As part of their learning about Chinese New Year the Rainbow Room children spent some time watching clips of Chinese dragon dances as part of the celebrations. They enjoyed dancing to the music and comparing the different styles of dragons which led to them creating their own dragons in the art and craft area.
Having learned that red and gold are the lucky colours of Chinese New Year, they set off with great enthusiasm to create their own dragons and we think that they made a super job of it. So impressive were their efforts and enthusiasm that they did a parade, led by their own little band and some background Chinese music, along the school corridor to visit the classrooms on the ground floor. Great confidence was shown by the children on this visit and pupils and staff in school were so welcoming and delighted to see us which led to Mr. Palmer inviting them to perform at the whole school assembly.
What a wonderful conclusion to our learning about Chinese New Year to perform in a parade in front of the whole school! Despite a few nerves, all the children made us very proud as they paraded right round the school hall in front of a very large audience. Chinese New Year was certainly a fantastic celebration for these children.
Award Winners
Very well done to these recent award winners. Your families must be very proud of you.
Word Of The Week
“Word of the Week” in the Rainbow Room will be ‘love’ while the Raindrop Room children are learning about ‘St. Valentine’.
PEEP Group
Our Hecklegirth Nursery Peep group has been meeting for a few weeks now. We are following the Communication and Language learning together course. So far we have practised our listening skills, followed instructions to make play dough, had ‘puppet conversations’ and taken resources home to make our own puppets. Thank you to Eileen, our Lifelong Learning Co-ordinator, for planning such fun activities.
Kitchen Play
Lily B.’s family likes the photo of her busy in the Chinese restaurant:
 “Lily loves playing with kitchens and pretending to cook for everyone.”
This has certainly been a popular place to play recently and we have had some lovely meals made for us.
Planting In Our Community
We are all very excited to be given the responsibility of looking after the flower planter outside Bridge House on the High Street. The children will be busy preparing and planting over the coming months.
We would appreciate any donations of bulbs, plants or cuttings. It would also be great if any grown-ups would join us in caring for the planter and share any knowledge they have.
Chinese Restaurant
After all the exciting learning and activities based on Scotland, we moved to the other side of the world to talk about Chinese New Year. The children have been learning about customs and traditions from another culture so the role play areas in both rooms were transformed into a Chinese restaurant.
Tartan Dress
As part of their discussions about tartan and Highland dress, this group of children created their own tartan sashes when playing outdoors. They were all quite proud of their efforts and delighted that they had produced something they could actually wear.
Independent Learners
Our Burns celebrations last week were a great success and this little group did a super job of helping with the preparations as they made shortbread for our Scottish snack. The children showed good counting and measuring skills as they prepared the ingredients and were involved in lots of discussion about what was happening as they were mixed and then put in the oven. Super work from these independent little learners!
Drumming Daddy
As well as visitors playing bagpipes, we had a drummer in from a local pipe band to help us learn about Scottish culture. Summer’s Dad told us that he started playing the drums when he was just a little boy and that it takes a lot of practice to become good enough to join a pipe band. He was kind enough to allow the children to try out their skills on his drum which many enjoyed. I wonder if we might have some future pipe band members in our Nursery?
Click then click again on photos to make them clearer.