Ducklings' News

Autumn Term 

This term our theme has been Ourselves, supported by our core text Owl Babies. The children have enjoyed learning about their families, developing independence, and building resilience as they settled into nursery life. Through circle times, they have strengthened their listening and attention skills and loved creating story maps, retelling events, and acting out parts of Owl Babies.

Outdoor learning has been a highlight, from making rainy chalk paintings and exploring colour. The children also loved making potions and thoroughly enjoyed acting out Bonfire Night in the garden. Our Squiggle While You Wiggle sessions supported gross and fine motor development, with children creating lines and circles using their bodies and a range of sensory materials. Our older children have also begun writing the letters in their names.

We explored colour further through stories such as Colours, Colours Everywhere by Julia Donaldson, creating firework pictures using different media. Nursery Rhyme Week was a great success, alongside learning about celebrations including Diwali and Christmas. The children proudly took part in the Elf Run to support Phyllis Tuckwell and ended the term with a wonderful Christmas party and Nativity, where they confidently retold the story in role. Parents and staff were extremely proud of their fantastic performance.

 Spring Term 

We are delighted to welcome our little learners back to Little Ducklings for an exciting Spring term that has been full of growth, fresh beginnings and discovery.
We began the term by exploring The Three Little Pigs. The children used a text map to retell the story and enjoyed designing their own houses using a printing technique. This story also supported our maths learning as we focused on the number 3.

Phonics learning is well underway, with children beginning Phase 2 through the ELS phonics programme. Those secure in Phase 1 have loved joining Mr Thorne as he searched for objects beginning with the sounds ‘s’ and ‘a’. The children enjoyed learning the letter rhymes and hunting for their own sound objects.

During child led learning, the children have shown a strong interest in role play and small construction. They worked collaboratively to build stables and homes for the horses and farmyard animals as part of our animal topic, where we learned about farm animals and even discovered some dinosaur eggs hidden around the school grounds. A particular highlight of the term was when the children worked together to create a jail, taking on the roles of police officers and gleefully capturing Miss Sefton after she caused mischief by making a mess with porridge. This imaginative play supported teamwork, language development and storytelling.

Continuing our theme of Three, we explored Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children used text maps and pictures to retell the stories, helping them to understand story structure before walking the stories and making creative changes to characters and settings.
We also enjoyed a visit to the local church following its refurbishment. The children loved exploring the space and sharing a squash and biscuit together, making it a calm and memorable experience.

We ended the term with a wonderful community event, inviting grandparents into nursery for a gardening session. The children thoroughly enjoyed spending time together planting bulbs, reading stories, drawing pictures and finishing with a joyful sing song.

It has truly been a busy term full of excitement, discovery and collaborative play, and we are extremely proud of how confidently the children have engaged in their learning.