Some of the activities taking place in Nursery.

The children are enjoying a range of cooking and baking activities.  We made homemade soup to have outside, as it was a very cold day! Chopping up all the vegetables was hard work, but it was very good for our fine and gross motor skills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs Fraser led the Fire Pit Activity Outside. The children were very good at following the Fire Pit Safety Rules. There was a big thumbs up for the delicious soup and the children want to have more soup outside again for snack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science

Over the next week the children will be budding scientists predicting and testing objects, to see if they float or sink.

We have been practising our Christmas Songs for our upcoming Outdoor Christmas Song Concert on Thursday 9^th December.

Nursery is looking very festive. The children have had great fun decorating the classroom. They also wanted a Santa Area, so we did a mind map and gathered their ideas. We now have a fantastic Santa’s wrapping station, which has been very popular. They have also made a Santa’s Sleigh, using the dolls pushchair. Everyday it has been flying all over nursey delivering presents!

A few of the activities taking place in Nursery.

Literacy

This week is Scottish Book Week and the children have been sharing their favourite story books with the staff. We have been talking about the characters, their favourite part in the story and using the pictures to support them to retell the story.

Gym

This week we had great fun in Gym, with balloons. We practiced a range of skills throwing, catching and kicking the balloons. The children also shared with each other how they used other parts of their body to play with their balloon.

We then had a challenge to see how many times they could hit the balloon back and forth with a partner. The highest score was 7! We also had a balloon race where the children had to pass the balloon back under their legs. The last person ran to the front and the first group to the end of the Gym Hall won.

Numeracy

Our current focus is on measurement. We have been doing lots of measuring in nursery and have taken our learning into Fettercairn Woods. In the woods the children had fun finding sticks that were taller and shorter or longer and shorter than the ones the teachers found. We were also comparing the size of different objects and introducing putting them in order from smallest to biggest, shortest to tallest and shortest to longest. The children were also hugging trees and found that they were different widths. They came up with the idea to get others to join them linking arm spans around different trees to see, which was the widest tree in the Forest.

As a home school link to support the children’s learning at home. We sent home a measuring challenge. Included was a piece of ribbon 1m long. The children had to find things that were taller and shorter or longer and shorter than 1m. They have enjoyed sharing their findings with their peers and the teachers.

Just some of the activities, experiences and learning going on in Nursery.

There has been an invasion of Pirates in Nursery this week!!!

The children have been role-playing with the Pirate Ships. To extend their play Mrs Hardie supported the children to make pirate hats and telescopes.

 

As part of our Health and Wellbeing focus, we have been learning about, ‘Where our food comes from?’ Abi Brown has been helping her dad take in the Harvest in the Combine Harvester. She brought in photos and wheat to show the other children. Using the story of ‘The Little Red Hen’ we discussed how wheat turns into flour. The children were really excited to get to make their own bread roll.

 

Baking

After spotting some apple trees on our walk to the woods. One of the children asked if we could make something with apples, so we made apple crumble. Thanks to Mrs Craig for supplying the apples. The children are really enjoying baking and have had an interest in Ice-cream this week. We made a healthy Banana Ice-cream with frozen bananas, milk and honey, which Mrs Mackie donated. The honey came from Lyall’s Aunties Beehive. When we asked the children what they thought of it there was lots of thumbs up and yummy comments.

Helicopter Stories (Using our Imagination to create and act out our own stories – Literacy and Drama)

Mrs Keal introduced Helicopter Stories to the children this week. It is a great activity to develop the children’s creativity and imagination We started off by children acting out stories that other children had come up with. The children were fairy ghosts, monsters, spiders, crocodiles, birds, trees and we even had someone be the lightening!

Staff will now scribe the children’s own stories, which we will act out at Storytime.

A story shared by one of the children this week:

The Butterfly who eated the Monster

“The Butterfly goes into the woods and wakes up the monster. Then the Monster eated the Butterfly and the Butterfly hated the Monster.”

The End”

Woodland Wednesday

This week the children have been looking for signs of Autumn. They were collecting leaves and identifying the trees they come from.

Next week they want to build fairy houses in the woods.

This week in nursery we have been supporting children to recognise their name and the letter sounds in their name, through matching letters activities and games.

Next week, we will be exploring ‘Where our food comes from?’ Celebrating Harvest Time. The children will be acting out the story of ‘The Little Red Hen.’ Our literacy focus will be – can they retell the story, using puppets and props. We will also be baking bread, which the children are really looking forward to.

We asked the children to come up with ideas to change the home corner. They voted 6 votes for a building Site and 3 votes for a Dog Vets. The children helped change the area into a building site and have been using their imagination role-playing in the area.

 

In Gym this week we set up an Obstacle Course. This was a great activity to develop their gross motor skills. We also did some funky finger movements to support their fine motor skills.

On Wednesday at the woods, we played the can you find game. This week the children had to find objects that were hard and soft. We have added the items they have collected to our Inquiry Table in Nursery.

 

We have had a very busy week in Nursery, the children played lots of games incorporating colour in Gym. We danced with scarves, practised our ball skill and played a colour corners game.

Woodland Wednesday was great fun, we talked about staying safe before we left Nursery. Everyone really enjoyed playing on the rope swing and playing pooh sticks on the bridge.

After a picnic snack we retold the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” the children acted out the story and we had lots of bears chasing Goldilocks out of the cottage.

On the way back to Nursery we saw the bunting on the Market cross and we talked about the special bike race coming through the village on Sunday.

This week in Nursery we introduced a new 10 Frame Registration Board. After finding their name and placing it on the 10 Frame. The staff support the children to subsidise (recognise a quantity without counting) the number of children who are in nursery. They also work out how many children are off. We will be doing lots of noticing and subsidising skills over the year, through activities and games to support the children’s number sense and calculation skills.

In Health and Wellbeing this term, we are focusing on feelings, emotions, being kind, how to be a good friend and similarities, differences and what makes us unique.

This week we also introduced a Feelings Board. The children put their name under Happy, Sad, Tired or Angry Characters and we use this as an opportunity for them to discuss how they are feeling.

On Tuesday, the children enjoyed their first Gym session in the hall. They loved the Animal Magic Game, with a wave of the wand Abracadabra whoosh! They turned into different animals. They had to think of how the animal moved and the noises it made. We were Monkeys, Snakes, Elephants, Butterflies, Sharks and Pigs rolling about in the mud. Great Fun had by all including the teachers!!

On Wednesday we went on a community walk around the village. We spotted the shop, café and the children wanted to go up the hill and see the church. We talked about the different shapes we could see on the church building. We continued through the forest exploring the textures of the tree trunks (rough /smooth and some with ‘knobbly bits’). Mrs Dubber told the story of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears in the Den. Then we walked back to nursery looking at some road signs along the way.

It has been a busy time in Nursery Settling in all the new children and getting them used to the nursery routines.

I can’t believe we are nearly at the end of another academic year. It has been a challenging year, with the covid lockdowns and all the restrictions, but staff have strived to keep things as normal as possible for the children. I just want to thank the staff for all their hard work over the last year.

Our ethos at Fettercairn Nursery is very much to be led by the children’s ideas and interests, we plan both responsively and intentionally a wide range of activities and experiences to meet the children’s needs. We hope you have enjoyed getting a glimpse through the nursery newsletter of just some of the great activities and experiences your child has been involved in.

Woodland Wednesday

This week saw Yellow Group going to the woods. Some of the children decided they wanted to paint pictures of Rainbow Coloured Unicorns to decorate the forest area. After painting their colourful paintings (See some photos of their artwork at the bottom of this newsletter) They decided they wanted to put up their artwork on the surrounding trees. Before we left the woods, we pretended we were in a forest art gallery. We walked around as each artist talked about their painting. Lewis had an idea to build a tent. All the children joined in working as a team to build a tent. The children decided to have snack under the canopy. Last week Joshy asked if we could have a smoothie in the woods this week. Mrs Dubber kindly made some smoothie and the children said they were delicious!!! They had fun guessing what fruit was included.

Red Group wanted to do an obstacle course at Gym. Miss Riley P6/7 teacher brought in a few new pieces of equipment for the children to include in their obstacle course. They had a great time!

On Monday the children were learning a little bit about Scotland and watched a little bit of the football match.

Transition P1

On Wednesday Afternoon, Mrs Keal arranged a Teams Meeting with the current P1 Class and Mrs Smith. This was a great transition activity. The Nursery children had prepared questions, which were given to Mrs Smith beforehand. We started with a tour of the class, where they will sit, hang their coat, tray and the morning routine. We found out what happens at snack, lunch and playtime. What they will learn and many additional questions. It was lovely to see how confident and proud the P1 children were at showing the nursery children around and also sharing what they do and some of their routines.

Road Safety

Mrs Keal also read a story ‘Ziggy Starts School’ to all the children. It is all about road safety, covering walking to school and wearing seatbelts. When Yellow Group walked to the woods on Wednesday, we talked about crossing the road safely STOP, WAIT, LOOK and LISTEN and make sure you can be seen by traffic. We will continue to focus on road safety in Nursery next term.

 

Reminders for Parents

Graduation – Wednesday 23^rd June 2-3pm  Pre-schoolers Only

As a nursery staff, we would like to dedicate the above date for our graduates.   We would like to invite you to return to the nursery setting between 2.00 and 3.00 to watch your child’s graduation.

Due to recent guidance provided by the Care Inspectorate this week, this will take place on a smaller scale.  You will be provided with a 15-minute window of time to attend the graduation and will be given an opportunity to take a photograph of your child as they receive their scroll and a warm send off from the nursery staff.  Two invites per family remains in place.

Graduation Times

2.00-2.15

Kayla Wood, Layla Wood, Hamish Strowger, Blaire Currie

2.15-2.30

McGregor Archibald, Isobel Gascoigne, Sophie Regnier, Isla Stevenson, Lewis Ruthven

2.30-2.45

Maddie Simpson, Euan Argo, Lucy Pickup, Cecelia Marsh, Doogie McRobert-Carnie

2.45-3.00

Cole Gavin, Jamie Donaldson, Glen Moore, Sam Anderson, Joshy Leon, Jacob Whitelaw

Parents will be collected by a member of staff from the main school gate

We look forward to seeing you at the Graduation.

 

This will be the last Nursery News for this term. I want to thank all the parents for your continued support. We wish all the nursery children, who are moving onto P1 all the very best for the future and hope they have many fond memories of being part of the Fettercairn Nursery Family. We look forward to seeing the returning and new children in August. We wish Mrs Rae all the best as she goes on Maternity Leave.

Have a lovely summer break.

Mrs Keal, and all the staff team Mrs Rae, Mrs Wheat, Mrs Dubber, Mrs Lloyd, Mrs Fraser and Mrs Craig

 

Artwork from the Forest

Dear Nursery Parents and Carers,

We hope you enjoyed last weeks activities and had fun recording the weather, going on a sensory walk and making the delicious chocolate mousse for greedy goose recipe. If you took part in the RSPB Garden Birdwatch on the weekend of 29th January, we would love to see photos of any birds you saw in your garden and the data you collected. We love seeing all the activities and learning you are getting up to at home, so keep sending in your photos!

Click on the link below for more Home Learning Activities.

08.02.21 Home Learning Nursery

 

Merry Christmas. We hope you enjoy our Nursery Production.

 

Nursery – Yellow Group

Merry Christmas. We hope you enjoy our Nursery Production.

Nursery – Red Group