Recently both the Sunshine and Rainbow Rooms were lucky to have visits from children’s grannies who gave us a fantastic insight into life in the past.
Rohan’s Granny is an expert on how life used to be in Hecklegirth School because she was a teacher here for a long time. It was great to be able to compare school life then with now and the children certainly didn’t like the sound of “the belt” which was used in her time.
Katie’s Granny talked to the children about how the buildings in Annan had changed and brought in some pictures of the shops from years ago. The children also compared their favourite toys with the ones she had played with and talked about school life.
Thank you so much to both Katie and Rohan’s Grannies for providing first hand insight into the past for the children, especially when it was so relevant and local for us. Your stories certainly captured the children’s imaginations and brought the past to life.
Tag: pictures
When I Was a Boy in Hecklegirth …
As we are learning about our community, Rory’s Dad kindly came in to Nursery this afternoon to tell us what life in Annan was like when he was a boy. He was a Hecklegirth pupil and told us about walking to school on his own when he was five which the children
didn’t think they would be doing when they go to Primary 1. We even saw photos of him in Hecklegirth School a long time ago and learned lots about his life as a child in Annan.
We want to thank Rory’s Dad for showing us all his super photos and for taking time to share his experiences.
Star Award Winners of the Week
Well done to this week’s Star Award winners. They have all shown themselves to be kind and caring pupils who are good at helping others and sharing. Don’t they look proud with their certificates?
Little Stars
Summer’s Daddy’s Special Visitors
As we are now beginning to learn about our community and the jobs we might do when we grow up, Summer’s Daddy kindly spent a morning last week with the children in both the Rainbow and the Sunshine Rooms, teaching them about his work on a farm.
However, he didn’t come alone but brought a calf and two lambs which were all less than a week old, as well as the Mummy sheep, which were the best teaching resources possible. The children learned so much about what the animals eat, where they stay and how they are looked after. They learned about animal cake, which they were disappointed to find did not have cherries or chocolate, and smelt silage as well as getting plenty opportunities to stroke the animals.
The children also found out lots about the farm from all the fantastic photos Summer’s Daddy brought and left in Nursery for us. These will be very useful to help us to talk about working on a farm, especially with the helpful captions on the back explaining everything.
We want to say a huge thank-you to Summer’s Daddy for taking time to help us in this way. You provided a wonderful experience for the children which they will remember for a long time.
Bring and Buy Sale
Recently Nursery morning children were invited to a “Bring and Buy Sale” by P5/4. As you can see, it was a busy and exciting event where there was lots for the children to spend their money on. Some chose toys and books, others preferred the cake stall but most found something they wanted to buy.
It was tricky managing to work out which coins we needed but P5/4 were very patient and helpful with all our children. Thank you to everyone in P5/4 for inviting us to your very well organised event, for your lovely manners and for your kindness and patience with the Nursery children. We would also like to congratulate you on raising over £230 for Guide Dogs for the Blind – you should be very proud of yourselves.
Click on the photos to make them bigger.
How Many Ways Can We Use Snow?
What fun we had when the snow arrived yesterday. The children seemed to find so many different ways to enjoy it and many spent nearly the whole session out in the Nursery garden.
They tried to build snow mummies, snow babies and snow dogs but they discovered that the snow was a bit too soft. Some lay down to make snow angels and others were very inventive and used the tyres to make a snow bin where they stored “special snow for special things”. A bucket with a little water in the bottom provided a useful experiment as they tried to work out what was happening when they put snow in and it changed appearance. One group spent ages in a taxi, talking about getting the heating on and hoping that they would get to Carlisle safely as the weather was bad for driving. There were so many wonderful ideas happening everywhere.
It was hard to capture good photos because the children didn’t stay still for long in their excitement but hopefully these will capture some of the moments of our lovely snowy day.
Chinese New Year
Last week we started to learn about Chinese New Year. We were very lucky to have a special visitor who has had first hand experience of the celebrations in China. Mrs. McGhie had everyone enthralled as she told us the story of the big monster and we were very good at using chopsticks and pans to make a loud noise to scare it away as we helped to tell the story.
We learned that that this is the year of the snake and all about the animals race, about lai see envelopes, fireworks, how children learn to use chopsticks, about a celebration feast, the clothes that people wear… we just learned so much. It was all very interesting to find out from someone who has had personal experience and the children loved seeing and handling all the exciting things in Mrs. McGhie’s basket.
After finishing with a dragon dance, we made Chinese food for snack which included a taste of Chinese tea that Mrs. McGhie had brought for us.
What a marvellous way to learn about someone else’s culture and celebrations. Thank you Mrs. McGhie for bringing Chinese New Year to life for the children. You gave us a fantastic learning experience.
Hecklegirth Monsters
The Loch Ness Monster was part of our discussions when learning about Scotland and, as a home activity, the children were set the challenge of inventing a Hecklegirth Monster. It’s great to see that so many of you have been talking about this at home and you have produced some super ideas.
Some of the children have chosen to make a Nessie look-a-like and others are quite different. We have drawings and models, some done together with families and some done by the children on their own. We think that they are all wonderful. The children are always so pleased to share what they have done with their families and it helps to make those important links between Nursery and home.
We hope you enjoy our little gallery showing some of the Hecklegirth Monsters. All the monsters can be seen displayed in the corridor and both Nursery rooms.
Click and then double click to get a bigger view of the photos.
Terrific Tartan
The Scottish theme continues as we share with you some of the tartan the children have been designing over the past week or two.
