Kittiwakes Nursery and Puffins Pre-Nursery, St Hilda’s School, Harpenden – Autumn 1
The Kittiwakes have settled so well into their new class and are enjoying all their new experiences. As part of early phonics the children have been enjoying a range of listening activities. One morning we all put on some ‘listening ears’, and explored the school listening carefully for different sounds. We heard the Reception children clapping, the front door bell ringing, the photocopier and shredder working in the office and the chiller humming in the Dining Room. We climbed the back staircase holding onto the bannister rail carefully and crept into the staff room. We found some teachers working in there and heard the washing machine spinning, the kettle boiling and the tap gushing. We were very good at listening and our teachers were very impressed.
Our first Welly Walk was a ‘listening’ walk. After excitedly and independently putting on our wellies we quietly crept around the outside environment of the school to listen for sounds we might recognise. We heard birds singing in the trees, an aeroplane, rustling leaves, a car driving by, children clapping in an upstairs classroom and noticed the sound of our own boots as we ran around. We are all going to have super listening skills ready for when we start our Jolly Phonics lessons next half-term!
We have also started all our specialist teaching and have already learnt some greetings and colours in French with Madame Lawrenson, have learnt two songs that we are going to sing when we go to the Harvest Festival service in the Methodist church in town. It’s the very first time that the Kittiwakes are joining the big girls for the service and we are very excited. We have also enjoyed PE lessons with Mrs Halliday and she was very impressed with our listening skills and co-ordination as we warmed up and then played lots of games using our whole bodies.
We have also been learning to take care of our minds and bodies during our Mindful Monday sessions. This year we are following an exciting new scheme called ‘My Happy Mind’. We have learnt all about the function of our brains and we even made some beautiful brain hats.
Our new Puffins class are also have a super start to their St Hilda’s journey. For many of them this is their first step into the world of education and they are taking this big step in their stride. Already the Puffins have experienced yoga sessions, encouraging the development of their physical skills and wellbeing. They really enjoyed trying to move their bodies into different animal shapes in time with ‘Old MacDonalds Farm’ and with Jaime from Cosmic Yoga and their teachers. The Puffins have explored the outdoor environment on an autumn walk, looking for signs of autumn. They found lots of lovely colourful leaves and used their fine motor skills to peg these onto strings. They have shown lovely interactive play with their new friends bathing dollies, playing catch and kicking balls and exploring first mark making skills chalking and painting in their outside environment. What a great start to their year in Puffins.
