Welcome to Little Shells Nursery at St. James’
At Little Shells Nursery, our dedicated staff work together to create a welcoming and nurturing environment for all children. My name is Miss Guthrie, and I am the Class Teacher, responsible for supporting your child's development and learning throughout their time in Nursery.
Working alongside me is Ms Capot, who also serves as a Class Teacher in our Early Years setting, providing her expertise and care one day each week.
Our team is further strengthened by Mrs Watson, our highly experienced Nursery Nurse, who plays an integral role in ensuring the well-being, care and development of the children in our setting. Mrs Watson works closely with our children every day, delivering small group activities tailored to their needs and supports learning through play. Through her dedicated involvement, Mrs Watson helps to create a nurturing environment where all children can thrive.
In addition, we are supported by two Teaching Assistants, Mrs Mullen and Ms Walton, who contribute to the smooth running of the Nursery and assist in providing quality learning experiences at various times throughout the week.
Little Shells Noticeboard
PE sessions in Nursery take place every Thursday. Please ensure that your child comes to school wearing their complete St James PE kit ready for these sessions.
We use Tapestry as a platform to share our learning experiences, celebrate achievements, and keep you updated on our activities.
Prayer is an important part of our daily routine at school. We kindly ask that you help your child become familiar with the prayers found in our Little Book of Prayers EYFS and KS1.
Summer Term in Little Shells
Our Little Shells will begin the new term with an exciting topic all about real-life superheroes, focusing on the people who help and care for us at home and within the wider community.
They will read Emergency! by Margaret Mayo and will enjoy a visit from a real police officer, who will show them a police car and talk about how the police help people in the community.
They will continue to explore emergency services through a range of small world play, creative activities, and role-play opportunities, where they can dress up and become superheroes themselves.
They will learn how to keep themselves safe and make healthy choices in everyday life.
As the term continues, the children will also learn about different forms of transport and explore how transport has changed over time.
Later in the term, they will investigate the life cycles of a bean plant and a butterfly, learning how living things grow and change. Children will explore this topic through hands-on activities, observations, stories, and discussions.
We look forward to sharing their learning experiences and discoveries with you throughout the term!
Across the Curriculum
- In Maths, the children will continue to explore shape and pattern, develop their subitising skills, and build confidence and understanding of numbers to 5.
- In Communication and Language, the children will continue to take part in Early Talk Boost activities to support their speaking, listening, and vocabulary development.
- In Religious Education, the children will learn about Pentecost and celebrate the Good News of the Holy Spirit coming to be with us after Easter. We will then explore the topic of Our World, focusing on caring for God’s creation, appreciating the beauty of the natural world, and learning how we can share and look after the world together.
Things you can do to support your child at home:
- Practice ways of staying safe and healthy:
- Remember to brush teeth twice a day for two minutes. The two minute toothbrushing song available on YouTube is good fun to brush along to.
- Choose healthy snacks, drink plenty of water and keep active.
Spring Term in Little Shells
Our Little Shells begin the new term by exploring the seasonal changes around us. We look at winter and the effect this has on the environment and living things. We learn how to protect ourselves from the cold weather and we learn how to help the birds survive in the winter months.
We explore the polar regions, learning about arctic animals and indigenous people. We learn about freezing and melting processes and create some wonderful winter mobiles to hang in our garden as part of a science experiment.
We explore a range of winter themed stories, including ‘Say Hello to the Snowy Animals’ and ‘Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear’ and complete a range of cross curricular activities linked to these.
In Maths we explore and build with shapes and objects, explore pattern, compare amounts and work with numbers 1, 2 and 3.
The celebration of Chinese New Year will provide some nice crafting opportunities as well as developing our knowledge and understanding of celebrations around the world. Chinese New Year also links nicely to our exciting topic about castles and dragons!
In RE, we look at Celebrations, both at home and as a church family. We will join reception class for their class Celebration of the Word sessions, and we welcome parents to join us for our half termly stay and pray sessions.
Later in the term we will enjoy listening to a range of traditional tales and will explore them through a range of creative and role-play activities.
In RE we will think about times in which we gather – to worship, learn, celebrate and play. We think about how our mothers are special to us and we showed how much we love and appreciate them by making colourful Mother’s Day cards.
Tips on how to help your child's learning during the Spring Term:
- Use these questions to talk about winter at home:
- What is the weather today?
- What should we wear outside today?
- Can you describe how it feels?
- What can you see?
- What colours can you see?
- What has happened to the leaves on the trees?
- What are your favourite things to do in winter?
- How could we help the birds during winter?
- Enjoy a cosy story with your child at the end of each day.
In addition to supporting a calm and relaxing bedtime routine, a bedtime story can help children to develop early literacy skills, build vocabulary, develop emotional understanding, promote imagination and curiosity. Even 5–10 minutes helps with all of this!