Welcome to Puffin Class - our school nursery!

This page celebrates the wonderful learning that happens in Puffin Class. Our learning is done through play, it's how children learn best! We follow the children's interests meaning no two weeks are the same. 

Lots of practical information about our nursery can be found under the 'key Information' tab.

Spring 2: February half term - Easter

In Puffin Class we have spent time learning about Shrove Tuesday and the Christian period of Lent. We prepared our own pancake mixture, measuring and weighing our ingredients out carefully, then made and enjoyed pancakes together. It was lovely to hear the children discussing which toppings they were going to choose and the way they eat pancakes at home.

We were thrilled to spot some early signs of Spring this week in and around our nursery outdoor area, we also enjoyed our first picnic lunches of 2025, making the most of the early Spring sunshine!

...............

Spring 1: January - February half term

We have loved exploring the varied weather we have been experiencing in the past few weeks, the children have enjoyed being weather detectives. We have played games with the wind, collected, measured and played with rain water and enjoyed investigating the frozen ground.

It has been great to have first hand, extended experiences of frost, snow and freezing temperatures. The children enjoyed developing their gross motor skills by making tracks in the snow by pushing crates, making snow angels and throwing snowballs at the sheds. We exercised our fine motor muscles by using pipettes to squirt coloured water on the snow and showed our creativity when mark making with sticks in the snow to create pictures and patterns.

...............

Each month we visit the large oak tree on the back field; we take a good look at it and have a photograph in front of it. This photo is then added to our date wheel, allowing us to track the changes month by month, season by season. We also add key events, books and learning to our wheel tracking the things we've enjoyed doing in nursery.

This month we were surprised and very giddy, to spot some very early leaf buds beginning to form at the end of the branches. We think they will have to grow much bigger before they unfurl into leaves!

...............

The children in Puffin Class have really enjoyed finding out about the celebration of Lunar New Year, which is also known as Chinese New Year or Spring festival. We have used non-fiction books, stories and videos to learn facts about the celebrations and about how the festival is celebrated in different countries around the world. 

Autumn 2: October half term - December

The children returned to school full of tales from their half term holiday. One of our big focuses in nursery is helping the children develop their communication skills, since we have returned we have been doing lots of speaking and listening about our first hand experiences, with the staff supporting the children as needed.

This half term will be full of festivals and celebrations, we've enjoyed starting to learn about some of them including Halloween, Diwali, Bonfire Night, Hanukkah and Christmas. We have loved hearing about the children's experiences of them; we can't wait to find out more!

...............

In Puffin Class we have really enjoyed taking part in 'World Nursery Rhyme Week'. The children have enjoyed saying, singing, performing and joining in with a wide range of rhymes and songs. We have had great fun learning some new rhymes and sharing our favourites with the rest of the children in nursery.

Autumn 1: September - October half term

We are so excited to be back! It is wonderful to have a classroom full of busy, happy children again. Over the past few weeks we have been thrilled to see and catch up with those children who are returning for a second year in nursery, as well as welcoming and settling new families into Puffin Class.

This half term our focus will be helping the children to settle in; getting to know and build, or re-establish, relationships with the adults and friendships with the other pupils in nursery, as well as familiarising themselves with our setting, learning where everything is and most importantly having lots of opportunities to play and explore. 

 ...............

It is wonderful to be so close to Hunger Hills woods, we have already been for a walk to familiarise ourselves with the woods and learn what they are like. We want the children to know them well so they can notice and comment on the changes they observe across the year.

As well as regularly visiting the woods, we also take a monthly trip to the Oak tree on the field at the back of school. We explore and observe the tree to see what we can notice and take a monthly photograph which gets added to our date wheel in nursery, allowing us to track the seasonal changes that occur.

 ...............

The 10th October was World Mental Health Day, we used this as a focus for our learning all week, exploring what 'mental health' is and how it is just as important as our 'physical health'. In nursery we enjoyed playing the face game - seeing how many different emotions we could think of and represent with facial expressions! We were wowed with the way the children could name and identify different emotions and with what they knew about those emotions - when they might feel them and what they could do to change the emotion if they so wished.

...............

This week we welcomed Catherine from Tiny Tales and Tunes who came in to run a highly interactive story telling session with our nursery children. We focused on the tale of Goldilocks and the 3 bears and all had a wonderful time bringing the story to life! We marched into the woods, danced like steam rising from the porridge, bounced the bears on the parachute bed, danced around the bear's house with our pompoms and even found time to put our bears to bed - it was a busy morning!