Community, Eco Learning, Family, Health & Wellbeing, Learning at home, Natural World, Outdoor Learning, Science

Birds Spotted today (Friday Jan 22nd)

January 22, 2021 Mrs MacLeod Leave a comment

Hi everyone, has anyone seen any birds out on this lovely sunny Friday? Miss Lawson spotted some Mallard Ducks and a Coot at the pond at Queen’s Park today. Here they are:

And in the woods by Greenbank Gardens Mrs Macleod noticed something very unusual – five green parrots in the trees!! Can you believe it?
They are a small kind of parrot, known as parakeets. Normally they live in the jungle and hot countries like Africa and Asia, but they might be pets that have escaped here and are now living happily in the wild. I hope they don’t mind the cold Scottish winter…
Here are the Greenbank Parakeets on video:

Have a Good Weekend and Happy Bird Watching!

Eco Learning, Learning at home, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Science

A Bird a Day: Thrush 🎵

January 22, 2021 Mrs MacLeod Leave a comment

In the run up to the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch, we will give you a titbit about a different bird each day to help you spot them and learn a little more about them.

Today’s bird is the Thrush:
Thrush has a brown body and a smart white tummy with brown spots.
Thrush is about 20cm long. If you have a ruler you could look for the number 20 on it to find the Thrush’s size.
Thrush has a lovely song and likes to sing from the very tops of the trees! 🎵🎶

Thrushes are quite shy but you can often see them hopping about in grassy areas as they like to pull up worms there. Snails are another favourite food.
In Winter it can hard for Thrushes to find any worms if the ground is hard and frozen, so you will sometimes see them in the trees eating up all the red berries…

Here is a little rhyme for you about Thrush:

Mrs Thrush is in a rush,
To find some food for tea,
Because she knows that when it snows,
The ground is going to freeze,
There won’t be any worms to pull,
And so to keep her belly full,
She gobbles up the berries
On the bushes and the trees.

You could ask an adult or a big brother/sister to read this rhyme to you, then try saying it back to them, a line at a time.
Can you think of another word that rhymes with “Thrush”? Maybe you could make up your own rhyme or a story about Mrs Thrush.
Or you could try drawing her lovely speckled tummy.

And let us know if you see one!

Eco Learning, Family, Fun, Learning at home, Natural World, Numeracy & Mathematics, Science, Videos with ELCC Staff

The Big Garden Bird Watch 🐦

January 20, 2021 Mrs MacLeod Leave a comment

Hi everyone! At the end of January there is a special event taking place. You can watch this video for a little introduction:

I wonder if you have seen any birds from your window or when out on a walk recently. In Winter it can be easier to spot them because there are less leaves on the trees to hide them, and they are often out searching for food in the cold. If you are able to feed them then that is even better. Perhaps like me you noticed some bird footprints in the snow recently:

Every January, the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) holds a Big Garden Bird Watch. It has been doing this for 42 years.
It asks us to watch the birds outside our window for one hour and record the number of different birds we see on a chart like this:

The results are counted and they help to work out which birds in our country are doing well and which ones might need a bit of help.
If you would like to take part, you can find out more at this link:
https://www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/

It’s a great way of practising your counting skills, as well as learning about Science & Nature!

Even if you don’t do the Bird Watch, you can still have loads of fun watching birds and working out what they all are. This video I took in Pollok Park this week shows how close you can sometimes get to them…

In the run up to the Big Garden Bird Watch we will be posting some fun facts about different birds and how you can spot them, as well as activities linked to our feathered friends.
Keep your eye on the blog and Google Classrooms!

Family, Learning at home

Welcome Back!

January 20, 2021 Mrs MacLeod Leave a comment

Hello again and Happy New Year to all the children and families at Busby Nursery
We hope you had a good holiday and have enjoyed some of the snowy days we had. We have been missing seeing you, but whilst we continue to stay safe at home, we are trying to help by offering some ideas of things to do at home if wanted:

Each day our teacher, Miss Lawson, is posting a few learning ideas linked to Literacy, Numeracy and Health & Wellbeing, which you are welcome to try out if you wish. These are available in Google Classrooms, which also allows you to share photos & comments with your group’s Key Workers and receive feedback and messages.
There will also be regular opportunities to chat in person with your group’s Keyworkers & teachers online via Google Meet.
Additionally we will post a theme of the week with related ideas, which you can check either in the blog or on Google Classrooms.

How to Use Google Classrooms:
To log into google classroom visit the Glow sign in page, using the link below:

Glow Sign In Page

Sign in with your child’s glow username and password. If you have forgotten any of the glow details, please complete this form and a member of staff will be in touch to help.

Digital Assistance Form

Once you have signed in, click on the google classroom tile on the launchpad page and that should take you to your child’s google classroom.

Some ideas, videos and fun activities will also still be posted here on our blog for you to access anytime as you choose.

Our brand new building is finally just about finished and some of our staff have been busy preparing it for when we go back – you can view a virtual walkaround with Mrs Toman in the Google Classrooms.

Until we meet again, let’s keep in touch. Please feel free to use the online learning facilities offered as much or little as you choose, depending on your preference and individual circumstances.
Have fun exploring, playing and learning!

Here is a taster of Miss Lawson’s Daily Home Learning Ideas
from this week:

Literacy – Watch the video of Axel Scheffler reading the book ‘Stick Man’. He is the illustrator of this book! If you have this book at home, you could read along with him.
https://youtu.be/OFhJrLVu3T0

Using any resources you have, (maybe lolly sticks/wooden pegs/pipe cleaners/tinsel/leaves) create a family of stick characters. Give each of your characters a name. Think about what makes each family member different? For example, Granny Stick could be very bossy and Baby Stick might love to sing.

Numeracy – Collect some sticks from outside. Compare their length and line them up in order from shortest to longest. Which one is the shortest? Which one is the longest? Are any the same length? If you can’t find any sticks you could try this activity with pencils, pens and crayons or pieces of string.

Creative Arts, Culture & Traditions, Fine motor skills, Fun, Gardening, Group Pink, Group Red, Group Yellow, Imaginary Play, Literacy, Mark Making, Natural World, Outdoor Learning, Science

⭐️ Shining Stars ⭐️

December 14, 2020 Mrs MacLeod Leave a comment

In Arran the children have been getting into the Christmas spirit – role-playing and hammering in the elves’ workshop, potting their hyacinths in silver pots, creating seasonal artwork, using clay to design decorations of their choice, counting penguins, making cards, calendars, lanterns and much more…
What a busy bunch!
Outdoors we have been exploring the properties of ice and enjoying frosty walks to Busby church gardens.
Role Play: “It’s a polar landscape.”

Literacy: In the Story Box, The Gruffalo’s Child has been very popular, with the children keen to act out the story and make up their own versions using the props for character and setting.
Stick Man has been another seasonal favourite story to explore.

We also read Little Owl and the Christmas Star and looked at different types of stars, before the children designed their own.

Rolling, moulding, cutting, imprinting: the Red, Yellow & Pink groups experimented with clay and water to create stars, snowmen and other decorations, using beads and various implements to make patterns, then metallic paints with varnish to finish them off.

“I’m going to make mine so pretty!”

The children were very proud of their different shining stars. We hope you enjoy hanging them on your tree or around the house!

Science: Planting & Growing: We have been watching the hyacinth bulbs that we planted start to grow. The children repotted them in silver pots for you and hope you enjoy the flowers later at home.

Science: Watch us mixing up fake snow using baking soda and hair conditioner…

Science: Ice Experiments: nature has kindly provided us with lots of thick ice shapes to investigate and experiment with.

Outdoors the children had great fun rolling down hills and investigating bugs found under logs

“I want to hold the wood louse… we have to be gentle. I’m going to put him back.” “Look, black beetles!” “A centipede!”

We have been gradually adding to our Kindness/ Christmas Tree with snowflake decorations, sunshine sticks and kind deeds.

“Share my lego with friends.” “I helped with lunch.”

Making lanterns to light up Busby

Numeracy: Christmas counting games

The children have also been offering ideas for a new nursery logo and then voting for their favourites to create a simple pictogram.

We’ve seen some fabulous Christmas outfits!

We wish a Merry Christmas to all our star children and their families!
We hope you have a very happy time together during the break.

Creative Arts, Culture & Traditions, Fine motor skills, Fun, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Literacy

Celebrating St Andrew’s Day!

December 3, 2020 User deactivated Leave a comment

St Andrew’s Day!

The pink and yellow group have been having lots of fun celebrating ‘St Andrew’s Day’.

We decided to make our playdough ‘blue’ and ‘white’ as we learned that ‘blue’ and ‘white’ are the colours of our Scotland flag.

We mixed, measured and kneaded the dough to make our Scottish play-dough!

We had lots of fun using our fine motor skills such as cutting, sticking and gluing to make our own Scottish kilts! The ‘pink‘ and ‘yellow’ group learned about tartan and that each kilt has different colours and patterns on it. We created our own patterns on our kilts!

Have a look…

The ‘pink’ and ‘yellow’ group also read the storybook ‘The Gruffalo in Scots’ by Julia Donaldson and learned the Scottish way to say certain words like;

‘Moose’ – ‘Mouse’
‘Broon’ – ‘Brown’
‘Hae’ – ‘Have’
‘Whit’ – ‘What’
‘Lang’ – ‘Long’
‘Sherp’ – ‘Sharp’

We then ate porridge and potato scones for our snack!

“I have porridge for my breakfast!”
“I love porridge!”
“I live in Scotland”

We finished our exciting day by listening to the nursery rhyme ‘3 Craws Sat Upon a Wall’ and trying some Scottish dancing! We had lots of fun learning and celebrating St Andrew’s Day!

Community, Group Red, Health & Wellbeing, Life Skills, Music, Outdoor Learning

Yoga Bugs and Tongue Drums

November 20, 2020 Ms Small Leave a comment

We have been very busy this week exploring many different ways to enhance our health and wellbeing. Let’s have a look at some of the fabulous experiences the Red Group have been doing.

Confidence and self esteem

Dare to be different

Crazy hair and yoga cobra pose!

Yoga can be done anywhere you feel comfortable! Trying out the spider pose …..this strengthens and activates core muscles….also…..helps to refine fine motor skills (e.g writing and dressing) by activating shoulder muscles and many more benefits, as well as being relaxing and lots of fun challenging yourself!

Mindful Walking

On our mindful walk we stopped to focus on our thoughts and sensations in our bodies with our eyes closed……….

Bumble Bee pose – find your happy hum!
Building resilience and self esteem

We are ‘All Kinds of People’ – we had fun mixing paint to match our own different skin tones and making a self portrait.

“My skin’s not that colour, maybe if I mix white and orange”
“I’ve got blonde hair”
“My hair is pink and brown”

Have a look at our resources!

Group Purple, Health & Wellbeing, Outdoor Learning, Technology & Construction

Feeling thankful with the Purple Group

November 18, 2020 Miss Murphy Leave a comment

This week the children have been helping Mrs Walker develop our block area, the children have shown a particular interest in building castles, they have been developing their mathematical language as they described their castles.

‘My castle is taller than ………., but hers is longer’

‘I built a long castle for the Queen’

‘My castle is like the Statue of Liberty, really tall and the colour teal, the statue of Liberty is in New York in America’

As part of Health and Wellbeing Week, we have been discovering what our peers are thankful for. The children thought carefully about this, and posted their answer in our gratitude jar.

‘I am thankful for my Mum’

‘I am thankful when my Grandpa kisses and hugs me’

‘I am thankful because my Mum takes me to the park all the time’

We have also been taking part in a wide range of activities outdoors. We were making muddy handprints and creating obstacle courses, developing their gross motor skills and problem solving skills. Well done everyone.

Eco Learning, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Health & Wellbeing, Imaginary Play, Literacy

We are Together

November 18, 2020 Mrs MacLeod Leave a comment

Continuing with Health & Wellbeing Week, the Pink and Yellow groups have been exploring feelings through various props in the Story Box, inspired by the lovely book “We are Together” by Britta Teckentrup. It is a story about self belief, resilience, and the power of friendship.

“Look at this… Sun up in the sky with rain. The rain becomes a rainbow!” “I don’t mind rain.” “I hate rain.” “This one is a shooting star.”

As they played with the props the children also began telling their own stories:
“Evil seagulls come out when there’s a storm. The butterfly will wait” (till the storm has passed)

“We need to add more people.”

“This sounds like birds singing.”

“This one makes it heavier.”

Aw… all cooried up with a soft blanket and heart pillow…

”If storm clouds gather and we’re caught in the rain,
Let’s splash through the puddles until the sun shines again.”
(from “We are Together”)

Creative Arts, Fine motor skills, Group Blue, Group Green, Health & Wellbeing, Life Skills, Literacy

Health and Well-being with green and blue

November 17, 2020 Miss Henderson Leave a comment

For health and well-being week we have been discussing and learning all about our differences and similarities.

We have been reading “Elmer the Elephant“ which conveys the important message of being proud of who you are despite your differences. The children used the character puppets to act out the story as Mrs Branco read to them.

With a choice of a variety of different materials the children were able to create their own transient art elephants.

Some of the children also decorated an elephant picture to take home. Lots of glueing, sticking and colouring to help develop our fine motor skills.

Following on from Elmer the children listened to the story “All Kinds of People” , helping us to visualise the differences there are in people. They then used mirrors to assist in their self portraits, this opened up a dialogue between the children about hair colour, eye colour, height and skin tone etc.

We were able to express to our friends the things we liked about their pictures and the differences between us. Each picture was beautiful and unique just the same as us!

Mrs Thrush is in a rush, To find some food for tea, Because she knows that when it snows, The ground is going to freeze, There won’t be any worms to pull, And so to keep her belly full, She gobbles up the berries On the bushes and the trees.

How to Use Google Classrooms: To log into google classroom visit the Glow sign in page, using the link below: