This week has seen a new lunar year start or as we also call it, Chinese New Year. To prepare for a taste of China we visited the Chinese supermarket to find some tasty treats to sample at nursery. Our trip to town involved making a list, taking a ride on the bus, sourcing the items from our list in the supermarket and then after all that hard work we treated ourselves to a tasty snack in the café.

Playing and Learning outside helps children to understand and respect nature, the environment and the interdependence of humans, animals, plants and lifecycles. The outdoor environment offers space and is therefore particularly important to those children who learn best through active play. 😁

We have been running story and rhyme sessions on a Thursday. All parents and carers are invited to participate in these fun sessions which involve reading a story, singing some songs and of course Miss Connor’s favourite her lycra!!! The sessions use the same rhyming story each week to build and develop language and vocabulary. At the beginning of each session Miss Connor runs through the weeks top tips for talking with your child in a way which will develop their speech and language. We will be running our last session on Thursday 7th February. If you have not been to a session feel free to join us and experience the fun and maybe learn something new. We will be running more 4 block sessions throughout the year.

It has been very cold and frosty this week but we have been lucky enough to have lots of beautiful winter sunshine. We have made good use of our cosy all in one suits and have been exploring the frost both in our nursery garden and the school playing fields. In the garden we have been mark making in the frost and out on the grass we have been exploring the noise the grass is making under foot and how cold it is to touch, along with still playing football!!!

Friday 25th January was Robert Burn’s birthday and to celebrate in the 2’s we baked him a cake, well a clootie dumpling to be precise. The children had lots of fun weighing out ingredients, cracking eggs, mixing the mixture and smelling the different spices that go into the dumpling. Whilst our dumpling was cooking we had a traditional Burns super of vegetarian haggis, neeps and tatties. It was delicious. We ending our busy session by listening to poems by Burns and singing some Scottish favourites, like “You canna shove your grannie off the bus!!”.

Every day we count how many friends we have in nursery. Working together we have to try and find the correct number to put on the board. The children in the 2’s are developing their numeracy skills through this activity and are demonstrating could number recognition and counting skills. Counting and pointing out numbers is a good way of developing early numeracy skills. Examples of activities in daily life are counting the number of stairs, pointing out the numbers on the bus, using your fingers to touch count. Numbers are all around us.

The morning boys have been taking advantage of the large grassed area in the school grounds to master their football skills. Smith and Isaac are demonstrating good ball control, passing skills and there use of language. We could be looking at football stars of the future.

Mark making helps children to develop many different concepts and skills accross different curriculum areas. Through mark making children are expressing their thoughts feelings and ideas as well as showing creativity and imagination🖍📝🖋

The Benefits of Messy Play

Messy Play

* fosters curiosity, imagination and exploration.

* encourages communication and language development.

* supports concentration and nurtures future skills.

* promotes physical development.

* supports independent play.

We had so much fun at our Xmas party. There was dancing, singing, party games and food. We even had a special visit from Santa!!!!! It is now beginning to look a lot like Xmas 🙂