Aclet Close Nursery School

12/06/2026

A week of colour, sea creatures, scooping and creativity! 🥰

Baby Acorns have been experimenting and exploring colours this week. They have used the sensory bottles to build and stack, fabric to float and fall, and their fingers to sweep and print! The songs they have been singing are 'I Can Sing a Rainbow' and 'Colours All Around Us' 🎨

Our 2's have been getting ready for Summer, by creating ice cream pictures, pouring and scooping, and learning about sea creatures through drawings and crafts. They have also been very interested in making ramps for their vehicles to travel up and down. As always our little ones love to be in the garden and the bubbles brought so much joy and fun! 🦀🐠🍦

In our 3 / 4's room, the girls and boys have continued to read 'Sharing a Shell'. They have built on their learning by creating underwater collages, watching PowerPoints on what lives under the sea, seeing which sea creatures float and sink in the water tray and independently looking at stories and no fiction books about the sea 🐠🦀🐙🐳

Our next story will be 'The Singing Mermaid' by Julia Donaldson 🧜‍♀️

Have a wonderful weekend ❤️

05/06/2026

What a lovely first week back we have had...

Baby Acorns have been learning about transport through songs and actions (I'm a Little Engine, The Wheels on the Bus, and Row Row Row Your Boat). They have used the tunnel in the garden to play 'Peek-a-Boo' while helping to develop their physical skills. On Wednesday it was time to visit our older children at the swimming baths, and the love of water continued once back at Nursery when the baby dolls needed a bath! 🏊‍♀️🚐🛶

Our 2's have enjoyed learning how to print with different objects, there have been lovely role-play interactions in the Home Corner - making cups of tea for each other and bathing the babies. Outside there has been lots of turn taking, exploring the sea creatures in the water tray, filling and emptying of the Dumper Trucks in the sandpit and having fun with friends 🐙🐠🫖☕️🥰

In our 3 and 4 year old room, the children were so excited to see that the butterflies had hatched over the holidays and it was time to release them. We took them into the Sensory Garden and released them to start their new adventures. We had great fun at the swimming baths, kicking and splashing our legs - some children swam with no floatation aids! Our school leavers are continuing to focus on pencil hold and scissor skill development, and are making fantastic progress in preparation for Big School. Outside, the bubbles were a huge success, with lots of laughter and giggles 🐛🦋🏊‍♂️✂️🖍️

Our story this week and next is 'Sharing a Shell' by Julia Donadlson🦀

We hope you all have a lovely weekend ❤️

21/05/2026

This week we had two wonderful visitors in from The Story in Durham, to work with some of our school leaver children. It was a workshop about mining, the community and Tom Lamb who was a local coal miner and Artist. The children found the stories of the mines and looking at the artifacts truly mesmerising and they loved dressing up and getting involved with the activities provided. This was a wonderful and inspiring opportunity for our children, to help them learn and understand about their local community and how people lived 🥰

Baby Acorns have continued to go on adventures out and about, looking at the diggers, listening to the birds and watching for different types of transport. They have also enjoyed exploring the garden, singing Nursery Rhymes and sharing stories 😍

Our 2's have been on a long walk to Woodhouse Close Leisure Centre, to see the new building being built and the big crane! They even popped into the Leisure Centre to see the swimming pool 🏊They have continued their love of stories and sharing them with their friends. Outside in the garden is always lots of fun, playing 'Hide and Seek' and creating delicious food in the kitchen 🥰

Nursery is closed tomorrow for Teacher Training. We hope you all enjoy Whit Week and Nursery will reopen on Monday 1st June ❤️

15/05/2026

This weeks adventures....

Baby Acorns: food glorious food - our little ones love snack and lunchtime. They are developing their independent feeding skills, while building on their social interactions and routines 🥰
They have enjoyed looking at their family photos, showing big smiles towards those they love and recognise 😍

Elsewhere, there has been a creative vibe sweeping through the Nursery! With lots of drawing, colour mixing, and experimenting with different techniques to create individual masterpieces!

The search for bugs and minibeasts has continued and the children are fascinated with our caterpillars 🐛 and can't wait for them to turn into butterflies🦋

We hope you have a lovely weekend ❤️

13/05/2026

This is a technique we use all the time (using verbs/doing words) to extend children's vocabulary... give it a go! 😀

This week we are thinking about verbs!

The Speech Dynamic have a great description of why verbs are so important when children are learning language. "It’s hard to create word combinations with a vocabulary made primarily of nouns! The more verbs, adjectives, and pronouns your child has, the more 'material' they have for making phrases" Read the full article here: www.thespeechdynamic.com/verbs

08/05/2026

Superworm is super long, Superworm is super strong - watch him wiggle, see him squirm - hip hip hooray for Superworm!

Our story has proved to be super popular with all our children. They have loved hearing the adventures Superworm has, who he saves and how he escapes!

The activities the story promotes have included obstacle courses, string printing, threading and searching for minibeasts 🪱🐝🦋

Our older children have created story maps showing the events in the correct order. They have worked together to create these, listening to each other and sharing ideas 🥰

Our Baby Acorns have been playing Peek-A-Boo and learning the song 'Peek-A-Boo' and 'Your Face My Face' songs. They have had lots of fun playing with the fabrics and looking in the mirrors 😍

We will continue 'Superworm' by Julia Donaldson next week, to see what other adventures he may have!

Have a lovely weekend ❤️

01/05/2026

Fun in the sun - what a lovely way to learn 🌞🥰

Baby Acorns - our youngest members have had lots of wonderful experiences this week. They have experimented with water and sand play, popped bubbles in the garden, listened to stories, and problem solved with the posting and stacking activities 😍

Our big girls and boys in Main Nursery, have continued to read 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' with activities focused on colour mixing with powder paints to create the patterns on the butterflies wings, sequencing the story, describing a picture from the story to develop language skills, and completing a colour hunt to match the foods from the story. There has also been lots of fun and giggles in the garden, with the sharing of stories, hunting for minibeasts and creating masterpieces with natural resources 🦋🐛🐞

In our 2's room, the children have also been looking for minibeasts and have had great fun using the magnifying glasses to help them! They have worked hard on their fine motor skill development, by threading with pasta shapes to create patterns - a tricky task but lots of determination and perseverance was shown 💪🥰

During lunchtime we are focusing on independent skills when opening our food. We have created little phrases to help us with this:
Pinch, Pinch, Pull - opening packets of crisps etc.
Pinch, Pinch, Rip - opening cheeestrings etc.
Pinch, Pull, Peel - opening dunkers etc.

Also, when using pencils, pens and crayons - we are modelling and implementing:
Nip, Flip, Grip - to help with pencil control and mark making formation ✍️

Have a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend! ❤️

24/04/2026

Welcome back!

We have had a wonderful start to the Summer Term, with lots of smiling children and the sun shining 🌞😍

Our 'Baby Acorns' have been out and about in the community, enjoying their adventures. They loved seeing the diggers working on the new leisure centre, watching the birds in the trees and listening to all the traffic sounds 🥰

'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle, is our story of the fortnight. It is a brilliant story for teaching sequencing, number recognition and patterns of number and lifecycles 🐛

The children in 2's and main Nursery, have had lots of lovely opportunities to explore colour mixing and symmetrical patterns, as well as sequencing the food which the caterpillar eats 🦋

We have also had fun outside noticing the changes in weather, how the leaves on the trees and hedges are growing, and working together to create games and obstacle courses 🌱🌿

Have a wonderful weekend 🥰❤️

02/04/2026

This week the children have continued to learn about Easter and how it is celebrated 🐥🐰

Brett from Bishop Auckland Parish visited Nursery and shared the Easter Story with the children. The children also helped to create butterflies which will be shown in St. Anne's Church during Bishop Auckland Food Festival 🦋🥰

We also received a very kind donation from Shildon Civic Hall & Town Council Easter Egg Appeal, of an Easter Egg for every child in Nursery 😍

Some of our older children were very excited to get up close with a selection of creepy crawlies! They were all super brave and very kind and respectful to the animals and staff from ZooLab - which critter was your child's favourite?! 🐌🪳🕷️🐍🐸

We hope you all have a wonderful Easter and we will see you back after the holidays 🥰❤️

27/03/2026

Spring fun indoors and outdoors 🌼🌺

Baby Acorns have been out and about on lots of adventures this week. If you see them, please give them a wave - they are the most gorgeous bunch of little people 🥰

Our Easter Stay and Play sessions were great fun and thank you to everyone who came to join in the celebrations 🐥🐰

Easter is well and truly underway - the children have been fully engrossed in the story and finding out how we celebrate it in different ways. Next week we will have a visitor in school to talk about the Easter Story and why it is important as a religious celebration 🥰

Watch out for some other visitors next week too, of the creepy crawly variety...

Have a great weekend ❤️