Indoors 

This week the children have been exploring traditions in Scotland, focussing on upcoming Robert Burns birthday. We began exploring Scottish dance and music, as well as a focus on Scottish dress. We had a look at tartan in our dress up area and creative area.

We also began exploring positional and directional language through children’s interest in transport.

In our new literacy area, we have been developing our mark making skills and sound recognition. We used the promethean board to take this further.

Curricular areas: Social Studies, RME, Expressive Arts, Numeracy

Outdoors

Outdoors, our new children have been developing confidence and perseverance whilst exploring their new space. We are developing our understanding of how to keep safe whilst taking part in risky play. The children took an interest in change of weather and linked this to our indoor learning through creating patterns in the ice.

Some children were able to show positive team working skills through construction and loose part play. They created a house using the various materials available.  Showing problem solving skills.

Curricular areas: Numeracy, HWB, Technologies

Communication Top Tip

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Beth☺️

Our last week of the year and term has been very festive.

All children have had the opportunity to make Xmas crafts and  were very proud to take them home.

Our pre school children joined in with the school for the pantomime performance of PETER PAN arranged by our parent council, massive thanks to them (if anyone wishes to join the parent council please ask for details volunteers are always made welcome).

All children were very excited to join in with party celebrations, playing games, dancing, eating a very special snack and we even had a very special visitor……………

Our learning indoors, this week has continued to be exploring Christmas through crafts, role play, stories and their own experiences that they have shared about places they have visited for the festive season.
We have wrapped presents in our toy shop and explored using money to buy (not tapping a card or phone). Shared gingerbread tea in our role play cafe again exploring money to purchase items.

Outdoors due to the festive weather children have took part in physical games, sharing, taking turns and practising aiming skills.

Staff would like to thank everyone for their kind wishes for the festive season and wish all our children and their families a very merry Xmas and happy new year.

We return on Monday 6th January 2025 where we welcome new children into the ECC.

Lynnette x

Christmas has well and truly hit Mauchline ECC.

We have had another busy week learning about what Christmas means to us and the world around us. All children were invited to the dress rehearsal of the nativity “whoops a Daisy”  by the school children and WOW what a show the parents are in for a big treat. It was lovely to see how much previous children have gained in confidence and a good chance for our preschool children to see what is to come.

Afterwards we took the opportunity to explore the school and stopped for a visit to the music room where we took part in a few ring games in preparation for our party next week (THURSDAY 19th DECEMBER).

This week we invited parents/carers from the GREEN, RED & BLUE groups to stay for a xmas themed play and stay. Staff took the opportunity to update PLP’s and prepare new targets for term 2. Children were encouraged to make a xmas craft with their person to take home and share with the family.

In the rest of the playroom we are continuing to prepare for Xmas with a wrapping station, Xmas shop and role playing with the costumes from our concert.

We listened to the Xmas story from a book, on the promethean board and used props to role play.

CfE – RME, SOC, LIT, HWB, TCH

Outdoors children experimented with craft materials to create masterpieces. Shaving foam allowed fine motor skills and writing practise. Puffy dough allowed painting and experimenting with change of texture. Children also explored SNOBALL which creates snow and using shapes to decorate the Xmas trees helps with hand eye coordination.

CfE – RME, SCN, LIT, HWB, SOC

DATES FOR NEXT WEEK

Tuesday- YELLOW play and stay

Thursday – Xmas party

Have a festive weekend and only 12 sleeps till SANTA 🎅.

Lynnette x

We had some special visitors from the MaidSafe Foundation. We watched a presentation explaining what STEM was which is what we have been working on in the nursery. They then showed us different pictures about examples of activities we could do like rockets. We created our own honeycomb design to show how part of a plane is made ✈️ We tested this structure to see how strong it was and how much weight it could stand. We put lots of books on top and it still didn’t break. The only way it crushed was with our hands.

We have started our Christmas crafts in the nursery. The children have been exploring transient art to make their own gingerbread men. We have learned to be creative with our imaginations and we have been learning to share the resources with each other.

This week we have been unlucky with the weather starting with strong wind then ice. However some of the children took advantage and kept warm by running about and problem solving obstacles in their way,

e.g hands cold – sourced gloves.

Meanwhile staff looked at defining the areas more clearer and encouraging children to explore and further develop knowledge in numeracy and literacy.

Happy Friday everyone we will see you back on Monday☺️💕

Week commencing 18.11.24

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Indoors this week, children have been exploring our sensory tray which includes shaving foam, sand and various construction resources. The children have been exploring problem solving skills and experimenting how sand and foam can stick bricks together. They also enjoyed building and designing different models whilst creating various marks in the foam. Some children used their senses to explore the materials and discussed how they felt to touch.  🧱✨ In the creative area this week, children have been exploring the effects of paint using tin foil. The children painted directly onto the foil and explored the effect created when the two materials were used together. We have also been continuing to create crafts to be sold at our Christmas fayre on Friday 29th November – 5.30pm till 7.30pm. The fayre will be held within the school gym hall. Thanks in advance for your continuing support ❤️

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Outdoors this week, we have been continuing to explore how water can change from one form to another. Some children experimented with ice and enjoyed painting different sized pieces of ice to create various shapes. Due to the recent change in weather, some children created their own experiment and left multiple cups of water outdoors to see what would happen during the night. The following day the children investigated their experiment and discovered the changes that had taken place. They used descriptive language to describe what they could see and feel using their senses. We continued with discussion surrounding scientific concepts including absorption, solids and liquids and discussed reversible change, temperature, and properties of water.

We hope you have a lovely weekend and take care 😊

𝙻𝚒𝚜𝚊 🤎

Week commencing 11.11.24

🄸🄽🄳🄾🄾🅁🅂

Indoors this week, children have been exploring large resources including boxes to design and create models. Children demonstrated team work as they worked together to construct models before sharing their final creations. Some of the creations included cars, a dragon, trains and more 🐉 🚂 🚗. This encouraged children’s imaginative skills and children demonstrated problem solving skills through exploration and discovery. They also discussed 3D shapes and the link between 2D shapes. Children extended their learning further by painting their models enhancing fine and large motor skills. In the creative area this week children have begun designing and creating Christmas crafts to be sold at our Christmas fayre. All proceeds will help towards resources and malleable materials within the ECC. Gentle reminder that the fayre is Friday the 29th November 5.30-7.30 so please pop along with your family/friends and share some Christmas spirit 🧑‍🎄

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Outdoors this week, we have been continuing to explore how water can change from one form to another. We revisited how to create ice before exploring how to melt it. Children added salt to the ice and used descriptive language to describe what they could hear, see and feel using their senses. The ice contained natural resources including wooden objects, acorns and leaves 🍃The children used the IPad to explore what causes the salt to melt the ice and some children asked relevant questions throughout. We explored scientific concepts such as absorption, solids and liquids and discussed reversible change, temperature, and properties of water. Some children have also been enjoying our revamped music reel and have been creating sounds using various musical instruments. 🎶 🎵

We hope you have a lovely weekend and take care 😊

𝙻𝚒𝚜𝚊 ✨

This week has been excting as we were able to explore another special event during the week – Bonfire Night. When talking about fireworks we explored a science experiment in the water. The children were able to create patterns using pens and cotton pads, as we moved the pad into the water carefully, we then watched as it magically changed, similar to a firework!

In the creative area, we were busy making very own firework picture. We used different materials to create beautiful designs. We used glue, salt, paint and glitter. We discussed why we needed to use the glue as the glue helped the salt stick to the paper. We then spoke about why we used the salt. Rebecca explained it was to give the fireworks a 3D effect. This helps the fireworks look real just like they do in the sky.

This was also a great opportunity to talk about safety when it comes to fireworks. We discussed who lights the fireworks and why children don’t touch them. You were all able to tell me that only adults touch them because they are dangerous and they are very hot. This then lead to the discussion that fireworks can burn just like a kettle so it’s important to listen to your grown ups when around fireworks. We then continued this learning a little further by using technology. We used the Promethean board to do this. You were able to look at the different fireworks, we discussed the noise they made in the sky and we spoke about how to keep safe.

Curricular Areas – Health and Wellbeing, Science, Expressive Arts, Technology

Outdoors this week we have been exploring ice and how it changes from a solid to a liquid. We previously filled different materials with water before placing them in the freezer. This included balloons of various sizes including big, medium and small. We discussed that the temperature much reach zero degrees for something to freeze and other factors including the weather may cause frost or ice. We predicted what might happen to the ice and were able to use descriptive language when investigating the ice. We then returned to see if our predictions were right and if the ice had indeed melted.

Group 2 attended the woods on Wednesday! Lots of fun exploring and learning how we keep ourselves safe. As this was group 2’s first visit to the woods our aim was to highlight the routine of the morning and all children were able to show an awareness of assessing risk. All children appeared to have a great morning and enjoyed their first adventure to the woods 🪵A big thank you to Tesco Auchinleck who donated towards our new backpacks. We love them!

Curricular Areas: Health and Wellbeing, science, literacy

Some info:

• Rebecca our STEM champion is looking for a little help with some junk modelling. More information about this can be found on learning journals.
• Biscuit and a Blether – November 13th 13:30-14:30. We hope you can make it!
• Christmas Fayre November 29th 17:30-19:30

Have a wonderful weekend!

Beth:)