Weekly News

The children have had great fun in our role play area, which has been a Police Station, for the last couple of weeks. The highlight was PC Daniel Murphy, who came in this week in his police car. Dan brought in hats, jackets, handcuffs, for the children to look at and try on. He talked about his job and the children were fascinated to hear all about it and asked lots of questions. They loved 'driving' the police car. Dan's children were thrilled to see daddy in his smart uniform driving a police car at their nursery! Thanks Dan, we had such a great morning.

All three classes have celebrated World Book Day. Lots of dressing up as favourite book characters, reading favourite stories, cooking and lots of activities based on favourite stories.  It's a wonderful celebration to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors, encouraging everyone to access books.

All three of our classrooms had fun making and eating pancakes today. Our Catkins class voted on their choice of toppings, with Golden Syrup coming first. Lemon and sugar every time for most of the staff team though! Enjoy your pancakes.

Anna Grazier, Early Years Teacher and Room Leader in Preschool, organised a really interesting Maths Workshop for our preschool parents this morning. Thanks also to Mrs Cooper, one of our mums and a primary school teacher who assisted Anna,  explaining the importance of  subitising to our parents.

During 'Children's Mental Health Week',  in our Acorns preschool class, we've been reading The Colour Monster book and talking about our emotions. The book associates each emotion with a colour, green for calm, yellow for happy, blue for sad, red for angry, black for scared and multi coloured when they’re all mixed together. The children have been painting  self portraits and telling us what makes them happy. We've encouraged them to show us some of the physical things that make them feel happy too,  like running, jumping and rolling.

We've also introduced a ‘Kindness Tree’ where the children’s act of kindness. that they have shown in clas,  is hung up on a branch with a little card detailing their kindness.

Despite the rain we had a bumper turnout this morning at our Saturday Family Drop-in. We were delighted that so many of our families came with their nursery child  to play and  meet other families. As always it's a joy to see so many older siblings, many of them came to Acorn of course.  Thank you all for coming.

This week in Acorns Class we have been learning all about Lunar New Year (AKA Chinese New Year). We have been immersing ourselves in South Asian culture in our role play, learning where South Asia is located on our world map and about some of the wonderful traditions which are followed during this CNY celebration. We've been reading the story of The Great Race and have even acted it out! The children have been making cards for their friends, making snake stick puppets, Chinese lanterns,  filling red envelopes with pennies as a gift for each other, painting Mandarin numerals in the mud and have even embraced learning a few Mandarin words for Happy New Year! 新年快乐 - The Year of the Snake!

We've had a busy first week back after the long Christmas break.  The children in all 3 groups  have enjoyed playing, decorating and experimenting with ice!  Our younger children enjoyed breaking the ice to help the dinosaurs escape, they also enjoyed finding quick ways of melting the ice with salt or warm water. Our preschoolers made beautiful Ice Sculptures  to decorate the trees and the garden.  Looking at the weather forecast, there'll be more frozen fun on Monday!

We ended our busy autumn term with Christmas parties. Both groups enjoyed party games, dancing, party food and of course Santa!  Father Christmas brought presents for all the children and they were thrilled to see "the real" Santa!

The staff team then enjoyed a, well deserved,  second party. What a riotous evening we all had at The Fallen Angel! 

Myself, Pauline Crowder, and my AWESOME staff team wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year xxx

In a packed St Nicolas Church, our preschool children made everyone proud with their lovely performances in our Nativity and Carol Service. We are so fortunate that we have such a beautiful Church that's so welcoming. Thanks to our Curate Erik for all his help and thanks to Mr Holcombe and the amazing Glebelands Choir for their support today.

All of our groups love obstacle courses, whether they consist of a couple of planks and a few  crates or ones that almost fill the whole garden! There's always great collaboration when the children work together to create some amazing courses, well done!

We're so fortunate that we have a qualified Baby/Toddler Yoga & Mindfulness teacher amongst our staff, the children love their Yoga sessions.  Yoga isn't just good for adults, it's good for children too. It can improve balance, strength, endurance, and aerobic capacity. It can help children to learn to use their muscles in new ways and improve their flexibility.  It helps children learn to relax and cope with emotions.  It's good fun too!

Both groups have been  listening to stories and talking about why we make poppies for  Remembrance Sunday. At 11am our pre-school children sat beautifully and were nice and quiet for 2 minutes.  Our young 2 year olds were offered  the opportunity to watch a 2 minute, age appropriate, CBeebies animation explaining the significance of remembrance and poppies.  Well done children you all did really well.

To reinforce their knowledge of shapes and colour mixing this week the children have been looking at Wassily Kandinsky's art. He is well-known for creating abstract paintings using shapes, lines and colours. The children had fun creating their own artwork  by using cutout shapes,  they really enjoyed a  group art project creating an impressive painting.

Over 30 families came with their nursery children for our termly 'Saturday Family Drop-In' today, the sun even shone for us.  Lovely to see so many families and of course always a joy to see older siblings visiting again, immediately turning back into 3 & 4 year olds playing so happily.  Thank you all for coming.

Our Catkins class, our young 2 year olds, have been going 'Bonkers for Conkers' these last couple of weeks. We've had lots of creative fun with our huge collection of conkers. The children have enjoyed exploring the texture of the shells and conkers, using lots of descriptive words. They've sent them flying down chutes, used them for painting by dipping and rolling, using a special tool they've drilled holes in the conkers for threading and made fabulous necklaces. They even made lovely conker soap!

Our Acorns class are enjoying their PE sessions, we'll continue doing them outside until it's too cold or wet and we have to move indoors!  We're so lucky that one of our Early Years Teachers is a trained PE teacher too.

Acorns Class (Preschool) have been enjoying exploring our grounds and play areas, they were very excited to find a newt (or a baby dinosaur as one of the children thought). They have been balancing, swinging and pushing making friends as they play and collaborate together. They are loving the independence of our self-service Snack Bar, buttering their own toast, serving their fruit salad and pouring their own drinks.

We've had a fun filled, busy first week back. Our new 2 year old starters have settled very well and are enjoying exploring the nursery environment and all the activities we have on offer. Our new preschoolers have loved coming back seeing their friends and teachers again. Despite feeling autumnal on some days, we've enjoyed plenty of sunshine too.

We were all thrilled today, to welcome Jamie, Leigh, Chloe, Jake & Daniel, some of Cranleigh's fabulous, fearless firefighters! They thrilled and excited our children, and several of the parents who also came, the children tried on firefighters' clothes, helmets, saw and learnt about the equipment, sat in the fire engine and best of all, every child sprayed the hose. We are very grateful to all of the firefighters who gave up so much of their time to visit us, you guys are simply the best, thank you.

Having delayed our first sports day due to rain, we tried again on Wednesday and had a super day, the sun even shone briefly! What fun all 3 of our year groups had running, cycling, hurdling and helping the teachers win their race. All of our children, their mums, dads, siblings and grandparents took part, a really great morning. Thanks to all our fabulous parents for coming along to support the event.

Acorns class welcomed Sam from 'Happily Ever After' who delivered a creative story telling workshop to the children. The story that the workshop was based on was 'Grrrrr' by Rob Biddulph. The children had great fun listening to, and re-creating the 'sporty' journey of Fred the bear as he tried to keep his championship title of the 'Best Bear in the Wood'. We all had a wonderful time dancing, singing, playing musical instruments and bringing the story to life! Thanks Sam, we look forward to another visit soon.

We had a beautiful sunny morning for our termly 'Saturday Family Drop-in'. So many of our super supportive families came to 'play' with their nursery children. Always a treat to see older siblings, who slip right back into nursery mode! Thank you all for coming, it was lovely to see so many of you.

The sun shone as 160 Acorn children and their families enjoyed a fabulous day out at Bocketts Farm.  So much to do there and so much space to enjoy it all in!  The ever popular pig racing, tractor & trailer rides, small animal handling, feeding lambs, llamas & goats and so much play equipment. A day isn't long enough!  Thank you all for coming, it was an amazing turn out.

The children love gardening, they love digging and feeling the soil. It's a joy for everyone to plant seeds and seedlings and watch them grow. This term the children have planted herbs, peas, beans, peppers, potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes & pumpkins. They love our new greenhouse and planters, they regularly check on the progress, watering them when it hasn't rained. Gardening is a wonderful activity for children it provides the opportunity to explore different senses. They can learn about the world and seasons around them while gaining a greater understanding of the journey their food takes before it reaches their plates.

We've been learning how important bees are to the world's ecosystem.  We've talked about how bees collect pollen and carry it to other flowers to pollinate them, and looked at all the different foods we eat that depend on bees to help them grow. We were surprised to learn there are 270 bee species in the UK!

As well as learning lots about bees, we have enjoyed making our own bees too!  Our classroom looks amazing with all the 'bees' flying around.

At Forest School last week, we've continued our 'bee' theme.  The children all made their own bees using 'Hapa Zome', which is the Japanese art of leaf dye.

The children  had a piece of cotton fabric and placed some buttercup petals on the fabric. Next, they folded the fabric over to completely cover the petals. Then they used a hammer to 'bash' the petals, causing the dye to seep onto the fabric. Finally, the children then used a Sharpie to add the stripes and other details to their bees. The results were brilliant!

The children had fun learning to dance around a Maypole earlier this month.  They watched a clip of Maypole dancers, then helped Mrs Ross make their own Maypole.  It was very funny to watch, but after several attempts they were pretty good.  Well done Acorns, great dancing!

We're so proud of our new, young, 2 year olds, they've settled in so beautifully and are having lots of fun and making new friends. They are also becoming more  independent, especially  at snack time, pouring their milk and using tongs to pick up their fruit.  They'll soon be emulating our preschoolers, who prepare their fruit and butter their own toast!

Our Acorns (preschool children) have been  learning all about oral health and throughout the week we've been discussing why we have teeth and the importance of looking after them and  keeping them healthy. We've been talking about what happens to your teeth if you eat too much sugar! The children have used timers, brushes and toothpaste to clean 'big' teeth. They enjoyed looking at their teeth through dental mirrors and getting 'plaque' off laminated teeth. Great cleaning children!

Catkins Class (our young 3 year olds) enjoyed being firefighters this week. We'd kept a huge cardboard box from a delivery, and one of the children thought it would make a great firestation. Ably helped by Freddie, our brilliant Glebelands Work Experience student, they took the box into the field and painted it red. They marked where the door would go and helped us stick the Fire Station letters on. They had lots of fun dressing up as firefighters, putting out fires and helping people.   A great collaborative activity, well done!  We look forward to seeing a real fire engine visit us very soon.

All three of our groups have had a great first week back after the Easter holidays. Our Acorns and Catkins are happy to be back with their friends and teachers and our new 2 year old starters have been busy exploring the nursery and all the exciting things to play with.  It's been lovely to be able to spend time outside for a few days, without raincoats and wellies!

We hope you've all had a lovely Easter holiday and look forward to welcoming you back.  We're all very excited to see our Catkins Class's reaction when they see their new classroom and outside area next week.  We've just finished it in time for the start of the new term!

Our young Catkins & Squirrels had great fun choosing things to attach to their Music Wall, even more fun hitting the 'musical instruments'. They were fascinated by the different sounds the different materials made.   They made lovely music, enthusiastically accompanied by a xylophone, bongo drums and a ukulele.

The children have had so much fun at Forest School over the last few weeks.  They've built dens, learnt how to split wood, cooked many treats, made wooden cars, used knots to secure 'windy wands', made leaf crowns,  found lots of worms after the rain and just enjoyed being in the fresh air, come rain or shine!