Early Years (Nursery & Reception) Class Page 2023-2024

Welcome to Early Years. The teacher is Mrs Marsden, supported by Mrs Manners, Miss Forrest and Mrs Lewis.
Our first day back after the Summer holidays was a busy one! We were all very keen to investigate our classroom and the resources. We had great fun dressing up, playing inside and outside, as well as making new friends!
Our first forest school session of this academic year. We had a reminder about rules and keeping safe at forest school, which is very important!
We then had the opportunity to choose what we would like to do. Some of us played in the mud kitchen, some enjoyed finding bugs, we were very excited when we found a frog but we made sure he was put some where safe as he looked scared. We also made some forest school eyes and had fun with our friends.
No puddle suits were needed today as the weather was lovely and sunny!
We took part in a sponsored walk, walking laps around our school field to help raise money towards our exciting outdoor area project. We did brilliantly and walked 10 laps, which is about 2 miles. We did this in just under a hour. Well done everyone!
For mental health awareness we all dressed in something yellow. We thought about mental health and how people can be unwell without looking unwell and how it is important to talk to people about our feelings. The children listed lots of people they could talk to, such as - mums, dads, brothers, sisters, teachers, friends and grandparents. 
We were lucky enough to be invited to Alnwick playhouse to see the production of 'I believe in Unicorns'. It was a truly magical production in which the children were mesmerised throughout. All the children got to swap a book for a new book, how exciting!
Early Years class charity this year is the Alnwick Food Bank again this year, so as part of our Harvest celebrations we asked for donations of non perishable food. We are so grateful for all the people who have supported us and this charity and the donations, this will go to the food bank next week and will be very well needed and appreciated I am sure. 
The Early Years children helped to display the food in the church ready for our Harvest service. 
Fun at forest school - we made our own potions, we had fairies pillows, witches warts, spiders, worms, bats blood, Santa’s beard and giants snot! What wonderful potions we created! 
Wow, what a lovely surprise to return to after the half term break. Do you remember back in the summer the current reception and year one children wrote and sent letters and pictures to the King after his coronation. Today we opened a response from the King and Queen, which was a beautiful card. How very special
Today in our forest school session, it was the first time we looked at the fire circle. Learning very important rules about when we are allowed in the fire circle and how we walk in and out safely. We also learned how to use a flint to get sparks to start a fire. Some of us had a go and were able to light the cotton wool. 
We have been remembering why we have Remembrance Day and the importance of it. We have thought about how people and animals have fought in all the wars for us. We have made poppies in craft, loose parts and even made yummy poppy biscuits. 
What a wet and miserable day, but that didn’t stop us doing our forest school session. Today we had our first fire and we all got to toast our own marshmallows, what a treat! everyone learned about the respect position at the fire to keep us safe. 
We found out that Hindus celebrate Diwali and decorate their houses with lights as it is also known as the festival of light. We made our own diva lamps out of clay and decorated them beautifully with lots of colour and glitter.
We have continued our exploration of why Christmas is special for Christians. We shared some of our baby photos and played Guess Who? We will play this until we have shared all our special baby photos. It helps us focus on Baby Jesus and how Christians recognise him as the Son of God. We then shared the Christmas story and used our nativity set to retell the story. We also thought about who we think is the most important person in the story.
Wow, early years has taken a massive transformation withtheir outdoor space. We have had artificial grass put down, new building blocks and a story telling area. We are so lucky and it looks absolutely fabulous!