This week we had another regular visit from a guide dog in training. Yarren the puppy has the opportunity to become familiar with children in a busy school environment and the children learn about the important work the dogs do.

“He is just young, if someone needs a guide dog the guide dog will help them. They help you crossing the road if you can’t see very well.” Explained Samuel.

We have found that there is a positive impact on the children’s social, emotional and language development through interactions with the guide dogs.

Regular baking sessions within the nursery allow each child the opportunity to count/weight/measure the ingredients during a sociable learning experience and then share for snack.

The children discuss their learning when selecting photographs for the blog.

“I’m putting the sugar in.”

“I’m measuring the butter.”

Holds up three fingers to show how much.

“I’m putting flour in the scales. I need one,two,three.”

 The children returning to nursery have been very kind and considerate as they welcome and help support their new friends learn all about nursery and the routines.

Whilst exploring the nursery garden the children were delighted to find a bumper crop of plums! We picked the crop together learning which plums were ripe and ready to eat and recognising the fruit that was ‘bad’ and needed recycled. Great job!

Samuel enjoyed tasting a plum. “It is yummy delicious.”

Our plum harvest was excellent this year. We had fresh plums for snack, took some home to share with our families and baked plum crumble for snack.

We are developing our  literacy,  numeracy and knowledge of health and wellbeing as we experience baking activities in the nursery.

Using scales to measure the ingredients and number recognition as we match the numbers on the scales to the recipe.

Developing fine motor skills as we learn to control the knife and discuss being safe in the kitchen.

We enjoy sharing the snack together. We improve our literacy and social skills as we take turns to talk and describe our favourite foods  sharing what we like to make at home with our families.

Mrs Wendy MacPherson

Mrs MacPherson is looking forward to meeting all the Primary 1 children starting in August 2018 with their families at the Strawberry Tea Sessions on Monday 25^th June 2018.

She has already spent some time meeting the children in school and nursery and visited Bright Horizons too.

If you would like to meet with Mrs MacPherson at another time then please ask at the school office and she will be happy to accommodate you.

Our summer trip this year was to St Andrews Aquarium. This was chosen by the children after they had been learning about sea creatures and ‘under the sea’ in nursery and from their learning during Beach Kindergarten visits.

We had the chance to handle visit a Bearded Dragon if we wanted.

“I liked touching the lizard. It was a bit spiky” – Samuel

“We got to see the meercats get fed. They had apple and worms”. Connor

“I liked the sea horses. They were very little” – Esmé

“I liked the sharks.They had lots of teeth” – Archie

“There was a great big tortoise. It came to see us.” William

“There was a big lobster. My daddy likes to eat lobster” – Freya

“There was a little crocodile and a big cat fish” Jack B

The nursery children were fortunate to receive a visit from  a story teller Anita Peggie.

The children used props to help retell the story and played pan pipes and a special fairy drum. They thought they would like to create their own story telling chair – a future STEAM project!

Blake enthusiastically shared he enjoyed singing and using the star prop.

“I liked dancing the star fish!”

Grace and Matthew enjoyed playing the unfamiliar instruments.

” I liked playing the music pipes.”

“I liked the sound of the fairy drum.”

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As part of our transition activities the children moving on to school thought about the future careers they may embark on. This is part of our role Developing The Young Workforce.  They are thinking about  their aspirations for the future and thinking about skills they can develop now in readiness to reach their goals.  They engaged fully as they created self portraits in their future careers for our gallery.

There were a variety of careers chosen -artist, dentist, doctor, face painter, fireman, policeman, shopkeeper, train driver, vet and working with sea creatures.

The nursery children and their families came together to celebrate the children and their learning this year at nursery. The children confidently  performed “What Shall We Do With A Grumpy Pirate” which they heard on the Bookbug CD. The children who are moving on to school proudly sang their own special song. The children were delighted to receive a moving on gift from the school  and were able to present their P6 buddy with a special Buddy Certificate in recognition of the support they have received already and the ongoing partnership when they begin P1.