Please see below for some examples of the amazing work we've been doing

The nursery children have had lots of fun learning about all of the different 'People Who Help Us' which links to our Topic. We have learnt about lots of different Emergency Services, Shop workers, Cleaners, Postmen, Dustmen and are moving onto learning about People Who Help us at Home and at Nursery/School over the next few weeks. We had lots of fun dressing up for World Book Day as characters from stories we had read about. We read different stories each week, sometimes listening to stories on cd's with no visuals and also sometimes on our giant computer screen. We have been so pleased to see both parents and children using the Nursery Library box on a Monday. We hope that you are enjoying reading together at home.

We continue to cook with a group of children each week and are currently making Carrot and Raisin Muffins

As the weather has improved we have made some changes to our outside area which the children have enjoyed being able to access independently. We have a new small world area with a table and 2 benches kindly given to us by St Paul's School. We have added AstroTurf which the children love adding animals to. We have also taken the parachute outside and played some games. We are looking forwards to seeing more evidence of Spring and to begin doing some planting.

We have been really busy practicing writing our names and lots of children are now able to do a good representation without using their name card for copying. Most nursery children are now able to find their own name from the board when they enter nursery for self registration.

During the last few weeks and until the half term break we have enjoyed focusing on our Nursery Adults favourite stories. We have done lots of activities linked to them. We have read Shark in the Park, Each Peach Pear Plum and Snake Supper so far and have Dear Zoo and the Gruffalo for the last 2 weeks. We made telescopes and went for a walk around the school to spot sharks! We made mini puppets with the characters from Each Peach Pear Plum and are starting to make snakes from Snake Supper. We have exciting activities planned for the last 2 books.

We have been cooking Cheese and Parsley scones this half term. The children have cooked in small groups and only the chefs took home scones, this has been character building for the other children!

The children have been doing lots of mark making especially of their names. We have done tracing with some children now doing a recognisable form of their name independently.

The creative area has been very popular with children now able to ask for resources that they would like to use but have run out in the drawers.

The children really enjoyed playing with the magnets in the Nursery, finding what was and was not magnetic. We discovered that not everything that looks like metal really is.

As the Autumn term comes to an end, we wanted to say how proud we are of our Nursery children. They have had an amazing first term at Lowther and are now experts at following and joining in our daily routine. We sing a lot in the Nursery – whether it is the ‘days of the week’, counting songs, nursery rhymes, or songs to perform for special events such as Christmas (we are looking forward to performing some jolly numbers this year)! A particular favourite song this month has been the ‘Five Fruit and Veggies’ song.

We were given a very kind donation of plants, compost and bark chipping. The nursery children got to work quickly, enjoying planting and using trowels to empty the bags into our outside tyre area. They have also enjoyed the extra addition of ‘mud’ for the mud kitchen, and have been busy making ‘hot chocolate’ and all kinds of delicious muddy delights for us!

Did you know that we do phonics with the children in the nursery? In these early stages we are laying the foundations for the phonic skills that the children need to begin to blend further down the line. This term we have concentrated on listening to the sounds heard in our environment and exploring instruments. The children enjoyed making their own shakers and have used these in many different ways, such as shaking along to songs, finding different ways to make a sound or starting and stopping with a puppet.

This half term, our topic has been food and celebrations. We started our weekly cooking sessions with the children, which they have really enjoyed - particularly the results! We have also tasted some foods from around the world We tasted food from Lebanon, Italy, Sweden, Jamaica, Bulgaria and India and enjoyed seeing what these different foods looked and smelled like.

Our nursery library is now in full swing, and we hope you and your children are enjoying taking home a book to share together each week!

In the last few weeks we have started to do more independent learning. We have chosen our own resources and activities and have been able to choose activities that we cannot see around us. We have enjoyed playing in the house outside using resources from our mud kitchen.

As the end of term approaches, we are sure the children will be looking forward to having a well-deserved rest and do hope you all enjoy the break!

What a busy time we've had in Nursery. We have spent time learning about using all of the resources available in our self help creative area.

We have been learning about different shapes, a square, a circle, a triangle and a rectangle, learning about their properties. Doing lots of counting of their edges. We are looking forward to going on a shape walk around school.

We had lots of fun going on an early Autumn walk to collect some orange, yellow and red leaves from around the school. We are enjoying using our new stage area outside for making music by playing our instruments and dancing with scarves. We are also using our new outside book area for sharing stories with friends.

The children have had a superb first half term in the Nursery and have settled in so well. We can't wait to see them continue to grow and flourish.

We've been delighted to see that the children in Nursery have all settled well and have been learning the Lowther Nursery routine. Impressive work children!

We have spent time learning to share and take turns. We have introduced a self help snack bar which, as you can imagine, is proving popular.

We have had great fun using our amazing new covered outside area. Huge thanks to parents for helping to make this happen. We are also thoroughly enjoying using our new extended play space (which is huge!) once the gates are closed each morning.

We love reading in Nursery and so our book recommendation is My Mum and Dad Make Me Laugh by Nick Sharratt. Check it out, it's a great book.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception classes) at Lowther has an exciting and creative curriculum. To find out more about life in Early Years at Lowther and our curriculum offer please follow these links:

Here you will find some helpful calculation guides for early years through to year 6 for maths learning and practice. Please click on the images to display/download the full documents in PDF Format.