Our talk for writing text for this half-term is ‘The Boy and the Bear’ by Tracey Corderoy. We have been very busy learning our model text and having a go at a variety of different activities within our Nursery provision to further develop our understanding. This week on Tapestry, we shared a video of our final model text performance for our families. Our key workers are incredibly proud of how we have persevered throughout the half-term to learn the story for ourselves!

‘The Boy and the Bear’ by 3 Year Old Nursery

Here we are performing our model text together. Which actions are we joining in with here? Where in the story might you see them? Here is our model text, which you may wish to share together at home:

The boy wanted a friend. He found Bear. Bear was shy. He sent a message, “Boo!”. Bear did not understand. The boy sat on the see-saw. Bear was too heavy. The boy and the bear built a treehouse instead. Bear said, “Goodbye”. The boy looked for Bear. He waited and waited and waited. Winter was over and the snow melted. It was Spring. Bear woke up. He found the boy.

The Bear

We explored mark-making with paint to create our own Bear pictures. We focused on giving meaning to the marks we make, forming lines and shapes and adding detail. In doing this, we created some wonderful representations of the character, Bear!

Sending Messages

In ‘The Boy and the Bear’, Bear sends lots of messages to the boy to communicate what he wants to say. This week, we developed our understanding of the word ‘ message’ by creating our own in the mark-making area. We thought carefully about who we would like to send a message to and what we would like it to say. We then used a variety of mark-making tools to create our message, whilst the adult acted as a scribe.

The children have engaged wonderfully with our talk for writing text this half-term and enjoyed thinking of the actions to go alongside our talk as we share the story together Our final performance was powerful and we all showed great confidence in storytelling ourselves. If the boy and the bear went on another adventure, what do you think might happen…?

Every Wednesday morning, we participate in our Nursery Reading Cafe! We enjoy sharing stories, looking at information books and having a go at some story-themed activities with our friends, key workers and grown-ups who are also invited to join us.

Week 1

At our first Reading Cafe, we enjoyed looking at The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Elmer stories. We enjoyed playing dominoes, learning from information books, listening to our adults sharing them and retelling the tales using puppets and toys. At the end of our session, we sat together and listened to Elmer’s Walk.

Week 2

At our second Reading Cafe, we enjoyed exploring the stories, Animal Boogie and Commotion in the Ocean. We showed careful concentration as we completed jigsaws, looked at animal and ocean themed books and used finger puppets to retell the stories. We continued to develop our interest in Elmer by creating our own Elmers in the mark-making area. For our story, we shared our talk for writing text, The Boy and The Bear, with our grown-ups.

Sharing Stories with our Families

Thank-you to our families who have been able to join us for our Reading Cafe sessions. Our grown-ups are welcome to join us each week, where we will share different stories and story-themed activities together. Our Reading Cafe takes place every Wednesday at 8:40-9:15am.

This week at Nursery, we had a very special visitor, Elmer the Elephant. He came to tell us all about why it is important to make healthy choices and use our little feet to walk or wheel when outdoors. Elmer introduced our new project in EYFS, Little Feet, which we will be participating in this year at school. The project is run by Living Streets, who also support our Travel Tracker programme for the older children at ACE. We were very excited to get started!

We started by thinking about our bodies and then listened to the story, Elmer’s Walk. We thought about how walking allows us to stop and notice the world around us, just like Elmer. We listened well to the story and joined in with Elmer by moving our little feet too.

Elmer then introduced us to our Little Feet game. He explained that if we walk or wheel to Nursery, we can add a sticker to our chart when we arrive. As we add more stickers, we will meet Elmer’s friends and complete his walk. When we get to the end, we will receive a special award for making healthy travel choices! We then played a game where we used our little feet to practise moving in different ways.

This week, we also joined in with our first Reading Cafe session. We had lots of fun reading more Elmer stories, playing Elmer dominoes and role-playing with Elmer puppets. At the end of the session, we shared the Elmer’s Walk story again and told our grown-ups all about our Little Feet project.

What a fantastic week it has been, learning all about the benefits of walking and wheeling with our new friend, Elmer! If your child has walked, biked or scootered to Nursery, please let us know and we will give them a sticker to add to our little feet chart.

This half-term at Nursery, we are looking closely at materials and noticing how they change, as we develop our skills as ACE Scientists! Throughout the half-term, we will explore how we can make changes to materials as we think, predict and test out ideas as we develop our sense of wonder. This week, water, ice and glue were the materials of choice for our experimentation!

From ice… to water!

At the start of the week, our interest was captured when we noticed ice in our water tray! We looked closely at the blocks of ice and noticed polar animals hiding inside. “They are stuck”, said Sunny, “How do we get them?”. We shared our thinking with one another as we enjoyed feeling the cold ice on our hands. We noticed that some of the ice melted into water as we continued to touch it. “It’s melting!”, shouted Finley with great excitement. We thought about why this might be and decided that we are much warmer than the ice itself. We continued to share our thoughts and ideas, until we decided to use warm water to melt it. We tested out our idea and all got to work, concentrating carefully as we used containers, pipettes and syringes to add warm water to the ice. We maintained our focus on what we were doing and watched as more and more ice melted away and the water tray began to fill with water. We didn’t stop until we reached our goal and the polar animals were free to play with in the water. Together, we celebrated our achievement! Fantastic teamwork and collaboration!

From glue… to slime!

We continued to experiment with making changes to different materials by having a go at making slime together for one of our focused activities. We first looked at the materials that we would be using; glue, glitter and a special activator gel. We wondered together about how we could use our materials to make slime. “Mixing it!”, said Sara excitedly. We put on our aprons and sat together, waiting patiently as we passed the bowl and the ingredients around the table. We each had a go at adding some glue and then some glitter into the bowl. Miss Bramham explained that the special activator would change our ingredients from glue to slime. We added it in and each had a turn at using a wooden spoon to mix our materials. We all looked closely as we mixed, watching as the colours swirled and it turned from white to blue. We then used our hands and fingers to knead the slime; pushing, pulling and turning it over to stop it from being sticky. We kept going until it didn’t stick to our fingers. We had lots of fun engaging in malleable play with our finished slime!

We have had lots of fun being ACE Scientists this week, developing our sense of wonder as we watch materials change before our eyes! We will continue to discover, explore and experiment with materials throughout the half-term at Nursery and we welcome home observations that link to our learning. We would love to see some examples on Tapestry of cooking/baking, outdoor or messy play activities that look at changes in materials, as we continue to share our own experiences together!

Happy new year to our Nursery families! To begin our new year and new term, we have been very busy this week at Nursery. We settled back in and welcomed new friends; remembering routines and having lots of fun in our indoor and outdoor provision. For our maths learning this week, we went on an exploration of shape. We linked our learning to our sharing of experiences about the new year by making shape wishing wands in our creative area.

We used what we have learned about 2D shapes during our group times to select different shapes for our shape wands. We recognised and named different 2D shapes as we carefully arranged shaped collage materials and used our gluing skills to stick them together. We used mathematical vocabulary to talk about the shapes we were using, with words like ‘straight, curved, sides, corners’. We showed independence in completing this activity, applying the gluing skills that we developed last term at Nursery.

We also explored and experimented with shapes throughout the week as we explored our Nursery provision. We enjoyed arranging ‘snowballs’ to make 2D shapes for our maths challenge. We also enjoyed using wooden 3D shape beads to create colourful necklaces and block tours, experimenting with how we can use and arrange shapes to bring our own ideas to life! We had fun creating 2D shape tangrams on the interactive whiteboard; matching and rotating shapes to create different arrangements on the screen. Throughout the week, we enjoyed using magnetic shapes creatively to create our own models and structures. We talked about the different shapes we used and created as we built!

What a fantastic first week back at Nursery!

We have had a busy week filled with celebrations at Nursery this week! We enjoyed inviting our families to watch our second Nativity performance; thank you to everyone who was able to join us. We have uploaded some wonderful videos of our singing to Tapestry so that the songs can be shared again with family and friends! Here is what our final Nursery week in 2025 looked like!

Christmas Dinner

On Tuesday, we enjoyed sitting with our friends and teachers to enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner! We had just finished our Nursery Nativity performance and our special dinner was a lovely way to celebrate how hard we all worked to learn our songs and perform together. Many of us had empty plates and we all had happy faces at the Christmas dinner table!

Christmas Parties!

Wednesday was Christmas party day at Nursery and we had a wonderful time together celebrating. We enjoyed playing games, dancing and sharing our party food together. Thank you to all of our families who kindly donated some party food for the children to enjoy. We all also took home our gift bags home, eager to share the special things we have been making throughout the half-term with our families at home.

Creating Christingles

We enjoyed creating christingles this week at Nursery, learning about what they represent to many people and what the different parts of the christingle can symbolise. We concentrated carefully as we followed each instruction, showing pride in the end result! Some of us joined the rest of our school for the Christingle Service on the last day of term.

What a wonderful Autumn term we have had at Nursery! We would like to wish a very Merry Christmas to our families who will be celebrating and a Happy New Year to everyone – we look forward to seeing you all again in 2026!

This week at Nursery, we had lots of fun with our friends, families and teachers at our Christmas Stay and Play! There were lots of different activities on offer to us to try out and we made some fantastic things to take home and share with our families. Thank you to our families who were able to join us for our stay and play session.

Making Cards

We enjoyed making cards to take home to share with our special people as a kind gift. Some of us made Christmas cards to share with our families. We were eager to use our mark-making, cutting an gluing skills to create beautifully-detailed cards.

Colourful rice messy play

We were drawn to our coloured rice messy play spot during our stay and play. We had lots of fun scooping, pouring, filling and emptying different containers with red, white and green rice. Some of us used our fingers to make patterns and shapes in the rice.

Reindeer Food

We were all keen to have a go at making a bag of reindeer food during our stay and play! We carefully scooped the mixture and poured it into our plastic bags. The reindeer food can be sprinkled outside on Christmas Eve evening for any reindeer that might be passing by. The reindeer food mix is environmentally friendly and safe for wildlife. We would love to see some photographs on Tapestry of our children sprinkling their reindeer food outside!

Making Decorations

Many of us enjoyed using pens and our mark-making skills to decorate wooden tree decorations. We were very impressed with the careful control and detail added as the children brought their ideas to life. Some of us made more than one decoration to take home as gifts for our family!

Sharing stories and playing together

We also enjoyed sharing Christmas and Winter-themed stories during our stay and play. Some of us were excited to share our provision with our special people and it was wonderful to see our families having lots of fun together throughout the event.

Baking treats!

This week, we also did a wonderful job at baking some jam tarts to share with our families at our Nursery Nativity performance. Thank you to our families who enjoyed one of the treats and gave a kind donation towards our school community. It was wonderful to have so many families join us for our performance – we are looking forward to doing it all again next Tuesday!

This week at Nursery, we marked the start of advent. We talked about what advent means to many people and on Monday morning many of us were eager to talk about our own experiences of advent. We were introduced to our special Nursery advent calendar that has a book behind each door. We looked at the numbers and thought about what they might mean. We talked about how these numbers represent the days in December that lead up to Christmas.

Opening the next door on our advent calendar has become a highlight of our Nursery day. We have had lots of fun predicting what the story behind the door might be about before finding out for ourselves. Some of us have been very excited to find familiar stories in our advent calendar which we then shared together. We have all enjoyed listening to the stories being read by our Nursery adults.

We have enjoyed having a go at new activities and experiences together as advent was introduced at Nursery. Many of us enjoyed using tweezers to add snowballs onto the snowflakes, which were just like the snowflakes in our Sam’s Snowflake story. Practising this skills helps us to develop our fine-motor skills.

Our interest was captured by a Christmas post box within our mark-making area. We enjoyed using our mark-making skills to create Christmas themed drawings, letters and cards which we then posted in our post box. Some of us talked about writing our own Christmas cards at home and posting letters to Father Christmas with our families.

We have been busy making lots of different Christmas and party treats at the playdough table this week. Gingerbread biscuits and Christmas cakes (just like in our song!) were firm favourites as we experimented with using different tools and cutters to sculpt and shape our playdough.

We had lots of fun dressing up in festive costumes this week as we explored the new experiences on offer to us! We enjoyed experimenting with sound using our jingle bells and many of us enjoyed putting on our own performances with costumes included!

We are looking forward to welcoming our Nursery families to our Christmas stay and play and first Nursery Nativity performance next week!

This half-term, we have been exploring the story Stardust by Jeanne Willis. We have listened carefully to the story, answered questions about what is happening, developed our understanding of the key characters and events, as well as explore the key vocabulary in greater detail whilst exploring our Nursery provision.

We have really enjoyed retelling the story using our Stardust small-world area. We remembered the special words, ‘star’, ‘win’, ‘wish’ and family whilst we used puppet characters to re-enact the story. This week, we had a go at some different activities linked to the story’s special words to consolidate our learning.

Family

We used the magnetic shapes and wooden dolls on the light box to explore our special word ‘family’. We experimented with the different shapes and how we could arrange them to create enclosures to represent our homes. As we built, we talked about our own families and then used the wooden dolls to represent them. Luca told his friends, “This one is Mummy, this one is Mum and this one is me!”. Toby showed us a wooden doll and said, “My sister’s name is Erica”. We used lots of lovely vocabulary linked to family and developed our understanding of our special world as we played alongside one another.

Wish

We explored our special word ‘wish’ by creating our own wishing wands within the creative area. We have been busy developing our joining skills by using glue and tape in different ways this term, so this invitation provided chance for us to apply what we have learnt. We used tape to attach our lolly sticks to the stars and then added collage materials by thinking carefully about where each material would go and then spreading PVA. We listened to one another as we talked about what we would wish for.

Selimo shared, “I wish for a teddy bear”. Yahya said, “I wish I was a Marvel Avenger”. Eva then said, “I would wish for a flying saucer”. Holly told us, “I wish I could have a wishing well. I wish that it was in my garden, I would ask for a swimming pool!”.

Star

We used yellow highlighters and black paper to create stars in the night sky to explore our special word ‘star’. We experimented with how we could use different marks, lines and shapes to create a starry sky. We then had lots of fun using a UV torch to light-up our night sky and make our stars glow. “We are all made of stardust”, said Toby, remembering one of the key phrases from the book.

Win

This week at Nursery, we played board games to further develop our understanding of our special word ‘win’. We particularly enjoyed playing the shopping list game in small groups and this prompted lots of discussion around winning at games and how it doesn’t matter if we win or lose, it’s about having fun with our friends.

We have loved sharing our Stardust story at Nursery and developing our range of vocabulary through different exciting ways! We will continue to explore the story throughout this half-term. Please see Tapestry for some suggested home learning activities linked to the Stardust story.

We had a fantastic time visiting our local Library! We love sharing stories at Nursery and were very excited to walk to Moor Allerton Library to look at all of the wonderful books they have in their children’s section for ourselves! We enjoyed our walk to the Library and looked around to see what we could notice along the way. We spotted birds and so many squirrels that they were tricky to count! We all walked very sensibly, held onto our grown-ups’ hands and stayed on the paths. We couldn’t wait to get inside once we arrived and we were greeted by Maddie the Librarian, who showed us to the children’s area.

We started our visit with an introduction by Maddie, who explained that we are welcome to visit anytime. She told us that we could come back with our families and ask for our own library cards, so that we can choose books to borrow and take home to share. Maddie gave us our own Nursery class library card and we were very excited to hear that we could take some books back to school!

We listened as Maddie read a story called, ‘There’s a Bear on My Chair’ by Ross Collins. We all listened well as she told us the story and some of us joined Maddie to look more closely at the illustrations and talk about the story.

It was then time to explore all of the beautiful books on offer to us! Some of us knew exactly the type of book we were looking for and others were happy to explore and find a book that caught our eye! We enjoyed listening to our grown-ups as they read to us and together we talked about the books we shared. It was very quiet and peaceful as we all got stuck into our wonderful stories with our special people! We handled our books carefully and did a wonderful job at putting them back in the correct places at the end of our story session!

Some of us chose a book to borrow with our library card and take back to Nursery. Toby had the special job of giving Maddie our library card so that we could check them out! We learned how to scan our books so that the Library knows that we have borrowed them. We were very excited to take them back and share them with our friends at school!

Throughout the week, we enjoyed sharing our library books together. We did a fantastic job at choosing different stories that sparked our interest. We knew to handle the books with care and to turn the pages one by one carefully.

What a wonderful experience we have had in visiting our local Library! Thank you to our families who were able to join us on our trips, all of your help was much appreciated.

Unfortunately, our second visit to Moor Allerton Library did not take place due to the weather conditions. We will arrange another family library session and share the details with our Nursery families as soon as possible. We still had a fantastic morning filled with excitement as we wrapped up warm and explored the snow and ice in our outdoor area together!