Monday

Today some of the children have been engaging in a variety of role/imaginative play “I’m driving my car, I’m going to the shops in Dundee” resulting in lots of conversation about what they were going to buy at the shops. Some of the children helped clean up the digging/mud pit outside removing stones/boulders and objects giving us more space to dig. We found a variety of different mini beasts  when moving the rocks “There’s a long worm” observed one child, “Look a snake!” said another spotting a centipede. Inside nursery a few children were using our spoon puppets to retell the story of The Three Little pigs.

Tuesday

Today some our children were demonstrating their cooking skills in the mud kitchen. On the menu today was soup and cake. Children were developing language skills whilst discussing ingredients, methods etc. The digging pit was again busy today with a few children looking for mini beasts and a few children exploring the different textures of the dry and wet mud creating lots of discussion including some mathematical language. Some children represented their ideas using the magnetic shapes to plan, design and create a variety of structures including houses, traps and towers.

Wednesday

Today our pre school children started their transition visits to school where they joined other children from the community who are starting school in  August. Ferryport EYO’s held a short Book Bug session with all the children before all the children visited the classroom to explore a variety of different activities. Back at nursery there was a lot of creativity at the painting table with a variety of pictures being created including frogs, butterflies and rainbows. Lots of discussion re colours and experimenting with colour mixing. Outdoors some children enjoyed competing with one another as to how many objects i.e. balls, bean bags and frizzbees they could throw into the basketball net creating lots of predictions and competitiveness.

Thursday

Today some of our children helped feed our tadpoles which created lots of discussion using descriptive and predictive language as to when they would grow legs, turn into frogs etc. A few of the children were taking turns at ‘being the teacher’ using the pictures in the storybooks to retell the story to others. Outside a few children made up their own band using various instruments whilst marching around the nursery garden. Lots of children exploring different ways of using our bodies to move around e.g. on stilts, climbing, balancing etc developing hand/eye and gross motor skills.

Friday

Today a few of the children were exploring shapes at the art/craft table and creating a variety of pictures using the shapes and developing our shape awareness and recognition.. The willow den in the garden has been creating a lot of interest with some children exploring the inside and using mathematical language to describe the den. Our PEEP session today was entitled ‘Food For Life’ we talked about different foods, likes/dislikes and healthy/unhealthy foods. The consensus was that a little bit of everything is ok in moderation.

Monday
Public Holiday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday
In Service Day

Friday

This morning, there was a continued interest in our nature learning wall. In the art area, children explored a variety of painting and printing techniques, which led to discussions about the different tools and materials being used, and introduced early conversations about symmetry

Ferryport News May 2026

Nursery Holidays -The nursery will be closed to all children and staff on Monday 4th May for the May Bank Holiday. The nursery will also be closed to children on Thursday 7th May due to it being an in-service day. As part of the in-service day, staff will be taking part in Child Protection training at Lawhead Primary School.

Learning Wall – Our Learning Wall continues the theme of Nature!  We would love to include photos, stories, or experiences from home on our Learning Wall.  If you have any nature‑themed adventures—perhaps spotting insects, planting seeds, visiting parks, or observing wildlife—please feel free to share them with us.

This helps your child make meaningful connections between nursery and home, encourages rich conversations, and opens up even more opportunities for curiosity, questions, and exploration.

Parent Chats – Sign-up sheets will be available shortly for parents and carers to book a 10‑minute chat with your child’s keyworker to discuss your child’s progress. These chats will commence the week beginning 1^st June 2026.
If the available dates or times are not suitable, please speak to a member of staff and we will be happy to arrange an alternative appointment.

Fundraiser –We are planning a sponsored nursery rhyme time to help raise funds for the nursery. We will be sending a list of nursery rhymes home so you can have some fun practising with your child. We will be practising in nursery too! On Wednesday 20^th May 2026, we would love to invite parents and carers into the nursery, at 12.30pm, to listen to the children saying their rhymes and see how many they can recite in 3 minutes!

Transition to School -Transition sessions for our pre‑school children will begin on Wednesday 13th May. Nursery staff will accompany your child to these sessions. The sessions will include a range of fun activities such as Book Bug, Kodaly, tours of the school and visits to the P1 classrooms. Our children will also have the chance to meet other children from the local community who will also be starting Tayport Primary School in August.

Sports Day – Weather permitting, we are looking forward to holding our annual Nursery Sports Day on Thursday 28th May.  The event will take place in the gardens at the back of Queen Street Church from approximately 9.00am to 10.00am. For our term time children, we ask that parents and carers bring their child/children to the church gardens at 9.00am. Nursery staff will walk our AM children along to the church gardens for 9.00am. We would greatly        appreciate any support from parents or carers who may be able to help walk the children back to nursery after the event. If you are available to help, please speak to a member of staff.

Parent & Child Surveys -As part of our ongoing self‑evaluation to help us continue to improve at Ferryport, we will shortly be sending out a Microsoft survey via email. We would really appreciate you taking a few moments to complete this and share your thoughts. The survey will be completely anonymous. We will also be sending home a paper copy of a children’s survey for you to complete at home together with your child.

Parental/family Engagement – Just a wee reminder that there are lots of ways parents/carers can be involved in the life of Ferryport Nursery, including: joining the parents’ rota, assisting on beach visits, adding comments or ideas to our parents’ suggestion book, using the lending library, completing Learning at Home sheets with your child. Please speak to a member of staff if you have any queries.

PEEP – All parents/carers should now have received a letter inviting you to sign up for our next block of PEEP sessions which are due to start on Friday 8th May. If you would like to take part, please send your PEEP slip back as soon as you can. Thank You.

Group Photos – Tempest Photography will be attending Ferryport Nursery on Tuesday 26^{th May} to take our annual nursery class photo. This will take place within the AM nursery session. 

Staying Safe In The Sun – As the weather is beginning to get warmer and UV rays are becoming stronger, we would appreciate parents/carers applying sun cream to their child before they arrive at nursery. We have sun cream in nursery that staff can use to top this up later in the day to help keep children protected.

Lost Property – We have a number of items of clothing that have been left in our children’s cloakroom which do not have names on them. Could parents/carers please take a moment to check if any of the items belong to your child.

Nursery Times – A gentle reminder that our timings for nursery are as follows: – AM session 8.00am-12.40pm                                                                                          Term Time 9.00am-3.00pm

Many thanks for your support.

The Nursery Team

Another busy start to the nursery week.

Monday:

Outside we’ve carried on making magic potions with items we have found. Lots of leaves and petals.

Some of us we transporting with stones and mud before all coming together to do some dancing and action songs. Floor is Lava is still a crowd favourite!
At Together Time we chatted about our learning wall and what we know already, we only had time for a few songs after that before lunch.

In the afternoon some of us made a pet shop where we sold insects ! We used the till and used pretend money to help us buy our new pets!

Tuesday:

Today some of us went to the beach. Lots of climbing and throwing stones in the water. We also watched the ducks flying over. We noticed that the tide was coming in and the seaweed was very slippy!

Together Time we read a story about mini beasts and sang some songs before lunch.

Wednesday

:

Today while we were enjoying outside, we noticed a very big bumble bee. We all became very interested and watch it for a while.
“Look, it’s wings are so small but it’s body is big”

”He looks so cute”

”He is collecting pollen to make honey”

“we need a plate of water for the bee”

We created an insect drinking station in the nursery garden.

”the bee is thirsty!”

We’re learning so much with our nature learning wall.

Thursday:

Gym Day!

Today we had some different equipment out, to encourage balance and gross motor skills.  We played with the balance beam, balls, hoops and a big mat.

After snack we went outside and made some chalk pictures.

Before lunch time we had “Together Time”. SIMOA paid a visit to chat to us about sun safety. We were all able to talk about ways to keep safe. We even talked about UV levels and keeping safe even when the sun isn’t shining.

Next we watch a short programme about the lifecycle of frogs. Some of us were able to answer questions about the different stages and what they are called.  Then we learned a new frog song!

Friday

Today our caterpillars arrived and we can’t wait to watch them evolve into butterflies! 🦋. Some of us then decided to create our own butterfly wings then decorate them with a variety of collage materials. Some of us used coloured cellophane which we then noticed created coloured shadows in the sun. 🌞  Role/imaginative  play was very popular today with good use being made of our sparkly materials to create our own dressing up costumes. We continue to enjoy  the sunny weather exploring a variety of different play activities/experiences in the garden developing our turn taking, hand/eye, gross/fine motor and sharing skills.

And we are back with a bang!

Monday:

We are all happy to be back at nursery after the Easter break. We’ve been back exploring the nursery garden this morning. Some of us made unicorn stones for the garden using pens. Next we lined them up and counted how many we have.

Some of us found the spare sand outside, so we did some mark making with our fingers and then used the trucks and vehicles to see what marks they make.

Next we noticed the strawberry plants that Mrs Cameron brought in. We talked about the best place in the garden to plant them.
“I know, we need rain and that makes strawberries”

”They won’t grow yet, maybe in half an hour”

”How DO strawberries grow?”

”Look!”

Tuesday:

Today was Beach Day for some of us. Lots of climbing rocks, playing in rock pools and digging with buckets and spades. We spotted lots of different wildlife and interesting things on the river.

On the way back we counted how many bird houses we could see.

We came together for a story and some song time before lunch.

We’re getting very good at the “Days of the Week” song and “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom!”

Wednesday:

Today lots of us played outdoors in the sunshine, on the bikes are scooters, or climbing on the wooden cubes, practising balance.
Dinosaurs were another big hit this morning, building habitats with sand and grass.

After lunch was Fairy School!
We made wings and crowns and had lots of fun using our imagination to create stories.

Thursday:

This morning was gym. We had ring games followed by time on the Trim Trail in the playground. We had fun exploring the new equipment and investigating all the different areas of the playground.
After gym we took out the musical instruments and made our own songs. We used the chime bars, maracas, and tambourine.

”This makes a Ch, Ch, Ch noise”

Friday:

We started today by watching a programme about frogs and lifecycles, to support our learning wall interest of nature.

Lots of fun in the sun again today 🌞 making “potions”.

We had Together Time outside again with a story about a shaggy dog.
We all had our listening ears on today so we learned a new song about firefighters! We also sang some of our favourites, Zoom, Zoom, Days of the Week and Humpty Dumpty.

Phew! Another busy week at Ferryport Nursery.

See you all next week😊

Team Ferryport

Monday 30th March

Today in the nursery it was full of excitement as it is coming up for Easter , children were busy both indoors and outdoors enjoying the sunshine. In the art area a variety of materials were introduced for children to explore to create their own Easter egg in a size of their choice. Some painted , some used feathers and jewels then some used the coloured pens with lots of different designs. Some children were in the home corner using the medical bag to ‘check if they were ill’ showing our caring side through role play.
A few children were choosing quiet time by reading stories among themselves or asking the ladies to read.
Before lunch there was story time with all the children together and some songs.

Outside the children were exploring the water in the tuff tray , using the hula hoop to create a massive bubble , then soap was added for more effect. Some children used the water to wash the dinosaurs. The bikes were out where children showed off their skills , also a lot of climbing on the cubes and risk assessing if we can jump off without support

.

Tuesday 31st March.

Today some children took a walk to the beach in the sunshine , we had a new friend with us , at base camp we went over the safety rules to help her to ensure she was safe. We noticed the rock pools had some water in them so there was splashing going on and testing how deep it was by measuring it to our wellies. Some children were throwing stones into the water , there was a choice of big or small ones and we tested how big our splashes were. There was amazing colours of stones that we saw.
The few that were back at the nursery were all outdoors enjoying the sunshine , climbing , running and playing hide and seek.

There a lot of songs and stories throughout the day. Some children were exploring the different icons on the iPad to take photos or record voices.
In the afternoon the children were at the games table to create patterns with the small blocks , or matching up the coloured bears in sizes and colours.

We have started to take an interest in bugs , nature , and cycles. Some books were put on display to spark ideas.

Wednesday 1st of April.

Today Mrs P had kindly brought in some tadpoles for us to look at and the cycle as they grow. We used the binoculars and magnifying glasses to look into the tank. Some were out in the garden spotting bees or wasps , a bee even came into the nursery and we set it free! We hid a lot of ‘eggs’ in the garden with a number line for all the children to take part in , it was a fun way to practice our counting and mark making as we had to tick off how many we found , at the end there was a prize chick! This went on all day for some children as they kept hiding the eggs themselves in different places.

Some children were checking on our plants in the garden and giving them a little water.

Some children enjoyed being indoors drawing , writing , building with the blocks.

Thursday 2nd April.

This morning we spent it in the gym hall at the school burning off our energy , Miss H had done a small Easter Kodaly session. We ‘hatched’ out of an egg as we warmed up , we played ‘egg egg hatch’ in stead of duck duck goose , we picked up the rules very quickly , learned to wait our turn , run round in circles , and got everyone involved. Miss H put out coloured eggs in the corners of the room and again followed instructions , involving someone shouting a colour and running to that colour!

Back at nursery there was arts and crafts going on , some children were making kites , butterflies & insects! It was a struggle trying to fly the kites with no wind but it was fun running around to see how how high they could fly.

To end the day , we enjoyed a lovely picnic in the garden with some fruit & milk!
What a fun filled term 3!
Happy Easter everyone! 🐝🎉

               Ferryport Newsletter April 2026

Nursery/School Holidays – The Easter holidays will commence for our term time children on Thursday 2nd April 2026 at 3.00pm and our term time children will return on Monday 20th April 2026 at 9.00am.  Nursery will be open as usual for our 49 Week AM children during the Easter period. During this time please note that our 49 week  AM children will receive ‘The Big Breakfast’ rather than the School Lunch. 

Stay & Play Sessions Monday 20th April & Wednesday 22nd April-We would like to invite parents to stay, for a short time at drop off time, to spend time in nursery with their child to observe/share their child’s learning, their favourite activities etc. Younger siblings are welcome also but will be the sole responsibility of their parents. Stay & Play sessions are completely optional. 

Easter – Leading up to, and over the Easter period, the children will enjoy a range of fun and engaging activities including seasonal stories, songs, rhymes and, of course, an Easter Egg hunt. These experiences are designed to create a fun filled atmosphere while supporting the children’s learning and development. 

Learning Wall – Our new Learning Wall theme is Nature! Over the next few weeks, the children will be exploring and learning about different aspects of the natural world, including plants, insects, and lifecycles. 

We’re especially excited that Ms Paige has brought in frog spawn from her garden pond. The children will have the opportunity to observe how the frog spawn changes and develops over time. Once the frogs reach the appropriate stage, they will be returned safely to her garden pond. 

We would love to include photos, stories, or experiences from home on our Learning Wall. If you have any nature themed adventures—perhaps spotting insects, planting seeds, visiting parks, or observing wildlife—please feel free to share them with us. 

This helps your child make meaningful connections between nursery and home, encourages rich conversations, and opens up even more opportunities for curiosity, questions, and exploration. 

Parental Engagement –Our Parent Suggestion and Comment Book is available in the front hall. We’d really appreciate it if you could take a few moments to share any thoughts or ideas with us. Your feedback helps us celebrate what’s going well and identify ways we can continue to improve. Comments can be anonymous. 

Many children have been excited to share their experiences and achievements from home—such as birthday celebrations, family adventures, learning new skills (like swimming or riding a bike), or other personal milestones. We would love to add these to their PLJs. using the ‘Learning at Home’ sheets. These sheets are available in the front hall of nursery for you to take home. Once completed, please return them to nursery and either place them in your child’s PLJ with your child, or ask a member of staff to add them for you. 

Junk Modelling- The junk modelling is very popular and in high demand of recyclable materials. If you could help by bringing in items such as cardboard boxes, egg boxes, ribbon, wool etc. these would be greatly received… and who knows what creation these will turn into! 

Sickness/Illness – A gentle reminder that if your child is unwell (e.g. Vomiting & Diarrhoea) the guidelines are 48 hours exclusion from nursery from the last bout of sickness/diarrhoea.  

Lending Library– These continue to be housed in our front hall. These are changed regularly providing new books for you to explore. Please remember to sign books in and out. Thank you! 

Weather – Could all parents please ensure their child is appropriately dressed for the weather, especially on Beach Days, and that all clothing is clearly named. Please ensure your child comes to nursery with a coat every day, as even if the weather is sunny, it can still be chilly in the shady areas of our garden. Thank you! 

Borrowed Clothes – Can parents/carers please remember to return any clothes borrowed from nursery. Thank you. 

Monday

Children are showing lots of interest in outdoors at the moment, especially nature/bees. We have had a few bees 🐝 ‘visiting’ the nursery both inside and out! We have also been noticing the new bulbs/plants growing in the garden. Some children have been exploring pattern making using the polydron by designing and creating a variety structures and some children were inventing their own games also using the polydron encouraging the sharing of ideas and turn taking skills.

Tuesday

Today we used some real flowers as inspiration for our painting. This created lots of discussion about colour shape and size.
Some children enjoyed exploring shaving foam outdoors  exploring mark making and using a variety of descriptive language to explain the feeling of the shaving foam. Some children then added some of the dinosaurs to the shaving foam engaging in a variety of role/imaginative play.  .
Group 1 enjoyed a very windy visit to the beach today.  A few children were mesmerised by the waves watching them crash to the shore. This also created discussion about the size of the waves and the speed they were crashing to the shore.

Wednesday

Today some children used a variety of mark making materials✍️🖍️✏️ at the drawing/writing table today to share/express their ideas and thoughts. Our three bears🧸🧸🧸 were being used well in nursery to retell the Goldilocks story by some children. A few children have been exploring the woodwork bench , experimenting with different sized/shaped pieces of wood to create models. They were using a variety of mathematical language whilst creating their models and using the different tools. A few children found different kinds of bees🐝 in the garden creating lots of discussion about size and colour.

Thursday

All children participated well during our gym session today, exploring a variety of different gym equipment, whilst developing our gross motor skills and hand/eye coordination . A few children demonstrated their sorting skills using the paint game. All the children celebrated one of our children’s 4th Birthday by sharing some yummy cup cakes and singing Happy Birthday.
We are checking the  beans we planted everyday to check if they are growing yet and to see if they need watered!

Friday

Today was our “Celebration of Success’ 🎉 session at PEEP.  All the children and parent/carers who have attended this block of PEEP sessions received a certificate whilst chatting over coffee and cakes☕️🧁.
Some children planted some more beans outdoors discussing what they need to help them grow 🌞💦🫘. A few children asked to make playdough following the recipe and measuring the ingredients⚖️. This created good use of  some mathematical, and descriptive language. Some children,whilst developing their gross motor and turn taking skills, explored different ways of getting on and off the climbing cubes whilst others experimented how fast the different bikes and scooters went discussing which was the fates and which was the slowest! 🚲🛴.

Monday

Today started off busy with some arty mark making in the messy area.
We used rollers with patterns to create bright pictures.

Outside we were using natural materials we found in the garden to paint nature pictures. We used sticks and leaves and mud!
Definitely a mark making kinda day ☺️

We also had a visit from a child who going to join our nursery soon, lots of us introduced ourselves and helped to make her welcome by showing her and Daddy around the nursery before asking her to join our games. We can’t wait for our new friends to start!

Tuesday

Beach Day! Today group 2 went to the beach with Miss Webster, Miss Higgins and Mrs Wright. Lots of climbing and exploring the shoreline.

Together time we did something a little different today. We used our imagination to see “flowers in our mind”. Next Mrs Adamson read a story which didn’t have any pictures, so we had to imagine the pictures in our minds instead!

Some of us found the box our fruit delivery came in and we played with it in different areas of the nursery, including outside, block area, and lastly the art area. We used it to support role play before decorating it for another day.

Wednesday:

Today we made finger puppets in the messy area. We all chose different characters to make and talked about how we could make the puppets look like the characters.

The sun was shining today so lots of outdoor play with the puppets, bikes, dinosaurs and the large climbing cubes. Some of us were re-enacting The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Mrs Murphy and the children checked on last week’s science experiment with the coloured flowers, we decided the blue worked best. We all explained to Mrs Murphy what we had done and why it happened.

At Together Time we had a special treat! We had Harry from the primary school come to read us his very own story book! We loved listening to our very own author 😊 all about “Super Me, Gluten Free”.

Thursday:

Gym Day! Today Mrs Murphy and Mrs Wright brought out lots of exciting large gym equipment for us to practice our balance and gross motor skills.

Again it was another beautiful sunny day so we spent most of it out in the garden, making “dino soup” and riding horses around the garden.

We even got our Together Time outside with stories and songs and fun in the sun!

Friday:

Again this week some of us went to PEEP with Mrs Murphy and Mrs Adamson before joining everyone back at nursery.

One or two of us wanted to make paper flowers in the art area, inspired by one of our friends bringing a beautiful tulip. We used some spring colours to make the petals.

Another beautiful day meant we spent most of it outside in the sunshine.

We made play dough outside, adding herbs and leaves to make it smell lovely ☺️

Next we learned some new songs at Together Time and read a funny story about an alligator with false teeth!

After lunch it was back out to enjoy playing in the sunshine.

Phew! Another busy we at nursery HQ!

See you next week,

Ferryport Nursery Team

Monday:

This week starts with more play around fairy tales and characters.

Some of the children chose to work together making more costumes in the messy area. Others used the puppet characters and the “Beanstalk” to support their own storytelling.

Today’s fairytale book was the “Ugly Duckling” at Together Time.

This sparked some interest in birds and looking at nest building. This continued outside with some of the children using a ire book and binoculars to search the garden for evidence of nursery garden birds.

As part of Science Week Mrs Wright introduced the children to growing plants in the garden, with everyone choosing seeds to propagate. Including beans for our very beanstalk.

Tuesday:

Today we worked on our self portraits, taking care to check our features in the mirror before drawing our masterpieces. They are all now in our PLJs.

some of us went to the beach for a walk and to explore. We noticed that the tide was going out, making it harder to throw stones in the water. Before we left the beach we practiced climbing the rocks safely using “3 points of contact”.

Wednesday

We had a busying morning outside playing with the bikes and scooters and playing in the mud kitchen creating delicious meals 😋

We have started to notice some of the mini beasts in our nursery garden and we have been talking about how we look after all living things.

We spent some time checking on the progress of our plants, some of us are finding it tricky waiting for them to sprout!

Since we moved our art easel back to where it was, there has been lots of use and some fabulous drawings created.

Thursday

Gym day! This morning we met at the school and walked down to gym.
We started with a warmup where we pretended to be  plants and mini beasts, then moved on to using the large gym equipment. Lots of tumbles, balancing and jumps.

Back at nursery some of us practiced mark making in the sand, while others listened to a story of the “Elves and the Shoemaker”.

We even had time for a science experiment; finding out how to make ice !

Friday

Today was PEEP day for some of our families with Mrs Murphy and Mrs Adamson, where the theme of the session was mark making.

We had time for two science experiments today. First was our bottle volcano with Mrs Adamson, where we watched what happens when hot water with food colouring mixes with cold water.
Next was colour changing flowers with Mrs Cameron , where we thought about how we could change the flowers from white to red/pink. After sitting them in coloured water over the weekend the children are going to check on them with Mrs Murphy on Monday to see if it’s worked!

At together time, we talked about showing kindness to others and listened to a story about being kind. Some of us were able to give examples of when we have been kind in nursery.

Another busy week in Ferryport!

See you all next week,

The nursery team ☺️