It has been a quick month and just like that the summer holidays are here and another year is finished.  We were super lucky this month as we got to witness seven chicks hatch from eggs. We watched them over the ten days they were here and and observed them grow and develop feathers.  If we wanted too, we were able to hold the chick’s or gently touch them. Some children chose to sit and watch the chicks.

 

The children have been enjoying drama sessions during nurture time. They have been taking on the roles of characters from books and retelling the stories in character. They have been recreating Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs and The Gruffalo.

We hope that everyone has an amazing time during the summer holidays and we wish you all the best of luck in your next adventure whether that be moving onto Primary 1 or carrying on your learning journey at Cross Arthurlie Nursery 😊

May has been a busy month with lots of playing outdoors in the sun, sports day and moving on ceremony rehearsals.

The children had a great morning at sports day showing their families all the skills we have been learning during our gym sessions. Unfortunately the sun didn’t make an appearance but we all still had a fantastic time. The children all got a medal and a certificate presented to them during nurture time.

We have all been having great fun outdoors and loving the sunshine. If possible please can your child come to nursery with sun cream already applied in the morning so that they can access the outdoor area straight away. If your child has a sun hat please send that in with them to protect their head and face from the sun.

The sign of a good day at nursery…

Bluebell our travelling teddy has been on lots of adventures this year and we have all loved seeing what she has been up to. If you do wish to take Bluebell for a visit please let us know. We ask you do so in the next couple of weeks as we need her returned for the moving on ceremony on the 17th June.

 

We hope you all had a great time off during spring break and enjoyed the sunshine.

In the month of April we have been exploring the different ways to care for a baby. Here are some of us giving the baby cuddles, bubble baths and kisses.

On returning to nursery we were all super excited to share our holiday news with our friends. This gave us a chance to work on our confidence when speaking in a group, speak with relevance and wait on our turn to speak.

ED “I went to Tenerife, I went in the swimming pool”

LB “I was going to Aviemore, I jumped in the pool. I was going to do a cannonball and I did. I went to Arran to see my Gran and Papa. We went to soft play and the beach”

HM “I went to the beach, the beach was my favourite”

LT ” I played with my big sister”

AM ” I went to a very good park and there was a park inside.

JR “Mummy took me to get lunch in a lovely place, the ladies were nice and I got some ice cream. Mummy also took me to the park”

MB “At the beach, it was sunny”

MM “I looked after my sister and I burp her on my shoulder”

GH “I had my birthday and I’m 5 now and Bluebell came home with me”

AS “I play with sister”

RR “I had the chicken pox and cuddled into my doggy dancer”

AR “I went shopping”

CM “I am a big sister now, I have a baby brother and he cries and he sleeps”

JC “I played in the garden with my brother and we found bugs”

MR “I like playing with my big sister at the park”

RD “I went 2 holidays and there was a pool at both and I had a room”

HS “I went to the park and played with my little sisters, I have 2 now. I went on a plane last time when my baby wasn’t here”

JS “I went on an egg hunt and I had to find a big egg. It was in the house”

Thank you so much for the donations of plants and plant pots for our community garden 🌸 🌿 We always appreciate donations of any cuttings, plants and garden resources you no longer need.

 

Welcome to our March blog

The children have had an exciting and fun filled time during the month of March.  We received a visit from our local Fire and Rescue Service and learned about the ways they help us.  They showed us some of their equipment and we even got a shot of spraying the hose!

We had fun dressing up as our favourite story book characters and enjoyed sharing books and stories to celebrate World Book Day.  The children were all gifted their own book for world book day. They had the choice of four books and made their choice by casting a vote for the book they would like. The book fayre also arrived which the children enjoyed visiting with their families.

At Nurture Time we had a visit from the Mandarin teacher, Yijie Xu. She taught us how to say hello and count to 3 in Mandarin.

We look forward to seeing you back here next month with more updates.

Welcome to our February blog ♥️

The children have been looking at fiction books about famous artists.  They were inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ and discussed what they thought of it. The children went on to explore and use swirls of paint on tinfoil to create their own Starry Night pictures.

“I like the circles and I love the castle”.

“I like the yellow moon.”

“I like the blue and the black.”

“I like it because the moons up there and I don’t like it because the castles black.”

During the month of February, we celebrated Chinese New Year.  The children enjoyed listening to the Chinese New Year story, ‘The Animal Race.’  They had turns of holding the puppet props and used them to retell parts of the story.

The children have enjoyed imaginary role play in the Chinese Restaurant where they have been learning about different foods and how to use chopsticks. They have been developing lots of skills such as reading menus, using money in their play to buy food and sorting and matching coins.  The children have also been developing their mark making and writing skills while writing down orders from the menu.

This year is the year of the snake and we had great fun exploring length with our nursery snakes. We were able to put the snakes in order from shortest to longest and used non-standard units to measure their length.

The children enjoyed tasting noodles and prawn crackers at snack!

It is hard to believe that Christmas time is over already and we are into a new year. We hope all our families had a fantastic time celebrating and wish you all the best for 2025.

During December, we had great fun creating Christmas crafts for our markets and learning Christmas songs. We had a visit from two of Santa’s reindeer, Dasher and Dancer, and even Santa himself!

 

We are enjoying being back at nursery, playing and learning with our friends. We have been exploring shapes, money and Vincent Van Gogh.

 

November has been a busy month with lots of excitement…

We had lots of Halloween fun the week leading up to Halloween with arts and crafts, dooking for apples and dressing up.

We were lucky enough to have the police visit us to explain how they keep us safe. They brought their motorbikes which we all got a shot of sitting on…even Miss Ramsay and Mrs Reynolds got a turn. Some of us got a shot at using the breathalyser and the walkie talkies as well. The school lollipop person also came in and told us all about crossing the road safely.

 

We discussed Poppy Day and made our own poppies. We then watched a short film on Cbeebies about Poppy Day.

A massive thank you to everyone who donated towards the amazing cause that is Children in Need, we hope all the children enjoyed wearing their pyjamas and Pudsey clothes to nursery for the day. We took part in activities in the gym hall organised by the P7s where everyone had great fun.

The sensory circuit on the ramp in the foyer has been a great success when children are entering and exiting the building.  Here are some pictures of us completing it.

Project Teddy Bear

Since August the children have been collaborating on a project… making their very own Blue group teddy bear.

Children have all taken a role, either big or small, whatever they have been interested in doing.

Some children have decorated a patch of the teddy bears material, some have stitched these patches together, some stuffed the teddy bear and some children have even used the sewing machine to make bags and pillows for the teddy.

This has instilled a feeling of accomplishment and ownership in the children as they have thoroughly enjoyed creating and playing with all four of the groups bears.

We are now in the process of voting for our bear…

I wonder if little bear will be named

Pepi, Bluebell or Percy? 🐻🧸

 

Fine Motor

During nurture time, the blue group children have been developing their fine motor skills, this supports the holding of a pencil during mark making and early writing activities. We have been doing activities such as making shapes with elastic bands on the geo boards and making patterns with the pegs on the peg boards.

This month we introduced travelling tales.  The children  in the blue group have enjoyed choosing books on a Monday to take home and share with their families for the week.  Inside the bag there is a book review if your child wishes to draw their favourite part of the story.  If your child is not in on a Monday they can choose their book on another day.

 

 

A big welcome back to all our existing families and a warm welcome to our new families. We hope you all had an amazing summer and we are very excited to be back at nursery for lots of fun and learning.

The first couple of weeks back , we have been settling in and getting used to being back in our nursery environment again. We have been welcoming new children into the blue group.

We have been enjoying learning our friends names during our play and singing number songs, using our number mats at nurture time.

We have been taking part in risky play outdoors and learning how to keep ourselves safe when building with the crates.