Welcome to Polar Bears!

We are nursery!
Our day consists of a balance between child-led play and adult-led focus activities. We love learning and exploring through play following our own interests so our activites are active, engaging and, most of all, FUN!

In Polar Bears, we are split into three key worker groups:

• Snowy Owls - Miss Wright
• Huskies - Mrs Wilkinson
• Reindeer - Mrs Brown
  
  We are also lucky enough to have Miss Higgins and Miss Williams in nursery to help us to!
  
  We use these groups for register time and circle time activities to ensure teaching is focused to our needs.

Beach Day!

We had loads of fun on our 'beach day' today - again, crossing another request off our list before moving to reception!

We splashed in the paddling pool, kicked and threw the giant beach footballs, made sandcastles in our sand pit and enjoyed the ice lollies we had made on the morning!

One child said:

"I love this, it is like having a big family just without your Mam here."

PHOTOS TO FOLLOW...

Hall Hill Farm

We went on our nursery trip to Hall Hill Farm!

We enjoyed learning about all the different farm animals and how to look after them on a farm. We had chance to hold a guinea pig, a rabbit and a chick. We fed a lamb some milk and the sheep some food.

We had a very bumpy tractor ride!

I think it is fair to say that our favourite part was the sheep race!

It was lots of fun!

Ice Lollies

We have enjoyed celebrating our last couple of weeks in nursery by making a list of all the things we want to do before we move to reception and working our way through them!

Here we are enjoying one of those things on our list - ice lollies! Yum yum!

Nursery Sports Day!

Nursery have enjoyed completing their very own 'mini sports day' today. We all came into nursery in sporty clothing and went onto the field to compete in some races. We completed the following races:

• sack race
• egg and spoon race
• sprinting race
• obstacle race

Although grown-up's weren't invited to watch nursery, reception children came out on the afternoon to cheer us on! We all waited patiently, took turns and showed good sportsmanship throughout the day. It was lots of fun!

Snails

We have been very interested in mini-beasts in nursery recently!

This began with Mrs Wilkinson bringing in some snails for us to observe from her home. It then led onto other children finding snails at their home to add to our collection amongst other insects! We really enjoyed observing the snails and other creatures and finding out all about them!

Parachute Fun!

We have been practising our listening skills through parachute games!

We had to listen carefully and follow the instructions during our games. We practised making the parachute move fast, slow, high and low and swapped places with each other.

We especially liked it when we put the ball on the parachute and wriggled it - we found it very funny!

Volcanoes

Science Week led our interest onto experiments. One of the children asked if we could make a volcano so thats exactly what we did!

We firstly watched some videos of volcanoes erupting and learnt some new vocabulary.

We then begun to make our volcano. We built it up using boxes and a bottle in the middle, used a mixture of glue and water to cover it to make it strong, painted it using sponges and then left it to dry.

Meanwhile, we create some 'lava paintings' using powder paint, straws and big, blowing breaths!

When it was ready we went outside and we followed the experiment instructions to watch our volcano erupt!

Science Week

We have been reading 'The Gingerbread Man' story to start off our Science Week.

Miss Wright set us the challenge of creating a boat for the gingerbread man that would save him from getting eaten by the fox! That meant it had to sail from one side of the river (the water tray) to the other with the gingerbread man still inside! We have lots of fun making our boats and used various junk modelling materials and joining techniques to create them. We looked closely at the features of different types of boats and some of us based our models on these.

We then tested them! We baked our own gingerbread men and, before they could run away, we put them in our boats to see if they would be safe from the fox! We talked about how some materials were waterproof and some weren't which made our poor gingerbread soggy and others which were too heavy which made them sink or tip over. We talked about how we could make our boats even better for next time.

Another experiment we completed was to find out what would happen to the gingerbread man in various materials. First we predicted which material we thought he would stay the same in and which we thought he might change in and how. We put a gingerbread man in:

• milk
• water
• oil
• washing up liquid
• pasta

We enjoyed observing the changes in each and could talk about these in our key worker groups!

Chicks

Reception were very kind and they let us bring their chicks into nursery!

We were very quiet so we didn't scare them and were very gentle so we didn't hurt them. We discussed what the chicks started off as and what would happen to them as they grew. We all thought they were very cute! We look forward to them coming back into school soon so we can see how they have changed!

We then compared this to ourselves and our grown-ups brought in baby photos of us so we could talk about differences and how we have changed.

This has really helped with our knowledge of the world around us, how things change over time and similarities between us and our peers.

Tadpoles

We have enjoyed watching the changes in the tadpole from Mrs Wilkinson's pond and learning about the life cycle of a frog.

Summer 1

Outdoor Development

We have been very excited for our outdoor area to develop! 

This will offer lots of opportunities to extend our learning even further.

Here is a sneak peek....keep checking back for more updates!

Spring 2
Easter

We have had a busy end to our half term this week!

We started by preparing our products to sell at the Spring Fayre. We planted cress into a cup and enjoyed watering it everyday and watching it grow. We watched the seeds develop and swell and then began to see some roots. We also talked about the seeds which weren't growing and why we thought this might be. 

Mrs Abbott then set us a home challenge! She told us we would be joining in with the Easter Bonnet Parade and it was a competition! Some of us made our bonnets in nursery and some of us made them at home. They were all fantastic and unique!

We hope you enjoy the photographs - watch right until the end to see our Easter Bonnet winner chosen by Mrs Abbott. 

Spring 2

World Book Day!

Have a look at our fantastic World Book Day celebrations in nursery!!

We dressed up as our favourite characters, shared our favourite stories, had a special World Book Day assembly, a World Book Day parade and was read to by some Year 6's.....phew, a very busy day!!

Spring 2

Pancake Day

Mr Wolf's Pancakes was this weeks story!

We enjoyed making and tasting our own pancakes in nursery - YUM YUM!

Spring 2

Exercise

Following our half term break, several children have come back to nursery interest in exercising and asking questions about their body.

This led us to think about the different types of exercises and the affect this has on our body and how it is important to keep us fit and healthy.

We created and completed obstacle courses in our outdoor area and played lots of games requiring us to use and understand positional language!

Spring 1

Valentines Day

We have had our thinking caps on this week and we have been discussing all things LOVE!

We started the week off by thinking about the word 'love' and what this meant to us....

Emilia - "I give Jay Boy a drawing, that's love"

Georgie - "I love Mammy and Daddy, I give them a hug"
Lucie - "I kiss them (Mammy and Daddy)"

Spencer - "I love my Cameron, he shares the tablet with me"
Ameena - "Love is when you get married"

Joseph - "Love is like love hearts"
Lilly B - "Love is when you give flowers, and you might give someone a present"
Harry - "I love my dog"
Alfie B - "Me love Louie, I always go in his car, I like to play with him"
Harriet - "I love Mam, I like to cuddle her all the time"

We continued this idea by making lists of all the things we loved and then used paints to print love hearts on it. 

We then thought about why we celebrate Valentines Day. We read the story of St Valentine and talked about the way he sent letter signed 'from your Valentine'. We decided to create our very own Valentine cards and baked some biscuits as a gift to someone special. 

Spring 1

Shape, Space and Measure

We have been busy learning about 2D shapes in our Maths sessions and learning about their properties. 

Some of our activities have included:

• going on a 2D shape hunt and taking photos to record our findings
• using 2D shapes to make our own pictures and creations
• coping pictures/objects by using different shapes for a purpose to represent different parts
• using shape collage materials to make beautiful shape pictures

Spring 1

Chinese New Year!

We have been learning about Chinese New Year and how Chinese celebrations and traditions are different to some we may have!

We read the story of 'The Great Race' and learnt that it was the year of the pig! We followed this up by splitting into groups and finding out which animal represents the year that we were born.

We watched and listened to some Chinese music through videos of street celebrations. We really enjoyed the way they used dragons to dance and make different shapes. We created our own Chinese dragons by drawing dragon faces and folding some card. 

Finally, to end the week we tried noodles and prawn crackers. We then put our photo on a chart to represent whether we liked the food or not. Lots of us were more than willing to try the new textures and talk about why we liked or disliked the food!

Spring 1

Winter

This week has been very cold, but that hasn't stopped us from exploring!

We have enjoyed exploring the signs of Winter in our outdoor area. We have discussed how to keep warm in Winter and talked about animals that live in colder climates than us.

We read the story 'Lost and Found' and researched where penguins lived using our globe. We loved watching them live on the 'penguin cam' at Edinburgh zoo!

Spring 1
'Supertato'

Nursery have gone 'superhero mad' this week! It all started when a small group of children wanted to look at some photos of Wonder Woman on the Ipad. This led to lots of mask and hat making!

We read the story ‘supertato’ and 'evil pea' sent us a video message...he had trapped Mrs Aitken from reception and was feeding her tea and cake!! Not to worry though, nursery had a plan! We decided to create our own ‘supertato’s’ and we went on the hunt for her. She was very grateful that nursery had been fantastic problem solvers and super creative with their potatoes to help her!
 

Next, we had to save the vegetables from the ice, evil pea had frozen them! We explored the ice and observed what happened to it inside. We had lots of fun breaking it, strengthening our fine motor skills!

We then cut the vegetables up and used them to create our very own vegetable soup. It was yummy!

Finally, we managed to find 'evil pea' and we put him straight back in the freezer - just like in the story! We have told him to stay in there and we will help him be kind to the vegetables in future by showing him how kind we are in nursery!

Spring 1
'Ten Town'

This half term, our Mathematics skill have been supported by 'Ten Town'. Each week we have focused on a new number and explored that number by counting the amount in different ways, recognising the numeral and the numicon piece, representing the number and beginning to familiarise ourselves with adding and taking away. We are now up to the number 5!

Autumn 2
Christmas Fun!

We are all very excited for Christmas! We have been very busy with our Christmas performance, Christmas craft fayre, Christmas party and our trip to theatre Hullbaloo to see 'Luna'.

Merry Christmas from the Polar Bears!

Autumn 2

Children in Need

Nursery had a 'teddy bears picnic' to raise money for Children in Need. We decorated biscuits, made spotty pictures and brought our own teddies in from home to create charcoal observational drawings. 

Autumn 2
Signs of Autumn

We have been exploring the signs of Autumn in our school grounds. We have loved looking at the different colours of the leaves and exploring different natural objects in our environment. 

Autumn 2

Darlington Fire Service

We have been learning about Bonfire night, discussing the sounds we could hear and how to stay safe with a special visit from the Darlington Fire Service.

Autumn Term
Polar Bears Overview

This term, we have been very busy! From settling in and familiarising ourselves to the rules and routines of nursery back in September right up to the craziness of Christmas! We have all made progress in a range of different areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage and the teachers are very proud!

We have begun daily phase 1 phonic sessions, these are really important in giving us the foundation listening and attention skills needed to progress onto more formal phonics as the year progresses. We are now up to aspect 3 of phase 1 phonics. We have practising our awareness of sounds around us (in nursery, around school and outside) and describing the types of sounds we can hear, we have explored the different sounds which can be made by musical instruments and learnt the names of the musical instruments we have used and we have explored the various sounds our bodies can make and how these can be changed.

Alongside this, we complete a daily pre-writing activity called 'Squiggle Whilst you Wiggle'. This requires us to make large movements to music using our flipper-flappers (pieces of material in each hand) and then repeating this movement with a pen in each hand on paper. This will improve our gross and fine motor movements, exercising our shoulder, elbow and then wrist joint, as well as us familiarising ourselves with the marks needed for writing. We have completed the 'up and down' movement and are now onto the 'circle' movement.

We have also been exploring numicon to help our number recognition and rote counting as well as practising our health and self-care skills through weekly baking!

Just when you didn't think we could fit anything else in, we have been super busy following our own interests through play!