The Early Years Team has created another newsletter with lots of fun activities to try with your children at home. These activities, created by Early Years Senior Practitioners, are particularly important at this time as they are based on “People Who Help Us”.
Click on “Go to this Sway” below to see a range of fun activities that you can do at home.
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As part of learning about our local community, some of the children from the Rainbow Room took their cameras to the High Street last term to record photos of a range of different buildings.
Discussing their personal experiences and the purpose of each building, they were then able to share their findings with their peers. Of course, while on the High Street they took the opportunity to look after our planter too.
We think that the children’s photos are super and that they showed great skills in using the cameras.
I wonder if any of the children can recognise the buildings from their photos and do they know what these buildings are used for?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
No celebration of Burns Day is complete without the sound of the bagpipes so we were delighted when two of our senior pupils visited Nursery for a performance. Thank you very much to both these pupils for helping the children to have first hand experience of what bagpipes sound like.
Tilly’s family has been looking at our activities based around Burns Day:
“Tilly had a fantastic Burn’s Week in nursery, she has never stopped talking about it and tasting the ‘Spanish’ food apparently!!! She has been showing us and her nana and papa her highland dancing skills!!”
It’s great to hear that Tilly has been talking about her learning at home. Well done with the dancing Tilly!
The children in the Raindrop Room enjoyed a great taste of Scotland for their Burns Day snack – haggis, tatties, neeps, oatcakes, shortbread and, of course, Irn Bru were on the menu for snack. It was great to see some children trying foods for the first time and even surprising themselves when they liked them.
