Part of our maths learning this week has been about quantity. We have been developing our understanding that a quantity can be split in different ways or even put in different places, but the whole amount still stays the same. We have also been thinking about comparing amounts that are the same or different, either more or less/ fewer and we have been using our signs to support our understanding of these practical activities. We have also been practising responding to or using the words and signs to ask for more or less/ fewer.

As this week is Travel Smart Week. Along with lots of other schools in Derbyshire, we have been thinking about keeping fit and looking after the earth by trying to exercise more and use the car less...or as the Travel Smart Heroes say...

'Get active, beat traffic jams and reduce pollution... playing your part to help the planet, one school at a time!'

We have been talking to the children about how they travelled to school; walking, scooting, cycling bouncing, rolling even park and stride (a bit of time in the car and then a little walk) and this has also contributed to both our maths and our ECO learning.

We've been practising our physical skills at the top of the garden, balancing on bucket stilts which was very tricky and required very good balance, exercising our core muscles by hula hooping and skipping and developing our skills and cooperating with our friends by throwing and catching.

The fruit was ready to harvest so we've been collecting apples from our orchard to eat and also pumpkins from the vegetable plot and helping our children to understand the cycle of growth. we also found lots of fallen fruit and vegetables that were past their best so we've been collecting and composting those too.

Our Autumn Harvest and Halloween Activity Day was a huge success activities included Autumn songs and music in the Sensory Room, vegetable printing and a 'Halloween Witches Stew', water tray potions and Halloween Beebots. We tasted healthy vegetable soup on the snack table and we also built homes in the construction area for our British wild animals and threaded leaves and made Halloween playdough models. Outside in the nursery garden we tried some new recipes in the mud kitchen, used our new steps to help us with a familiar rhyme and tried to roll the conkers and apples that we’d found in the garden, changing the speed that they rolled at.

In the nursery garden the children and adults took part in a very special hand print promise activity.

The day before Stephanie and Ruth shared some very important learning with all the children at nursery about their rights as a child and our ‘job’ as adults (staff and parents/ carers) to help them to enjoy these rights. We talked about what UNICEF do and talked and signed about our identity as part of South Normanton Nursery School and particularly about making a promise to do good playing, good learning and keep ourselves and each other safe. On activity day the hand prints were made by the children, staff and parents/ carers too and we are going to make a giant Rights Respecting Rainbow in nursery to display our commitment and our whole nursery promise.

It’s been a busy week and a very busy term. We now hope that our children and families have a lovely and relaxing half term holiday and we look forward to your return in a weeks time to begin the run up to Christmas.