2019 – 2020 – Page 44 – Hecklegirth Nursery

Jungle Dance

Our “Rumble in the Jungle” focus in the Rainbow Room led to the children learning a dance to a song from “The Jungle Book”. Here you can see them initially practising the dance in Nursery then marching along the corridor to Primary 1 to give a performance of their final work in the Primary 1 classroom, wearing the animal masks they had made themselves.
We thought that the children showed great confidence to perform to an audience in an unfamiliar environment and they produced such a super performance that they then performed to Primary 1/2 as well.

Great Little Scientists

The children love simple science experiments and are learning to make predictions about what will happen then observe closely to see if they were correct. Here a small group carried out their experiment independently, putting raisins in lemonade to see if they would sink or float and were very excited to observe the changes they saw. As the bubbles of carbon dioxide stuck to the raisins they floated in the lemonade and the children were amazed when the some of the bubbles popped, causing the raisins to sink. They tested this little experiment several times before all the gas was used up and wanted to try out this experiment over and over again. What great little scientists they are!

Rumble In The Jungle

Following on from their work on “Rumble in the Jungle” in the nature area, the children in the Rainbow Room made super jungle pictures which you can see on display in Nursery. Click then click again on photos to get a better look at their artwork and watch out for some animal eyes peeping out from behind the jungle foliage.

Money Matters

As the children in both Nursery rooms requested shops in their role play areas recently, it was a great opportunity to develop their learning about coins. As you can see, some were able to match coins and discuss what we use money for. The next step in learning will be to recognise and name some coins which a few are beginning to be able to do. You could perhaps take the opportunity when out and about in the holidays to talk about different coins with your child? This is certainly an area of maths that most children show great enthusiasm for so they will probably be keen to show off their knowledge.

Paint Patterns

Experimenting to make footprints with paint was great fun in the Raindrop Room garden last term as the children compared patterns, sizes and a number of different colours. The end results made a great display – have you noticed some of the children’s footprints hanging outside?

Animals, Autumn And Art

The Rainbow Room visited the school nature area several times towards the end of term as part of their interest in animals as well as the changing season. As you can see, they all enjoyed listening to “Rumble in the Jungle” and then set off on a hunt to search for animals in the nature area which was very exciting.
After a tasty outdoor snack, the children talked about the signs around them that Autumn was on its way and gathered some evidence which they all shared in their discussion together about their findings.
Once back in Nursery, some of the children made super art work from their finds in our outdoor area which looks great displayed in the mud kitchen hanging from the shelter. Great teamwork and enthusiasm were evident from these children in this activity and we think that they must certainly have gone home tired that day.

STEM Learning With Your Child

STEM stands for science, technologies, engineering and mathematics which are all areas of learning in Nursery. If you take a look at the STEM displays in each room, you can get a taste of all the different activities the children enjoy which are developing their knowledge, understanding, curiosity, creativity and enthusiasm in these areas.
To help you understand how you can support these areas of your child’s learning at home, we have added a link on the right under “Useful Reading: STEM for Parents”. Click on the link for information from Education Scotland and have fun learning with your child.

Autumn Art

After collecting leaves in our local community, the children experimented with them to create some super artwork which is now displayed in Nursery. We love that they had lots of different ideas of how their art should look and would like to share a gallery of the children at work.

Click then click again on the photos for a closer look.

Hairdressers

Tilly’s family has been looking at the photos of the Raindrop Room’s hairdressing salon:

“Tilly absolutely loved the hairdresser’s role play area! Playing hairdressers and make up artists is her favourite thing to do at home! She is very pleased with herself that she can now put her own pony tail in and loves to put as many bobbles as she can in my hair!!!!!”

Well done Tilly – you must have been practising lots to be able to do your own hair. It was certainly a popular area with Tilly and her friends.