Responsible Citizens – Page 47 – Hecklegirth Nursery

More Visits in our Community

Our recent visit to the police station was another fantastic learning experience for the children. PC Leggat and PC McGoldrick gave us the opportunity to learn about what being a police officer entails and many tried out the uniform which they found surprisingly heavy. They also showed us round the cells and the various areas of the police station used for interviews, CCTV and fingerprinting. Some of the children were brave and closed the door on the cell but most agreed that it would not be very comfy to stay there for long. The police van, on the other hand, had great appeal and we could have stayed there for hours trying out the siren and sitting in the back of the van.

Thank you to everyone at the police station, especially PC Leggat and PC McGoldrick, for making us feel so welcome. As well as learning about your jobs, it is so important that the children see police officers as people who can help them and we feel sure that you will be getting a few waves whenever the children see you out and about in the town from now on.

World Book Day

World Book Day was great fun as we dressed up as our favourite characters and brought our favourite books to Nursery. To top off a special day we visited Annan Library where we were read some super stories. Thanks to the library staff and to all the parents who came with us on our visit – we really appreciate your help.

As you can see from the photos, everyone had fun taking part. Click on photos to make them bigger.

Dora the Doggy Visitor

Everyone loved Dora and Dora loved us clapping her.

Last week we had a special visitor in Nursery when Dora the dog came to see the morning children. Dora’s family told us how she was very special because she is a rescue dog and we all certainly agreed that she was wonderful.We learned how to look after a dog and Dora even brought everyone a present from the dog refuge so thank you very much to her and her family for being super visitors.

Mini Pots of Care Day

Along with many schools and nurseries throughout the country, the children celebrated “Mini Pots of Care Day” on Wednesday by decorating pot wrappers for the daffodils they had nurtured over the winter and then taking their pots home to someone they care about.

We were also delighted to be able to present a large cheque to Sheena from Marie Curie Cancer Care, thanks to the generous donations from families and friends. Even after we had written our large presentation cheque, more donations came in and the children have currently raised an amazing £549.35. Thanks to Sheena and Henry the bear for explaining how our money will be used and a huge thank you to all those who contributed to our wonderful total.

As you can see from the photos, we all looked after our daffodils very well. We hope they survived their journey home in the windy weather.

The Design Team Working Together

Last week Rory’s Mum came back to Nursery to see what ideas we had gathered for our garden wall design. We all had a lovely time working together making our design boards of ideas. There were magazines available to select more pictures to stick on our boards and the room was full of talk about all the different things we could see in the pictures. Jana found some ideas that she particularly liked and she took photos of them to help her with her design sketches. We made sure that she took a photo of Ruby Rabbit and Stan the Star as everyone is very keen to have our favourite Nursery friends on our garden wall. We are all looking forward to the next stage of our project when we will see Jana’s design suggestions.

Here you can see us hard at work with Rory’s Mum, cutting and sticking our pictures to the boards.

A Giraffe, a Dragon and a Pink, Glittery Ball

Over the past week or two the children have been bringing in their ideas for the garden wall design. What a fantastic range of suggestions and ways of sharing their ideas we have had! Some children brought an object that they like, such as a giraffe, a dragon and a pink, glittery ball, others have painted a picture or made a model. Some have cut pictures from magazines and others have made large displays of all the things that they like.

We feel sure that Jana will be delighted with all the imaginative and interesting ideas the children have produced. Tomorrow she will be back in Nursery so we will be able to make a scrapbook of our ideas. Please remember to bring any pictures with you tomorrow if you want them included in our plans.

Music To Our Ears

We had a lovely end to our week with a visit from Lewis who is a former pupil of Hecklegirth. It’s a few years since he was a pupil in our Nursery but it’s always great to welcome him back.

After our recent work on Scotland, Lewis came to talk to us about the playing the accordion and to give us a tune or two. It certainly seems a tricky instrument to master but Lewis has been practising for a few years and he entertained us well. As the Nursery children have been learning about Robert Burns, Lewis was also kind enough to give us a beautiful rendition of the Burns’ song he will sing in a competition at the week-end.

To close our musical afternoon, the children sang their Scottish songs for Lewis who proclaimed, “There’s no doubt that Hecklegirth’s got talent”.

Lewis is certainly a talented young man and we wish him well for his Burns’ competition. We look forward to hearing how it went when he visits next week to perform to the morning children. Thank you Lewis for being a super visitor – we enjoyed your performance very much.

Garden Designers

As well as learning about Chinese New Year, this week we have begun an exciting project to design a mural for our garden wall as the current one is looking a little faded. As a local artist, Rory’s Mum has very kindly agreed to help the children plan a design reflecting their ideas. After an initial discussion with the children this week, she and Rory’s Dad will work with staff and the children to make a scrapbook of their ideas. She will then create a design for the garden wall based on the children’s ideas.

garden plan tools — Jana uses lots of different tools to paint.

It was so exciting for the children to meet a real artist and talk about where her ideas come from and what tools she uses to paint.

We loved all the pictures that she collects to help her – a row of pandas, a flowery dress, a child playing in the sea, a laughing dog, one huge eye and a road full of bikes. We hope that the children will be able to bring in pictures of things they like, to contribute to our scrapbook. It might be drawings, cuttings from newspapers or magazines, photos, pieces of ribbon or material, even a photos of a pattern on their Mum’s skirt – simply anything that they like.

This is a very exciting project for us and we are delighted that Jana is willing to help us with it. We greatly appreciate the time and effort that she will be putting in to help us with this plan and look forward to lots of ideas from our children and their families. This design will be in the Nursery garden for a long time so it is important that everyone has a say in how it looks.