This week, in nursery, we continue to welcome our new children and families, helping children to settle in, begin to make new friends and become familiar with their new environment.
Outdoor play has been very popular, due in part to the super weather, but mostly due to our amazing outdoor space.
We are delighted to have been awarded joint 2nd place – a silver certificate – in the Dundee City Council School and Nursery Garden Competition. This is held annually, to celebrate the amazing spaces children have to explore and play in around the city. We are very proud, and must mention Fiona Tasker and Siân Roberts particularly, in all their efforts to create such an awesome outdoor space for our children, especially in only one year of being open.
There have been a lot of minibeasts in our garden lately, such as ladybirds, spiders, ‘forky-tailies’ and beetles. The children have been brilliant at spotting them! We have enjoyed using our magnifying bug boxes to investigate all the differences we can find between them.
We have gathered some flowers and herbs to add to our playdough this week, resulting in some interesting smells and reactions! These include lavender, parsley, chives, helichrysum (curry plant) and some oregano from our spice rack. The favourite smell was by far, the lavender and the smell least liked (“eeew, that’s DISGUSTING!”) was the helichrysum! Many children described the oregano as “smells like pizza”!
Junk modelling has been really busy this week, and we have a vast amount of models created, from very small to very tall. Children have been very focused as they build, some with fixed plans about exactly where each piece should go. This has promoted some fantastic problem solving opportunities, such as, how to get the cereal box to stay joined onto the smaller tile box.
The sand tray has an extension at the moment, with a shallow tray alongside, with a thin covering of sand. The children have been using this for mark making and drawing using rubber ended paint sticks. This helps their fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination, as well as pre-writing skills. You can try this at home on a smaller scale, on a tray, and with flour, or salt.
We’ve visited the Giving Garden again this week, harvesting more vegetables for the Dundee Food Bank. The children really enjoy their time both here and at the Community Garden in Orleans Place.
If you visit the Dundee Flower and Food Festival this weekend, maybe take a photo and share with us on Twitter?
Again, this is just a flavour of some of our activities this week. We welcome comments here, in nursery, or on our Twitter feed at @menzieshill_ns If you request to follow us, please let us know in nursery so we can authorise your request. Have a nice weekend everyone!
