Catrine Early Childhood Centre

We are delighted that our ECC is to be refurbished, with work starting during the summer holidays.  To accommodate these updates Catrine ECC will be temporarily based within Catrine PS from August 2021.  Please click on the link for further details:

Letter to parents-carers – Catrine ECC – 22 April 21

We will keep you updated about any further changes, and we have a plan in place for both our ECC and PS children for starting back in August 2021 which we’ll share with you nearer the time.  

Mrs Govans 

 

Have a look to see what some of the children think teamwork means to them and be sure to keep your eyes peeled next week for our teamwork tree in our outdoor area ♥

We would appreciate parent/carers to add to our Teamwork Tree their ideas of what this term means to them.

 

Here is the maths challenge card for this week. We can explore estimation, counting and mathematical language with this challenge.

Before you start, ask your child to guess (estimate) how many cups of water it will take to fill the item you have chosen to put the water in. Once they have estimated, encourage them to count out how many cups it takes to see if their guess was correct. You can also encourage your child to use language such as empty and full when doing this activity.

Have fun and remember to send any photos to easherrie.devlin@glow.sch.uk

We look forward to welcoming back all our families tomorrow morning for our last term this academic year. A short newsletter can be found below for our Easter months of March and April.

Easter Newsletter 2021

Please continue to ensure that children come to the ECC suitably dressed for all weathers and wearing sun cream on warmer days. If you have not yet completed our Sun Protection Permission Slip please do so now. This form can be found on a previous post on GLOW and on our APP.

Please also find below several ways in which parent/carers can contact our Speech and Language Team working across East Ayrshire for support, advice, tips and strategies in relation to your child’s speech, language and communication skills.

 

In April we will be participating in World of Work Week. The main aim of this week is to allow the children to gain knowledge about some of the different jobs available in the world around them. Within the ECC we will provide the children with lots of fun experiences to spark their imagination and build the foundations for their future.  To give them an idea of what jobs they could aim to have when they grow up – we need your help!
Due to the current restrictions this year, we are unable to have visitors in to speak to our children about the jobs they do. Therefore we are asking if any of our parents/carers would be willing to provide us with a short video telling us all about their job. These videos will be shown to the ECC children to allow them to learn all about the different types of jobs that are available when they grow up.

Within the video you could include the following: job title, job role, who you help, the uniform you wear, the products you produce or the tools you use.

We would appreciate it if you could email any videos to easherrie.devlin@glow.sch.uk by Friday 19th April to allow time for editing.

We hope you can help and look forward to seeing all the different types of jobs our parents/carers have.

We were delighted yesterday to see so many very excited faces (children, parents and staff!) when the Easter Bunny arrived at Catrine !!!!

Here are just a few of them …..

Harper was very happy to find out she had won our Bunny Bonus Ball !

Thank you to everyone for purchasing balls and to Carrie for her wonderful balloon.

We raised an amazing total of £166 !

Happy Easter everyone 🐣

 

After recording a super “live” video on the number generator APP unfortunately it will not allow us to upload it to GLOW.

However we are happy to announce ………. drum roll please ………. that the winner of the super duper sweet filled easter bunny balloon is ………..

Number 31

HARPER ALEXANDER

CONGRATULATIONS – Your balloon will be ready to be collected at pick up time today.

A huge “Thank You” to everyone for their outstanding efforts into their EGGS FACTOR designs. They were all truly amazing.

We couldn’t pick just one winner so Janet ran to the Co-op for more prizes and now we have three! (And even THAT was hard!)

Jack Hamilton

Logan Welsh

April Johnston

Well done everyone. Happy Easter!

As an Easter challenge we were wondering if you could decorate your own egg and bring it to the ECC on Wednesday 31st March with you?  We would love to see your designs and how creative you can be.

Parents can be involved too 😊 You can design your own egg individually or to match your child’s, e.g. batman and robin. There might even be a prize for the best designed egg.

We would ask parents to encourage their children to produce as much of their own work as possible (Parent eggs can be where you showcase your talents LOL).

These will be displayed outside for everyone to see.

Here are some ideas if you wish to use any of them. We cannot wait to see how creative you can be 🙂

Have an eggcellent time!

 

 

 

Please take a minute to complete this quick permission slip on behalf of our HNC students here at Catrine ECC.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=oyzTzM4Wj0KVQTctawUZKRqhoaEMY8FHkTJQGETc2XZUM0FSVk8xTUtMQkg3WUpURzdPMDdRNkdFNS4u

Please click on the link below and complete by Wednesday 31st March, thank you

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=oyzTzM4Wj0KVQTctawUZKdr11JyGX-FBn0H00XNvjqRURUpRM0JWTENTVzlDUkFYQkMxOUJRNzhQOC4u

A few of Bonnie’s last group photos as promised 🙂

 

From Monday 29th March parents, carers and children will be able to purchase a “Bunny Bonus Ball” to be in with the chance of winning a fabulous Easter bunny balloon filled with yummy sweet treats.

Bunny Bonus Balls will be priced at £1 each and will be available at both drop off and pick up times Monday – Wednesday next week with the generator draw taking place at 10am on Thursday morning.

Throughout the week the children will be taking part in fun easter activities within both bubbles.

Carrie has set a challenge for children AND PARENTS for Wednesday (more details to follow)

And on Thursday we are hoping to have a surprise guest visitor a the ECC.

REMINDER – EAC schools and ECCs close at 2.30pm on Thursday for the Easter break. Doors to the ECC will open earlier on this day to allow for parents and carers to get to feeding schools in time as well as a photo opportunity with our visitor – times are as follows:-

MINIBEASTS – 1.55pm – 2.10pm

SEA CREATURES – 2.10pm – 2.25pm

Children and staff return to the centre on Monday 19th April 2021.

Everyone here at Catrine ECC would like to take this opportunity to say an enormous THANK YOU to Gillian (Harry’s mum) who donated £100 to the centre last week after collecting money from an online bonus ball generator.

We are delighted to accept your very kind donation and the children have already started thinking about some new resources they might like to spend the money on.

Once the votes are in and verified we will be sure to send you a picture of our new toys 🙂

Thank you again Gillian – from Catrine ECC xxx

Thank you to everyone that kindly donated on Friday, for the collection towards Red Nose Day and the ECC Snack Fund. We raised a total of £135.74. Half will be sent to Red Nose Day and half to our snack fund.

Thank you again for your generosity, it is appreciated.

Today Bonnie was introduced to all of our Sea Creatures.

(Our Jellyfish and Starfish group pictures will be uploaded on Monday)

Again, Bonnie had such a fab day and is currently lying exhausted at my feet after meeting so many new friends today 🙂

This bubble also spoke of the importance of having gentle hands with Bonnie and what we need to give her to keep her happy and healthy.

Rhys – bones

April – you need to play with her

Ava G – water to drink

Tyler – a lead so she doesn’t run away onto the road

Theia – a bouncy ball

Logan R – dry and wet food

Have a great weekend everyone. From Team Catrine and our newest recruit Bonnie 🙂

Well, as most of you would have seen yesterday morning Bonnie finally got to make her first appearance at the centre.

Like all of our “new starts” she is on a settling in period just now and in line with her risk assessment is meeting small groups of children, in separate bubbles at a time.

Yesterday Bonnie met all of the Magnificent Minibeasts and she had a ball!

The children have been learning all about nurture and how you would care for different living things such as babies, plants and, of course, animals on the run up to her arrival.

Bonnie joined in at group time for her first day, and listened well to the children’s ideas of what she needs to make her feel happy, loved and cared for. Some of the children even had a wee turn at telling her to sit – she showed off and gave a paw, so obviously got rewarded with a wee treat 🙂

Adam – dog food and treats

Emily C – water

Layla – walks and a lead

Ayla C – poop bags because if you don’t it goes on your shoes

Abi – cuddles

Harry – a bed

While Bonnie was here she thoroughly enjoyed exploring in both of our outdoor areas and can’t wait to get back to the ECC to spend some time with the Sea Creatures.