We had the best time building a boat and going fishing with Miss Evans!
Gone fishing! 🎣🛶
Category : personal, social and emotional development
Potion Shop! 🧪✨
We have really been enjoying spending time outside in the Autumn sunshine, especially when we decided to set up our very own Potion Shop! We worked together as a crew, all with very different roles – making the potions, selling the potions and requesting more stock when we ran out, and buying the potions. It was lovely to hear such positive, kind, and polite language from everyone, and see leadership skills in action.
Crew challenge – parachute fun!
In our Crew Challenge, we were working as a whole crew to listen carefully to follow Miss McGlone’s instructions. We used the parachute as ‘waves’ and made big waves, little waves, and still waves. We then added a ball to the parachute as ‘sea treasure’ and we had to listen carefully and work together to move the ‘waves’ to the size that Miss McGlone called out, all without letting the ‘sea treasure’ roll off! We then added a smaller ball and had to try to keep BOTH pieces of sea treasure on the waves!
We then really tested our listening skills because we had to listen carefully to see if Miss McGlone shouted our name. If she did, we had to swap with the other name that was called before our crew brought the parachute down!
We worked really well together as a crew and we kept all the sea treasure safe! We felt really proud of our crew – great work Crew McGlone!
Crew challenge – build the tallest tower!
In Crew Challenge, we had to work in small teams to build the tallest free standing tower. We worked hard in our small sub-crews to try to communicate effectively so that our towers were not only tall, but capable of standing on their own without falling down! We enjoyed this challenge, and in our debrief we were very honest about how we could improve certain things to do this challenge again. We also talked about the things we found tricky, but said that these things were things to help us to do better next time.
Being a kind and respectful crew
This week we have continued to build on becoming familiar with our learning environment, working beautifully with other members of our crew, and treating our resources with respect. It has been lovely to see our crew being kind during choosing time.
Water Safety
Crew Godley have been exploring the important topic of water safety, learning how to stay safe in and around different water environments such as pools, rivers, and the sea. Through discussion and research, we developed an understanding of potential hazards, the importance of supervision, and how to respond in an emergency. To apply their learning, crew worked collaboratively to design informative posters aimed at younger year groups, focusing on clear messages, simple language, and eye-catching visuals to communicate key safety advice effectively. This project not only raised awareness of water safety but also helped us develop creativity and communication skills, while taking responsibility for promoting the wellbeing of others.
Cricket!
This week, Crew Frost were given another exciting opportunity to take part in a PE session with Legacy. The children showed fantastic enthusiasm and engagement throughout the session as they developed a range of important physical and social skills through team games and ball activities.
The stages of learning were carefully scaffolded to support the children’s understanding and confidence. We first began by practising simple rolling skills, working in teams to roll the ball back and forth to one another. Once the children became more confident, we moved on to practising aiming and throwing the balls at pins to score points for their teams, helping to develop hand-eye coordination, control, and turn-taking skills.
Finally, the children were introduced to bats and learned about the role of a bowler, including fetching the ball after it had been hit. The children absolutely loved this part of the activity and showed great excitement as they explored the different roles within the game. It was wonderful to see many of the children making links to their own past experiences and confidently talking about games and sports they have played before.
Activities like these help to build important skills for Reception, including listening and attention, following instructions, teamwork, coordination, and resilience. We were incredibly proud of the children’s amazing listening skills, positive attitudes, and encouragement towards one another throughout the session. Well done, Crew Frost!
Stay away from the sharks!
Last week, the children were busy developing and strengthening their balancing skills through a fun and exciting physical development activity. Together, we created our very own “bridges” to carefully walk across whilst making sure to stay away from the sharks underneath!
The children absolutely loved this activity and showed fantastic levels of concentration and determination as they carefully balanced their way across. It was wonderful to see the children naturally using their arms to support their balance and thinking carefully about how to move their bodies safely and with control. Activities like this are so important for developing core strength, coordination, spatial awareness, and overall gross motor skills, which all support children’s physical development and readiness for writing.
What made the activity even more special was watching the children encourage, motivate, and help one another as they took turns crossing the bridges. Crew Frost showed fantastic resilience when things felt tricky and demonstrated such kindness and teamwork throughout the activity. We are so proud of the way the children supported each other whilst building their confidence and physical skills. Well done, Crew Frost!
Storm Dragon
This week, Crew McGlone have been focusing on the story of ‘Storm Dragon’ by Dianne Hofmeyr. We have really enjoyed taking part in a sensory story to help support us with the structure and sequencing of events in the story.
Our writing this week saw us create ‘I can see’ sentences using a stimulus of a depiction of the storm dragon. We talked about the different parts of the storm dragon we could see, some of us even challenged ourselves by adding in some detail to our sentences to give a clearer description. We even used our sentence building knowledge in provision when drawing our own pictures.
We have also absolutely LOVED using our imagination and leading our own learning when accessing provision – we have created shelters to protect us from the storm, large scale models of the storm dragon, small world scenes of the story, created our own role play sensory story, made a collaborative collage dragon, made models out of playdough, made our own spyglasses to search for storm dragons, and lots of things in between!
Our first PE session!
Last week, our nursery children took part in their very first PE session, marking an exciting step in their learning journey as they begin to prepare for transition into Reception. This experience supported key areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage, particularly Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
The children showed fantastic listening skills as they followed instructions from Mr S, demonstrating growing confidence in responding to adult guidance. They were also increasingly aware of boundaries and space while using the field, which is an important aspect of developing both safety awareness and self-regulation.
It was wonderful to see the children engaging so enthusiastically in a range of activities, including dancing and group games. These experiences not only helped to develop their coordination and movement skills, but also encouraged teamwork, turn-taking and building positive relationships with their peers.
The session was thoroughly enjoyed by all, and we are very much looking forward to watching the children continue to grow in confidence and skill during future PE sessions.
