using many of our creative skills. 

We were very excited to taste honey. We dipped our bread and crackers into the honey and enjoyed the sweet taste. We said it was "sweet and sticky". 

We recorded who liked and who disliked honey on a chart. 

This week we had to pick the lettuce that we had grown, because the snails and slugs had begun to munch on it. We gave it a good wash to remove any soil then tried it at the same time we tasted honey.  

In maths this week we have been thinking about shapes.  We revisited our learning on tangrams and have spent time thinking about bee hives. Each cell of a bee hive is a hexagonal shape. We have created hexagons using 2 parallelograms and 3 diamonds. We then used these to create our own bee hive. 

In phonics this week we have revisited lots of our tricky words and are practicing spelling and writing them. 

We are continuing to blend and segment words as we read and write.

We are so pleased to announce that all have of our butterflies have hatched from their cocoons. We have been giving them orange segments, pineapple, kiwi and flower heads, alongside a sugary liquid to feed on and we have loved watching them drink this nectar and fluttering around the net. During our next Forest school session we will be setting them free. 

To link in with our learning on butterflies the children all created their own butterfly using natural materials.  Their challenge was to find leaves that were the same so that their butterflies had symmetrical wings. 

We were lucky enough to spot some butterflies basking in the sunshine.

Now that our butterflies have hatched from their cocoons and we have spent the week watching them it is time to set them free in the forest.

Congratulations to our EYFS winner Steffan for our whole school 'Crazy Scientist' dress-up competition! Well done to all those in EYFS who dressed up and entered the competition - once again, you made the decision very hard!

Steffan - we hope you enjoy your prize!

This week we have been learning about the life cycle of a caterpillar. We read the story 'The very hungry caterpillar', and talked about how the eggs hatch and then caterpillars pop out. Then the caterpillar eats and eats until he builds a cocoon and goes to sleep. When he wakes up and comes out of the cocoon he is a beautiful butterfly!

The children got creative using different media and created their own caterpillars. They used tissue paper and paper plates and made collage caterpillars, they used their hand eye coordination and cutting skills and cut out food and stuck it on the caterpillars tummy, they used their pencil skills to draw round caterpillars and they dressed up as caterpillars!

The children painted amazing independent caterpillar paintings!

Just before the half term break the children were introduced to some new insects who they are going to be watching very closely over the next few weeks. Each class was given a pot of tiny caterpillars!

During the week the caterpillars ate lots of food and began to spin their cocoons. 

When we returned to school we moved the cocoons from the pot into the cocoon station and into butterfly net. We are continuing to watch their progress closely. 

We have read the book; 'From Caterpillar to Butterfly' and have enjoyed learning about the life cycle and the changes that take place in a caterpillars life. 

We have produced lots of different art work, creating eggs on leaves, caterpillars, and butterflies using different medias. 

The children were eager to find out lots of information about caterpillars and butterflies so we created a list of questions and throughout the week we used our information books and Google on the computer to answer these. We learned that butterflies drink nectar through a straw-like mouth called a proboscis, they have two feelers and they can taste with their feet.

In maths this week, we have been consolidating our knowledge on doubling numbers and enjoyed playing an adding and subtracting game.

We also learned that a butterfly's wings are symmetrical, this means they look the same.

This week in phonics we have been practicing reading lots of our tricky words, some of these we learned when we first started in Reception.
We are encouraging the children to sound out other words in their heads and to read fluently, so that the words flow and sentences begin to make more sense.