Successful Learners – Page 63 – Hecklegirth Nursery

Kandinsky Comments

We have been looking at these pieces of work by the artist Kandinsky this week. The children have talked about they can see in his paintings and have been thinking about whether they prefer his paintings or those of Arcimboldo who they learned about last term.
Bethany: he’s done twirls just like a princess (picture 1)
Zachary: it’s like eyes that are green and lots of colours (picture 1)
Freya: there’s squares and there’s purple. I love it. (picture 1)
Kailey: Arcimboldo’s the best ’cause it’s more stuff like food.
Ava V.: I like Kandinsky because I like the swirls.
Dan: it’s got flags and spots that look like the moon.(picture 2)
Riley: it’s like a flag (picture 2)
Bethany: it looks like a walker for a baby (picture 2)
Theo: it’s got a yellow head (picture 3)
Sophie S: it’s all spots and a head (picture 3)
Zachary: Arcimboldo’s the best.
Kailey: I like it. I like the greeny blue bit. (picture 3)
Dan: it looks like a shark’s back. It’s got shapes and the fin of a shark.(picture 3)

Pirates of the Rainbow Room

A group of pirates has been very busy in the Rainbow Room this week. An initial interest in drawing treasure maps resulted in us hunting out some pirate outfits and having our own treasure hunt in the Nursery garden. The children had great fun as they tried to follow the map and were very excited when they found the treasure chest which, of course, was marked with an “X”. They then decided for themselves to work in teams to hide the treasure chest and see if the other team of pirates could find it. Treasure maps also started to appear on the Promethean board as well as paper and there was lots of discussion about what kind of treasure we might find.
The Nursery pirates made a visit to Primary 3 to see what they had been learning about pirates. Mrs. Mahon was delighted to get some special visitors and sent them back with some pirate goodies – you can see the number game in one of our photos. She asked if the children could make some treasure for Primary 3’s treasure chest so they set to their task in the craft area and today they duly delivered their treasure to Primary 3.
Well done you pirates of the Rainbow Room – you have certainly shown yourselves to be successful learners and effective contributors with all your fantastic ideas.

Pirates use technology for their map making.

Primary 3 had some brilliant pirate things.

Thanks for the pirate number game Mrs. Mahon.

Rhyme Time

The children and parents who came to the Family Learning activity last week seemed to enjoy making rhyme bags and rhyme mats with Eileen Johnstone, our Family Learning Co-ordinator. You can see some of them looking very happy with their work below.
As several of you indicated that you could not make that day for various reasons, Eileen has arranged another opportunity for you on Friday 22nd November (9 – 10 or 2 – 3). If you would like to attend, please add your name to the list on the Family Learning notice board in the Nursery corridor.
We would also like to remind you that if you want a story, rhyme or number bag they can be collected from the Family Room (opposite the school hall) on a Thursday at 11.30 or 12.30.

What Can We Do That Animals Can’t?

As we have been learning about our bodies this week, we have been talking about what our bodies can do and comparing what we can do with what animals can do. In the Sunshine Room we had a tricky question:
“What can we do that animals can’t do?”
This certainly made our brains work hard and the children showed good thinking skills with some of their answers.

Lexi: nod our heads.
William: animals can’t walk on roofs or wash their hands.
Sophie L.: they can’t draw.
Reagyn: they can’t hold a pen.
Carmen: they can’t hold hands and they can’t make music.
Deryn: they can’t make a banana sandwich.
Ava: we can brush our teeth but animals can’t.
Conan: they can’t drive.
Carmen: they can’t talk.
Roxy: animals can’t read.
Sophie L.: we can write our name but they can’t.

We think that you all showed good thinking skills coming up with some clever ideas. You were also very good at thinking of examples of animals who could do some of these things, for example, Reagyn told us that crickets make music and Conan said that monkeys can hold hands. I wonder if anyone can come up with any other clever ideas?

Letters and Numbers

Bethany’s Mum commented on our hunt round school looking for letters and numbers:

“Bethany is getting very excited about letters and numbers! Thank you for all your hard work.”

It’s great to hear that Bethany’s enjoying her learning. We are looking forward to you filling our cauldrons this week with letters and numbers that you find at home. Don’t forget to bring them in to Nursery. I wonder which you will find most of – will it be letters or numbers?

Numbers, Letters and Pictures

This week we have been talking about the difference between numbers, letters and pictures. To help us in our learning we went on a hunt around school to see if we could find examples and some children took photos as evidence. As well as the numbers, letter and pictures which had been laid in a trail, there were lots of other examples on our journey. We found numbers on P3’s brilliant rocket that was outside their classroom and letters on the mat at the school entrance. There were numbers on lunch boxes and display boards provided lots of letters and numbers, sometimes together, for example, “P7”. Hopefully, the children are now more aware of numbers and letters in their environment and will start to spot them when out and about with their families.

Cooking Crumble

As we have been learning about Harvest and what happens in Autumn, some of the children used apples to make a crumble. It’s amazing how much learning can be developed from a simple cooking activity: the importance of hygiene and safety in the kitchen, fine motor control, counting and chopping skills, using the technology of a microwave and the effect of heat on the apples. Hopefully, you can see from these photos that the children are demonstrating some impressive skills. Most important of all, they had fun as they were learning.

Harvest Thank You

Eileen, our Family Learning Co-ordinator, linked our recent family activity to our Harvest celebration and Carmen, Tom and Sophie’s Mums have all commented on our photos.

“Carmen and I really enjoyed this session. She got to learn all about food and were it comes from. I got to cut out the pictures and Carmen stuck them down. Thank you Eileen xx”

“It was lovely to see my mummy here.”

“It was lovely coming to family day, so nice to see Sophie in her school environment!”

We have all enjoyed hearing about the wide range of things that the children have chosen to say ‘thank you’ for on their Harvest baskets. You may recognise some of these from our Harvest celebration but we thought that they were lovely to share.

Darcy U.: thank you for my friends and sweeties and elephants
Teigan: thank you to my Mummy for my brother Logan
Mikey: thank you for toast
Jayden: thank you for my friends
Zachary: thank you for my racing cars and my Daddy and my police car
Freya: thank you to my Mummy for coming to Nursery to help me make my Harvest basket
Sophie D.: thank you for my lovely clothes and my family and for having a great friend Amy-Leigh
Darcey G.: thank you for my new shoes
Jakub: thank you for my family
Dan: thank you for all the food and my puppy from Fraser
Ava W.: thank you for tomatoes, bananas, my family and my friends
Sophie L.: thank you for pasta and holidays, for my family and friends and green apples.

Family Learning

We are delighted that many of our families took part in our first Family Learning activity of the year. Here you can see lots of children with their parents busy making harvest baskets and talking about where different foods come from. Thank you so much to Eileen, our Family Learning Co-ordinator, for organising this activity and to all our parents who took the time to join in.