Nursery - Spring 1 Week 4
Date: 29th Jan 2026 @ 7:00am
This week in Nursery, we discovered a very exciting story sack filled with wonder and delight… ‘The Gruffalo!’ From the moment it appeared, we knew it was something special and couldn’t wait to explore and play.
Together, the children helped to set up a ‘Gruffalo-themed’ Small World Play, thoughtfully using their knowledge and ideas to make it look just like the deep, dark woods. We loved watching their thinking hats in action as they discussed what the woods should look like and why. Using brown play-dough, we created our own Gruffalo characters and made preferred character headbands, practising our cutting skills along the way.
Our Funky Fingers area transformed into a muddy swamp, where children used the story characters to retell the tale, recalling what the Gruffalo looked like and who he met on his journey. We have enjoyed sharing the story in many different ways — from reading the book, acting out the characters, to rapping and tapping the story out in rhythm. The children’s confidence and imagination truly shone.
In Early Listening, our focus was on distinguishing between sounds. We played a variety of listening games, including Which is the Missing Sound? and Jumping Words, helping to develop careful listening and attention skills.
In Maths, we were introduced to ‘Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons’, which inspired us to explore the number four. We investigated different ways to make four, counted objects, and even went on a number four hunt. As Pete’s buttons kept dropping off, we had to work out how many were left — a fun and practical way to explore early subtraction. Alongside this, we explored shapes with four sides, talking about their properties and noticing how many sides and corners they have, helping us to deepen our understanding of number and shape through hands-on learning.
During PE, we revisited our gymnastics knowledge, recalling shapes we have learnt so far and combining them with different movements. Playing games such as ‘Mouse Tag’ and ‘Watch Out, Gruffalo’! brought lots of excitement and creative thinking as we shared ideas about how the different characters from the story might move, exploring their facial expressions too and using our faces and bodies together to bring the characters to life.
This week, we were also delighted to welcome some of our grown-ups into Nursery for our ‘Stay and Play’ sessions. The children thoroughly enjoyed showing mums and dads their favourite areas and activities. Thank you so much for making the time to come and be part of our special place — it truly means so much.
While discussing ‘The Gruffalo’, we learnt about Julia Donaldson, the author of this much-loved story and many others we enjoy. We talked about how her stories take us on journeys of wonder and imagination, helping to instill a lifelong love of reading, language, and storytelling through engaging, rhythmic, and sometimes “a bit scary” tales that are wonderful to share aloud.
We also explored the storyline more deeply, noticing how the mouse was clever and brave as he met different woodland creatures on his journey through the woods. This opened up meaningful conversations about times when we have been brave too, just like our SHINE friend Leo the lion.
We ended our week reflecting on kindness, with the children sharing thoughtful ideas about who we can show kindness to — family, friends, teachers, pets, all of God’s creatures, our equipment and property, and even ourselves.
Although we experienced some rainy days this week, we were not dismayed and now often call them ‘growing days’, knowing how important water is for the world around us. We were rewarded with glorious weather to finish the week, enjoying lots of outdoor fun and games together.
What a truly magical and meaningful week it has been!
As the weekend arrives, don't forget when out and about, to keep your eyes wide open— because you never know when you might need to watch out for that Gruffalo!
Warm wishes,
Mrs Grayson and the Nursery team