health and wellbeing – Page 94 – Hecklegirth Nursery

Rain, Rain, Stay In Nursery

Which child doesn’t enjoy the opportunity to jump in a puddle? Well, we certainly had a big enough puddle for lots of jumping this week in Nursery when our garden area became waterlogged. As well as a mini pond in our mud kitchen, we had water stretched from one end of the pathway to another. It certainly brought home to children that winter weather is not all about Jack Frost and snow.
We had ducks and boats out which produced some valuable discussions about floating and sinking as well as lots of pouring and measuring to develop numeracy skills. The children worked so well together and enjoyed investigating their ideas in a real context. Great fun was had, for example, experimenting to see if a boat would sink if they filled it with water.
It may have been a little inconvenient for adults to use a different entrance to Nursery but the children took full advantage of conditions that were very exciting for them.

Learning About Winter

It sounds like Carmen is enjoying learning about winter as her Mum commented:

“Carmen is enjoying the winter topic. She loved designing her snowmen at home. She says it great fun. When we are about to set off for nursery in the morning I ask her what’s the weather like today Carmen and she tells me. When she saw the floods on the TV Carmen sayed to me ” mummy I wish I could help those people” I said and how would you help them Carmen she sayed ” mummy they could all come and stay at ours and have a sleepover until there house has dried up”. Aw how cute! So she understands how the bad weather affects people and that she cares!”

How kind of Carmen to think of others. We did talk about the floods and were pleasantly surprised by how much the children understood about them. We have also enjoyed seeing all the different snowmen arriving in Nursery and will hopefully put a few photos on the blog soon.

Settling In

After the first week of term, our new children are beginning to settle in to Nursery life. They are learning where everything is, are becoming familiar with the routines and are enjoying trying out a range of activities, as you can see from our photos. We hope that our new families enjoy using our blog to get a feel for life in Hecklegirth Nursery. If you have not yet returned our permission form and would like to appear on the blog, please bring your form to Nursery next week.

Well Done Lewis

Those of you who were in Nursery last year will hopefully remember the carrots that you planted. Lewis obviously looked after his crop well as his family has left us this message:

“Lewis and I have just been harvested the carrots which we planted in March. What a lot of lovely carrots of all shapes and sizes. We are going to try them tomorrow at our second Christmas dinner now that Grandad is home from work at last.”

We hope that you all enjoy your second Christmas dinner especially those tasty carrots. Well done for looking after them so well.

More Party Fun And Games

The afternoon children got in the party spirit just as much as the morning children and here are the photos that show it. As you can see, they joined in the dancing and games with great enthusiasm and were also lucky enough to get a visit from Santa. As with the photos of the morning children, please click then click again to make the photos clearer.

Music, Games, Dancing and Party Food

There was plenty of music, games, dancing and party food at our Christmas parties which made for a fun time for all. The children had planned their games and helped to make some of the cakes which appeared to go down a treat. It was lovely to see the children from the Rainbow and Sunshine Rooms playing so happily and confidently together. It must have been the children’s super behaviour that brought the arrival of Santa despite his heavy workload at the moment. Thank you Santa – we all really appreciated your visit.

The photos below give you a taste of our morning party. Don’t they look wonderful in their party clothes? Photos of the afternoon party will follow soon.

Singing Celebration

As promised, we have some photos of the children as they prepared for our Christmas celebration with their families. We hope that, like us, you were very proud of them all as they behaved and sang so beautifully in front of a big audience. Huge thanks to Rev. McGougan for joining us and to all the family members who helped to make this a special occasion for the children.
Please click on the photos to make them bigger.

Cake Making

Sophie’s Mum enjoyed the photos of the children making cakes for their party:

“sophie.s looks like shes having loads of fun here she loves making cakes she helps mum at home with fairy cakes we will be making some on xmas eve”

I wonder if you’ll leave one of your cakes for Santa Sophie?

Party Cakes

Tomorrow is party day for Nursery and some of the children have been busy making cakes to add to the party food. Dancing, games and music are what they requested when we planned our party so that is what we will have. The children can wear party clothes if they wish. Remember that parents are welcome to see Santa’s arrival in the school hall – please use the main school entrance and we will bring you to the hall when we are ready.

Christmas Celebration

We hope that you are looking forward to the children’s Christmas performance tomorrow (17.12.13). After positive feedback from our Harvest celebration, we decided to keep our Christmas celebration informal to encourage the children to enjoy a relaxed and happy performance of the songs they have been learning. Rev. McGougan has kindly agreed to join us again and we are delighted that many parents have indicated that they would like to be part of our celebration.
We thought you might like to see a few photos of the children practising to give you a little taster. We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.