Category Archives: Uncategorized

Nursery Bird Hide and Wildlife Project

We were successful in applying for funding of £4306.04 to develop a bird hide area/bird project in the Nursery garden. The RSPB have given us helpful advice and a field teacher from the RSPB has been helping the children to learn about how to care for birds in our garden. The project aims to develop children’s open ended play, independence, problem solving, literacy and numeracy skills and ICT skills. The children will be able to access resources such as binoculars, clipboards, magnifying glasses and reference materials independently to develop their play. We are looking forward to getting the “jungle hut” ready to use for the children to relax and look for birds. We will need some parent helpers soon to be involved in helping the children and extending their learning outdoors. If you would like to help, please speak to any member of the Nursery staff team. Keep checking the blog for new bird project photos!

Making birds with sticky shapes
Children have been bringing in items from home to show the other children and staff.
Observational drawings
Using the whiteboard to find out about birds
Making bird seed cake
Taking part in the RSPB bird watch

Nursery: May 2012 Child Initiated Train Topic

The children at Nursery have been very interested in trains and transport.  The staff decided to use this interest to plan a child initiated topic around trains. We have focused on developing open ended play. The children loved making their own train using the cardboard boxes and they had hours of fun pretending to go on train journeys! We also made train sticky pictures and a number train for the new Numeracy Area in Nursery.


Train role play
Making trains with sticky shapes
Our number train display in the new Numeracy Area
Train topic books in the discovery area
Train role play

Nursery: Open Session on Monday 14th May at 3-4pm

We are having an open session for parents from 3-4pm on Monday 14th April. Please come along and have a look at the talking floor books and your children’s “special books.” Activity cards will be displayed to explain the learning opportunities available in the different play provision areas. Staff will be available to talk to you about planning and how the Nursery operates. We are really keen to find out your ideas and suggestions for the Nursery and a guest book will be available. We would be delighted to see you there!

Special books are also available for parents to take home at any time and there is a log in book for this in the cloakroom area.

LEPRA Fundraising Workout

The pupils raised a tremendous figure of £1200.10 for the LEPRA charity. LEPRA is working towards the prevention of Leprosy in countries which still have the disease and to help people who already have the illness. The children of Dalbeattie Primary asked family and friends for sponsorship to take part in a work out, which took place in February. Our photograph, taken in April 2012,  shows Liz Osbourne of LEPRA presenting some of the pupils with their t-shirts (as a thank you for raising £21 or more) and a plaque to be displayed in school.

Rainforest animals come to P5!

Mrs Dyson set a homework challenge for us to research and present information on a Rainforest mammal. We had to use a variety of sources to collect our information. We wrote an information card for our mammal which included details on location, diet, habitat, size and other interesting facts. We had to use our creativity and imagination to present this information. Finally, we had to create a 3D model of our chosen mammal. We made our own decisions on what materials to use and the size of our model. We presented our homework project to the class and then celebrated our learning by sharing with the upper school classes. Mrs Dyson was very proud of all our efforts.

National Spring Clean Litter Pick

On Tuesday 24th April Primary 3A/T took part in a litter pick to tidy up Colliston Park. The children were accompained by Mr McMickan from Dalbeattie Community Initiative. The activity is all part of The Keep Scotland Beautiful Scheme. Although the children regularly litter pick in their own school grounds, this particular event is aimed at widening our tidying and care of the environment to places in the local community.