Wow! What a busy day we had today at our Family Christmas Craft Experience. It had warmed up a little so we were able to do Christmassy crafts, fun and learning both indoors and outside in the nursery garden. It was so busy with parents, carers, grandparents and siblings as well as governors all joining us for a festive Christmas experience. They all had a really fantastic time joining in with seasonal activities and getting into the Christmas spirit!

All week at nursery we have been reading the nativity story and learning about the meaning of Christmas and why Christian people celebrate the birth of Jesus. We have been thinking about some of the traditional religious celebrations that take place at this time of year including decorating the Christmas tree, going to church and eating special food. We have also talked about some of the non-religious and international celebrations that take place at this time of year too and this learning continued throughout todays activities and festivities.

In our nursery, decorated ready for Christmas, our children and families enjoyed wrapping the Christmas star with ribbon, painting baubles and searching for Christmas trees in the nursery garden. Inside nursery we made Reindeer food to guide Rudolph to our homes, salt dough tree decorations, there was an Toy Workshop, we wrote letters to Santa, threaded Christmas trees and made name snowmen…and we even made some wooly Santa beards so that we could take ‘Santa selfies!’ For snack today we tried some special cake called Pantone which is eaten by Italian people when they celebrate Christmas…and according to the children it was really tasty!

These activities were really good for developing our gross and fine motor skills and some required a little perseverance. The activities also got us talking about Christmas and how we and others celebrate which therefore developed our communication skills as well as reinforcing our values and sense of community.

Towards the end of each session we welcomed a very special surprise visitor. We were all very shocked and excited when Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer paid us a visit to nursery. We sang him some of our favourite Christmas songs which he enjoyed and danced to and many of the children had their photos taken with Rudolph as a special memento of the occasion. He even stayed for a story at the end of the session.

Many thanks to Rudolph for taking time out of his schedule, which is very busy at this time of year, to come and see us at nursery and to Barry Thacker, our Chair of Governors for making the visit possible.

Thank you also to everyone who attended the day. We really appreciate everyone’s support at these events. It's a great opportunity to share the playing and learning that takes place at our outstanding nursery school and to further strengthen the links with our families and community.

We hope you enjoy the photos of our festive fun filled day.