Tag Archives: Literacy

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Staying safe in the sun☀️

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What a wonderful day it is☀️.The children have been out enjoying the sunshine, but learning how to stay safe when the temperature is high. I asked the children if they knew what we can do to stay safe in the sun. They gave some great answers.

”Sun cream, my mum put some on me before I came to nursery”
“Wear my sun hat”

We discussed staying hydrated by drinking lots of water and taking regular breaks from the sun in the shade.

This is some of their favourite shaded areas to play in.


“We like to have pretend picnics on the bench”

”and read stories in the den”


We have been developing our fine motor skills through this mark making experience in the shade. The children are exploring letters and writing/ drawing in the sand.

We added 4 golf balls and powder paint with a splash of water to the tuff tray. The children used their strong muscles to lift the tray up and worked as a team to move the golf balls around in the tray to mix the colours and create patterns.

As some of the children went to play somewhere else, they noticed that the tray got heavier and tipped to one side.

“uh oh it fell, how do we get it back up?”

The children used their problem solving skills to figure out how to balance the tray and keep the golf balls from rolling off.

Who said you can’t have fun in the shade, the kids have had great fun outside while staying safe.

While this hot weather is due to continue, please make sure the children stay safe in the sun by putting sun cream on before they come to nursery, wearing a sun hat or cap and ensuring we have sun cream for them in the centre. We want to enjoy it while is lasts!

Expressive Arts

Story Box!

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The children have been very creative in the junk modelling area over the past couple of weeks designing and making their own story characters.

They made a story box using recycled materials such as cardboard, bottle tops, bottles and cartons and decorated it adding some coloured tissue paper and more crafts.

Using their imaginations the children came up with some great ideas for characters, they created bunny rabbits, a hare, batman, a robot, a boat, a car, a monster, an octopus and so much more and added it all to the story box.

Next they selected some characters from the box and began to tell their story, writing it down as they went along.

“The mermaid kitty and the octopus went in the taxi to the shop.  They bought cheese and ice cream. Then they met hare and batman and then they went home. The End.”

Something as simple as a cereal box can spark so much conversation and lead on to so many amazing ideas where the children develop their problem solving skills , communication skills, and are able to express their thoughts and ideas.

We are so grateful to you all for bringing in your recycling it has so many benefits for your children.

Literacy

Wednesdays are for visiting dinosaurs in far away lands🙂

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Today the children decided they would like to make a story map using dinosaurs.  They had great fun creating different habitats for their dinosaurs to live in.“ I’m writing that it’s a dinosaur world we are making” “ I found my same stegosaurus in the book” “ I’m drawing some grass for my diplodocus  to eat he’s hungry from walking for a long time”


”I’m drawing around the triceratops’s he’s quite big” “I drew a cave I wonder if my eight dinosaurs will fit in it” “ My dinosaur is going for a swim in the pond”

“This is my triceratops he’s going to eat the purple flower for his lunch.

“Oh no my dinosaur is on fire” “The volcano is to hot”


“It’s okay he can go to the pond he’s not hot now” “ He’s going for a swim”


“The pterodactyl is flying over his land” “ He might fly down on his friends and eat them “ The children were very imaginative with their story telling .

“ I have a sonic dinosaur he is very fast”  We thought that next week we could move onto story’s about woodland animals.

 

 

Snack

Fragrant Fruits

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The children have continued to use their favourite fruits chart and have been taking turns asking their friends what fruit tastes the best.

We had a discussion about what our five senses are and what body part you use for each one.

Taste “- your mouth”, tongue”, “ I lick my lips and taste”
Touch –  “with your hands”
Smell – “My nose”
See – “eyes”
Hear –  “Ears”

We decided we could use another one of our senses to gather information using our chart. The children chose their sense of smell to try and guess what fruit was in the cup.
We prepared the fruit and put them in our paper cups and covered it with a paper towel sealed on with an elastic band.

Everyone gathered their cups and charts and went to ask their friends to smell the fruit and say what their favourite smell and what they thought it was, before making a mark on the chart to record their answer. The children all had different favourites but were very good at identifying the correct fruit just from its smell.

We then all came back to the table and counted up all the marks we had gathered to see which one was the most popular.

“Apple has 9 it is the favourite”

” Orange has the most on my chart”

“ watermelon had none but I like watermelon”

We discussed our favourite smells before making a plan to use a different sense for our next fruit identification, what sense do you think we chose?

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Creative puppets

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Our children have shown a keen interest in making puppets. Today the children have been working hard in the studio creating some characters for a puppet show.  We watched the puppet show The 3 little pigs before starting our own.

We discussed our characters and what they would look like then picked some resources to make them.

“I’m going to use these of his eyes”

Some of the children have chosen there favourite characters from books and some have created there own.

“I’m making a unicorn”

“I want to make a mouse. I’m going to use a small stick for my mouse, he’s little”

“this is the big bad wolf he has a big nose and ears”

“I like Pip and Posy books I’m making Pip”

Once our characters were made we wrote a story about then to act out.

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We made our stage and found some friends to come and see our show.

Everyone enjoyed the show 😀

Literacy, Special Event

Celebrating world book day we went on a literacy adventure to Busby library

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Today at Cart Mill family centre, we took an exciting trip to Busby library. It was quite a long walk but the children really enjoyed talking about the sights we saw along the way. We noticed some signs of spring, snow drops and the beginnings of daffodils starting to poke through the soil. We also spotted a boat a cat and we waved at a lady who was sat at her window. When we got to the library, we met Peter the librarian who very kindly let us choose some interesting books to explore together. We also got to select some books to take back for our friends at nursery. Peter read us a special story called Oi Goat especially for world book day with lots of laugh out loud rhymes which we loved! We remembered that we have a sister book Oi Frog back at the nursery.


On the way home, we stopped on the bridge to look for the ducks but unfortunately they weren’t there this time . We got back to Cart Mill just in time for our lunch which was just as well as all that walking had made us extra hungry! Later, we handed the books from the library out to our friends to have a look at. What a busy fun day we had today at nursery. Maybe you could visit a different library over the weekend and let us know what it was like.

 

Literacy, Special Event

World Book Day 2023

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Happy World Book Day!

The boys and girls were invited to wear their jammies and bring in their favourite bedtime stories for World Book Day.

The children enjoyed showing the books to their friends and explaining to everyone what happens in the story.

We have enjoyed lots of stories throughout the day….

We have even used our fairy house as inspiration to write our own fairytales.


“My fairy got stuck in the roof. We need to use magic to help her.”

”I’m drawing an elf and a fairy like Ben and Holly.”

Some of the children from Carolside Primary very kindly shared a story with us as well. We heard about Kevin the Koala and Hairy McLairy from Donaldson’s Dairy. The children loved hearing the stories, thank you to P6 at Carolside!

Then we watched some of the stories from the World Book Day website. Please follow the link below if you would like to watch the stories or find more information.

Events

Expressive Arts, Literacy

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

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This month in the clay area we have been creating characters from our favourite stories and this week we chose The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We started by reading the story and discussing the different characters then we set to work making them with the clay. We chose whether to make a 2D or a 3D model and discussed the best way to make the different features.


“My goat has huge horns!” “Look at my troll’s legs.”

Once the clay had dried we painted them then left them to dry again ready for telling the story.

Before starting our re-enactment of the story, we worked cooperatively to decide who would play each character and also compared the goats to determine which was the biggest and which the smallest. Then we were ready to get going….

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”Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?”

”I’m coming to eat you!”

We had a great time telling the story and acting out each part with our models. We told the story many, many times, each time swapping which role we played and taking turns with our friends. By the end of the experience we could act out each part independently without an adult reading the story for us!

A wonderfully creative and expressive experience 🐐

Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Social Studies

Languages Week Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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This week is Languages Week Scotland 2023 where we celebrate language learning and multilingualism in Scotland. This years theme is “Languages for a peaceful world”.

This morning the children came across some stories and we discovered they were in different languages. This got us chatting about what language we speak in and how not everyone speaks the same language.

“What does this say”

“That is the title of the story, “The tortoise and the Hare” written in Mandarin, Chinese”

”When I went to Italy I hear a different language”

“Can you say any words in Italian”

”No”

“What language is the Elmer book in?”

“The Elmer book is in English and Polish”

“ how do you speak to someone if they don’t speak the same language?”

“Say Hello”

We used the internet to find out how to say Hello 👋  in other languages and wrote them down so we could practice how to say them.

The children were developing their mark making and writing  skills as they wanted to copy the words so they can practice.

We can now say Hello in different languages to welcome our friends who speak English as an additional language.

Digital Technology, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Special Event

Big Garden Birdwatch

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This week we have been preparing for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. We discussed why birds might come into the garden. “It’s for seeds, we have some in my garden”. We then decided to to make our own bird feeders and hang them up on a branch.

The birds might need a drink as it’s been very cold and all the puddles are icy, so we made the birds their own drinking bowl “Let’s put sticks near it so they can stand on them”.

We then did some research by looking at some of the information sent to us by the RSPB which showed us lots of pictures of the birds that might visit our garden.  “ I have seen some of these birds, that’s a magpie”.

It was very exciting watching for the birds. Some were far away so we used our binoculars. Then we could see some birds sitting in the trees and on top of the houses. We then thought about where else we could see the birds so we went for a bird watch walk.

We collected our bird watch recording sheet and set off.  I will hide in the trees like a bird watcher and see if the birds come near me we have to be very quiet 🤫. Look I saw a blackbird let’s mark it on the sheet .

We managed to spot magpies, blackbirds, crows and blue tits. We all had a turn of recording the bird we had seen on our RSPB sheet, it was great fun!

The children are continuing to watch for birds in our garden and are independently recording them in our nature corner.
If you would like to join in this weekend the RSPB ask that you record the birds that visit your garden within 1 hour and then you can upload your results at rspb.org.uk/Birdwatch using the code BH35.

Everyone has worked very hard recording the information and have had great fun developing their skills of mark making, data collection, fine motor skills, health and well being and lots more. Happy bird watching everyone!