Intent

During the first half term in Nursery, we want children to feel safe, secure and valued in their new environment so that they are able to flourish on their learning journey here at St Francis Xavier. We encourage children to create new friendships with peers and to develop relationships with their new teachers. We aim to establish a routine and expectations with children while exploring our fantastic immersive environment, bursting with learning opportunities!

Implementation

The children will explore various jungle animals and the way in which they move. We will become footprint detectives on our jungle adventure identifying similarities and differences of various prints. We will taste exotic jungle fruits and discuss our preferences. We will learn all about deforestation and engage in roleplay with our friends to re-enact a deforestation scene in the jungle. We will allow our imaginations to flow using cardboard boxes to create new habitats for the jungle animals to 'save the jungle'. We will explore our scenes by discovering textures and scents that you may find in the jungle. Additionally, we will go on a shape hunt throughout our environment and learn songs to help us to remember our 2d shapes.

Impact

The children in Nursery have each created wonderful relationships with their peers and new teachers. The children have done so well to settle into a completely new routine with new expectations and people. During this time, as staff we have built relationships with parents and shared fantastic learning achievements throughout the half term. 

As the children became increasingly familiar with the Nursery environment, we carried out baseline assessments so that we were able to plan interventions and support where required. We could then also plan to suit the needs of each child ensuring that good progress wold be made.

The children absolutely loved our topic 'Once Upon A Jungle'. The children explored early number through frequent counting and the ability to 1 touch 1 number name when counting objects. We enjoyed feeding bananas to our very hungry Max the monkey from the jungle!! Most children were able to give meaning to marks that they made when drawing our favourite jungle animals, the children were encouraged to develop their fine motor skills through a range of activities within the continuous provision. We modelled how to use activities throughout the provision ensuring that the children were able to use the skills that they have learnt independently.