Welcome to Butterfly class!  We have 3 and 4 year olds in this class. Our classroom is quite different to the other two rooms as we have a conservatory attached which gives us views of our woodland garden. The conservatory houses our art studio and it gives children the space and resources to create all different styles of artwork. In Butterfly class we also have a cookery area, equipped with child sized equipment and outfits which was set up using a National Lottery grant.

As with all the classrooms, we have divided up the areas using shelving, so children have direct and easy access to the resources available to support their independent play.  We tend to have many resources that stay the same, so that children can return to their activities over a period of days, and revisit their favourite activities.  However, we also add resources that may be of interest to the children, such as fairy-tale outfits in the home corner.

All children have their own coat peg. Upon arrival in the morning or afternoon, we encourage children to find their peg and put all their belongings away. 

Who is in the Butterfly Team?

• Emily - Class Teacher
• Nicole - Classroom Deputy / Classroom SENCo
• Laura - Early Years Assistant
• Becki - Early Years Assistant
• Sarah - Early Years Assistant
• Ali - Outdoor Practitioner    

Spring Term 2 - 2025

This half term, we have been looking at and talking about our core story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. The children are gaining in confidence with retelling this story and using the story props including the characters to help them.  We are painting, drawing and printing lots of bears using different shades of brown paint. The children have painted Daddy bear, Mummy bear, Baby bear and Goldilocks to add to our display about bears. The children have been learning about real bears by looking at information books and using an iPad to help them. We have learnt some of their names including Panda bear, Polar bear, Brown bear and Black bear and what they like to eat. 

The children have been playing with porridge oats and different sized bowls and spoons. The children have been singing lots of nursery rhymes and other songs including some favourites like ‘Wheels on the Bus’. As well as singing some of our bear songs including ‘When Goldilocks went to the House of the Bears’ and ‘The Bear Went Over the Mountain’. The children have been exploring the season of Spring. 

We have been talking about and looking for signs of Spring in the garden. We have looked at some information books about Spring. We have spoken about changes in the weather and that we do not always need to wear our coats as it starting to get warmer.  The children have been doing some finger printing flowers as we will start changing our Winter display to a Spring one instead. An adult demonstrated how to make a pancake on Shrove Tuesday and the children had a freshly cooked pancake for snack if they wanted to.  Lots of the children enjoyed them and some had extras. We did some pancake and bear races in the garden. We have some mini frying pans so the children have been practising how to flip a play dough pancake. 

Ellie Sandall came to visit us and she read one of her stories ‘Every Bunny Dance’. The children made bunny ears, did some dancing, played some instruments in a bunny band and Ellie drew some rabbits for the children to colour. The children listened to some different stories during World Book Day and some chose to come to nursery dressed up as their favourite character. It was lovely to see some parents join us in the classroom to share a story with their child.

Thank you for your continued support

Spring Term 1 - 2025

This half term, we have been looking at and talking about our core story ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy. The children are gaining in confidence with retelling this story and using the story props to help them. We have set up a tuff tray with some of the characters from the story and the children have helped to make a rocket from a tall cardboard box. We are painting, drawing and printing lots of bears using different shades of brown paint to make a display in the classroom. We have been making rockets using boxes, flat 2D shapes wooden blocks and bricks. The children have been learning about real bears by looking at information books and using an iPad to help them. We have learnt some of their names including Panda bear, Polar bear, Brown bear and Black bear and what they like to eat like fruit, berries and fish. The children have been enjoying dressing up in the different space suits and helmets in the classroom.

The children have been singing lots of nursery rhymes and other songs including some favourites like ‘Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer’ and ‘Old MacDonald’.

The children have been exploring the season of Winter. We have created a Winter display as the children have been printing snowflakes and playing with shaving foam as it is a little bit like snow. When it was icy we froze some animals and different objects in some water overnight so the children could smash the ice to free the things. The children have been using sticks to make marks in the frost. We have been practising with putting on our coats, doing up our zips, putting on our hats and gloves as it has been so cold. 

We have been out in the Woodland Garden for a couple of sessions with Ali so far this half term. The children are getting more confident with putting on their wet suits and wellies. They have been doing different scavengers hunts, completing the planet puzzles, using the wheel barrows, grabbers, playing in the mud kitchen, building rockets, digging in the digging pod and playing our space dice game.

We have been looking for different birds in the garden during ‘Bird Watching Week’ and we have made a dragon head so we could do our Dragon Dance around the garden for the Ladybird children to watch to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Next half term our core story will be ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears'.

Thank you for your continued support

Autumn Term 2 - 2024

This half term, we have been looking at and talking about our core story ‘The Gingerbread Man’. The children are beginning to join in with some the repetitive phases including “Run, run as fast as you can!  You can’t catch me as I’m the Gingerbread Man!”.  We have set up a tuff tray with some of the characters from the story so the children can retell it. We have painted and printed gingerbread men as we have talked about different body parts including head, body, arms and legs. Also, we have looked at different versions of the story and made our own gingerbread men from gingerbread dough to take home to eat. The children have been decorating gingerbread biscuits with icing as well as paper outlines with felt tip pens. They have been playing with the ginger play dough to make play dough gingerbread people so practising using a rolling pin and cutters. 

The children have been singing lots of nursery rhymes and other songs including favourites ‘Open Shut Them’ and ‘Wheels on the Bus’.

The children enjoyed ‘Nursery Rhyme Week’ where we experienced a different nursery rhyme each day. These included ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’, ‘The Big Ship Sails’, ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, ‘Old MacDonald’ and ‘Five Currant Buns’. Each day we sang the song/rhyme and did activities linked to it.

We have learnt about ‘Bonfire Night’ as we watched a short firework display on our Interactive White Board and created some firework pictures. 

The children completed their ‘Pudsey Ramble’ around the whole of the Nursery as they looked for Pudsey Bears.  Some of the children happily played with some yellow custard that I had put some coloured bottle tops in and tweezers.  

We have been out in the Woodland Garden for a couple of sessions with Ali so far this half term. The children are getting more confident with putting on their wet suits and wellies. They have been collecting leaves using the grabbers, playing with the wheel barrows, doing scavenger hunts, playing in the mud kitchen, digging in the digging pod using spades and helping to fill the large planter. 

We are looking forward to Christmas, Christmas Sing-a-Longs and our Christmas party in the last week of this half term. 

Thank you for your continued support

Autumn Term 1 - 2024

This half term, the children have been settling into their new Butterfly class. They have been learning our daily routines and getting to know the adults in the room. They have been enjoying exploring inside the classroom as well as outside in the main garden. Including the bikes, swings, large sand pit and trampoline which have all been very popular with many of them.

We have been looking at and talking about our core story ‘Shark in the Park!’ by Nick Sharratt. The children are beginning to join in with some of the repetitive phrases including “There’s a shark in the park”. We have set up a tuff tray as a park and some of the characters from the story so the children can retell it. We have got some different types of sharks in the water tray and some of the children are becoming familiar with the names of them.

The children have been singing lots of nursery rhymes and other songs including a favourite ‘Wind the Bobbin up’. We have been singing some familiar songs and introducing some new ones about sharks.

We have started talking about the season of Autumn and have created some brown, yellow and red leaves for our tree in the classroom.  As the season continues we will be collecting fallen leaves, conkers and seeds to look at, discuss and play with. We have been collecting apples and having a go at making some apple juice for the children to try. 

Thank you for your continued support

Emily and The Butterfly Team