It has been a busy week in the 2’s room. We have been learning all about fireworks and poppies. On Monday we created our fantastic firework wall. We watched a video about fireworks and pointed out all the colours we could see. We discussed how the fireworks could be very loud and that we had to be safe when we go to watch them. For the rest of this week we have been talking about the colour red. On Thursday we watched a short video which introduced the children to remembrance day and the significance 0f the poppy. The children were able to identify that the poppy was red. On Friday we created a fantastic field of poppies and again watched the short video. This time the children were able to recognise the poppies and the colour red. Well done everyone.

We had lots of fun at our Autumn party this week. We all dressed up, some as witches, ghosts and spiders, and had lots of fun taking part in games and activities. We had a finding activity which involved searching through squidgy jelly or slimy spaghetti to find spiders and insects galore. We played musical bumps and pass the pumpkin. We had a party food snack and did lots of dancing. We ended our party fun by watching Room on the broom. We all had such a fun day.

In the run up to the end of term we were very busy in the two’s. Our book of the term had been The Gruffalo and as a special treat we went on a Gruffalo hunt. The children had to find all the animals from the story who were hiding in our own “deep dark wood”. There was much excitement when we found the Gruffalo as he had brought us lots of tasty treats, everything from “Gruffalo claws” (monster munch) to slippery snakes (gummy sweeties). We had lots of fun.

We have been growing pumpkins in the community garden. After picking them we decided that we would turn them into something yummy. On the last day of term we turned our pumpkins into muffins. The children enjoyed measuring, mixing, pouring, whisking and of course eating!!!! I hope you all enjoyed them at home. We will have the recipe available in nursery if you would like to try at home.

We plan to continue with more autumn related activities this term before the onset of winter!!!

Role play is good for developing children’s curiosity, communications and imagination. It allows them to get into character and  act out real life situations. The boys and girls in the nursery love role play. We have some children who are away to be big brothers and sisters and they have been practicing their skills with the baby dolls in nursery. Aaron and Aimee in particular have been feeding and changing the babies. Smith and Kai have been role playing the snack routine with Smith playing the role of the adult and pouring out the “cuppa tea”. Ava has been taking “group time” and can usually be found in the story corner with the boardmaker , a story and a few of her friends. On close listening you can here her asking the same questions the ladies do when we take group. The children also like to dress up and this term we have had some interesting clothes to dress up in. We have dresses, blazers and some lovely hats and scarfs. Role play is so much fun and is so important for a child’s development.

Our ABC and beyond book for the term is “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson. We are now on week 5 and the children are developing a good understanding of the story. They can identify characters and describe the features of the Gruffalo e.g. his orange eyes and black tongue. We have created our own Gruffalo using brown paint and natural materials which we collected again on our woodland walk. He is now proudly displayed on our ABC and beyond wall. Please feel free to have a look and read all about the sparkle words and topics which the children have learned in relation to the story.

This term we will be looking at all the different woodland animals. Our first two animals that we looked at were the squirrel and the fox. Whilst on our visit to the menzieshill library we discovered some interesting stories that contained foxes and squirrels. After reading our tales and being inspired by all we have learnt the children used a combination of paint and natural materials, which we had collected on our nature walk,  to create wonderful squirrels and foxes. The finished products can be viewed on our topic wall. Well done everyone.

It has been a busy few weeks in the 2-3 room with new starts and our returners all getting back into the routine of nursery life. During our first 3 weeks we having been reading our book of the term, “The Gruffalo”. Activities involved with this book have included singing the Gruffalo song (a lot!!) and creating our “deep dark wood”. We are also going to explore other woodland creatures over the next few weeks. We have had our first stay and play session which was well attended by parents and grandparents, thank you all. We are exploring different musical instruments this term. We all enjoyed our first, the banjo. Everyone loved playing the banjo and watching videos of the banjo being played very fast. Part of our new nursery routine has been the introduction of proper crockery for snack. The children have adapted very well to this and will all now independently collect there own cup and plate as well as tidying up and washing their dishes once finished. As you can see this is only a snippet of the activities going on with the remainder of term looking to be just as fun packed.

We have been reading the story “The Fourth Bonniest Baby in Dundee”. The story contains illustrations of landmarks in Dundee which prompted questions of who has seen these landmarks and also who can tell us any other landmarks in Dundee? We discussed and looked at pictures of Dundee and the children showed a great interest in the McMannus museum and the Slessor gardens. As it is our first trip out of nursery we have selected the pre-school children to participate in the trips to town. Our first trip was a great success. The children loved going on the bus and were able to point out all the landmarks from the book. When we arrived in town we visited the museum and the children were amazed and showed interest in all the displays. Highlghts were : Tay whale, the model of Dundee, old fashioned toys and shoes, the animals and the long wooden boat. After the museum we explored the gardens and found a perfect shaded area to have our snack. After snack we played music in the sensory garden then ventured back to the bus stop to catch our bus. The children really enjoyed their trip and are looking forward to many more.

We are so excited in the nursery as we are now into week six of our tadpole to frog journey and today we spotted froglets!!! The word froglet means that they have 4 legs, need more air but still have the tail of a tadpole. As they are getting bigger, and their tank is getting smellier, we decided that we would create two homes. We collected more stones, so they would have areas to hop onto to get some air, and have added some foliage for them to eat. They appear to have settled in quite well to their new home. We will now wait patiently to spot our first frog, we don’t think it will be long!!

We are now on day 9 of our life cycle topic and our new friends are certainly growing. At the end of last week we were very excited to see that at least 80% to 90% of our frog spawn was in the process of turning into tadpoles but we soon realised that the small tank they were in would be to small. Mrs Ross brought in a bigger tank and we carefully transferred our friends into their new home. We have to make sure that the water they have isn’t from the tap as this contains fluoride and could harm our friends so we topped the bigger tank up with some rain water from the garden. We have added some dead plants as apparently this is their favourite food to eat!!! Everyday we check on them and make sure they have enough food to eat. They are getting bigger every day and are now proper tadpoles. Within the next few days we should begin to see their back legs forming which will be very exciting. We will continue to keep posting updates but also feel free to come and have a nosy next time you visit.