RE Festival of Light

As part of Hazelwood's RE Festival of Light Focus Day, our Nursery children enjoyed a lovely day learning about light and its importance within the Christian celebration of Christmas. They discussed some of the traditions that many Christians take part in at this special time of year, including putting up a Christmas tree and decorating it with lights and decorations including a star or angel on the top.

We were delighted to welcome a special visitor, John from Palmers Green United Reformed Church, who spoke to the children about Christianity and shared the Christian belief that Jesus is the Light of the World. The children listened carefully and enjoyed learning from someone within the local church community.

The Nursery children also talked about the importance of the star on the first Christmas and how it guided the Wise Men to find the baby Jesus. They proudly demonstrated our school value of creativity as the children made and decorated their own salt dough decorations, reflecting the importance of the star in the Christmas story. The children showed great enthusiasm and were very proud of their beautiful creations. It was a meaningful and joyful day of learning for our youngest pupils, helping them to begin to understand the Christian message of light at Christmas.

We're going on a Leaf hunt!

The Nursery children have had a wonderful couple weeks of learning inspired by the story We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to the story and joining in with the repeated refrain: “We’re going on a leaf hunt, we’re going right away, let’s find colourful leaves, it’s a wonderful day!”  Taking inspiration from the book, the children then set off on their very own leaf hunt in the Forest School area. They explored with curiosity and excitement, collecting leaves of all colours, shapes and sizes. Back in Nursery, these natural treasures were used in a variety of creative and investigative activities.

Demonstrating our school value of creativity, the children used the leaves to make beautiful leaf crowns, create leaf prints with paint, and press patterns into playdough. They also enjoyed sticking leaves onto hedgehog templates,  and making faces, producing some delightful autumn artwork. The children have been exploring the leaves in a scientific way too, noticing how their textures have changed over time—initially soft and flexible, then gradually becoming dry and crunchy. They also used leaves as imaginative habitats for different small-world animals, enriching their play and storytelling. To support fine motor development, the children have been using tongs and tweezers to pick up conkers, pine cones, acorns and leaves—great preparation for future writing skills. They have also enjoyed using natural materials to make repeating patterns, building early mathematical understanding. It has been a joy to see our Nursery children so engaged, curious, and creative in their autumn learning.

Nursery Rhyme Week

It has been a wonderfully busy start to the half-term in Nursery, with the children settling back into their routines and enjoying lots of exciting learning opportunities.

They began the term by taking part in Nursery Rhyme Week, which gave the children plenty of chances to explore activities based on this year’s chosen rhymes. There was such a buzz of creativity throughout the week! Some of the highlights included making playdough pies inspired by Sing a Song of Sixpence, and using the puppets they made to act out Humpty Dumpty and Two Little Dickie Birds. It was wonderful to see the children so engaged, singing with enthusiasm and using their imaginations in their play

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Squiggle Whilst you wiggle

The children have started our handwriting programme, Wiggle Me into a Squiggle, which supports early writing through fun movement activities. The sessions focus on developing large muscle movements and coordination — an important foundation for confident mark-making and handwriting skills later on.

Nursery Library Books

The Nursery Library was also launched, which has been a great success. The children were so excited to select their first book to take home and it’s been lovely to see their enthusiasm continue as they return and choose new stories to share with their families.

Mutlicultural week

Owl babies 

The children have had a wonderful time exploring the Nursery environment and are becoming more familiar with our daily routines and rules. We've focused on the delightful story "Owl Babies," where the children enjoyed listening and joining in with the repeated refrain, "I want my mummy." They have also had fun retelling the story using props, as well as painting and collaging their own owls and creating their own versions of the story and hunting in the garden for pictures from the story.

Through the topic Marvellous Me, the children took a moment to look carefully into a mirror, discussing their facial features such as skin colour, eye colour, and hair colour, before creating their own self-portraits. What a fantastic start to our time together at Hazelwood!

Welcome, Apple and Cherry class

It has been a busy couple of weeks in the Nursery and we are absolutely delighted to have welcomed  Cherry Class (Full time) and Apple Class (Part time) to our Hazelwood Community.  All of the children are settling in remarkably well and have shown fantastic progress in their confidence as they come into Nursery each morning. They are forming positive relationships with our dedicated staff and starting to make new friends here at Hazelwood.

Nursery Stay and Play!

Our Nursery Children had their stay and play sessions with their parents this week and they had so much fun! It was wonderful to see our youngest children exploring the learning environment with so much enthusiasm.  We can't wait for you to start!