“The beginning is always today.” – The Short Stories of Mary Shelley by Mary Shelley

Acorns and Seedlings:

This week we have focused on the colour red, a favourite colour of the group.

To kick things off, we set up a mark-making activity involving Lego bricks dipped into red paint. The children marvelled at the interesting marks they made. Ivy and Luca loved the wet feeling of the paint as it slithered in their palms.

We then challenged the children with baking a deliciously warming apple and raspberry crumble. They took turns to cut up the apples using child-safe knives before mashing the other ingredients together. Millie showed all of her friends how confident she was while combining the mixture before layering it with the crumble.

Next, we started to make a rainbow that’ll be added to each week as we extend adding a new colour each time. The children found different materials in the chosen shade and carefully stuck them onto the arc.

To end the week the children loved playing with our homemade red sensory bags. They used their fine motor skills to force the liquids and other various items around the sealed, transparent ‘wallets’ delighting in the scenes.

Stars Of the Week:

All our Acorns and Seedlings – For settling back into nursery life so well.

Saplings:

This week, the Saplings have participated in a range of engaging activities.

They enjoyed sticking foam shapes onto pieces of card, talking about the colours and shapes they could see. To finish off their collages, they used crayons to draw around the shapes. Harvey and Marco enjoyed the task, carefully pressing them down firmly with their fingertips.

Another colourful and creative activity saw the Saplings paint using different shaped cookie cutters. The Saplings were precise in their execution and carefully dipped the cutters into the paint before placing them down on the paper; we took the moment to discuss the name of each.

The Saplings have enjoyed singing lots of nursery rhymes during our regular sessions of “What’s In The Box?” and have even started to lead the activity themselves without support from a practitioner!

In the garden, the mud kitchen has been popular with our Saplings. Jackson enjoyed sharing his creations with his peers and the practitioners. The Saplings all adored playing with the ice using spoons to try and release the dinosaurs and other small world animals that had been frozen within what looked like arctic domes.

Star Of the Week:

Axel – For always being kind to his friends and having a big smile on his face.

Oaks 1:

Happy 2026 – it’s the year of the fire horse! May it bring health, happiness and loads of learning.

We have been embracing the icy snap by wrapping up to head outside to enjoy sledging and exploring ice sculptures. The children had so much fun using hammers to break up the ice and were fascinated to watch it melt.

In the Oaks class, we’ve also been reading Julia Donaldson’s new set of books about the wonder of trees. The stories teach us about the huge importance of trees and how they are processed to make paper. To expand on this, we made our own paper which was slightly more rustic than the white sheets we’re used to. The children really enjoyed the process of making mulch. We plan to use our homemade paper to make some gifts.

We continued with jolly phonics and this week looked at the letter ‘D’. The children were able to blend and read their first words. We would like to take the opportunity to convey how proud we are of the children’s hunger and focus for learning. They are all working towards their Early Learning Goals and some are exceeding expectations. We have a wonderfully settled, harmonious learning environment and planning for lots of exciting projects is underway. We will keep you posted on the whiteboard.

Forest School

Despite freezing temperatures, our team managed marvellously. Daphne and Ela worked wonderfully together to create a see saw displaying great invention. We competed to see who had the furthest shot as the children tossed sticks and branches across the icy pond, George and Lola competed as his stick slid beneath her arched branch resulting in victory, a very clever tactic George!

The children were fascinated by the regular humps emerging in the field and so ensued a discussion about moles …. who live in holes and where might the myriad of tunnels lead beneath their feet.

The snow came down thick and fast and the children delighted in the flurry, as they collected the snowflakes and icy masses evident around camp to experiment, discussing what might result if heated over the fire. To their delight, the snowflakes and solid icy mass soon melted which the children later used to wash the pots and pans making full use of what nature has to offer.

Oaks 2:

We have loved welcoming the children back to Broughton Cottage this week. It was a real joy to see much they’ve grown and developed in the short time being at home with their families.

We’ve been busy this week, even though the weather has been so volatile with Storm Goretti. We’ve had sunshine, rain, snow and fog!

On one particularly chilly day, we huddled together and gathered around the warmth of a fire in the forest area. The children were given a demonstration on how to use the axe, as we chopped wood for the fire. The youngsters all impressed with their excellent listening, looking and sitting skills – we will continue to hone these this term. We also explored new language such as ‘axe’, ‘sizzle’ and ‘smoke’.

The children’s learning was extended with a gluing and sticking session using the colours of the fire. The wonderful artwork has been displayed on our class walls.

Star Of the Week:

Jasper – For his beautiful control when using our new special pens.

Yours sincerely

The Broughton team