Tag: social studies

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.

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.

What Do We Know About China?

As we moved from learning about Scotland to China, with Chinese New Year celebrations approaching, we discussed what we think China and Chinese people might be like. Here are some of the children’s ideas.

Hannah: they like dragons.
Scott: they build their houses of hay and sticks.
Ericka: they dress up in Chinese costumes.
Leah: they use chopsticks for eating noodles.
Rohan: I know how they make dragon costumes. They use sticks. The scales are made of paper.
Paige: they look different from us.
Neve: they eat with chopsticks and they eat stuff with carrots in. They like fireworks.
Mark: they make vegetables.
Jessica: they wear dresses and a cardigan on top.
Matthew: they look different. They’ve got different faces.
Joseph: the houses are red and green.
Calise: they eat chicken.
Hayden: they eat chicken and fried rice.
Joao: it’s a hot country.

Photo Comments

The children seem to have enjoyed our learning about Scotland this term and we hope that you’ve had a good flavour of our activities through the blog as well as our displays. Two families have made recent comments on the children’s photos which we’d like to share with you:

“Shay looks great dressed like a piper.”
He did look wonderful and he did so well telling the children in both Nursery rooms all about his outfit. Thank you Shay.

“Great picture of Ollie painting his tartan. He has really enjoyed the Scottish theme over the past few weeks”.
Ollie certainly does seem to have enjoyed this theme. He was particularly good at talking about the different foods and remembering their Scottish names. Well done Ollie.

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.

Burn’s Day

On Thursday we enjoyed a great celebration for Burn’s Day with shortbread, oatcakes and cheese and, of course, our toast with Irn Bru. We appreciate everyone making a super effort to provide the children with ‘a touch o’ tartan’: it certainly added to the occasion and they all looked wonderful.
Thank you to everyone who came to hear us singing with Primary 1. It’s so important for the children to have an appreciative audience for their performance and you certainly helped to make it a great occasion for them. Hopefully these photos reflect how much the children seemed to enjoy themselves.
Thank you, as always, for everyone’s support and lovely comments.

Mischa Impresses Miss Wilson and Mrs. Johnston

Our learning at the start of this term has focussed on Winter and Mischa has impressed both Miss Wilson and Mrs. Johnston from Primary 6 with her story telling and drawing about Winter as well as her excellent talking skills. If you click on the photo you will see Mischa’s super drawing of a penguin and a polar bear about to go into his house.
Mischa showed herself to be a ‘confident individual’ when she talked to Miss Wilson about her drawing, earning herself a Head Teacher’s sticker and her work being displayed on the Achievement Board in the dinner hall. She then spoke with great confidence to Mrs. Johnston who was so impressed that she took Mischa to Primary 6 to borrow some interesting books about icy lands and penguins. Thank you very much Mrs. Johnston for the books which Mischa shared with her group. We hope that you enjoyed Mischa’s guided tour of our ice cave and that you will come back and visit us soon.
Very well done Mischa for some fantastic work. You certainly deserved that Head Teacher’s sticker.

Find a Sign of Autumn

Thank you for encouraging the children to learn about Autumn by bringing in a fantastic variety of things they have found on walks with their families. The frog that hopped out of the wheat certainly gave Miss Kerr something to think about as she added it to the display area and the children were very excited to get a close look, once it was safe in a bucket.
Last week we went on a nature walk to search for signs of Autumn within the school grounds. Unfortunately, no frogs were to be found there but, as you can see, we had a great time learning about the changes to nature in Autumn.

“We Painted Matchstick Men …”

As we have been learning about the buildings in our community and thinking about what happens in them, we decided to take a look at some of the work of the artist, L. S. Lowry. It was great to see his paintings on our new Promethean board and we had some interesting discussions comparing the buildings he portrayed with the ones we see in Annan. We thought that the painting of the schoolyard, in particular, was very different to our school playground. 

As well as singing along to the song “We Painted Matchstick Men and Matchstick Cats and Dogs”, lots of children were keen to participate in making a street scene similar to Lowry’s work. Some lovely charcoal drawings were also produced to add to our display.

Our New Board

Earlier this term we made an application for funding when an opportunity arose for Early Years classes throughout the region. The result of this, as you no doubt have noticed, is our wonderful new Promethean board and desktop computer which will greatly enhance learning and teaching across the curriculum. 

Already the children have been enjoying looking at photos after visits out in our community and it provided lots of discussion of what we saw. We have also recently been able to bring the work of L. S. Lowry to life for the children rather than everyone trying to see pictures in a book. Lots more fun learning will be provided by this valuable resource in the future and we look forward to developing its full potential in our Nursery.

Another aspect to our funding application was for the translation into Polish of some of our documents and letters to help us communicate with parents of our Polish children. This is ongoing work and we hope to have these available soon to improve our communication with you. Again, this is an exciting development which we have wanted for a long time and we are delighted that our application was successful, allowing us to provide this helpful service.

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