Successful Learners – Page 73 – Hecklegirth Nursery

Who is Jack Frost?

During our discussions about the changing seasons, lots of the children talked about Jack Frost. We talked about what he looks like and where he lives. As always, they had some wonderful ideas which we thought you’d like us to share with you.

Evan: my Dad says Jack Frost makes ice. He’s white and he makes people cold. He eats carrots and lives in the dark.

Ryan: he’s like a scary gruffalo but he’s all white like a snowman and a gruffalo’s brown. He lives on an island in his house.

Jack V: when it’s white snow, he wears white things and that’s why he’s camouflaged. If he’s the same colour as the snow no-one sees him. He lives in a white cave far away.

Rohan: he’s a green boy and looks like fog. He lives in a dark place like underground. When it’s summer he goes to the North Pole.

Layton: Jack Frost is blue and he’s a boy with spikes on his back. He’s got spiky hair and he’s got a bad smile. He lives in an ice globe and eats ice-cream. The ice-cream’s orange. When it’s summer he goes somewhere far away in a snow globe.

Mischa: he looks like a snowman with a tree on his head. He lives in an ice cave.

Finlay: he’s white and no-one can see him ‘cause he lives in the clouds. The sun makes him turn into red hot and when it’s winter again he turns very cold.

Amy: Jack Frost’s a boy. He’s got a scary face and scary eyes. He lives in the North Pole and he builds an icy thing that brings him to Annan.

Polish Christmas

We have been learning about Christmas in Poland this week. Hannah’s Mum (a.m.) and Sara’s Mum (p.m.) have talked to us about the traditions in their country at Christmas time. We learned about putting some hay under the tablecloth, about the twelve dishes at their meal, the empty place at their table and that Santa visits Poland too. We were even able to taste the nativity wafers that they have on Christmas Eve.

Christmas wafer — Tasting a nativity wafer.

It was interesting to find out that much about Christmas in Poland is similar to Scotland but that there are also several important differences. Thank you so much to both Hannah and Sara’s Mum for helping us to learn about their culture.

Polish Christmas — Lots of us tried the nativity wafer.

Family Christmas Crafts

Yet again, Eileen Johnstone, our Family Learning Co-ordinator, has proved popular with her Christmas craft activities. Lots of children and their families had great fun last week making cards and decorations for their homes.

We look forward to Eileen’s return in the new term when she will resume the weekly activity sacks on Thursdays.

Christmas Preparations

Nursery continues to be a very busy place as we practise for our concert and delve into the glitter tub to make decorations and cards. The calendars are also almost finished so everyone who placed an order should have them by the end of this week. Thank you so much for you support in this activity: we have been quite amazed by the number of orders but the children have risen to the challenge and patiently fulfilled all requests.

We are pleased to say that the children’s pot pourri bags seemed to be popular at the Christmas Fayre and most of them were sold. It was also lovely to see so many of you attending this very successful event. A magnificent sum of £1000 was raised on the night so thank you to all who contributed.

The Magic Door

Everyone can make magic pictures inside their heads. In Nursery we catch the magic from our magic stick and put it in our heads to make our pictures and there was lots of magic in the air when we read the poem, “The Magic Tree”. We hope you enjoy some of the children’s thoughts on what they think is behind the magic door in the magic tree.

Murray: spiders’ webs and dustbin lids.

Mya: a cat called Tilly. It would be magic and would lick its paws.

Sam L.: an alien from outer space.

Reece: a duckie eating tomatoes.

Miley: a magic fish swimming underwater.

Caleb: a wasp that had been to the fireworks.

Suzie: a dolphin sleeping.

Corey: a princess who waves a magic wand to get a lovely dress.

Layton: lots of grass with flying dust on and a mouse carving people.

Iona: a wizard playing with a ball.

Rohan: frogs – lots of them hopping everywhere.

Lee: the moon – it might even live there.

Jaylin: Cinderella sitting on a chair.

Conner: some red and yellow space rockets flying about.

Neve: a shark eating up everything in the sea.

Ryan: toys like Buzz Lightyear with pop-up wings.

Family Learning Fun

Family Learning is a very important aspect of life at Hecklegirth Nursery and we are delighted that Eileen Johnstone, Family Learning Co-ordinator, continues to provide fun activities which support learning. Each week Eileen organises story, rhyme and number sacks for children to share with their families at home. We also have some dual language books to share with those who have English as an additional language so everyone interested in activity sacks can take part. If you missed out on this opportunity, Eileen will be happy to add you to her list – simply look for her at the cloakroom entrance at the start or end of Thursday Nursery sessions.

Aware of our emphasis on the importance of rhyme, Eileen organised craft sessions this week where the children joined members of their families for fun activities based on nursery rhymes. Mums, dads and grannies all seemed to enjoy themselves and the children were certainly proud of the nursery rhyme bags they made.

Eileen hopes to run a Christmas craft session next month so look out for dates and times on our Family Learning notice board. Remember that younger brothers and sisters are welcome to come along too. This week’s feedback has been very positive so we look forward to lots of families taking part.

We feel so lucky to have Eileen as part of our Nursery team and would like to thank her for her invaluable input. Thanks also to everyone who took part this week – it’s wonderful to see so many families joining in activities in our Nursery.

Crowns Fit for Kings… and Queens

As we continue to enjoy our learning based on castles and royalty, we would like to say a huge thank you to all those families who have helped their children produce wonderful crowns at home. As you can see from the selection below, the variety of styles and materials used is wide but the end result is the same – happy, motivated children who are proud to show everyone their fantastic crowns.

As well as their creativity, the children have developed their talking and listening skills as they told the other children about the process. While adding their faces to the crowns in Nursery, they have talked about what they would like to do if they were a king or queen. We hope that our families have enjoyed this joint school/home activity as much as we have.

If you click on each photo you can read what the children said.

The Cannon is Built

After some hard work and a lot of tricky thinking, the cannon is ready for our castle. The photos below tell the story of what we did to get from the children’s idea to the final stage of their plan. It’s been a lot of fun and has provided lots of learning. Thank you very much to Primary 6 for lending us their construction equipment and for their advice on how to use it.

Click on the photos to make them bigger.