Thank you to Pauline Smeaton from the Fife Library Service who delivered a fantastic Bookbug session for our children and parents/carers.  It was lovely to have some younger children join us too who will be starting nursery next session.

Exploring on the beach and mark making.

Yoko is training to be a guide dog and we are helping her to learn to be a good citizen.

We have introduced tadpoles in to the nursery this week. The children will have the opportunity to watch them grow and develop and learn about different life cycles.

Team work – problem solving how to get on to the rope swing!

  Success at last – Harry showed great perseverance!

Having fun with new physical challenges whilst developing our gross motor skills and learning about risk and being safe.

“We are on the Polar Express,” said David. Using familiar stories and films to invent and share imaginatively with others.

We have new outdoor storage which enables the children to have independent access to the resources. They are also developing an understanding of the associated responsibilities of looking after the resources and tidying away once they have finished playing.

“It’s like we can get stuff easily – we don’t have to get the teacher to get it. I get drills and I get buckets easily…you can build sandcastles, put mud in it and put water in them.” Caitlin describing why she likes the new equipment.

“I like the bikes, I like the bricks and putting it back when I am finished with it,” said Kyle.

“I like to get the steps – we are learning how to walk on it,” said Eva.

“I love the wooden bricks. I make stuff and make machines and houses,” said Austin.

The Nursery Team are in the process of reviewing the nursery aims for our policy documents. We appreciated all the parental involvement in the update of the nursery handbook and are preparing to carry out a similar consultation for the nursery aims. Please let staff know if you would like to be involved. More information to follow!

The pre-school nursery children have begun their transition activities with joint STEAM projects in P2/1 making links with learning across different areas of the curriculum. More information will follow around our full transition programme and dates for the diary.

Investigating Floating and Sinking

 “I was testing -we did loads of experiments in case we missed a part of it… we were seeing if things stayed up or down.” said Eden. The children also had the opportunity to consider different measuring methods using paper clips or bricks to compare the length of objects, using string to measure the circumference of their heads and make comparisons. The children experimented with volume counting how many lids of water it took to fill a selection of containers.

Dry Ice Experiments

On Friday afternoon one of our parents Taciana Kasciukovic from Dundee University discussed with the children the difference between solids, liquids and gases. The children were able to see experiments with dry ice. When the ice in a small test tube melted and turn in to a gas it caused the test tube to explode and “pop”. When the ice was placed in soapy water the solid ice changed in to a gas and caused the foam to over flow from the basin. In the final experiment gas filled a balloon and the children waited with great anticipation in the hope that there would be another explosion!

Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths

The pre-school nursery children visited P2/1 throughout last week joining in their STEAM projects making links with learning across different areas of the curriculum which often involves practical and problem solving activities.

The children looked at patterns, creating rainbows using different materials – tissue paper, paper clips and Lego.

Another project was creating a collage representing the different seasons – the children considered how the weather changed in each of the seasons and how they could illustrate this creatively in their own art work. They developed their technical skills using rulers to draw straight lines, using scissors and sharing their ideas with children of different ages.