Hello, I'm Miss Eastwood. I teach our Nursery class. I am a qualified teacher with experience in Key Stage 1 and Early Years. I am passionate about learning through play and love creating an inspiring environment that children love to explore. You can often find me recycling and upcycling to create interesting ‘treasures’ for our classroom.    

When I am not at school, I am a busy mum of two who enjoys family days out, beachcombing, and walking through our spectacular local woods. I am particularly excited to notice seasonal changes with your children and explore why this might happen through stories and play, ultimately allowing the children to follow their interests. 

A day in Ducklings might include:

              

Bucket time: Stage 1 engages children's attention with a high-energy, exciting activity in which the teacher pulls objects from a bucket. Stage 2 elongates children's attention to a different adult-led activity. Stage 3 develops turn-taking skills and re-engages them by allowing some children to participate in an enjoyable activity. 

Sensology: Learning through all our senses; children will taste, smell, hear, see and touch their learning. For example, in week 1, term 1, we are learning about colours, specifically red. We taste strawberries, smell a red flower, hear red beads dropped on a drum, and see a red lava lamp. 

Dough Disco: Building our finger muscles to music using play-dough. This is an upbeat session where children enjoy developing their fine motor skills. 

Calm Time: Usually, after lunch, children lie down, listen to quiet music, and watch real bubbles float all around them. We discuss how to relax each part of their body and listen carefully to different parts of the music. 

Music: Nursery rhyme time! We are learning traditional songs and actions. We will enjoy a variety of genres and live and recorded music, and explore a range of instruments while learning to maintain a beat. 

Discovery Time: A time for children to direct their learning, enabling them to enact and cement their newly learnt knowledge, develop social skills, acquire new knowledge from others and develop their creativity and confidence. 

Story Time: This might be a well-known book with practised actions, a story bag with objects to enhance the storytelling or a book selected by the children. 

Squiggle Whilst you Wiggle: It's as good as it sounds! We develop our fine motor skills by incorporating dance, music and large movements to help children develop the fine motor control they need for writing.  They will learn a new gross motor movement to a piece of music while holding 'Flipper flappers' (bits of fabric). The children then transfer these movements to the floor and swap them for writing tools (crayons/pens, etc.) to make marks. This could be in foam, on paper, in sand, etc. 

Maths: We explore colours, numbers, patterns, and shapes, using songs and everyday objects to bring the concepts to life! Along with the rest of the school, we follow the 'Master the Curriculum,' which allows for a consistent approach. 

Phonics: Beginning the year with Phase 1, including distinguishing between everyday sounds, then continuing with Phase 2 in terms 5 and 6, including recognising the graphemes (written letters) and producing the phonemes (sounds). 

Supervised Toothbrushing: Following advice from Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, funded by Kent County Council, we participate in supervised toothbrushing. 

Forest School: Using our school field, it's a time for children to develop newly acquired skills and knowledge learnt in the classroom in a 'new' environment. It supports play, exploration and risk-taking. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner-inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.

Little Link:  Little Link is a 12-week programme, designed by speech and language therapists, to help us boost the language skills of your 3–5-year-olds. Little Link is based on 6 stories about Ben and Teddy. Your children will be enjoying play-based activities linked to these stories as part of their day.

Here is a link on how to support your child at home:

https://family.speechandlanguage.support/nursery 

Dates for the diary:

WC 7th September – Nursery begins; refer to the email regarding arrangements. 

Timings of the day:

Group 1 

Monday - 8:30 - 15:00

Tuesday - 8:30 - 15:00

Wednesday - 8:30 - 11.30

 

Group 2 

Wednesday - 12:00 - 15:00

Thursday - 8:30 - 15:00

Friday - 8:30 - 15:00

 

Things to remember for your child to have at the nursery every day:

• Baby wipes
• Nappies
• Nappy rash cream
• A shoebox with special items that can be kept at the nursery
• Change of clothing
• Coat (weather permitting)
• Lunch box (if not paying for school lunch)
• Water bottle 

Note: Please clearly label all children's belongings with their names. 

Term 1 – Welcome to Nursery

Our topic this term is ‘Welcome to Nursery’.

This term is all about settling in, making friends and becoming confident in our new nursery environment. We will learn our daily routines, explore all the exciting areas of our classroom and outdoor environment, and begin to develop our independence through play.

Literacy

Our focus texts are:

• Colours by Nick Butterworth
• Whisper, Shout, Let It Out

Children will:

• Enjoy sharing books with adults and friends
• Join in with familiar songs and nursery rhymes
• Explore making marks using paint, crayons, chalk and water
• Begin to understand that print has meaning
• Develop their listening and communication skills

We will also enjoy nursery rhymes, including If You’re Happy and You Know It, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive, Incy Wincy Spider and Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Maths

We will:

• Explore colours, matching and sorting
• Talk about the size, shape and colour of objects
• Sort objects in different ways
• Explore shapes through construction and play
• Begin to use number names and compare amounts

Our practical activities will encourage children to explore early mathematical ideas through everyday play.

Understanding the World

We will:

• Talk about our families and the people who are important to us
• Explore our nursery, school building and outdoor environment
• Notice the weather and changes in the natural world
• Become familiar with our daily routines and visual timetable
• Explore simple technology, including iPads, phones and laptops through real and pretend play

Physical Development

Children will:

• Develop confidence in walking, running and climbing
• Practise pedalling tricycles
• Develop ball skills through rolling and catching
• Strengthen their hands and fingers through Dough Disco
• Explore mark-making using crayons, pens, paintbrushes and other tools

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

We will:

• Get to know the adults and children in Nursery
• Learn that the adults at Nursery are here to keep us safe
• Develop confidence playing alongside other children
• Practise sharing and taking turns
• Begin to recognise and talk about our feelings
• Learn our school rules: Be Ready, Be Respectful, Be Safe

Expressive Arts and Design

Children will have lots of opportunities to draw, paint, build, make music and take part in imaginative play. We will experiment with different ways of making marks, explore construction materials and enjoy daily songs and rhymes.

Throughout all of our learning, we will continue to develop our school values:

Learning Values – “Grow”

• Perseverance
• Ambition
• Teamwork

Living Values – “Go”

• Honesty
• Kindness
• Peace

As always, our learning will follow the children’s interests and may adapt throughout the term.