Kirkley Nursery& Centre of Excellence

PD Day This week our amazing team have spent our PD day together training, learning and familiarising ourselves with all the latest updates and changes to the EYFS. It's been a really valuable day of refreshing our knowledge, sharing ideas and making sure we're all confident and ready to put the latest guidance into practice. We are now feeling refreshed, informed and VERY excited to welcome everyone back! A huge thank you to our wonderful team for their time and for their continued commitment to providing the very best for our children.

We have had a lovely couple of days welcoming our children back to our Owl room. We discovered that over the summer our Carrots had grown a lot and so this week the children picked them ready to taste them next week with all our friends. We look forward to our new children starting next week.

Science week This week all rooms have been taking part in science week! We have been colour mixing using shaving foam and food colouring, made lava lamps (which may have turned into an exploding volcano, well done Natalie ), made slime and cloud dough, watched what happens when you mix salt with ice, and finally ended the week on conducting the skittle experiment! All the children have been making predictions on what they think would happen during each of the experiments and giving a reason why! Yesterday was Karen's last day at nursery. We have truly loved having Karen as part of our team and we wish her nothing but the best for her next adventure! We will miss her bright and bubbly personality, her love for adventurous activities and her endless amount of unique pens! Next week is the last week for our school leavers, and we will sure to make it one to remember

Summer Holidays so far All rooms have been taking part in different themes each week. So far we have free choice week, Baking Week and Time Travel week. Week 1 the children wanted to be outside where they chose to ride the bikes, engage in a lot of water play, went bug hunting and were enjoying climbing on the climbing frame! Week 2 we made our very own bread, chopped fruit to create a fruit salad and made our own pizzas to eat for snack! This week we have been looking at the topic 'Time Travel' We have made shields using paper plates and tin foil, and have also been creating mosaic art using ripped up tissue paper. We have also been enjoying the lovely weather and have been having picnics outside!

What a lovely last week of term we have had in Owls, it has been lovely hearing about the children's visits to big school. During the week the children found a furry caterpillar in the garden, we took a photo and looked it up on google what it was, we actually discovered it was a caterpillar that turns into a moth. On behalf of everyone in the Owl room thank you for all the wonderful cards and gifts, we are really going to miss our school leavers. We wish them all the very best for big school and hope you all have a lovely summer holiday.

What a fabulous few weeks the Squirrels have had. They have been having visits to the Owls room and they have shown us how much they have grown this past year. Their confidence has developed so much and it has been an absolute pleasure watching them blossom. From us all, we wanted to say a big thank you to all of our Squirrels and their amazing families. We feel very proud of each one of our Squirrels and each milestone they have achieved. From learning how to walk, using single words, communicating with core boards, learning how to share with peers , potty training and learning how to regulate emotions. It's been an honour being part of their journey so far. So again, thank you for an amazing year and we look forward to watching you thrive in the next academic year in the Owls room.

Happy Summer Hedgehogs! What a year we have had altogether! As a room, this has been a super special year. We have seen so many of our children take their first steps, say their first words, helped them with their potty training and develop in many ways which we are all super proud of. It has been so lovely watching all of the children achieve a variety of milestones as well as adapting and trying their best always. On Facebook over the weeks, it has been lovely sharing with you all what we have been up to and the activities/memories we create together everyday, this displays just a small snippet of what we do! To all of our parents, we thank you for all of the kind words and support you give us in order for us to provide the best care for your children! On behalf of us all, wishing you a lovely summer break and to those children who are all year round, we look forward to making even more memories over the summer holidays! Abbie, Sarah-Jane, Maisey and Karen x

The Hedgehogs have had another lovely week reading our story, 'Toddle Waddle!', in which they have enjoyed participating in many more engaging activities. We have made our own cloudsand and scooped this into our ice cream cones, been racing some of the animals seen in our story down the ramps as well as enjoying the sunshine when we can in our very own beach set up with the sand and water. Next week, we will be enjoying our last week altogether before the summer holidays begins!

What a busy week the Hedgehogs have had! This week has seen the start of a new story for us all to read, 'Toddle Waddle', which focuses on linking words as well as including a variety of rhyming patterns! This week, we have been exploring in our beach tuff tray, repeating back some of the phrases from the story such as 'splish splash', incorporating this into our water play and making some shaving foam ice creams! We have also continued with our transition sessions, with some of the Hedgehogs going for full day visits! Like last week, they have all adapted very well and have already started making friendships!