After our first week back, when lots of children have had to become familiar with a new environment and new staff, everyone seems to be settling in well to their routines. The children are investigating lots of different learning areas and are having fun experimenting with a range of resources. We would like to share a snapshot gallery of life back in Nursery after our holidays.
Thank you to two of our parents who have left comments on the start of the term.
Violeta’s family said: “Enjoy your time in nursery”. We hope that Violeta and all the new children are enjoying their Nursery experience.
Evelyn’s family also said,
“Evelyn is loving being back at nursery, she was so exited to come back and missed all her friends, we both are loving the longer sessions too,works out better for us. “
It’s good to hear that the extended hours are a good experience for Evelyn and her family. We hope that everyone else is enjoying the start to the term.
Twelve new three year old children have joined us this term and they are beginning to settle into Nursery life. They are becoming familiar with the routines and are beginning to grow in confidence to try out a range of activities. We hope that our new families enjoy using our blog to get a feel for life in Hecklegirth Nursery and thought we would share a few photos of some of the children enjoying their first few days. If you have not already done so, please return your child’s permission forms and we can show your child at play on our blog.
As well as the activities we recently highlighted for balance bikes and racket and ball sessions, we now have a poster advertising mini kickers football for children aged three and over. Click below to see the poster for yet another great activity in our community. 
Carol Moyes, Dumfries and Galloway RAiSE teacher, has been looking at some of the recent posts which show our Science activities.
On our water cycle activity she commented, “What a great investigation. Books are a fantastic way to make links to science. Have you seen the STEAM-a-Story resources on our website? There are lots of STEM ideas linked to this year’s Scottish Book Trust books.”
We will have to have a look at those thank you.
Mrs. Moyes also liked the photos of bridge building in the rain: “Yet more amazing STEM in action from Hecklegirth Nursery! When I first saw the pictures I thought you had had snow; did you add washing up liquid to the puddles? “
We did add washing up liquid to our puddles. It will be interesting to see what the children decide to do when we do get snow.
Tomorrow, Monday 7th January, will be the start of term and we are looking forward to seeing everyone again, along with the twelve new children who will also be getting ready for their first day. We hope that they are excited to be starting Nursery and are looking forward to making new friends. No doubt everyone will make them feel welcome and we hope that this is the beginning of a happy experience for the children and their families.
Our extended sessions start from tomorrow so we look forward to seeing you from 8.00 onwards depending on your chosen hours.
At the end of term some of the children had the opportunity to play in the new Raindrop Room in preparation for our move there. As you can see, it was very exciting looking for their new coatpegs and the children showed great confidence to investigate all that was on offer in the new space. As you may have noticed last term, we have shared new furniture and resources between each space so all the children will be able to enjoy access to appealing and well resourced areas when they return next week.
The book “The Drop Goes Plop” provided the children last term with an insight into where rain comes from and they had the opportunity to experiment with rainmaking in a science activity where they investigated how many drops of paint they needed in their cloud before the rain appeared below.
As you can see this was a very popular activity and the children enjoyed experimenting with colour mixing as well as learning to use a pipette, carry out close observation and discuss their findings. Great work boys and girls!
Whatever the weather, lots of our children always enjoy being outdoors and adapt their play to the environment they find. Recent heavy rain and big puddles provided the opportunity for some great teamwork and problem solving as the children worked together to build bridges. There was some super discussion about possible solutions to crossing the water and it was wonderful to hear the children listening to each other and following through their plans to make a path across the huge puddle. I wonder if we have some engineers of the future here?
As 2019 approaches, we thought you might like to hear about some new activities in our area to start off the new year. Click on the link below to see the poster.
