The children are very excited about Christmas Time. They are learning lots of new vocabulary about the Nativity and also learning about a festival celebrated in Sweden – Sankta Lucia. It falls on the 13^th December and we will be celebrating with Honor in our afternoon session on this date. We will be having a procession and special food, and we will be developing respect for others and their beliefs, festivals and customs.

The children have been enjoying the sparkly play dough with numbered Christmas play dough mats. They have to add 3 buttons to the snowmen, 2 antlers to each reindeer, 1 bobble to Santa’s hat etc. They are enjoying manipulating the dough to make these, and they are also using their senses to smell the dough now ginger and cinnamon spices have been added.

At the sand and water area the children are matching baubles by size, colour and pattern and then hanging them onto a small wooden tree. There have been several art and craft activities on offer. The children have made Christmas Crackers – estimating and cutting paper to size. They enjoyed the cellophane paper as the bright colours were transparent and they discovered what happened when they looked through it. We have Christmas puzzles and games, which are very popular. On the Maths table the children are matching patterned presents to matching tags and also talking about the 3D gift shapes. The children will soon be putting into the correct order, smallest to largest, groups of Christmas objects. They are also weighing baubles on scales to see if they can get them to balance.

On the computer and whiteboard they are enjoying Christmas games, whilst learning to take turns and share. “Cbeebies” decorate the Christmas tree with the Tweenies, has been particularly popular.

The singing practise for the concert is well underway with some fantastic singing being heard right through the Nursery – some louder than others and some shouting rather than singing all adds to the fantastic fun we are all having. They will shortly experience the energy and excitement of performing for an audience.

At circle time this week we will be consulting with the children and find out what they already know about Christmas and what they would like to find out over the next couple of weeks. The comments will be on display in the entrance so please take time to look at them.

Tomorrow (Friday 12th) we will be supporting Jeans for Genes day. Please remember to come to Nursery dressed in denim and help support children and families affected with genetic disorders. Thank you

Well here goes – our first blog thanks to Mr McLaren for teaching us how to do it :). We have had a fantastic few weeks following the childrens interests in Pirates and enjoyed the visit from Mrs Elins Primary 5 class. It was lovely to see how the children who used to be in our Nursery have blossomed and they sure have become confident individuals.

We are now enjoying new interests from the children about Autumn, and they have been busy bringing lots of autumnal items in for us to look at with our magnifying glasses. They are interested in the changes that autumn brings.

We have 2 students in the Nursery at the moment and with their help a group of children were able to walk to the woods in their local environment, with baskets, and collect some interesting items (conkers, cones, acorns, leaves etc). They were exploring with their senses and appreciating the wonders of nature.  We are now using some of these items in the maths area to count and sort and match and weigh to help the children to understand about heavy and light.

Mrs Galloway made cards for the literacy area and the children are encouraged to find the prickliest, smoothest, longest, shortest etc autumn items. This is a very popular activity and is now being used outdoors too. The children are really good at understanding the language and finding the correct items.

At circle time we consulted with all children and found out what they knew already about Autumn and what they would like to find out. They know some very interesting things.

On the whiteboard the children have been accessing the Cbeebies website and have enjoyed taking turns at the Giggleswick Park game. This involves squirrels and acorns and there has been a lot of giggling going on especially when the acorn lands on the mans head!!

Also outdoors the children have a lotto style card with autumn colours and the children are searching for leaves of the same colour to stick in the relevant squares. The children are learning about shades of colours light and dark.

Our water tray is currently filled with dried rice for sensory play – the rice has been coloured into autumn colours 🙂 and the children are really enjoying the experience. The children have requested rice for snack and therefore it is on the menu for this week, but today right now (as I can smell it ‘mmmm’) they are having lentil soup to keep them cosy on this really cold day 😉

At the dough table we have textured dough (lentils) and leaf cutters and imprints and the children have had plenty of opportunities to be creative at the art and craft area with an autumn theme.

The children are also enjoying autumn and woodland animal stories and puzzles. They are all busy, relaxed and having lots of fun whilst learning of course!

We hope you enjoyed reading our very first blog ;)………….more coming soon……and maybe even some photos the next time!!