Music with Michelle

July 27, 2023 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

What a week it’s been in our Noisy/Quiet room this week. First we had the wonderful dancing talents of Peters mum who put on a dance class for our children. We learned so many new dance moves. It was so much fun.

And today we had the wonderful musical talents of another one of our mums. Her name was Michelle and she told us how she was a opera singer. She also told us how she teaches people how to play the piano.

Michelle had a beautiful voice and it was so lovely to see her sing and play the piano.
My personal favourite was when she sang “tale as old as time” from the Beauty and the Beast movie.
She played some classical musical on the piano and it was so lovely to hear it played so well.
We also joined in with some dancing, showing off our moves we learned on Tuesday.

We would like to extend our thanks to Michelle for getting our piano tuned for us, it definitely sounds 100% better.

I would like to also send my personal thanks for all the volunteers that came into nursery to join in with my intergenerational project. It’s been great having so many visitors in our centre, teaching our children new things. Children learn best when having fun and this summer it has definitely been fun.

Digital Technology, Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Making our own wasps and their nests….

July 26, 2023 Miss Keith Leave a comment

After exploring our real wasps nest last week we have now created our own nests. We made our very own paper mache nests.

We blew up our ballon’s and used glue and old newspapers to stick all around the balloon. We got quite sticky !

We had to let them dry overnight and then did it all again to make them really hard. The boys and girls then gave them a coat of yellow or black paint. “ Mine looks like a wasp”.

The children were able to self select their own resources to add to their nest after painting them. My nest is going to be very yellow. We also found some textured paper which looks like the little holes that the wasps climb in and out of. The nests are looking really great now. Well done.

Everyone had so much fun making their own flying wasps. We had to measure , fold , colour and cut the paper then add a paper clip to help it fly . The children worked out that if you stood a bit higher up the wasps would fly better , but we had to be careful so we didn’t wobble and fall off !.

After all that hard work we had a try at directing our bee bot 🐝 wasp. We went forwards, backwards we had a practice with right and left . Some of our 🐝 wasps even manage to go down a ramp. Who knew that wasps could be so much fun .

Article 13- You have the right to find out things and share what you think with others.

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

🌻 Sunflowers 🌻

July 24, 2023 Mrs MacRae Leave a comment

Our sunflowers have grown so tall in our garden. We have planted then from a tiny seed and have been nurturing them. After discussing how tall they have grown we calculated how many days it took for our sunflowers to flower.

It took 111 days for them to grow this tall.

”That’s a lot of days”

“They are taller than me”

Taking some inspiration from the beautiful sunflowers. We decided to paint some in the studio. We selected the colours of the sunflowers and have be busy painting some fabulous sunflower pictures this morning.

Here’s just a few of our amazing paintings. Look out for some coming home to brighten up your walls. 😃

Article 28 – You have the right to education

Literacy, Snack

Rhyme Time

July 21, 2023 Mrs Miles Leave a comment

The children have recently been enjoying reading rhyming stories and singing nursery rhymes during Bookbug so we have added some more rhyming resources to the story corner.

Our younger children are learning new nursery rhymes and playing instruments while singing along and our pre-school children are starting to learn to distinguish sounds. Nursery rhymes are a great way to learn early phonic skills and build a child’s vocabulary.

Today we have played rhyming pairs and the children were great at taking turns, helping each other to find the cards and even suggesting other words that rhyme.

We also played a game of rhyming partners where the children walk around the room with their picture card and find a friend that has the rhyming card.
We continued to rhyme while having snack, making up words that rhyme with what we were eating;

cucumber- boocumber

apple- snapple

melon- Ellon

After snack Gail decided to host a Bookbug session in the garden. Twinkle, twinkle chocolate bar definitely being the favourite song!

Please remember to check the annual calendar for dates you can attend Bookbug sessions at nursery with your child.

UNCRC Article 15- You have the right to be with friends.

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning, Technologies

Summer holiday fun 🌞

July 21, 2023 Ms Partridge Leave a comment

This week the children have had lots of fun building dens and making summer homes in the garden! They have loved talking to each other about their busy summer plans. The children enjoyed sharing stories with their peers about all the fun things they have been getting up to, which sparked lots of creative role playing fun…

”I’ve got a beach house in Italy. We have pasta and clams there, that’s my favourite. I can make you some”

“Who wants gelato? Come and get it!”

We have been experimenting different problem solving techniques as we create our dens, using various resources from the garden and working cooperatively with one another offering suggestions to help implement our designs…

“let’s put it through the wee hole so it doesn’t fall down . Look, it worked!”

The children showed great imagination, exploring the garden to find different cosy spots to decorate …

“cheeeeese!”

After being so busy decorating our little summer homes it was time for a well deserved rest!

The children demonstrated great communication skills throughout as they worked as a team to help each other, and most importantly they had fun! Keep up the great work everybody 🤩👍

Expressive Arts

Creative Crafting

July 20, 2023 Miss Campbell Leave a comment

We have been very busy in our Studio Room this week. We have been extending our crafting skills in the Junk Modelling area.
Our children have been keen to add different materials to their models. We introduced paper craft straws, pipe cleaners, feathers, shredded paper, and paper shapes and more thought provoking materials.

As well as extending our creative crafting skills we have been practicing our scissor skills.

Our children have been so creative making lots of wonderful models.

We concentrate on getting all the bits to stick together. We can choose from sticky tape or glue. We are very independent in our junk modelling area.

We have been learning lots of new skills such as twisting, problem solving and helping each other our during our time in this area.

As well as making models in this area some of our children designed a game using the loose parts we have for crafting. They used the cups and the lids to make a “knock them down” game.

As we have been so busy making things all week our junk modelling area is running a bit low, we would welcome any donations.
here is some of the things we made that we are so proud of…..

Uncategorized

Pattern playdough with Textures

July 18, 2023 Miss Simms Leave a comment

Today at the malleable table we had a discussion what we would like to have out. We decided we would like to make playdough and explore a variety of patterns and textures.

The children then independently followed our new recipe book that they created last week. The children confidently added each ingredient showing confidence in their measuring and counting skills. They then used their gross motor skills to mix all he ingredients and then kneaded their playdough until the texture was soft and smooth.

The children then collected a few resources that they thought would make good patters and textures. We then explored patterns and textures . They spoke to each other discussing their findings and describing heir textures and patterns.

rolling pin -“this one is bumpy”

shells- “my playdough looks like a shell”

”my shell is jaggy”

My pine cone is in the playdough and it’s making it all bumpy & bit jaggy”

”my hand”

Digital Technology, Outdoor Learning

Wasps came into our garden !

July 14, 2023 Miss Keith Leave a comment

The children have noticed that there has been wasps around our lovely sun flowers that they have grown in the nursery garden. We thought that it would be good to learn a bit about them. Where do they live ?

We we’re lucky enough to have a real wasps nest to look at. There are lots of little holes were the babies wasps lives until they are big enough to be worker wasps. These wasps only live between 12 -22 days but the queen wasp can live up to one year.

The wasps nest is made from the wasps chewing bark in their mouths mixing this with their saliva and when it becomes dry it forms a paper type material. We learnt that wasps like sugary sweet foods and this is why they can fly around our food !

We watched a short film on how wasps make their nests. Wasps nest are usually found in sheltered warm places. “ I have a wasps nest in my garden on the tree . We should never touch the nests or the wasps .

If a wasp 🐝 comes near you we must stay still as a wasp will sting you if they think they are in danger. Only female wasps will sting you. If a wasp should land on you you can flick it off gently with a piece of paper. We all had a practise but fortunately there were no wasps actually on us.

We have enjoyed finding out all our wasp information. We might even build our own wasp nest using paper mache.

Article 33 -I can be protected from danger.

Expressive Arts, Technologies

Upcycling project

July 13, 2023 Miss Brown Leave a comment

This week the children have been working very hard to start their up cycling project at the tinker table.

They began by looking for something around the playroom that they could ‘Up cycle’. They found an old storage drawer that had missing handles on the boxes. They collected loose materials such as buttons, pipe cleaners, beads, bottle lids, small wood chips and twigs to use as new handles for the boxes.

They used skills they had previously learned at the tinker table to join the new handles to the box.

“I can use the hammer and nails to put this wood on”

Once all the new handles were on the children noticed one of the drawers were missing. Using their problem solving skills one of the older children suggested making a sign to let everyone know that the new up cycled storage drawers belong to the tinker table.

The next job on the list is to up cycle our broken wormery, we are looking for longer pieces of wood if anyone has any lying about that they no longer need.