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!
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!
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 TheTiger 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.
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
How are you feeling today?
Miss Hampton has recommended this great story about all our different feelings. It is called Lucy’s Blue Day and is written by Christopher Duke.
It’s a very good book to read, especially on a day when you might be feeling not quite right. Miss Hampton has suggested that: “if you are missing your friends or your other family members, maybe you could draw them a picture or write them a letter. Maybe your grown-ups could help you to post it or email it. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I did and afterwards you could discuss it with your grownups. What was your favourite part of the story? What didn’t you like? Was it thumbs up, so so, or thumbs down? Do you ever have happy, angry or sad days? What makes you feel better? Talking about my feelings always makes me feel better, or a walk outside in the fresh air.”
– Starlings are bold noisy birds who like to hang around together, chatting.
– They are mainly black with white speckles, but if you look closely you can see flashes of shiny metallic green and purple in their feathers.
– They have quite big feet and so walk about a lot.
– They are omnivorous, which mean they eat all kinds of things, including seeds, fruit and insects. (I always see them in the car park at Silverburn shopping centre. I think maybe they wait there to pick up scraps of food dropped by shoppers….)
– At night just before they go to bed, Starlings gather together in huge flocks and do something REALLY AMAZING!
Click on the green link and watch this video to see what they do: https://youtu.be/M1Q-EbX6dso
Flying around in groups of thousands, the starlings move together like a giant swirly black cloud, making wonderful patterns in the sky! It is one of the great sights of Nature! It is called a Murmuration – a great word. Can you say “Murmuration”…?
Mark Making Challenge:
If you have any black paint and some cotton buds, you could try dipping a cotton bud in paint and dabbing it on paper to make a picture of this amazing sight. Or just use a pen, pencil or crayon to make dots and create a murmuration of starlings or any other pattern you like.
– It is a very small colourful bird. – It likes to eat seeds, berries, caterpillars and insects.
– In Winter blue tits join up and fly round looking for food together. (If you want to feed them they like fat balls, peanuts and sunflower seeds. They are so light they can hang easily on bird feeders or fat balls and peck away.)
-There are many other types of tit in the Tit family. Here are two other members of the family. Can you spot their differences?
This video below shows all 3 types feeding in Pollok Park just last Saturday. Can you spot them all?
Who is the biggest and who is the lightest? Here are some little Maths challenges for you about the three birds:
Remember that Miss Lawson is offering daily fun activities in Google Classrooms if you would like them. Here are today’s for Burns Day:
Today is Burns Day which is a day when we celebrate a famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns. For dinner tonight I will be having veggie haggis, neeps and tatties which is a traditional Scottish meal. Will you be having the same tonight? Enjoy the day!
Literacy – Have you ever read The Gruffalo in Scots? Listen to the story linked and see if you can translate the Scots words into English words. Did you already know some of these words? Have you read any other stories in Scots? https://youtu.be/Kk9Gq62-de0
Numeracy – If you have any paint at home, try painting your own tartan pattern. In nursery we sometimes dip the wheels of toy cars in paint then run them across the paper vertically and horizontally to make a tartan pattern. If you don’t have any paint, you could try with pens, pencils or chalk and draw lots of straight lines, or stick down wool or strips of paper to design your own tartan. Or outside you could use a stick to draw tartan in snow or frost… Does your family name have a tartan? I looked up the Lawson tartan and it is green and blue, I like it! If your family name doesn’t have a tartan, look up a few different ones and pick your favourite.
Hello everyone, we hope you have been enjoying some of the sunny weather outdoors! Maybe you spotted a few birds. Mrs Toman was birdwatching in her garden this Saturday. Take a look…
Each day this week we are giving you a few titbits and challenges linked to a different bird, in the run up to the RSPB Big Garden Watch:
Monday’s Bird is Clever Crow:
– Crow is black all over and quite big – about 50cm long.
– Crows are one of the cleverest birds in the world. Did you know that they can recognise shapes and colours? They can also recognise human faces and they have a good memory.
– Crows are also cool with tools: they can use simple tools like a stick to poke around for food.
At Busby School & Nursery, we often see Crows in our playground and on the rooftops. They like to fly down for crumbs the children drop at playtime… Crows are not fussy eaters.
There are other types of bird in the Crow Family. Some of the ones we see most often in Scotland are Crow, Raven and Magpie. (The hooded crow usually lives in the Highlands.)
In Scottish, we sometimes call crows “craws”. We often sing the song “Three Craws” in nursery, especially today, which is Burns Day. Why not sing along today with the Singing Kettle, and don’t forget the actions… Click on this link to join in: https://youtu.be/Io6ZXgSbyW8
You could even make some Craw puppets to use whilst you sing, perhaps using cardboard from an old cereal box. Just cut a big circle, draw on some eyes and a beak and stick on some wings made from black paper. Here are some other ideas for crow crafts: Have fun, and look out for Clever Crow outside!
Here is a great Sunny Day idea from Miss Baikie: ☀️
She has a little activity to inspire you to explore the rays of sun and the wonder of Science outside – Shadow Drawing.
You’ll need some paper, pens or pencils. Can you find an interesting object, maybe your favourite toy like a dinosaur, or you could use your hands to be creative and make different shapes – or even your whole body. You can try it at different times of the day as the sun moves across the sky and see what different patterns it creates. – Do the shadows stay the same? – How do they change with the time of day? – Do your objects’ shadows change size? This link will give you a bit more information: https://kidsactivitiesblog.com/137133/how-to-make-shadow-art-with-kids/
You could also try taking some shadow pictures with a camera:
We look forward to seeing how your investigations turn out.
Maybe you could also use some sticks to make a frame for your artwork. All you need is 4 interesting sticks tied with string, and then decorate your frame with any natural materials you can find outside, like leaves or loose flower petals etc. Have a great fun in the sunshine!
Keep up to date with what we're getting up to in nursery!
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