Category Archives: Learning at home

Warm Pancakes and Warm Hands… 🥞🧤

There’s still lots going on for you in Google Classrooms.
This week Miss Lawson has posted a second Virtual Nursery, where you can choose from a variety of fun learning experiences, including stories and cutting out newspaper letters.

In addition there are some recipes and demonstrations from your Key Workers on making pancakes this Shrove Tuesday:

And for more fun making things, if you want to keep your fingers toasty in cold weather, in Google Classrooms you can also watch Mrs Toman‘s Skills Academy video on how to create Hand Warmers using  some old socks and rice,

 

Slimy, Bumpy, Sticky Sensory!

If you fancy some sensory & science exploration at home, why not try out one of these fun ideas from Miss Hampton, Miss MacFarlane, Miss Henderson, Mrs Krivickiene & Mrs McInnes!
1. MAKING GLOOP with Miss Hampton:
One way we can explore our senses is by making gloop. You’ll need:
2 x cups of cornflour
1 x cup of water
2 drops of food colouring (optional)
In this video Miss Hampton demonstrates what to do:


How does the gloop feel? Is it a solid or a liquid?
The great thing about gloop is it can be both. There are lots of ways to explore gloop. Did you know that cornflour is made of lots of long stringy particles and when the water is added they don’t dissolve, they just spread out? When you roll it in your hands the particles join together and it becomes solid, but if you hold it up and let it dribble it becomes a liquid.


2. MAKING PLAY SNOW with Miss Henderson:
If your fingers are getting cold from the snow outside you could make some non-melting play snow of your own.
All you will need is:
 Cornstarch
Hair Conditioner (white conditioner works best)

Mix the ingredients together to form a smooth dough. If it’s too sticky, add more cornstarch. If it’s too crumbly add more conditioner. Think about the textures and the smells as you make the dough. Is it cold or warm? Is it smooth or sticky? Hard or soft? Has the conditioner made it smell like coconut, fruit or flowers?
Another way to explore our senses and science is:
3. MAKING SNOW SLIME with Miss MacFarlane

For this you will need:
1 cup of white glue
2 cups of shaving foam cream
1/2 tbsp of baking soda
1 table spoon of contact lens solution (it must contain boric acid!) 

Put the cup of white glue in a bowl and mix in the shaving cream, then stir until well combined. Add in the baking soda and stir. Slowly add 1 tablespoon of contact lens solution until a slime has formed. Once the glue starts sticking to the spoon that’s when you knead it with your hands until you are happy with the consistency!
And there you have made your own snow slime!
Use your senses to explore the slime:
What words can you use to describe how the slime feels?
Can you think of any words to describe its smell?
Can you think of words to describe how it looks?
Does it make any sounds?   Why don’t you use different materials & tools to investigate what different sounds it makes? Go around your house and find different things to poke your slime with!

 


4. Make a SENSORY WRITING PLATE  like Mrs Krivickiene for practising your letter/number writing and at the same time explore your sense of touch.
You’ll just need a plate, any dry grains you have in your cupboard (rice, lentils, couscous, etc). Feel the grains and then write or draw in them with your finger or any kind of stick.
(If you want to avoid too much hoovering afterwards, you can do it outside, or cover the plate in cling film first.)

5. Mrs Krivickiene has  also been making a SENSORY JAR, using water, oil and a drop of food colouring. 

This is a great experience if you want to have a mindful break and look at something extremely mesmerising. Besides, there is true science behind it. Water and oil have different molecule structure (molecules are the tiny building blocks of everything you see around.) This means that water and oil won’t mix.

First,  pour some baby oil into a glass  jar or bottle. Then add some water coloured with a little food dye and close the lid tightly. Watch the effects as you gently tip and jiggle you jar…

6. As if that wasn’t all enough, in Google Classrooms this week you can also watch Mrs McInnes use all of her 5 senses as she dissects and investigates an onion!

The Wonder of Snow ❄️


Hello everyone,
This week we are focusing on Sensory Play and Fine Motor Skills.
We have been given a free gift of one of the best sensory experiences ever – SNOW – and lots of it!

What have you been doing with this sparkly new toy?

If you are building snow people or an igloo, or rolling giant snowballs or sledging, these are all great for your gross motor skills like strength and co-ordination, as well as your creativity. Drawing or writing your name in snow is also really good for your fine motor skills.

And we can use all our 5 Senses to enjoy the wonders of snow.
For example can you –
See the snow sparkling in sunlight, like millions of tiny diamonds?
Hear the “crunch crunch” sound as you stomp through the snow?
Feel snow with your hands, feet, cheeks?
Smell the freshness in the air?
– Catch a snowflake on your tongue – how  does it Taste?
What do you notice about the snow?
Snow has many different forms:
When is falls, is it light or heavy?
What about when it is rolled into a giant snowball?
And when it melts, what is it like then?
What colour are snow shadows?

Have fun investigating and playing in the snow!

 

All Around the World 🌍

Bonjour! Here you can watch Mrs Small and her friend Mr Fox (Monsieur Renard 🦊) as they welcome you to Languages Week and go on a French colour hunt.

Now why not find a favourite toy to sing and dance along with Mrs Marshall. 🇫🇷 This French song is called “Je peux sauter”, which in English means “I can jump!”
You can jump, clap, turn and walk with your toy or do it yourself! 

And Mrs Branco reminds us how to sing our French Song about how we are feeling.
Would you like to join in with Pierre?

Comment ça va aujourd’hui?

Here are the words to help you sing along:

“Bonjour tout le monde comment ça va?
Bonjour tout le monde comment ça va?
Bonjour tout le monde comment ça va?
Comment ça va aujourd’hui?

Tres bien merci comment ça va?
Tres bien merci comment ça va?
Tres bien merci comment ça va?
Comment ca va aujourd’hui?

In Google Classrooms you can enjoy hearing Mrs Ahmed read The Hungry Caterpillar for you in Urdu, a language which is spoken by many people all over the world. 

And Mrs Boyd has also been offering some fantastic Gaelic lessons in Google Classrooms. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Gaelic is a Scottish language which is still often spoken in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Here is a taster:
Hello and Failte gu Gaelic! Welcome to Gaelic. Join me, Murdo the teddy bear and Seamus the seal in learning Gaelic. Here we will learn how to say welcome, introduce ourselves and even sing a Gaelic song. Have fun learning Gaelic!”

 Do you or any of your family speak or know any other languages? Another fun way to explore languages is to try out the Hello Atlas App. It is free to download and allows you to explore how to say “Hello” and a few other simple phrases in all sorts of languages, choosing from a map of the world.


Let’s Get Crafty!

Here are a few ideas of fun ways to get creative, using some household objects you may have lying around:

PASTA ART with Miss Hampton
“Today I felt creative, so I thought I’d share my idea to see if any of you wanted to be a creative designer. All you need is pasta! I have attached some of my creations, plus a masterpiece I found online, to inspire your creative juices. There are lots of ways you can be creative with your pasta. I used a glue and some colouring pens to make a flower, but don’t worry if you don’t have these things because the great thing about not using glue is that you can make something different every time by rearranging the pasta into different patterns or shapes.”


Make a flower, a boat, a face… whatever you can think of!

PRINTING with STRING and FOIL with Mrs MacLeod
☀️ 🌤 🌦 🌧 🌨 ❄️ ☃️
“We’ve  had all sorts of weather recently – rain, snow, ice, frost, sleet, sunshine and rain. Today I tried printing some weather pictures with different objects. Perhaps you would like to try printing patterns too. These are some items you could use to print with: corks, fruit or vegetables cut in half (ask an adult to help cut), string, old cardboard, tin foil, cotton buds – plus some paint.

Watch these quick videos if you’d like to see how to try foil printing and string printing.

You can use the same technique, wrapping string around a square of card then painting  it blue to print rain next to your sunshine. You might also use a cork, dipped in white paint, or cotton wool balls or buds to print snow falling.

Have fun getting crafty!

 

 

Amazing Ice

We all have five senses in our bodies. Do you know what they are all for?

You can find out more about your senses in this video:
https://youtu.be/XUMiPK6LZBI

Mrs Krivickiene did something very interesting at the weekend, using her senses – Forest Bathing!

“I went on a mindful walk in the woods. On a mindful walk, I try to use all my senses and pay attention to everything I can see, hear and feel. I use my eyes to notice the colours, spot an animal or a bird. I use my sense of touch to feel the texture and temperature. I use my ears to listen to the sounds of the wood and then try to guess what makes it and if it is a close or a distant sound. And I use my nose to smell. There is even a special name for mindful walking in the woods – it’s called “forest bathing”. Just like having a bath makes your body clean, forest bathing helps to release tension and feel calm.

So yesterday, on my mindful walk I found some pretty amazing staff that I would really like to share with you. I spotted hair ice, that is a rather rare phenomenon that can only be found on dead wood. This hair-like shape of ice is made by a special kind of fungus. Isn’t it amazing that such a thing as fungus can make its own style of ice!
It felt cold just like any ice but it was very delicate and was breaking down easily.  What do you think it looks like? I hope you will try “forest bathing” next time you are on your walk and it will help you to discover something new and amazing that could be shared with all of us.”

Have you seen any different types of ice whilst outside? Sometimes it makes wavy lines, sometimes circle patterns, sometimes it looks like gemstones. Sometimes it is thick, sometimes thin and fragile. Isn’t ice amazing?

Bonjour tout le monde!

Bonjour everyone, 🇫🇷
This week our learning will be focused around languages, of all sorts, Arts & Crafts and ICT.

Miss Lawson says: “This week, I have made a ‘virtual nursery’ which you can access through the green link below. On here there are lots of different activity ideas, videos and links. Please have a play with it. As there is a holiday weekend coming up, I have included enough activities for both this week and next.”
https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1412606731015421955


Skills Academy:

This week  we’re making French crêpes to celebrate Languages Week. Below is a recipe. A short demonstration video is also available on Google Classrooms. Enjoy!

Bird of the Day: Robin

Friday’s Bird is the cheeky Robin.
The Robin is many people’s favourite with its bright red tummy.
Robins are very friendly and will often come up really close to us. They sometimes follows gardeners around because when gardeners dig in the soil, they might turn up worms which Robin will then fly down and eat.
Robins’ eggs are a creamy colour with reddish speckles.
They have many different songs and they sing for most of the year. Listen to this one singing a Winter song in a tree last week:
Bird Quiz: Let’s see if you can remember the names of the 6 birds we have looked at over the week. See if you can point to each one and say their name:
How many did you get right?
Making Bird Food 

On Google Classrooms you can find a video of Mrs MacLeod showing you how to make fat balls to hang out for birds.
And here’s a great idea from Mrs Marshall of how to make bird food, using cereal:

Making a bird feeder is a great way to help out our feathered friends in wintertime. All you need is pipe cleaners/string, Cheerios/Hoops cereal, and something to hang your bird feeder with such as ribbon. Start by threading Cheerios/Hoops onto pipe cleaners/string – a  great fun fine motor skills challenge (you may enjoy munching some while you thread!). Leave space at either end to twist the ends together or tie together to ‘seal’ the ends. Add a ribbon or string for hanging and your bird feeder is done. Hang and enjoy watching the birds enjoy their snack! Remember to hang them in a safe place for visiting birds, avoid low spaces where they are within a cat’s reach, and avoid open and noisy areas.

The Big Garden Bird Watch

If you are taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend, have fun and we hope you spot something.
People who watch birds have a big long name – Ornithologist.
Sometimes they use tools like binoculars to help them spot birds. You could also take a bird book when birdwatching to help you identify birds, and perhaps some seed or raisins to attract the birds.
But really the only tools you need to watch birds are these –

Eyes and Ears. So keep looking and listening and you can be a Young Ornithologist!

 

Time for a Story (in Scots)

If you feel like cosying up for a great story with one of your nursery teachers, there are several to choose from in Google Classrooms.
This week we have been thinking about Scots literature, so you  could  join Mrs McCarron and her tiger friend to read The Tiger Who Came to Tea in Scots.

Did you know that some animals have a very special name in Scots language? For example….
A fox is called a tod 🦊
A frog is called a puddock 🐸
A mouse is called a moose 🐭
An owl is called a hoolet 🦉
A tiger is a teegar. 🐯
On Google Classrooms Mrs McCarron shares one of her favourite stories with you about a very hungry teegar.

Or you might listen to Mrs Branco reading The Gruffalo in Scots language.

Bird of the day: Blackbird

Thursday’s bird is the Blackbird:

Blackbird has shiny black feathers.
He has a bright yellow beak and a yellow ring round each eye.
He is about 25cm long (try looking for number 25 on a ruler).
He likes to eat worms, insects and berries.
Mrs Blackbird is not black… She is brown all over and so are young blackbirds.

Blackbirds have 3,4 or 5 babies which hatch from blue speckled eggs.  Mum and Dad feed them together:
Mrs MacLeod  once had a pet blackbird called Blackie who started coming to her doorstep every morning and evening for raisins. He loved raisins!

The Beatles wrote a lovely song called “Blackbird”. You can listen to it here. See if you can clap or tap along.
https://youtu.be/Man4Xw8Xypo