On Monday 3^rd February, children from St Mary’s Primary school visited St Mark’s Nursery and brought their school tortoises.

 The Nursery children loved finding out about the tortoises and they all enjoyed holding them and touching their hard shells. There are a number of additional photos in the photo album.

This half term, the children have been learning about Space. We read the story “Whatever Next” and we made our own rocket. The children then pretended to go to the moon in their rocket.

Outside, the children used the star patterned parachute and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. The children then pretended to be a rocket and counted “3,2,1 – Blastoff!”

We also had lots of fun using different construction and making our different rockets. There are lots more photos in our photo album.

It has snowed! The children had lots of fun visiting our outside area during a snowy morning. The children made snow patterns with their hands and feet and made their own ice castles. - More photos in the photo album on the right hand side.

At Christmas, the Nursery children took part in a Nursery Christmas singing concert and performed it for their families.

The children were fantastic and made everyone proud! More photos are in our album.

The Nursery children had a very special visit from Santa. The children were very excited to have a visit from Santa and tell him how much they enjoy being at nursery. Please see our photo album for more pictures!

During the Autumn term, the children took part in SoundPots with Mrs Davis. The children have been learning to join in with new songs and dances.

The parents joined us for a fantastic Soundpots session where we all had fun singing and dancing and learning new routines. There are more photos in the photo album!

During our Nursery DT week, the children designed and made their own Christmas decorations. We recycled and used plastic yoghurt pots to make a Christmas bell and cardboard tubes to make a Christmas candle.

We were delighted with our results. There are more photos in our photo album.

During our Art week, we looked at the artist Andy Goldsworthy. We learnt that Andy likes to create art pieces using only natural materials. We looked examples of his art work and then created our own pieces of natural art work. See our photo album for more pictures.

The children have all settled well into their new Nursery class and have begun to make new friends. During the first few weeks, the children have started to join in with listening and attention activities, had dinner in our dining room and have helped Mrs Shaw pick apples off the trees. We have had lots of fun!

We are delighted with the progress that they all have made and how happy they are at Nursery. See the Nursery Photo Album to see our pictures.

On Tuesday 2nd July, the Nursery children joined in with the St Mark’s Sports Day Festival at Hanley Park. The children took part in different sporting events and with different team games and activities.

On Thursday 27th June, the Nursery children had a special visit from Librarian Chris. Chris works at Hanley Library and he came to Nursery to tell us all about the new Library in Hanley and all of the wonderful things can done at the Library. The children listened to a magical story, read by Chris and all took home a special Book Time Pack.

In RE, the nursery children have been learning about Mosques and Churches and why they are important places to visit and worship at. The children enjoyed a visit to Park Church in Shelton and Beresford Street Mosque where they were able to find out about the different religions and events.

This half term, the nursery children have been finding out about wild animals, where they live and how we can care for them. In the classroom, the children have been learning about the role of a vet and how a vet cares for the animals.

As part of our history topic, the nursery children visited Hanley Park. The children have been learning about where they live and how Shelton has changed over the years.

At school, the children spent time looking at pictures of the local area from the past and comparing them to the present. On Thursday 29th February, the children visited Hanley Park to look at the lake, the boathouse, the band stand and the pavilion.

At the bandstand, the children played musical instruments and sang songs to their friends and families and thought about how the bandstand would have been used in the past.

We had a fantastic time visiting the local park and looking at different historical landmarks.

This half term, the Nursery children have been learning about special religious stories and have been talking about why they are special. The children spent time carefully looking at the Bible and the Quran and have talked about why the books have to be handled carefully and treated with respect. Each week, the Nursery children have spent time looking at different stories from the Bible and the Quran and have enjoyed listening to the stories The Good Samaritan, Noah’s Ark, The Boy Who Threw Stones and Jesus and the Ten Lepers.

We have had a fantastic last week at Nursery! On Monday, the Nursery children received a special letter from the Tiger who told them that we were going to be having a special Tiger Who Came to Tea party at nursery. We wrote a reply letter to the Tiger telling him that we were really excited about having a party at the Nursery. On Wednesday, we came to nursery in our party clothes and made jam sandwiches. At the party, the Tiger visited us and we had to tell him that he couldn’t eat all of the cake! On Friday, we had our faces painted like the Tiger

The nursery children had a great time exploring the snow and ice. We discovered that we can make footprints patterns in the snow and we had lots of fun making snow castles using the buckets and spades!

The nursery children had a visit from Carrie at Rent-a-Beast. As part of the visit, the children learnt that some of the insects lived in the same countries as the elephants and lions and some of the insects liked to crawl on these animals too.

The children were all really brave and all had a hold and feel of the insects

What a surprise we had when the Tiger came to visit us at Nursery! We couldn’t believe it!

The tiger came to say hello but whilst visiting he told us that he was very hungry! He ate the food from our nursery fridge and cupboards, he drank the milk and even drank all of the water out of the tap!

On that day, we made our own tiger masks using felt and paper plates and we made tiger patterns using playdough.

On Thursday 22nd December all of the Nursery children took part in the Nursery Christmas singing concert. The children were outstanding and sang and performed exceptionally well for their families.

This was the first performance that the children had taken part in and they were all amazing! Well done Nursery!

As part of our DT work, the Nursery children designed and made their own Christmas decorations. First, the children mixed the ingredients and made the salt dough and then they rolled out the dough and chose a shape cutter. Once the decorations were baked the children decorated them with glue and glitter.

The Nursery children have been listening to the story, The Gingerbread Man and over the last two weeks they have made their own Gingerbread Man biscuit; used a story map to retell the story and have used different coloured paints and brushes to make their own Gingerbread Man painting.

On Tuesday 5th December, the children were shocked to find that a Gingerbread Man had been in our classroom and had run out of the classroom door. We went on a Gingerbread Man hunt around Shelton and found lots of Gingerbread Man biscuits hiding in Wrights Pies! We decided to buy them before they could run away again!

On Friday 8th December, the Gingerbread Man visited us in Nursery and told us that he had been running away from the sneaky fox!

During our DT week, the nursery children made their own Gingerbread Man biscuits. We mixed, rolled and cut out our own gingerbread man and Miss Vanessa kindly put the biscuits into the oven.

We then talked about healthy and unhealthy foods and decorated our gingerbread men with blueberries, raspberries, raisins and chocolate drops.