Last term one of our topics was the Arctic and Antarctic animals. Our favourite animal in this topic was the polar bear and we were so excited to find out that a baby polar bear had been born in Scotland. We watched a documentary about the baby polar bear and looked at maps to see how far from Dundee the polar bear lived but we wanted to know more and decided that we would write a letter to the keeper. We were very excited to receive our letter yesterday. The keeper had answered all our questions and had also included some pictures of the baby and his mummy Victoria. We have blown up the letter and it is on one of the walls in the nursery if you would like to take a look.

This term we will be looking at life cycles. After much discussion with the children prior to the Easter holidays it was decided that we would all like to look at the life cycle of a frog. During the holidays Mrs Ross went exploring and managed to collect some frog spawn. The children were very interested and intrigued by the strange looking “jelly” and “eyeballs” that were in the fish tank. We discussed that it was frog spawn and the various stages that would follow before the nursery has its own frogs, fingers crossed. We watched a very useful video which explained to us how long the process would take and what the various stages are. We are now on day 3 and are very excited to say that we have lots of nearly formed tadpoles!!! We will keep you all posted with updates on the process or feel free to have a nosy in the tank when dropping off the children.

One of our funky fingers activities has been creating pin pictures. This involves cork boards, wooden shapes, pins and hammers. From this activity led onto discussions about real tools and creating bigger models using various materials. As this was an interest it was decided by the children that they would like somewhere to further develop this interest. The area where the coats are hung was seen as being the best area. Mrs Ross’s husband kindly created a workbench for us and real tools have been added. Screwdrivers, nails and measuring tools at the moment with hammers and nails to follow. We have discussed how to be safe in the area and all children are aware that when in this area they must wear Hi Vis jackets and safety goggles. Already it has been a very busy area with lots of ideas on what the children want to try and create with the tools and materials provided. Looking forward to many amazing constructions over the next few weeks.

We have been making our own dough using only water and flour. Firstly we measured out water using a measuring jug. We had to watch to see when the water had reached the fill line. After adding water to our bowl we then used our measuring cups to weigh out two cups of flour. Then we had the fun part of mixing. If our dough was to wet we added more flour. Lots of fun was had by all. At some points it got very sticky!!!! Our new “make your own dough” area will be an area available for all to experiment and create fun dough. Extra ingredients will be added to create a different experience. Making dough is an easy activity and one which can be easily done at home. The experience helps to develop early numeracy skills through weighing and measuring and use of mathematical language.

The nursery boys and girls are trying out a new way to tidy up. We are still having our tidy up song – “Supercalifragilistic” but the children are now being given the responsibility of an area or section to tidy. Prior to the song being played the children are issued with lanyards containing a picture of the area they are to tidy. They then have to keep a listen for the music and when played go to there designated area. The pictures help them to know what the area should look like and to check that they are doing there job properly. We have been trialling the process for a few days and the children are truly loving the responsibility. They are developing good listening skills and working well together to create a warm, friendly, tidy nursery environment. Good job everyone.

We have been learning all about Robert or “Rabbie” Burns. As part of our Burns celebrations we have been reading Scottish books – “Thi Dundee Gruffalo” and “There was a wee lassie who swallowed a midgie”, we had some Scottish snack of scones and shortie and Mrs Hutcheson brought in her very special Burns book from home – it is 200 years old!!!. The children enjoyed all aspects of the day and found some of the Scottish words really funny. They were astonished at how old Mrs Hutcheson’s book was and could tell it was really old as it was as the children said –  “all scuffed”, “looks dirty”, “has gold pages”, “is really big and heavy!!”.

After a lovely 2 week break the children have enjoyed getting back to nursery and catching up with there friends. We have had a good settling in week and have made good use of all the learning opportunities on offer. The children have enjoyed as always getting out in our very muddy nursery garden. We have also been building and creating indoors using the bricks and playdough and experimenting with “gloopy, slimy” soap. We are all looking forward to a very busy term 3.

We have been enjoying the winter weather. The children were excited to see the nursery garden covered in frost and sparkling in the winter sunshine. We have struggled to move the tyres and crates as they have been frozen solid to the ground. In the sinks and the water tray we have discovered large blocks of ice which we have had great fun trying to make smaller. We have used our magnifying glass to look closely at the frost on the grass and leaves. We have used sticks to write our names in the frost.Our obstacle course has been more of a challenge as it has been very slippy!!! We are loving the cold, frosty outdoors but we secretly would all love some snow so we could build a snowman.

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Some more pictures of our autumn party.

On Tuesday we had our Autumn party. The children looked “spooktacular”. We had witches, vampires, ghosts and a mad scientist. The children enjoyed many Halloween activities. We had minibeasts hidden in slimy jelly and worm spaghetti. Witches and wizards could be found creating magical potions in the water area and overnight ghosts and skeletons had visited the garden this required some investigating. The children used special ghost hunting torches to find out how many skeletons had hidden themselves in the garden. We all had so much fun.