2019 – 2020 – Page 52 – Hecklegirth Nursery

The Play Begins

It was lovely to see some familiar faces today and to begin to get to know our new children and their families.
We are able to share some photos here of the children in the Rainbow Room at play on their first day. Once we have blog permission slips returned from everyone, we will able to share more photos and examples of the children’s work here. We hope that you will find this a valuable insight into the life of our Nursery and that you can use the blog to add comments about your child’s experience.
Simply click on the word “comment” under the title of each post if you wish to leave a comment. Please be aware that these will not appear immediately, as they are monitored by the administrator before publication, but you should see your comment within a day or two.
Thank you to all our parents for helping us to provide a smooth and happy start for the children. Photos of children in the Raindrop Room will be posted soon.

Start Of Term

We are looking forward to seeing everyone when Nursery starts on Wednesday 21st August. It will be lovely to see the children who are returning and to get to know all our new children and their families.
All children arriving at 8.00 or 8.30 should enter via the Rainbow Room. At 9.00-9.15 the separate entrances for each room will be open and again at 12.00-12.15 then 3.00 to collect those children going home at these times. If you are bringing or collecting a child at any other time between 9.15 and 3.00 please use the school office entrance then ring the Nursery bell to gain access. The Raindrop Room entrance will remain open beyond 3.15 for those staying later.
If this is your child’s first time in Nursery, we suggest he/she comes initially for a shorter session to help him/her to settle in. Please speak to staff about your planned collection times if choosing to do this. We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday.

Den Building

Outdoor play provides great opportunities for the children to develop their creativity and skills with lots of problem solving and teamwork at the heart of much of their learning. This snapshot from one morning shows the children working well together to create their own den, triggering lots of imaginative play which extended to the mud kitchen as meals had to be provided for the family living in the new den. No wonder the children go home tired with all this hard work that they do in a day.

Dates For Your Diary

We hope that you have all been enjoying your summer holidays spending time with your families. To help you plan your next holiday, we have put the dates for the new school year in our “Dates for Your Diary” link on the right under “Support Information”.
This link will be updated with more detail as the year progresses, once we have other dates in place, so all the information you need for your calendar will be there to refer to throughout the school year. We hope that this is helpful for you and that you enjoy the rest of your holidays.

Fizzy Fun

As part of their learning to make predictions and observations in science experiments, these children explored making fizzy potions outdoors. They measured vinegar and washing-up liquid in to a container then decided what to add to make a range of different fountains – various food colourings, stars and glitter were all very popular. As with all good potion mixing, they children had to give their concoction a good stir and a few magic words before adding baking soda to produce an exciting fizzy fountain. As you can imagine, we tried this out several times and used different quantities of ingredients each time to observe what happened. The children showed good focus and made some great comments as they observed the process.

Sophia: it explodes. It’s green. I mixed it.
Jack: I was doing a scientist. I put sugar in it and it makes bubbles. It explodes like a volcano. Mine was yellow bubbles with lots of stars.
Aoife: I’m making a volcano like where the lava comes out.
Letti: I put stars in the mixture. It was really high. The stars came out into there.
Emilia: we add vinegar and washing machine shampoo. It grew really high. It exploded!
Freddie: we used a spoon to mix it. It blows up.
Emily: I’m making an experiment. I’m a scientist. I was making potions. It exploded.
Arthur: I’m making a volcano. It was big and blue. I am a scientist.
Leigha: I’m stirring it with the spoon. It can get out big.

Dancing Raisins

Simple science experiments are very popular in our Nursery and the children have learned to make predictions before they carry them out then observe what happens to see if they were right. As part of a focus on floating and sinking, the children experimented by putting raisins in lemonade to see if they would sink or float and, as you can see, they were very engaged in observing the changes they saw. They saw the raisins float as the bubbles of carbon dioxide stuck to them causing them to rise to the surface and were amazed when the some of the bubbles popped, causing the raisins to sink. This happened several times before all the gas was used up and, finding it hard to believe what they had seen, the children wanted to try out this experiment over and over again.
We thought that we would share some of the their comments.
Jackson: there’s bubbles. I put in the lemonade. The raisins are dancing.
Tom: bubbles move up and down.
Arthur: the raisins are going up and down.
Alexa: the bubbles stick to the raisins and make them dance. Bubbles give us hiccups when we drink them.
Nancy: we’re making the raisins float and sink. Look they’re dancing. The bubbles make them go up and down.
Jack: They are floating. Bubbles go up and down and make the raisins jump.
Sophia: I was putting raisins in lemonade. They were dancing about.
Emilia: look at the bubbles. They are dancing, lots of dancing.

Relaxing Round The Fire

Our outdoor play regularly includes opportunities to sit around a fire where the children love to socialise and, of course, prepare something to eat. One of their favourites are these big marshmallows which are so very sticky once cooked but are certainly delicious. We are looking forward to lots more fires in our outdoor play again next year.

Where Does Our Food Come From?

The snack area in Nursery provides many opportunities for learning across several areas of the curriculum. Here you can see the children finding out where various foods come from as they help to prepare snack. They love helping to find the different countries on the globe, seeing how far they are from Scotland and how big other countries are compared to ours.

Symmetry In Action

To help the children understand symmetry, we provided a range of experiences to encourage them to make their own symmetrical pictures. As you can see, they began to understand this concept once they created their own work.

Art And Science

Art and science came together in this activity when the children were learning about light and shade. Lots of great concentration was evident as the children made their own stained glass artwork to display on the windows in Nursery.