Very well done to all children who participated in our sponsored cycle on Friday 3rd March!! So far we have raised over £1000!

This money will be used to develop our Nursery outdoor area.

Thank you very much to all parents who handed in the tear-off slip with their comments regarding transition to Primary 1. Mrs Stanners has used these to plan the transition activities for our pre-school children.

In order to ensure all pre-school children have the opportunity to take part in transition activities, Mrs Stanners and Miss Wright are currently working with four groups of children. These take place on Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning, Thursday morning and Friday afternoon.

All pre-school children have now started their transition. During the first week (20.2.17), Mrs Stanners and Miss Wright spoke to children about going to school and children had the opportunity to ask questions and share what they already know about school. Last week (27.2.17) the children went for a walk around the school and had a chance to meet some of the school staff including the Headteacher, Miss Henderson, and the Depute Headteacher, Mr Horsburgh. This week (6.3.17) the children visited the playground, were shown the areas they are able to play in at playtime and lunchtime and talked about some playground rules.

Soon parents/carers will receive a piece of paper which gives details of how their child coped with certain activities. All children may not be able to participate in every activity, however, we will try to ensure that they participate in as many as possible.

If you would like more information on transition from Nursery to Primary 1, please see Mrs Stanners.

To end our topic on birds, Miss Wright organised for Garry from Little Critters to visit the Nursery.

He brought three owls with him: a tawny owl named Chestnut, an Asian wood owl named Oakley and a boobook owl. Garry gave us some information about the owls and also gave us a chance to hold them.

If you would like to visit Little Critters, it is situated behind Dobbies Garden Centre in Stirling. To find out more about the Nursery visit, have a look at our community floorbook in the Nursery.

Here are just some of our photos:

This term our topic in Nursery is ‘Birds in Winter’. We have enjoyed taking part in a wide range of activities and have learned lots of new things.

We have been learning about ways of caring for birds in the winter.

Making bird cake

1. Melt some lard in the microwave.
2. Mix in some bird seed.
3. Use a spoon to put some of the mixture into a plastic cups.
4. Put the cups in the fridge to allow the cake to set.
5. Put a piece of string down the middle of the bird cake and tie in a knot.
6. Hang the bird feeders in your garden and watch out for the birds.

Instead of using plastic cups, you can also roll out the mixture and use cutters to make different shaped feeders.

Making fruit bird feeders

1. Core an apple or a pear.
2. Push a stick horizontally through the bottom of the apple/pear (for the bird to balance on).
3. Push some large seeds into the skin of the fruit.
4. Put a piece of string down the middle of the apple/pear and tie.
5. Hang the feeder in your garden.

Making cereal bird feeders.

1. Tie a stick (or lolly stick) onto the bottom of a long piece of string (for the bird to balance on).
2. Thread Cheerios on the piece of string.
3. Tie the string in your garden and watch for birds!

We have been learning about different shapes, sizes and textures and have developing our own ideas.

Making Nests and Bird Houses

In the art and craft area, the children have been discussing which materials would be suitable to make a bird nest. We explored the textures and created our own mini nests.

We have also been using recycled items to create our own bird houses.

We have been learning about different types of birds and will make comparisons.

We used posters and booklets to find out about different types of birds. Then we drew our favourite ones.

‘Birds in Winter’ Walk

Today we went for a walk in the local area to see if we could spot any birds or nests. We saw some seagulls, blackbirds and we also saw some nests really high up in the trees! As we were walking along the back road in Menstrie, we had lots of fun practising climbing and balancing. On the way back to Nursery, we collected some sticks.

Thank you to all the Mums, Dads, Grans and Grandads who came along to support us.

We have been learning about the importance of good hygiene.

Toothbrushing

As well as our Birds in Winter topic, we are also focusing on toothbrushing this term. We have been discussing good hygiene and the importance of looking after our teeth. We aim to brush out teeth once a day at Nursery.

We have been learning about Scottish traditions.

Scottish week

This week (23^rd January), as a school, we are celebrating Scottish week.

In Nursery we will be tasting some traditional Scottish foods, designing our own tartan, learning Scottish songs and poems and taking part in some Scottish dancing.

We are also looking forward to a visit from Mr Scotland who is coming to play the bagpipes for us.

On Friday, children should wear something tartan to Nursery if possible.

More pictures to follow!

During literacy week, we have listened to lots of different stories. Thank you very much to Ethan’s mum, Mrs Pirrie, for giving up her time to read to us last week.

The children also enjoyed looking at the books available in the school book fair.

Today, we really enjoyed a visit from the Primary 6 children and Mr Furzer. The boys and girls in Primary 6 read us some stories.

To  show our support to Children In Need, we all wore something yellow or our pyjamas to Nursery on Friday. We enjoyed decorating our own Pudsey Bears at the art and craft area and we also enjoyed colouring and cutting Pudsey at the drawing table.

Some of the boys and girls also helped Miss Wright to decorate a box to collect donations.

As we approached Bonfire Night, we discussed how to keep ourselves safe. We had fun watching sparklers in our outdoor classroom.

Then Ms Russell and Ms Williamson showed us what happened when you add Mentos to cola!!

We walked along the old railway line in Menstrie to see if we could spot any signs of Autumn. We collected lots of different coloured leaves, ‘helicopters’, chestnuts and acorns.

At our Halloween parties, we played lots of games. We played musical statues, musical bumps, find the sweetie and more. We also had to find some creepy crawlies in the gloop! We enjoyed visiting the boys and girls in the school before a delicious snack with our friends.

During term one, we explored “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson. The children developed their interests through art and craft, contributing to a Gruffalo display and going on a Gruffalo hunt through the woods.  The children had the opportunity to explore different patterns using colours and shapes when recreating the snake from the story at the art and craft area.

The children enjoyed playing outdoors with the Gruffalo costume, using the willow den as the woods.

Our story corner was transformed into the Gruffalo woods where the children were able to re-tell the story using costumes and puppets.

One of our parents very kindly bought us the Gruffalo characters.

One of our parents was kind enough to bring in her own ‘big brown mouse’ for the children to see. She told them how to care for the ‘mouse.’ We were also lucky enough to have a visit from a corn snake.

After our visits from the animals, we discussed the importance of washing our hands. We carried out our first scientific experiment to observe the changes unwashed hands can have on bread . One piece was put in a sealed bag using gloves, one piece was put in a sealed bag using clean, washed hands and the last piece was put in a bag after all of the children and staff had touched it.

After two weeks, the bread everyone had touched was very mouldy!!

In term one, we had lots of fun with Susie Adam, our dance teacher, who is with us on Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons. Susie teaches us some wonderful dance and exercise routines with an educational twist. She helps us to develop our gross motor skills, spacial awareness, turn taking, listening skills and much more.

At the end of term one, we found out what farmers do during harvest time. The children helped to collect apples, plums and vegetables from our Nursery garden. We all used our senses to explore these foods: we used our eyes to find out what they looked like, our fingers to find out what they felt like, our noses to find out what they smelled like and our tongues to find out what they tasted like!