Successful Learners – Page 52 – Hecklegirth Nursery

Weather, Weather Everywhere

It always seems amazing that our country can provide such a range of weather even within one day. One of our frosty mornings last week turned into a very rainy afternoon but the children still had great fun in different ways. There was lots of digging to be done as the ground melted and one group made a fantastic tower of cones to transport around the garden. Thinking caps were on as the children tried to work out the best way to balance the cones to get the biggest tower and they also worked out to ride the bike slowly to help balance their special load. What super problem solving!
Click then click again to make the photos bigger.

Ice Investigators

There is no better way to learn about the signs of winter than to be outdoors on a frosty day which is exactly what the weather brought us this week. The effects of a frosty night brought excitement and great opportunities for the children to learn about winter weather. Hard, frozen ground and puddles of ice became exciting resources to experiment with and the children had lots of discussion about how it felt and what would happen if they took it inside. Cayne said, “If you stamp it, it crunches but it goes to water inside”.
We had a super team of investigators trying to work out why the digging area had become so hard and various tools were used to try to break it up. Ben said, “If you drag ice, it breaks a bit” and there was a lot of discussion about whether the digging area would stay like this forever because the sun was out but the ice was not melting.
Instead of our mud kitchen, the children decided that they would have an ice kitchen and they set about making soup and ‘hot stuff’ because they thought it would warm us up. There was certainly a lot of cooking going on and we had helpers in all corners of the garden searching for pieces of ice to break up for ingredients. James said, “You can saw ice off a puddle to make it better”.
We counted how many pieces of ice we had in a pan and discussed the different sizes and shapes of them – some children noticed that we couldn’t find a circular piece of ice which caused some great discussion. We even found a few frozen numbers and tried to find others. Well done all you super thinkers who were outdoors this week – you helped each other to learn about the effects of winter.

Story, Rhyme and Number Sacks

Please remember that Eileen will be in the Family Learning room (opposite the school hall) tomorrow (Tuesday) to give out story, rhyme and number bags for your child to take home. Each story/rhyme bag has a book and a game or puppets connected to the story/rhyme. The number bags contain a game and all can be borrowed for one week.

If your child attends Nursery in the mornings, you can collect a bag at the end of the morning session and afternoon children can collect their bag at the start of the session at 12.15. We hope that lots of families will take the opportunity again this term to have fun with learning at home by borrowing these bags and we thank Eileen for organising it for us.

SHANARRI – Staying Safe

As part of the Nursery Improvement Plan we will be working with Eileen, our Family Learning Co-ordinator, later this term to share the SHANARRI ethos with parents and carers. There is a link on the right under “Useful Reading” called “Girfec leaflet” which explains this. Last term we also began talking to the children about these wellbeing indicators to gauge their understanding initially of what being safe means for them.

We thought we would share some of the ideas that the children came up with.

Wareeshah: we don’t run away.
Mollie: don’t go on the road.
Ben F.: holding a grown-up’s hand.
Finn: don’t bang heads.
Henley: don’t run.
Jayden: stay away from water.
Grant: I don’t go too fast when I’m on my bike.
Euan: stay away from fire.
Ellie: stay away from under the sink. There’s stuff there that hurts you.
Jenson: sit on your seat properly.
Ewan: don’t jump off the edge of a cliff.
Aoife: Mummy and Daddy keep you safe.
Erica: don’t touch knives or you’ll get cut.
Kenzie: walking is safe. Follow the Nursery rules.
Hannah: stay away from the edge of the harbour. If you fell off you couldn’t get out.
Rory: stay with your Mummy near the river.
Finbarr: don’t run and don’t jump down mountains.
Orla: stay on the paths.
Sian: don’t go next to fireworks.
Luca: you need to safe in a house – safe from black ice.
Chloe: it means you don’t get runned over.
Joshua: you stay safe in the line ’cause people hold hands.
Dylan: stay inside so cars can’t get you.
Ben W.: stay in the house ’cause you might get hurt if you’re not with your Mum and Dad.

We were very impressed with all the different ideas that the children produced about staying safe. We will be looking at more indicators with them next term and look forward to hearing their thoughts.

Flying With The Snowman

At the end of term we read the story of “The Snowman” and listened to the music from the film. We talked about where we would like to fly if we were James in the story. Here are some of the ideas from the Rainbow Room children.

Finlay: I would go to Australia to see a duck.
Cara: go to see Santa.
Leah: go to the park to go on the slide.
Max A.: I would go to the North Pole to see Santa.
Jacob: go to Africa.
Luca: go to America and go to the toy shop.
Sian: go to Spain.
Owen: I’d fly to the cafe to get chips and sausage and tattie scone.
Ben W.: I would go to Dundee.
Dylan: I would go to Dumfries to get a new computer.
Summer: to America.
Caidy: fly to the shops for sweets.
Thom: I would go to London to see some pictures.
Kacey: I would get an ice-cream with the snowman.

Great ideas boys and girls! All those journeys sound super.

Thank You

Paulina’s Mum left us a comment when she saw the photos of her telling the children about Christmas celebrations in Poland:

“That was very nice time with children. Thank you very much for that, special for beautiful songs for me. Monika. (paulina’s mum ) xx”

We really enjoyed learning about your family celebrations and are glad that you enjoyed the children’s singing.

Polish Christmas

Recently the afternoon children were lucky to learn first hand about Christmas in Poland from Paulina’s Mum and it was very interesting to find out about the traditions that are similar and some that different to Christmas in Scotland.
The children were surprised to learn that Santa visits children in Poland on December 6th with a small gift then returns on the 24th with their main present. They often have beetroot soup with pasta to start their Christmas meal which is on December 24th and they usually have fish as the main course rather than turkey like many people in Scotland. Paulina’s family, like most Polish families, always has an empty chair at their table for their Christmas meal in case a stranger calls and wants to join them.
We all loved hearing about Paulina’s Mum’s Christmas traditions from the past and present and would like to thank her for helping us to learn about Christmas in another country. We hope that she enjoyed the songs that the children performed for her by way of a thank you.
Click then click again to make the photos bigger.

Teamwork Makes A Good Fire

The afternoon children had such fun with their camp fire that we offered the morning children the opportunity to make one too. They worked so well together searching the Nursery garden for broken wood, twigs and leaves to add to the pile ready for burning and they too enjoyed gathering round their fire for a chat. We listened carefully for the crackling noises and watched while the wind blew the smoke and helped the fire to burn. Well done boys and girls for being very sensible around the fire.

Camp Fire Chat

Camp fires are a great place for a chat and some of the afternoon children asked today if they could have a fire outdoors like we had earlier in the month when we were learning about staying safe on Bonfire Night. We hunted out everything we needed and quickly had our fire on the go. Some of the children noticed a pile of broken pieces of wood we had been storing to one side and suggested that we add them to our fire which made for a great little blaze. It was lovely to hear the children chatting as they sat by the fire and there was lots of valuable conversation about why we needed to keep our distance as well as great discussion about the wonderful smell and sounds created by our fire.

Sunshine Stories

After missing their initial visit to Annan library two weeks ago due to poor weather conditions, the children in the Sunshine Room finally got their chance to visit the library on Monday. They displayed super behaviour and listened well to the stories that Tina had chosen for them. Thank you to the kind Mummy, Daddy and Granny who made our trip possible by coming with us. We look forward to our next visit soon.