Caterpillar Nursery

If you have a child turning 3 and are interested in joining our Caterpillar Nursery, please follow this link to the ‘New Starters’ page

Nursery New Starters

Welcome to Caterpillar Nursery!

We are looking forward to welcoming our new starters and helping them settle into our 'revamped' nursery with our routines. Starting a new setting can be a little daunting sometimes for younger children and we want to help them become familiar with the adults, children and routines. If you want to talk with any member of staff about your child, please speak with us at drop off or pick up time.

This half term we will be learning about "Getting Around". This is an exciting topic linked to different modes of transport. We will learn about vehicles that fly (air and space), that are on the ground (bikes, cars, buses, trucks and diggers) and those that are on the water (boats, ships and submarines). The books we have linked to these topics are:

Chicken in Space by Adam Lehrhaupt
How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers
The Boy Who Sailed the World by Julia Green

This half term, our older children who will start school in September will start to learn a letter sound each week. This will prepare them for their phonics sessions when they join ladybirds and bumble bees. Each new letter sound will be linked to lots of different activities to support children's understanding and we will have a phoneme shop in our role play where children can buy different items starting with the same sound (e.g. mug, monster, melon etc). Children will also be encouraged to listen to letter sounds and put them together to hear a word (e.g. m-a-t is mat).

Throughout the half term we will be looking at what different things are made from. Children will learn the names of different materials (metal, plastic, stone, wood etc) and will learn some names to describe these different materials (hard, soft, bumpy, see-through, bendy).

Our nursery rhymes we will be learning and singing in class will be:

Our Maths work this half term will continue to focus on using our subitising skills (knowing how many items up to 3 are there without counting). Children will be counting up to 3 items from a larger group of objects and confidently recognising the numerals 1, 2, 3. We will also be introducing and using the words to describe position (on, under, over, through and between), this will be done through children play and outdoor learning activities.

Please remember that our Forest School sessions are every Wednesday throughout the year. Please dress your child appropriately for these sessions and ensure that they have waterproof footwear (preferably wellies). We have a weekly PE session in the school hall on Thursday, where children will need to wear trainers as there will be lots of running about.

In Nursery we aim to follow the children's interests, allowing them to explore the provision independently through play and we ensure they spend equal amounts of time in the provision both inside and outside. Due to the changing weather please ensure you send your child is in warm clothes with suitable shoes and with a waterproof coat. During the warmer months, children will require a sunhat (preferably with an all round brim) and applied sun cream before attending nursery.

We are really looking forward to working closely with you and your child. If you have any questions, concerns or queries please do not hesitate in contacting a member of the Nursery team.

Thank you for your continued support.

Nursery Team - Mr Hughes, Miss McLoughlan, Miss Knight

Key Dates:

6th January - Return to school

14th January - Reading afternoon

18th January - World Religion Day

19th - 23rd January - Big Energy Saving Week

23rd January - National Handwriting Day

28th January - National Lego Day

29th January - Chinese New Year - Year of the Snake

31st January - National Hot Chocolate Day

February - Black History Month