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Westminster School Highlights - 24 May 2025
- 16 mins
🐉 Baby Dragons Weekly Highlights – Westminster Nursery
From first signs and tiger roars to farm visits and sensory play, our babies (6–36 months) had a joyful, language-rich week filled with cultural discovery, music, movement, and lots of giggles.
👉 Book a Tour of Our Westminster Nursery »
Come see how our youngest learners grow in confidence and curiosity every day!
🗣️ Modern Languages & Communication: Signs, Songs & First Words
This week, we introduced the Makaton signs for “happy” and “sad”, and it was a joy to see the babies mimicking emotions with beaming smiles or curious expressions.
Through classic peek-a-boo games, we practiced words like “Where?”, “There!”, and “Again!”, which encouraged turn-taking, vocalisation, and early emotional expression in a fun, nurturing environment.
🌍 Regional Education: Introducing Indian Culture
To explore Indian culture, our babies:
- Helped decorate a sari outline using colourful paper bits (great for fine motor skills)
- Learned words like “sticky,” “red,” “green,” and “circle”
- Discovered India’s national animal—the tiger—through a bold colouring activity using words like “stripe,” “orange,” and “roar!”
These activities blended diversity with sensory learning, helping even the youngest children connect with other cultures through art and play.
🌳 Outdoor Play & Excursions: Farm Friends & Park Fun
Thanks to the sunshine, we enjoyed two adventures this week!
🦙 At Vauxhall City Farm, babies saw goats, sheep, and alpacas—and even copied animal sounds like “baa” and “meh!”
🌳 At St. George Park, we had a joyful picnic with games of peek-a-boo, bubble-popping, and bird-chasing. New vocabulary like “bubble,” “pop,” “run,” “tree,” and “squirrel” bloomed naturally through play in nature.
These trips helped build confidence, language, and curiosity in new environments.
🧪 STEAM Activities: Sensory Learning in Action
Our sensory tray offered a week of exciting challenges!
- Babies practiced pouring and filling using cups and jugs, using words like “empty,” “more,” and “stack”
- In baby doll play, they practiced feeding, pushing, and cuddling, with warm words like “milk,” “sleep,” and “baby”
Each activity strengthened problem-solving, emotional understanding, and coordination—while having lots of fun!
🧘 Specialist Sessions with Mindful Molly
Our babies jumped into a musical movement session with the “Fire Truck” song, mimicking sirens (“nee-nah, nee-nah!”), pretending to steer, ring the bell, and spray water!
Words like “fast,” “fire,” and “go!” supported rhythm, coordination, and language development. The session ended peacefully with baby yoga, using calming cues like “stretch,” “breathe,” and “relax.”
💫 Our specialist-led sessions bring purposeful movement and music into our weekly rhythm.
💬 Want to Learn More?
🔹 Book a Tour of Our Westminster Nursery »
🔹 Have questions? Contact us here »
🔹 Explore All Our London Nursery Locations »
We can’t wait to welcome you and your little one to our nurturing, multicultural learning community
💙 Blue Dragons Weekly Newsletter
Dear Families,
What an enriching, joyful, and movement-filled week we’ve had in the Blue Dragons room! From peaceful yoga and peacock crafts to our homemade Falooda treats, the children have thrived in a calm, creative, and culturally rich environment.
🧘♀️ Namaste Song & Yoga Circle Time
This week, we embraced a new morning ritual with the Namaste Song. With yoga mats rolled out and calming breaths in the air, our circle time became a moment of peace and connection. It was such a hit, no one wanted to leave the carpet!
💡 These gentle beginnings help children build emotional stability, body awareness, and calm focus—key elements of our values-based international curriculum.
📚 Independent Reading & Phonics: E is for Elephant!
After yoga, children selected their own books to enjoy on the carpet, nurturing a love of independent reading. Our phonics focus this week was the letter E, and the Blue Dragons had a blast creating elephant drawings while tracing the letter.
We also revisited the letter P through a vibrant peacock craft, connecting phonics with our ongoing cultural discovery of India.
🔢 Maths & Fine Motor Fun
This week’s challenge? Finding hidden balls in a tray using tongs! Children sorted them by colour and counted them aloud—combining sorting, counting, and fine motor skill-building in one joyful task.
In our sand bakery role play, the pink sand became the base for imaginative cupcakes and sweet treats. The creativity (and giggles) were non-stop.
🚗 Pretend Play: Car Park Sorting & Cultural Recap
Our car enthusiasts sorted vehicles in a colour-coded carpet car park—bringing structure and play together. To tie in with our Indian cultural theme, we used the letter “P” to revisit the peacock, India's national bird, through storytelling and art.
✋ Sensory Play: Kinetic Sand & Playdough Craze
From shaping animals to forming flowers, the playdough table was buzzing with imagination! We also explored kinetic sand—a favourite for fine motor fun and creativity.
🥄 Cooking Club: Falooda Time!
This week’s Cooking Club featured Falooda, a beloved Indian dessert. Children combined fruits, basil seeds, yogurt, and syrup to make their own colourful, sweet creations. It was a tasty way to explore culture through food.
🎶 Music Club: Our Do-Re-Mi Orchestra
Inspired by The Sound of Music, our children explored the musical scale with instruments galore—tambourines, maracas, bells, flutes, and even the teacher’s guitar. The room was alive with rhythm, joy, and confidence.
🎵 Learn more about our specialist music, movement, and arts education here »
🏃 Mini Sporties: Focus + Fitness Challenge
With our energetic coaches, the children moved through ladders sideways, tossed scarves, and practiced walking backwards and turning hoops. Each child earned a magic sticker for their focus and effort!
🧘♀️ A Visit from Mrs. Mindful Molly
The beloved Mrs. Mindful Molly made her weekly visit, filling the room with joy, songs, and sensory yoga. The children welcomed her with hugs and smiles, fully engaged from start to finish.
⭐ This Week’s Highlights:
- Phonics: Letter E (Elephant) & recap of P (Peacock)
- Maths: Colour sorting & tongs activity
- Art & Design: Drawing, playdough, sand bakery
- Sensory: Kinetic sand & slime play
- Pretend Play: Car park & bakery
- Cooking: Falooda Indian dessert
- Music Club: Do-Re-Mi with instruments
- Physical Play: Mini Sporties fitness challenge
We’re so proud of our Blue Dragons for another fantastic week of learning, laughter, and growth. Thank you for being part of their journey!
🐉 Dragon Flight Weekly Newsletter
Theme: Exploring Shapes, Stories & Science—Hands-On Learning in Full Flight!This week, our curious explorers soared through storytelling, science, art, and culture. From building 3D shapes and sensory hands to tasting traditional treats and visiting the Science Museum, the children truly embodied our values of curiosity, creativity, and connection.
👉 Learn more about our international early years curriculum »
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🔤 Phonics: Sounding Out Our Names
We focused on phonics and self-awareness, helping children sound out and write the letters in their own names. Using whiteboards and crayons, they carefully formed each letter—beaming with pride as they recognised names and sounds of their peers.
🔺 Maths & Science: 2D, 3D, and Sensory Shapes
Children constructed 2D and 3D shapes using sticks and blue tack—triangles, squares, pyramids, cubes—grasping the idea that 3D shapes are "ones you can feel all around!" This hands-on challenge built coordination, persistence, and teamwork.
In our sensory station, children filled water gloves with coloured liquids, mixed and squished them, and compared sizes and textures—learning about bigger vs. smaller, soft vs. firm, and the science of colour mixing.
🥄 Regional Learning: Falooda Fun!
In Cooking Club, the children created their own versions of Falooda, a colourful, textural Indian dessert drink. They layered vermicelli, yogurt, fruit, basil seeds, and syrup, embracing flavour, culture, and early kitchen skills—with many asking for seconds!
🇨🇳 Mandarin: Exploring Soil (土)
This week’s Mandarin lesson blended language and nature. After a chat about soil, the children went outdoors to explore plant roots and worms, then practised writing the Mandarin character for soil (土). This tactile experience bridged real-world discovery with early writing.
👉 Discover how our specialist teaching programme blends global languages, science, and movement.
🐉 Festival Focus: Dragon Boat Festival Story Time
In preparation for next week’s Dragon Boat Festival (端午节), we introduced children to traditions like zongzi (sticky rice dumplings), dragon boat races, and the poet Qu Yuan. Through storytelling, children explored culture, history, and the role of poetry in traditions.
🎨 Creative Art: Making Flower Fossils
Inspired by our soil exploration, we created clay flower fossils. Children pressed leaves and flowers into flattened clay, imprinting textures and learning how fossils form. Each unique fossil was a blend of art, science, and patience—a keepsake rooted in nature.
🧪 Excursion: Science Museum Discovery Day
Our visit to the Science Museum was packed with awe and excitement:
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🌌 Space exhibit: Planets, stars, galaxies
🚂 Transport gallery: Steam trains, vintage cars, flying machines
✋ Interactive zone: Patterns, shadows, and hands-on science
The journey even included a glimpse of the Chelsea Flower Show displays—a day full of sensory and intellectual wonder!
💬 Specialist Session: Mindful Molly on Feelings
In this week's Mindful Molly session, children explored their emotions using feeling cards. They shared why they felt happy, excited, or worried—and practised emotional literacy, empathy, and self-regulation in a nurturing circle-time setting.
These gentle sessions support lifelong skills for wellbeing and communication.
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✨ This Week’s Learning Highlights:
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Phonics: Name recognition, letter sounds, writing
Maths & Science: 2D/3D shapes, sensory gloves, colour mixing
Art & Design: Fossil impressions, drawing
Cooking Club: Indian Falooda dessert
Language Learning: Mandarin character 土 (soil)
Festival Discovery: Intro to Dragon Boat Festival
Excursion: Science Museum adventure
Emotional Growth: Mindful Molly on feelings
We’re so proud of how our little dragons are learning to think deeply, express freely, and explore boldly. Thank you for continuing to be a part of their inspiring journey!
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