Weekly News

Several of the children went to the seaside over the Easter break and staff helped them to create a 'seaside' in the activity tray, which all our younger children enjoyed. If a child is interested, they will learn more effectively, confidence and self-esteem are raised if a child's interests are followed, and they motivated to interact, and to interact for longer. Our experienced staff understand the benefits of In the Moment Planning such as this.

We've had a super first week back, the weather has been perfect for an outside nursery such as ours. The children were so happy to see their friends and teachers again and the young two year olds that have joined us for the summer term, have settled beautifully. Whether it's been a teacher led activity or the child's own imagination or curiosity leading the play, they've had such a lot of fun. There's only one way to learn at this young age and that's through play, which underpins learning and all aspects of children's development.

We've had a fun couple of weeks with lots of Easter activities. We did exciting Easter Story drama, Easter egg hunts, egg & spoon races, Easter crafts & creations, Easter cooking, Easter games, the list goes on!
We've had a very busy spring term, as always the children have embraced spending so much time outdoors, rain or shine, in our safe & secure outdoor areas. We hope the summer term brings us plenty of warm weather though, as the children are all looking forward to picnic lunches outside. We're also very much looking forward to our summer outing, our sports day and our leavers treasure hunt, this year hopefully with the parents able to come too.
Have a good Easter break, stay safe and well and we'll see you on the 20th April.

We used the children's interest in building 'crate towers' to introduce height measurement language, such as tall, taller, tallest. The children counted how many crates they needed to reach their height, their teacher's height and then how many more crates were needed if they stood on a chair! It was a lovely and valuable 'teachable moment', recognised quickly by our experienced staff.

In both of our nursery groups, our young 2 & 3 year olds and our preschoolers, we regularly participate in fun games and activities to promote good listening skills. Grandma's Footsteps, Mrs Browning has a Box, Sound Lotto, Music Match to name but a few. We often use an excellent resource to support us in these adult-led activities, called Letters and Sounds. Check it out there are some amazing, fun activities to promote listening and speaking skills.
These important communication skills are the building blocks of literacy and learning.

We've all been delighted to see so many spring flowers growing, on our walks around the school grounds. In particular the great many daffodils we have. We've been looking closely at the daffodils, examining the petals and leaves under a microscope, looking at similarities and differences between them. It's really exciting to see the daffodils that we planted ourselves last year and in previous years. Gardening is always a much loved activity at Acorn. Springtime is a wonderful season for the children to witness new growth and new life first hand.

We've had a wonderful Book Week, nearly all 50 children and their teachers dressed up as their favourite book character. We had a great Zoom with Tapestry Lunch Club and loved hearing about our new senior friend Ray and his favourite story Alice in Wonderland. We've been on so many Bear Hunts, an all time favourite story of ours, we're so lucky to have so much outside space to 'act out' wonderful stories such as this. Our younger children had great fun making different sound effects for the Bear Hunt story, squelching, splashing, spiky grass etc. Thank you to our lovely parents for supporting this exciting week, which supports one of our goals,
for every child at Acorn to have a love of books.
We were really happy to be involved with some of our elderly friends again, albeit via Zoom! We've missed our regular visits to Moat Lodge and look forward to being able to visit our senior friends there again soon. This week, we were delighted to Zoom with a lovely gentleman, Ray, from Tapestry Lunch Club, a wonderful organisation which supports isolated elderly people within our community. Pre-covid Tapestry organised regular teas, lunches & parties, for groups of socially isolated people, where they can meet and socialise. Sadly that's not possible at the moment, but new guests are still welcome online until they can meet in person again. Cranleigh@tapestrylunchclub. Ray was really interested in the children and enthralled them with his pigeons, the children loved telling Ray all about the Big Bird Watch that we've just participated in. They were also excited to know that one of his pigeons had flown to France and they told Ray all about them learning French at nursery, with their puppet friend Pierre! We look forward to seeing Ray, via Zoom, for Book Week next week, we're really looking forward to seeing what books he's going to show us, I wonder if he'll dress-up as his favourite book character too?
Acorn became involved in Intergenerational Relationships a number of years ago, the benefits to all are considerable and it's a lovely way to strengthen links within our community.

We were delighted to welcome some young 2 year olds to our Squirrels Bubble today. All 3 settled really quickly, outside with their mums initially, then were happy to go inside without mum after a very short time. They've had a lovely time playing alongside new friends. Social interaction helps young children to start to develop their sense of self, and also they start to learn what others expect from them. Putting them into a nursery environment helps your child to develop important skills such as sharing, turn taking, setting boundaries, and problem solving and of course they have lots of fun.

We've had great fun celebrating Chinese New Year this week. We've made our own Dragons, learnt new traditional Chinese dances and read lots of Chinese New Year stories. We've made lanterns for the Lantern Festival, made lucky red envelopes and counted new pennies to go in them. We opened a Chinese Restaurant and ate Chinese food and played with noodles and chopsticks. Chinese New Year is a perfect way to introduce early years children to different cultures and traditions that may not be familiar to them or their families. It's also a perfect way to keep celebrations going following Christmas and New Year, we love a party at Acorn!
We've now broken up for half term, let's hope for some warmer weather when we return on the 22nd. Your children continue to thrive in our safe and secure environment. We're still spending much of the day outside, but whether inside or out we're having lots of fun and creating plenty of happy memories. We are so lucky to have such an abundance of safe green spaces, that no one else is using. Thanks to our lovely parents who continue to follow our very strict, anti-Covid, playground rules, we know how hard it is not being able to come into the classrooms and share the fun and activities with your children. We all appreciate your support in helping keep everyone safe. Have a lovely half term break, stay safe and remember fresh air is Covid's enemy!

We are huge lovers of outside play and learning. We have spent many happy hours watching the kids splosh about with water, build with wet sand, mud and snow, dig in the dirt, plant flowers, hunt for minibeasts and get creative with natural materials. Mud kitchens especially, the children's favourite thing, are exciting, messy, creative areas to play. Children experience sensory, emotional and imaginative play as well as developing maths, science and speaking skills. Outside is definitely the best place for messy and sensory play because the clear up is minimal and the key resources are right on hand!

We've really enjoyed participating in the RSPB's Big Bird Watch last week. The children in both groups have noted the type of bird we have in our school gardens and they've counted or tallied the number of birds they've seen. We've learnt what birds like to eat and how best to feed them. The children have made lots of different types of bird feeders and we're loving watching the birds eat them, with real and handmade binoculars.
Our most exciting find is a green woodpecker that lives in one of the big oak trees in our garden. We've heard it's loud pecking many times, when we're not near the tree, but now some of the children have actually seen it when they've been very quiet, which was really exciting.
By monitoring the birds in your garden, you're helping to take a snapshot of how they are doing. And the more people that submit their results, the better picture the RSPB will have of how garden birds are faring across the UK. This is vital in helping them understand the challenges faced by wildlife. It's not too late to participate in the Big Bird Watch you can submit your results until 22 February. We've had a lot of fun, but have also gained an understanding of the needs of the birds in our gardens and how to help them survive.
The RSPB website is full of interesting facts and great ideas how to attract birds to your garden.
We've all had such fun playing in the snow at nursery these last couple of days. We've painted snowballs and snow people, built snow castles, made wonderful snow angels and the children have really loved running, jumping and just rolling around in it. We've discovered what makes snow melt slower and faster.
We've been spotting tracks in the snow, all birds and animals of course, as we have and abundance of traffic free space at school. The children decided they'd like to get bikes and scooters out and make tracks with those, then their friends had to guess which bike made which track. There's been endless opportunities, in the snow, to stimulate their play and learning.
They've also requested Hot Chocolate every day too. I think some of our children think we're Costa as they've now started asking for whippy cream and marshmallows! They were sad this morning that most of the snow had melted, but how lucky they were that they'd had this experience at such a young age, and have created such lovely memories. It's been a good many years since we've had snow like that in Cranleigh!
The snow has led nicely onto our BIG BIRD WATCH which we're participating in for the next few weeks with the RSPB. We'll be learning what we can do to encourage birds into our gardens.
Following on from last weeks 'Hot Chocolate Friday', which we have throughout the winter months, some of the children thought it would be a good idea to sell some of their own hot chocolate to their friends! It was quick and easy to set up a 'Hot Chocolate for sale' stall, and the children decided what they'd like to put in the hot chocolate. It was a lovely, fun, activity enjoyed by all. Child-led play leads to deeper levels of thinking, learning and involvement, they learn more effectively when adults engage them in activities that are based on their own interests. It's more likely to motivate children to interact, and interact for longer. Today, for instance, some of the children thought it would be a good idea if we had a 'Hot Chocolate Monday' treat too, to help them warm-up while playing in the snow!
At Acorn, we balance child-initiated play with skillful adult-led teaching.

We all know the utter joy of reading stories to children, and the more you read to your children the more knowledge they absorb, the more vocabulary they learn, the better they concentrate and their level of emotional intelligence grows. It also fast-tracks their own development of reading. We have a wide and wonderful range of story books at Acorn, both in the classrooms and outside. We have informative books on topics such as different animals, places, occupations, or objects etc. We have different books to help teach children about important life skills such as sharing, being kind, and about diversity. We encourage a love of books at nursery and are rewarded when children pick up and enjoy books wherever they are.

Welcome back to our spring term, and our third lockdown! We are open to ALL children, not just keyworker's children. We are still spending lots of time outside, where we know it's safer. The children are wrapped up snug and warm and are still loving our outdoor learning environment & Forest School. They really enjoyed the Ice Hunt this week, ice painting is great fun too and try putting salt on ice and watch it melt. We hope more of our Acorn & Catkin families will return very soon, we're missing you!

To end our busy term, we had fabulous Christmas Parties, one for each bubble of course, but with all our 40+ children joining in. We played Christmas games and sang lots of Christmas songs, then had a super party tea and we ended the party with a very special visitor, Father Christmas of course. Being an outside nursery, we made our gazebo into an amazing Christmas grotto for Santa to visit the children safely.
It's been a challenging term but, in our ever changing outdoor learning environment, thankfully we've stayed open throughout. The children have embraced spending so much time outside, loving the outdoor experiences that have provided rich opportunities for them to learn in and enjoy.
Thanks to our parents who have followed our Covid safety rules and thanks to our amazing children, for whom regular hand washing has become the norm! Extra special thanks to the Acorn team, we're so very fortunate to have such an awesome, committed and caring group of Early Years teachers, who've now added Deep Cleaning to their CVs!
Have a Happy & Healthy Christmas and may the New Year bring good things for us all.
The children performed a very different Nativity this year, unable to use our beautiful St Nicolas Church to practise or perform in, unable to allow parents to join in with our regular Carol service and unable to have Cranleigh Primary School choir support us, we decided, as we've been an outside nursery since March, it was only right we performed an outdoor Nativity, our take on Wintershall! It threw up some challenges, mainly the weather, the fact we had no microphones and at times it was like herding clouds trying to get the children to go in the right direction, when there were just so many directions to go in! They had such fun though and the final performance was wonderful, especially the singing at full volume! Sadly no parents were able to come into the grounds to watch, but our 2 year old Catkins group provided a moving audience for all of our Acorn actors, apart from a couple that found it all so riveting, they actually slept through the performance!
You did us so proud children, well done and we hope you and your family enjoyed watching the video.

As we approach the end of autumn, some of our young 2 and 3 year olds in Catkins group, chose to help us sweep up the never ending carpet of leaves in our playgrounds. As well as being great fun, sweeping helps develop coordination, concentration and gross motor skills. We had lots of fun with the leaves we swept up, and after we'd jumped around in them, we made potions and soups in the mud kitchen. Leaf play can be an excellent source of movement and activity that stimulates the sensory system. We've had so much fun with leaf play this term, in this electronic world we live in, it's so beneficial to play outdoors. The fresh air and physical activity from jumping around and kicking leaves is such a lovely outdoor activity for children, and of course it's free!

Our young 2 year olds have absolutely loved participating in Music & Movement this term. It's well known that exposing children to music during early development helps them learn the sounds and meanings of words. Dancing to music helps children build motor skills while allowing them to practice self-expression. It helps the body and the mind work together and when language is combined with movement, learning increases 90 percent. Movement has also been shown to help calm and promote alertness in infants. It's also such good fun. After warm-up, see pics, the children listen to the music and create their own special dance, sometimes on their own sometimes with a friend.
Who doesn't like listening and dancing to music?
On our way to the woodwork area in Forest School this week we collected lots of different coloured leaves, flowers and berries. We then placed them in some folded cotton fabric and tapped with our hammers to extract the colour. The children loved watching the colours emerge as they hammered gently onto the fabric. We turned our art-work into colourful Forest Flags. This technique is known as Hapa Zome, it's the Japanese art of, literally, beating up leaves with hammers and pounding natural pigment into cloth. The children certainly enjoyed leaf bashing!  
Another great activity you can do at home, the children loved the whole experience and they were totally absorbed from start to finish - and it's FREE!
We celebrated Diwali this week, the Hindu festival of Lights. We talked about the differences in our cultures, we tried on different clothes and ate different food. We loved making Rangoli patterns with coloured rice and with natural resources in Forest School. We shaped clay into T light holders and painted them beautifully, to hold our candles. We read lovely stories and enjoyed different music.
Festivals and cultural celebrations like this are an easy, fun and interesting way for Early Years to learn about and embrace Diversity. Through this sort of activity it helps support our young children’s own sense of identity and promotes a positive sense of pride in their own family origins. Young children can develop a sense of belonging to the local community and begin to understand and respect less familiar cultures. As always, the best learning is when preschoolers learn through play, everything we do is fun and interesting.
This week we raised money for Children in Need. We wore yellow or spotty clothes and we made Pudsey biscuits & decorated them, we made Pudsey and Blush masks, we had a fun treasure hunt following clues until we found Pudsey. We made up songs and games about the bears and, most importantly, talked about why we were raising money. The children were interested and showed sympathy for the families we discussed.
We were very proud of the children. As we were earlier in the week, on the 11th at 11am when we were very quiet and remembered all of the brave soldiers that have helped us.
We had lots of fun making bubbles this week. We used all sorts of shapes and sizes for wands, even sticks and string! We learnt that a bubble is just air wrapped in soap film. We also learnt that no matter what shape the bubble wand is, floating bubbles are always round!
We made really huge bubbles, but the best thing was when some of the children thought they'd like to be inside a bubble! Wow, that was really exciting.
Blowing bubbles naturally engages young children in experimentation and play with purpose, allowing the fun and excitement to guide their curiosity and learning.
Bubble mixture is easy and inexpensive to make. You need 150ml Fairy Original washing-up liquid, 350ml water & 2 teaspoons granulated or caster sugar. Dissolve the sugar in the water and gently stir in the washing up liquid, you don't want bubbles at the stage, try and leave it to stand overnight if your children allow you to! Happy bubble blowing.
Thanks to one of our nursery dads, amazing Matt Blackmore, his wife Leanne and son Harry, we now have our preschooler's 'big playground' all weather, as well as our younger children's 'little playground'. Matt, Leanne & Harry spent a second weekend laying another huge piece of artificial grass to finish our preschooler's playground. The end result looks amazing, the children love it, as do the staff. This will allow us to continue to be outside, even when it's raining and wet underfoot - we'll still be able to use both playgrounds!
It's so very generous of you to give up so much of your free time helping us. Great job, thank you all so much xxx
Our last week of half term has been all things Autumn, in particular we've had lots of fun with Pumpkins! We dug out and explored the insides, printed with them, hammered golf tees in them, (great finger gym activity), performed fun drama with the fabulous Pumpkin Soup book, we even made pumpkin playdough! The children can dry the seeds for a healthy snack and also keep a handful to plant again in the spring, brilliant to show life cycles. They're easy to grow and fascinating for our young, interested, gardeners to watch them grow. Encourage wildlife into your gardens, they will feast on pumpkins. They are yummy roasted for us too! Finally, don't forget to discuss with your children whether pumpkins are a fruit or vegetable, and why?
This half term has flown by, the children are loving being outside so much. A lot of the children have never played in the rain before, and they've loved that too.
Thank you, to all our wonderful parents for following our, very strict, Covid Policy so well and helping to keep us all safe.
Have a wonderful half term, stay well and we'll see you back on the 2nd November.
Love from all of the Acorn team
xxx

Woodwork encompasses all aspects of learning and development, supporting maths, scientific investigation, physical coordination, language, and vocabulary. Initially, our children are taught how to use the tools safely and given the opportunity to try techniques in appropriate ways, this week the children were practicing hammering wood together. Learning progresses at each child’s individual pace and they will quickly be able to bang in nail after nail with confidence and delight. Once they have mastered the basic skills, they can move into open-ended exploration, making unique creations. The smell and texture of wood, the sounds of hammering and sawing; the use of strength and coordination, the feel of real tools, the opportunity to work with natural materials, all go together to captivate young children. Woodwork is active learning at its best!

We had lots of fun at Planet Soccer this week. Playing with balls improves kids' motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and timing, which are important parts of the developmental progression of early years. The skills they learn by playing with balls will also be important once they graduate to collaborative and competitive play. Getting kids excited about sports and being active at an early age is vital to prepare them for a healthy life. It teaches them to enjoy the physical activity that will help them maintain a healthy weight and good physical health, as well as helping them develop better bone and muscle structure. Our preschoolers love Soccer, they also love being in the 'big school' hall and they love Coach Harry!

We've done lots of cooking this week. Yummy apple & blackberry crumbles indoors, then pretend "yummy cooking" outdoors! 
Getting involved in cooking helps your child to develop fine motor skills, eye hand coordination, and even early concepts of math and science, it's such good fun too.  Great dens, by the way, children well done.
Children love to climb, and climbing allows children to build their physical strength, boosting gross motor skills such as balance, hand and foot coordination and agility, all leading to a healthier and active lifestyle. It also helps hone spatial and directional awareness and builds confidence.  Embedding physical activity into children from this young age will help fight childhood obesity and ensure children really enjoy being active when they start school and beyond. 
Our young 2 year olds are progressing quickly from using the rope ladder, onto the rock wall. They'll be climbing trees very soon like our confident preschoolers are!
As the warm weather continues, we are still spending as much time as possible outdoors. We've been doing an all time favourite this week, washing babies. It's a great role play activity for developing personal, social and emotional skills as well as being a fun water play activity for outside and it's (almost) FREE!
The children love lathering up the 'babies', rinsing and drying, then putting nappies on and dressing them.
The younger children are learning the names of body parts, and by having toothbrushes available to brush the 'babies' teeth, it provides a good opportunity for talking about dental care and hygiene.They are also learning: Social Skills: caring for others, role-playing, showing understanding of hygiene and self-care practices, dressing. Physical skills: fine motor skills, doing up buttons/ poppers/ zips, fastening nappies. Creative skills: telling stories and acting out roles/characters during play.
Best of all they are having great fun!

Now we're spending more time outside, where we know its safer, our grass just wasn't up to the job! Now thanks to our Lovely Harry, and his daddy, Mighty Matt, we're halfway there to having an all weather surface on our front playground too. You guys are awesome!

We had a great time in Forest School this week, some children were collecting acorns and other natural things to investigate, others were building amazing dens. We love building dens it's such fun, give it a go if you haven't already discovered the joys of den building. Inside or outside, using sheets & the backs of chairs, or branches and tarpaulins!  Den play, as well as being free, can spark a child's creativity and imagination, it also helps to improve their physical development, communication, language, teamwork and problem solving skills as well.

We've had a super few days, we welcomed  our returners and many new families.  We're  happy to be able to use our inside classrooms again, as well as the abundance of safe, secure and exciting outside areas.  It's wonderful to see the children moving freely from inside to outside again, welcome back freeflow! 
Our furloughed staff are back, joining our lockdown team and we're all working hard, having to get used to a different way of working now, in an effort to keep everyone safe. Thanks to our parents, who've been amazing, following our very rigorous  Covid-19 policy. 
Thanks to our lovely children who, as always, are enthusiastic, happy and a joy to be with.  Here's to a happy and healthy Autumn 2020!
 

A monster story for a Monday Monstersaurus

Thanks to Sarah and Rose for reading today's story, it's lovely to see you both The Detective Dog

Some more suggested ideas of things to do at home. Please keep adding your pictures to tapestry - it's great to see them! Week 2

Meet the teacher today is Mrs Sandell. She is missing you all!

This is a fun activity where the making is as much fun as the using! 

A Monday morning story from Mrs Crowder Don't Eat the Teacher

Enjoy our last story of the week?. Have a lovely weekend The Pig in the Pond

Some more ideas of activities from tapestry that we can do at home. Thank you for the amazing observations you have added Week 1

Thanks to Gracie and Nancy's mummy, Danielle, and their big sister Bonnie, for showing us this lemon volcano. Cut a lemon in half, scoop a little out of the middle drop a little food colouring in and add some Bicarbonate of soda. It's messy so best done outside or on a tray. Lemon Volcano

We are sure you must be missing all your teachers during lockdown so we will be doing a post about each of your teachers so you don't forget them

A Julia Donaldson story to start your week Room on the Broom

We hope you enjoy our story Night Monkey Day Monkey? 

Tapestry have created some advice on observations and activities that you can do at home. We are starting today by sharing this post about home learning and doing observations. Please enjoy sharing your photos on tapestry but feel no pressure to do the activities. It should all be about enjoying the time and activities with your child. Send a message to this page or email Acorn if you're unsure and want some help 

Observations

Welcome to Maia, who went to 'big school' last year, and her mummy Tamsin who are our guest storytellers today, reading 'Down by the Cool of the Pool' by Tony Mitton.Down by the Cool of the Pool

A bit of story magic for today Possum Magic

The sun ☀️ is shining again and this a brilliant idea for in the garden Water Wall

This is a great story and it's free to download Coronavirus for Children

Acorn Nursery is delighted to welcome our first guest storyteller. Reading Stickman, by Julia Donaldson, is Bella one of our preschool children and her mummy Lisa. I hope all you enjoy the story as much as we did.Stickman

Story time about Teddy Where's my Teddy? ?

Check out the Sticky Kids Workout Podcast. The children will be familiar with the
exercises as we use the CDs in PE. Have fun. Sticky Kids

We are starting this week with a book from Julia Donaldson. Enjoy! Tiddler  ?

Today's story is by Mrs Sandell. We are sure you will enjoy it Owl Babies ?

We hope you enjoy our next story - it's a bit scary! Alan's Big Scary Teeth?

Winnie and the Midnight Dragon Winnie and the Midnight Dragon

Monkey Puzzle read by Mrs Hastie follow the link to read the story Monkey Puzzle 

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