To finish off our Elmer topic, we had Elmer Day in nursery. Lots of us dressed brightly, just like the elephants in the stories. We played party games, decorated a party hat, hunted for Elmer’s friends in a treasure hunt and had a treat of cake for snack. The session finished with our elephant parade. We wore our party hats and paraded around outside playing musical instruments. We have enjoyed hearing all of the stories about Elmer and his tricks!
To kick start our new topic ‘Autumn’, the boys and girls from the nursery went a walk in the woods. Despite the wet weather, we stayed dry because “the trees are a big umbrella”. We had a picnic snack, collected things to take back with us, had lots of fun exploring and enjoyed a story. We intend to go back again soon.
We went on a pattern hunt to the park. We were pattern detectives and took binoculars and magnifying glasses to help us. We were amazed at how many patterns there are around us. We all got a chance to use the cameras to take photos of what we found – and we took quite a few pictures of our feet and the ground as well! Below are some of the pictures that we took ourselves.
This week we are beginning our Autumn topic with a walk in the woods on Wednesday and we are concluding our Elmer topic with an Elmer Day celebration on Thursday.
This week we have started to follow the adventures of Elmer the Elephant, who is a colourful character from the popular stories by David McKee. We have been using these stories to learn about colour. We have particularly enjoyed the colour treasure hunts in the garden and filling large elephants with paint in the playground. In nursery we have been making a large collage of Elmer for the wall, as well as little elephants of our own. We have played games to help us learn our colours and have sung colour related songs. We are looking forward to finding out more about Elmer next week, and investigating pattern next.
In one of the stories, Elmer and the elephants went on stilts so we tried them too!
We really enjoyed this traditional favourite. We acted out the story with different props, sang a song about Goldilocks and had lots of fun spooning porridge into different containers. Some of us copied and completed patterns using Compare Bears and lots of us made masks. The masks were mostly of bears but some of us decided to be different animals such as monkeys and cats!
Last week in nursery we were very interested in measuring. We explored the use of metre sticks, rulers, measuring tapes and trundle wheels. We drew lines, compared heights and cut lengths of wool. We also used cubes and Cuisenaire Rods and put things in order of size. This week we are going to read Goldilocks and the Three Bears so we can do some more comparison work.
We have been watching our caterpillars grow over the past few weeks; they began as tiny caterpillars and grew at an amazing rate, shedding their skin as they grew. Then they created their chrysalis’ and we watched closely for them to reappear as butterflies. One day we noticed a butterfly and within the following 24 hours all the 33 butterflies emerged, some of us were lucky enough to see some of the butterflies actually come out of their chrysalis. We kept the butterflies in their net enclosure with some food until the next sunny day and then we released them into the garden.
We brought our ‘Spring’ topic to an end last week. Following on from our daffodil observational painting, we took our clipboards and paint pallets outside to paint the blossom trees at the bottom of the playground. The children demonstrated great concentration and attention to detail; we now have a beautiful wall of paintings in the Nursery that the children are proud of.
We are now well underway with our ‘On Safari in Africa’ topic. We have looked at Africa on the globe and we have been learning to identify lots of different safari animals. The small world safari park is a big hit! We have also watched some very interesting clips, watching how different animals move – we’ve focussed on giraffe’s, elephants and hippos so far.
Mrs McLatchie and the children have created a camouflaged safari jeep, with everybody’s faces inside ready to look for animals! We have also made collage lions and cheetahs and giraffes and zebras using our own footprints!
There have been some super towers being built with the foam blocks this week taking real concentration and team work which is lovely to see. There has also been some very delicate and careful work while making patterns with the peg boards. We have been learning about sounds, particularly the initial sounds in words; playing alphabet lotto and with the alphabet boxes.
Some of the boys and girls baked banana cupcakes for our snack on Tuesday. We ate them altogether on the mat, like an indoor picnic, they were delicious!
Thursday 5th May saw the 140th Anniversary of Dalbeattie Primary School. To mark the occasion, the children re-enacted a parade similar to one captured in 1901 ( in black and white footage, available on the BFI website.) The children paraded down from in front of the school’s iconic bell tower. This was kindly filmed by Sam Kelly from Kirkcudbright. It has been uploaded to YouTube and has already had nearly 2000 viewings. In the film, the children can also be seen wearing commemorative badges, which they were gifted to mark this important occasion in the school’s history. The film is available through link on the school’s blog and on its facebook page.
On this day, the children also enjoyed some very special cupcakes, thanks to our very kind kitchen staff.
Then on Saturday, 7th May, the school continued its celebrations by opening its doors for a ‘Victorian Afternoon Tea.’ This was made possible by wonderful baking from Mrs Houston and Dalbeattie High School’s Hospitality department (see previous post of the preparations involving our own P7 pupils) together with our own Parent Council who prepared the sandwiches, teas and coffee. We are also very grateful to Peter Wilson Walker of Caterbirds for the use of crockery. Also on the day, there was a range of other activities. The School’s History Book publication was also celebrated and free copies were available to pick up. This book is available at no cost thanks to generous funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the William Heughan Associated Special Trust.(Don’t worry if anyone does not yet have a copy- they are still available at Dalbeattie Museum; the Museum will also be posting them to anyone who requests one, provided P&P costs are covered. Information on P&P rates will be given on Dalbeattie Museum’s website in the near future.) Also at our Afternoon Tea, Mrs Pettigrew brought along her popular collection of photographs and these were much appreciated along with other school albums, previously unseen at our other recent two events. Another big highlight, however, was the ‘Victorian Photo Booth Experience!’ Member of school staff, Jill Blackwood and her wardrobe assistant Mrs McConnell, took group photos of families wearing Victorian costumes.
These photos are being published in sepia effect and e-mailed to the people who took part.We are extremely grateful to Birchvale Theatre, Fullarton Theatre and Dumfries Museum who kindly loaned the school costumes and props for this event. Other special mention must be made to all our staff helpers, who helped to decorate the hall and prepare and serve food on the day. We have very talented staff at Dalbeattie Primary. Look how our office staff changed into a new role to welcome people to our Victorian Afternoon tea!
The day was a huge success with over 230 people taking afternoon tea and enjoying reminiscing as they wandered round our old granite buildings. Special thanks also need to go to Dalbeattie Museum and Dalbeattie Community Initiative’s VIP for selling tickets, our own school kitchen, our parent and pupil helpers, the members of the History of School Research project, the people who donated items and all the folks who came along on the day! Mrs Duncan and Mrs Howie say a very big Thank you to all involved!
Continuing with our Spring topic this week we learned all about the different parts of a plant; roots, stem, leaves and flower. We continued to look after our runner beans in our runner bean experiment but we are still waiting patiently for some growth! We planted our seed potatoes in the garden which will be harvested by the boys and girls next Autumn. Some of the children also created collage birds and insects using gummed paper and other materials with some fantastic results!
The mud kitchen has been back in action, there were some fantastic ‘cakes’ being rustled up! Potted sports practise also continued this week with the egg and spoon race.
Some of the boys and girls baked scones for our snack on Thursday. We ate them altogether on the mat, like an indoor picnic, they were delicious!
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