The butterfly search
23 May 2025We started the week by looking at our caterpillars, which are getting so BIG! We couldn’t believe how much they have grown since Friday and we think they may be ready to make their cocoons very soon. We hope you liked being introduced to them at our coffee morning.
The children have loved the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and joining in with the Fee Fi Fo Fum just like the giant in the story! We have also read the story of Shhh, which is a story featuring a very grumpy giant and we have to work our way very quietly through the castle past his pets and wife without waking anyone up! We have also enjoyed reading Jasper’s Beanstalk about a cat who plants beans just like Jack!On Wednesday, Mr John arrived with his wheelbarrow so we could do our planting! There was lots of digging in the mud to fill our pots with earth and planting our very own magic beans. We hope they are going to grow as tall as Jack’s beanstalk in our story! The children have also planted a surprise for the daddies who have a special day coming up in June. We hope that all the seeds start growing soon! The children loved making their own pot using googly eyes and a pom pom nose and sowing cress seeds onto the damp cotton wool inside the pot which will hopefully be the hair on the top of each one. The children will be bringing home the cress to finish growing at home - we hope the cress will grow to produce hair please let us know if it grows!
We have an enormous beanstalk in Nursery with a huge giant boot protruding from the clouds and the children have been very busy cutting spirals for the leaves and shoots. There was some amazing cutting going on as the children carefully followed the spiral lines to create the leaves which we attached using the stapler. The children were all very excited to build their own Cheerio beanstalk to eat at snack time! They carefully threaded each Cheerio onto their stick which is great for hand-eye coordination and developing their fine motor skills. Luckily there were no giants at the top of the beanstalks! Of course, the beanstalks disappeared very quickly at snack time!
There were some amazing castles built for the princesses, knights and the dragon using the wooden 3D wooden bricks. The bricks were carefully balanced, ensuring that each model or castle was stable and the princesses and knights all enjoyed adventures trying to scare off the dragon!
In the garden the children loved combining the peas, green beans and the broad beans to make soup for the giant! The children used big ladles, scoops and tongs to transfer the beans and peas from pot to pot and to stir into the water.
As part of outdoor learning for Environmental Awareness Week, we enjoyed a long walk in the sunshine to collect different leaves for our leaf printing activity for our Special Books. Each leaf was carefully looked at to see if it had good veins to make patterns for our printing. We collected three big bowlfuls, so there was plenty for all our Nursery friends. Afterwards, we played on the pirate ship enjoying a game of sharks and the island and the children then made a chocolate factory under the benches next to the pirates ship! The children loved painting the different leaves with different shades of green paint before printing them onto their paper to create some beautiful patterns.
On Thursday, we made a gigantic cookie for the giant - luckily he wasn’t hungry so we got to eat it at snack time! It was great fun mixing all the ingredients together to create a sticky ball of cookie dough! For more outdoor learning we went for a scavenger hunt around the school while our cookie was baking in the Robins classroom. The children were amazing at finding all the objects on their scavenger hunt sheet and ticking the boxes when they found each one. The only things we couldn’t find were a butterfly and some fern leaves - we remembered there was water at the school farm so we went to find the pond. On our way, we saw Mr John riding the ride-on lawn mower so we gave him a big wave! We also went to see the lambs, who are now very big - we remembered to keep nice and quiet so we did not disturb them. I have included some photos from the drama workshop last Friday, which I hope you enjoy looking at - the children had a great time being jungle animals as they explored the jungle with the crazy man and his monkey!
As I write this, we are looking forward to seeing you all at the Pre-Prep Coffee Morning and we hope you enjoyed our presentation all about the life cycle of a butterfly. As we come to the end of the first half of the Summer Term, we wish you all a very happy half-term holiday and we are really looking forward to going to Hemsley Conservation Centre on Tuesday 3rd June. It will be a very exciting Nursery adventure starting with a ride in the minibus with Mr Phil!
