Springing into Spring 💐 🐝

 

After returning from the holidays the children in the red group were very excited to check on the progress of our tadpoles.

“They have tails now!”

“There are millions of them!”

“They are so cute!”

We also read a book about tadpoles and learned about their life cycle. We were so good at jumping like frogs.

Some children then made their own tadpole, froglet or frog from junk modelling.

 

“Look, mines has a long tail!”

Another little peek at things we have shown interest in over the past fortnight.

Outside we have been exploring taking risks and how to keep ourselves safe, when climbing, balancing and jumping. We are developing our confidence to ask for help, either from a grown-up or a friend. “Can you hold my hand?”

At group time the children asked to do some science experiments,  so we had a think and came up with a few ideas…

The children used knifes to cut down the top of a pineapple before  placing  it in water and leaving it in a sunny spot. Watch this space as if we are lucky enough it will start to grow roots and we could grow our very own pineapple plant!🤞

The children had a bowl of milk with pepper sprinkled on top to represent germs, they then dipped their fingers in washing up liquid before placing them in the milk and watched in amazement as the pepper  quickly dispersed.  They also dipped their fingers in water before placing in milk and compared the different reactions, learning that water without soap won’t  destroy germs.

 

We had lots of messy fun adding mentos to coke and watching the pressure build up creating an eruption of bubbles!

We have also been caring for the plants and bulbs that we planted before the Easter holidays…discussing what they need to grow…”They need water and mud” “The sunshine, it’s a sunny day today

 

Can’t wait to show you all what we’ve been up to next month!

♡ Mrs McCluskey, Mrs Sloan & Mrs McFarlane ♡

 

 

📚 World Book Day 📙

We have been taking part in a variety of experiences to celebrate reading and books as part of World Book Day. We were gifted a book from World Book Trust which we got to take home.  We have also had the opportunity to take part in Bookbug sessions and circle games where we have been sharing stories, rhymes and songs as a group. Some of our families and friends also have had the chance to join in these experiences with us. Some children dressed up as their favourite character from their favourite book, it was wonderful to see you all excited to show off your costumes.

👾 Colour Monster 👾

The children in the red group have been continuing to learn about and exploring their emotions. Together we played a challenging game where we had to first identify an experience such as a birthday party, a sore knee and even a broken toy. All children contributed well showing confidence when speaking out to others in their group. We were supportive of everyone’s contribution and praised each others efforts. Once we had identified all the different experiences we then sorted them into how it would make us feel.

“If I hurt my knee, I’d be sad and might cry”

“A birthday party is happy happy!”

“Angry and cross!”

Exploring digital technology with the Bluebots.

 🔢  Logo Bingo 🔢

As most children showed strengths in playing bingo at nurture time we created a new special version together.

Full of Logos! We brainstormed different ideas and used the iPad to look logos up and save them.

Once the game was complete we were so excited to play it together.

Most children have mastered the concept of the game and shown beautiful compassion in helping their friends if needed.

We have now extended this game further for some by removing the visual aid to add a tricky challenge!

Well done red group!

🐸 The life cycle of a Frog  🐸

We have been so lucky to find out we were getting some of our very own frogspawn for our community garden. The hard work began immediately and many children from the red group became involved in creating a magnificent new habitat for our new little friends.

Once the frogspawn arrived the children got to have a close look at them. We have also been researching different questions the children have been asking.

“How does their tails grow”

“what does the spawn feel like?”

“how many fingers does a frog have?”

During nurture time we went out together to have a close look at our frogspawn as it settled into our community garden pond.

The children have have been excited and motivated to learn all about a frogs life cycle. We cant wait to see how they grow and develop.

 

        

🐥🥚 🐥🥚 🐥 🥚 🐥 🥚 🐥 🥚 🐥

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday! See you in April!

Mrs Sloan, Mrs McFarlane & Mrs McCluskey xx

February Fun !

We hope this update gives you a little insight into some of the exciting opportunities going on within the nursery this month. As you look through the photos perhaps your child will tell you a little  something about the learning taking place.

 

Zooming in our Rockets!

The children were interested in building space rockets within the nursery using different resources. Once completed the children enjoyed counting down from 10  and pretending to launch them, “blast off”.  This led us on to discussing forces and how a rocket takes off. The children made their own paper rockets and experienced first hand how the force of air being pumped through pipes causes the rocket to launch, sometimes very high!

All things Literacy!

The red group have been tapping and clapping out the syllables in our names, our friends names and even some animals too! We were challenged to then sort them into a category; either 1, 2 or 3 syllables. The children in the red group listened very well to the complex instructions and were able to correctly identify how many taps each word had. If we found it a little tricky our other friends were able to help us find the answer!

As world book day approaches Miss Galloway asked us to collect some data… we were given a task to look closely at the illustrations of the book and pick which one we would like the best. All the children had the opportunity to pick their favourite from three options. We then used tally marks and counted the total at the end! We are so excited for them to be delivered for World Book Day!

 

Acting out our nursery rhyme of the week; Miss Polly had a dolly, it was so much fun and some of our children were able to talk about their experiences visiting a real hospital.

Lovely Letters!

At group time we continue to express interest in familiar letters, we have been exploring the letters in our name by making clay models of them. We could all find the first letter in our name and mostly everyone could order the rest of the letters.

Emotions and Feelings

We have been learning about our feelings and emotions through exploring and discussing the stories in our favourite books. One of the children in the red group even brought a special book from home all about emotions to share with their friends.

We have been talking about what the characters in the book may feel and we are beginning to relate these feelings to something we have experienced before.

“I felt sad when I was sick”

“I was happy and excited going to a party!

“I was sad”

“Sad when you hurt yourself and need a plaster”

 

Book Bug Sessions

Some children have been taking part in book bug sessions and having a great time singing, rhyming and listening closely to some amazing stories.

“Mrs Sloan, Boo!”

See you in March!

Mrs Sloan, Mrs McFarlane & Mrs McCluskey xx

Throughout the month of December the red group have been busy elfs around nursery. We have learned some new winter and Christmas songs and rhymes which we have loved practising.

Getting prepared for our wonderful Christmas markets required us to be very creative as we made some decorations, cards and even some magical reindeer dust.

It was so special welcoming the red group’s families in for our market days, it was lovely to see everyone together cosying up  with a cup of hot chocolate.

Santa stopped by for a visit and left us a gift after we sang him our favourite song… Jingle Bells!

As the weather got colder we had a think about how we could help the wildlife during the winter months. We made bird feeders using the empty oranges from snack, bird seed and lard. We mixed the seeds and the lard together and put the mixture inside the oranges. Then hung them up in the garden for the birds to enjoy.

Look at those little angels!

Enjoying a wee hot chocolate together.

   

Say cheese for the camera!

We watched the story of Christmas and had lots of fun trying on the different costumes.

Let’s dance

 

Janurary 2023

It has been lovely to see the children returning back to nursery after the Christmas holidays and from all the exciting news we’ve been told, it sounds like everyone had a fantastic time with their loved ones.

We have welcomed some new friends to the red group and we are excited to see where our learning journey will take us together.

Number fun with ice and shaving foam.

Being creative in the art area.

At group time we read The Colour Monster. As we read the story we spoke about the Colour Monster’s emotions, and we then took turns of sharing our thoughts on how different situations can make us feel.

“I’m happy when I cuddle my mummy”

We looked at the different parts of a hyacinth bulb and discussed what plants need to help them grow. The children identified plants need “water” and “mud” to grow and learned they also need the sun too!

The children suggested names to call our hyacinth, voted on their favourite and decided to call it “Happy Hyacinth”. Every week they check on  Happy’s progress using a measuring tape to identify just how much it has grown.

 

 

Welcome to our October update, the children have been busy taking part in a variety of learning experiences within the nursery. We hope you enjoy looking at a small selection of pictures demonstrating what we have been learning together.

 

BINGO

The children enjoyed playing bingo, this helps them with turn taking number recognition,  and working as a team.

 

Police Scotland Visit

The children have been learning about people who help us and they we were lucky to receive a visit from the police. The children helped identify some of the equipment used by the police officer and some of the different roles they do too, before taking turns to explore the police van.

Spooky Hallowe’en

Lots of fun was had celebrating Hallowe’en, playing spooky games in the gym hall, dooking for apples, singing songs and of course telling jokes.

Welcome to the Red Group’s Blog.

We are your special keyworkers this year at Cross Arthurlie Nursery Class, our names are:

Mrs McFarlane, Mrs Sloan and Mrs McCluskey.

At the end of each month we will update these blogs with something you have took interest in, something new you have learned, or maybe it will be something that you have been really proud of.

We all cant wait to share lots of new experiences together as we learn and grow throughout this year.

During the month of August we have all been really busy settling back into our nursery routine, taking time to get to know our new keyworkers and also all of our new friends that have joined us. At the end of each day we spend some time all together. It has been wonderful having fun together as the Red group!

We got some photos on our first day back! Here they are…

 

Group time in the Red Group

This month we have been having a variety of experiences.

For our children who have returned from last year we revisited the colour monster book which was a firm favourite for many. We spoke about our feelings and what feeling each monster represented.

Our red group were all confident in answering out when they were asked a question, each child also waited really patiently for their turn to talk!

 

As we have spent time getting to know each other a little better we have been singing lots of songs and nursery rhymes together, we have lots of favourites but twinkle twinkle is requested most often!

Our new children have adapted really well to joining in with group time, every child knows that they are in the red group and are learning everyone’s name.

For our group time we decided to all chose an activity that we would like to do as a group.  We each took our turn in picking our experience,  also listening to our friends take their turn.

One of our choices was to use sand to draw… we practiced tracing some letters and making different marks in the sand using our fingers.

Stay and Play Days!

 

We had some very special visitors to our nursery!

Some of our grown-ups came to play and have a look around our nursery. It was lovely to see the children showing their special grown-up where they play and joining in with many of the experiences on offer.

See you in October!

Mrs McFarlane, Mrs Sloan & Mrs McCluskey xx