Hello everyone, we hope you have had a great week, here is a snapshot of what we have been up to……

 

We had a lovely day on Monday in the sunshine where children explored target practice and role play. We discovered a bumble bee in the garden and children sustained an interest where they role played being bumble bees where they each had their own bee jobs. We had worker bees, stinger bees and even a queen bee who had to taste test all the honey before it was transported to other locations.🐝

Children discovered a little field mouse had come to say hello at the fence, we discussed how we could make sure he felt safe and where he might have come from.🐭

Alex and Leo were researching monster trucks for Alex to copy. Alex persevered and could draw his own one without any help. Alex then shared his skills with Leo by helping him with his own creations.🚚

The children have sustained an interest in music and bands as Sophie and Charlotte created their own drum sets as they sang along to a tune they created. Fraser was also exploring using a drum set he made after joining this weeks peep session which was based around making instruments. From this, we have decided that our next learning wall will be on music! 🥁 🎤 🎶

At the forest, we explored more small world play as we created our own dinosaur world inspired by Eli. We foraged for different resources such as sticks, leaves and pine cones. The children worked together to set up the area how they wanted🐉. Some other children explored a fallen down tree and made their own bug hotel in the roots using sticks.🐛

Children created their own camp. They used loose parts to make a fire, a camp bed and a breakfast area. The children then continued this interest the next day, encouraging others to join.⛺

Happy birthday to Timothy who was 5 on Thursday, thank you for the sweets! Timothy was able to make cupcakes for afternoon snack with some peers😁🎈🎂

 

Reminders:

• Next week we are only open until Thursday as the Easter holidays begin Friday 29th March where we are off for 2 weeks and return Monday 15th April.
• If you have borrowed any nursery clothing, please can we ask for this back next week to get washed before the holidays, thank you!
• Forest is on a Tuesday where we will meet at Waterstone Crook between 9:00am-9:15am then head up to the forest location.

 

Have a great weekend, we look forward to seeing you next week 🤗

Miss McKenzie

Hello everyone we hope you have had a great week. Here is a look at what we have been up to in nursery this week…

 

Our children have been showing a sustained interest in music and bands. They have been creating their own band called Joey and the S’s where they set up their own stages outside and performed for a range of audiences. They also came up with their own look of pony tails and rolled up trousers and took turns singing songs that they were familiar with from Michael Jackson to the Batman theme tune.

The children have been spending a lot of time outdoors this week where ball games has been a huge hit with children continuing their passion for football, tennis and target practice.

Children have also shared an interest in water as they created their own dam in the garden using a range of materials which they used to block off the water to stop it flooding the playground. They did this with no adult support, just from their own shared ideas. Timothy, Isla and Charlotte also shared an interest at lunch time by asking questions such as “where does water come from?” and “how do we get it?” to which we spoke about the water cycle and how it works.

Charlotte has been showing an interest in keeping healthy as she speaks to peers and adults about healthy food, being a vegetarian and doing exercising where she created her own equipment using loose parts.

 

We had a great first session at the forest location this week where children shared they were excited to return again next week! Children explored bugs and how we look after them such as worms and woodlice, what we could use sticks for where children used them as tools and using their imagination to see what we could turn the trees into.

We welcomed Mrs McNeil to the nursery this week where she felt very welcomed by the children. They showed her round the room and invite her to play games.

 

Reminders:

• World book day is on Thursday 7th March where children have the option to dress up if they want to however there is no pressure to do so. If they didn’t want to dress up they could always come in their pyjamas with their favourite bedtime story! We can’t wait to see what stories you bring in!
• The Book Fair will be open to nursey families after school on Tuesday 12^th March and Wednesday 13th March.
• Forest is on a Tuesday where we will meet at Waterstone Crook car park between 9:00am-9:15am then head up to the forest location behind Forgan Arts Centre. Please dress your child in lots of lovely warm clothing, it’s better to have too much than too little, we can always remove layers if they get too hot.
• Parent chats are beginning the week starting 11th March, please see a member of nursery staff to arrange a time slot

🌟The nursery will only be open on Monday and Tuesday next week and closed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday due to an in-service day and public holidays 🌟

Hello everyone, we hope you have had a great week, we have had a really busy but fun week, here is a sneak peak into what we have been up to…….

 

Flynn and Archie put on a great performance yesterday singing queen in the garden for their peers as they created musical instruments using loose parts

Flynn “we will we will rock you!”

Archie has been practising his tennis skills and challenging himself. Archie went from hitting one ball to hitting three at the same time 🎾

“I was hitting the balls, I was rolling and doing target practice”

  

A group of children have shown an interest in hairdressers this week and have been creative with different hair styles and have been discussing appointment times and how long until each appointment.

Sophie “I’m making her hair at the hairdressers”

Isla “I was writing down the number for the next hair appointment time”

Oran, Alex and Eleanor took some time to read outside together in the story den.

Oran “we are reading”

Alex “we were just looking at the pages together”

We made the most of the nice weather by having snack outside, we had juicy watermelon and oranges.

Archie “We were eating watermelon, it was soooo good!”

 

A group of peers helped to push each other along outside on the equipment, they all worked together and used trial and error to work out how to free it when it got stuck on the fence.

Timothy “i managed to push him it was really easy”

 

 

We had another great day for our forest session where we explored the bottom garden. The children used the seesaw, explored with loose parts and took part in imaginary play where they were jumping into the sea from the boat when it was really stormy.

Eli “I’m on the seesaw with Timothy”

Isla “me and Jackson are robots”

Archie “we were slipping off the boat, we made the silly club”

Chloe “we were falling off the seesaw, we were dinosaurs”

 

A group of peers took part in the incey winced spider game where they explored turn taking, negotiating and numeracy skills.

Leo “spidey game”

Cameron “we were playing the spider game”

Christian kindly brought in a book from home to share with his peers called Christian the hugging lion.

Christian “the book came from my house, it’s a good book, we were reading the book”

Children showcased their self help skills as they made their own sandwiches at snack by spreading butter onto the bread and choosing their filling 🥪

Robin “I had a cheese sandwich, I put it on myself”

Flynn “I didn’t have a sandwich, I just had bread with butter”

The children have a found a new swing ball in the garden after showing an interest in ball games, Lucas helped to fill up the base to make it stable to use.

Lucas “that’s almost full, that’s full”

 

Children used the farm sets outside where they created their own farm and sectioned off different areas for different animals.

Elyn “Cows, pigs. We had the animals and feeding them hay”

Cora “we had bricks and animals to make the farm”

Book bug came for a surprise visit today in nursery. We sang some familiar and some new songs as well as having a good story 🐞

The children all participated and sang along or copied the actions to the songs and spoke about the characters in the story.

Clothing

If anybody has any clothing aged between 3-5 years old boys or girls clothes that they are happy to donate as spare clothing for the nursery we would be very grateful as our stock of spare clothing has not been returned, thank you!

 

Reminders

• Can we please remind parents and carers that when dropping off in the morning and using the car park to use the white spaces only as staff members who start at 9 are unable to park due to the staff spaces being taken.
• Nursery will be open only on Monday and Tuesday next week due to In service day on the Wednesday and public holidays on Thursday and Friday 
• if you are going to be in later than 9:20 can you give us a message on seesaw to let us know as we take the lunches along to the office by 9:30 so could take your order before you get here if needed

 

We hope you have a lovely weekend and happy Chinese new year to our Newport nursery families 🐉 we will be celebrating next week with some Chinese food for snack and looking into the story of The Great Race 🐷 🐶 🐀

 

The Newport nursery team

 

Hello everyone, we hope you have had a great week! There has been lots happening in Newport Nursery this week, here is a sneak peek…….

 

On Monday a group of children looked at the match and spell game where they had to match the letters on their board to make a word. Some children then extended their learning where they turned over the board so it was blank and had to spell the word again without any prompt!

A group of children have taken part in making a mind map for all f our ideas on what we think we need to buy for the nursery to help us learn with the Christmas enterprise money. The children came up with some great ideas like a CD player, outdoor sport equipment and things to use at snack to help us be more independent.

Children have also been creating their own story books based on different interests. The children were able to help search on the computer for pictures, print them off and then make them into a story book.

We weren’t able to attend the forest due to fallen trees however we were able to have our forest experience in the garden again where children chose to come and took part in a bird watch. Children went in pairs or alone to see what/how many bird they could spot and marked down on their bird watch sheet.

 

After finding a sour orange at lunch time, this prompted a discussion with the children and Miss McKenzie about sweet and sour food and how orange trees grow. This lead to children discussing how an orange tree grows from a seed but we realised we didn’t know how long it takes so we used the computer for research and found a video of a time-lapse of the orange tree growing over time which can take between 7-15 years to bear fruit! Eli and Eleanor decided to take the seeds how to one day have their own orange trees.

We had a lovely Burns lunch to celebrate Burns day! We also tasted some shortbread at snack which everyone gave the thumbs up to!

We continued our interest in birds this week as we were inspired by artists and pictures to paint our own at a painting station! Everyone showed off their skills as they used a range of colours and textures to get the look that they wanted.

Children have been completing their learning at home to go on our learning wall to share what they have been doing at home! Charlotte shared that he favourite toy is a troll called Poppy. Fraser brought in his favourite Power Ranger toys to show off and did some mark making for the wall!

We have had a lot of imaginary play this week as children have been using a variety of resources to create models such as stools, cushions, blankets and rugs.

Cammy and Timothy worked together to make a bridge for the cars in the sand. They collaborated their ideas to make it work and built a lovely bridge as well as a lovely friendship!

Eli and Elyn worked outside as they made bird feeders using lard and bird seed. They moulded it into shape and added the seeds and left it for putting up next week.

Reminders:

• Our PEEP group is on next Thursday 1st February at 9am for anyone who wants to join!
• Our forest sessions until further notice will be in the bottom garden so if you could please come to the nursery dressed for a forest session.

We hope you have a great weekend and we will see you all next week!

The Newport Nursery Team x

We have had another busy week this week and have been exploring the snowy weather. Here is a snapshot at what we have been doing this week…..

 

Instead of our usual forest session we went to the bottom garden where we had a fire to heat up some pancakes and toast marshmallows for snack! we spoke about previous learning when looking at ice where we discussed how much there was and what happens if the weather was to get warmer again.

The children created snow angels in the snow and spoke about patterns and sizes as they compared each others snow angels on the ground. Children also noticed footprints in the snow! We made a guess that they were from our garden robin who likes to visit daily!

 

After a morning in the garden, we spent some time in the top garden where children used cardboard boxes and crates in their play. The children were using the cardboard boxes as trampolines and the crates as cars.

Children have been taking time to read stories with one another both inside and out. They are reading the stories by talking through what is happening in the pictures.

Since revamping the woodwork area, groups of children have been creating models using a range of materials and tools. the children can confidently discuss how they can keep safe at the woodwork bench and different models they are able to make with no support.

Leo, Alex, Elyn, Isla and charlotte helped to create a bar graph using buttons to collect their information for the learning wall on what the most popular toy was for our new learning wall which is Toys. They were able to count out the buttons and see which had the most.

 

Charlotte has been developing her early writing skills as she uses the wooden slices with common words that she needs to write a letter for her granny.

A group of boys were creating their own game outside with the bikes. They made a chase and capture game and took turns on who was the chaser.

Isla and Sophie have been using the wooden blocks to write their names out and other familiar names to them with a little support.

Lucas has been doing some great number work as he adds 3 numbers together to get the right answer with very little support.

 

Cora and charlotte created their own drum sets using cushions and wooden spoons singing along as they tapped the spoons.

Children have been exploring the new props at the learning wall such as the story books and robot timer game.

Reminders:

• Can we please make sure that when we leave the nursery garden after drop off and pickup that we close and lock the gate afterwards to ensure our children are kept safe.
• Forest is on a Tuesday where we meet at Waterston Crook car park.
• The weather can change at any minute so can we please ask that you bring in gloves, scarves, hats and cosy clothing so your child can be outside for longer as they love to be out in all weathers!

 

We hope you have a lovely weekend, see you next week!

The Newport Nursery Team!

Hello everyone, we hope you have had a great week at Newport Nursery. Here is a look at what we have been up to this week…

 

Our children have been very creative in a number of ways as they prepare for our christmas enterprise project where we will be selling decorative cushions, tree decorations, christmas keyrings, reindeer food and festive playdough packs.

Our nursery enterprise project contains:

Reindeer food – £1

Tree decoration £1

Snowman Keyring £1

Decorative cushion £2

Festive playdough packs £1.50

Sophie and Isla also got creative as they made pet toys! They used paper, string and feathers to make cat and dog toys which inspired others to join in and create their own.

Timothy has mastered the art of envelope making! Timothy worked out how to make an envelope as there wasn’t one big enough to fit his card in and created lots of them for his peers to use.

We all helped to put up the christmas tree and place the decorations where we wanted. Some children helped with the lights and some wanted to put on the tinsel! Cammy chose to put the angel on top of the tree!

We have been opening our advent calander each day at nursery! We worked out what number came before and after the date and counted out how many doors were open so far and left to open. Every child will have a turn at opening the doors as we make our way down the register!

We had another great forest session where we did lots of exploring, some children built dens, helped to look after the fire and even created more stories! Isla created a story about elves and used her peers as inspiration!

 

Chloe has been showcasing her mark making skills as she creates pictures for her peers of barbie and Ken, singing along as she draws 😄

children have been exploring completing puzzles on the whiteboard as they select what picture they wanted to do. Children were able to challenge themselves as they decided if they wanted a background picture to help them complete it or not.

Other children chose to make symmetrical pictures where they had to complete the missing side. There was also a game where children explored their numeracy skills and had to order the amounts and match them to the correct number. The children really showcased their abilities!

 

Elyn has been creating her own story for the first time this week as she reads her story out loud with an adult. She named her story The Candy Cane. Well done Elyn what a fantastic story!

 

 

 

Charlotte also spent a lot of time creating a wonderful story called The Boy and the Girl on Christmas Eve. What confident reading Charlotte!

Carrying on from the childrens interests in stories, the children took a walk up to the school library where they chose a range of stories to bring back and share with their peers.

 

Reminders:

• The nursery sing along is on Friday 15th December
• Nursery christmas party is on Tuesday 19th December
• The last day of term is Wednesday 20th December
• Our nursery enterprise project will go on sale week beginning 11th December

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Miss McKenzie

Hello everyone! We hope you have had lots of fun in the holidays and are excited to be back at nursery! Here is a look at what we have been up to this week…..

 

Some children have been speaking about Halloween and making requests about songs they would like to sing and dance to. Children requested to have the Halloween dressing up and books which nearly every child engaged in.

Children have been having a go at making pom poms today! They all persevered and showed good resilience. The children chose their own colours and threaded the card and only had help to tie a knot at the end.

Children have been engaged in a lot of craft activities such as cutting and sticking to make their own paper shapes and making clay models.

A group of children were inspired by the haunted house decoration and wanted to make their own in the block area! The children worked together to create the house being careful what shapes they needed and drew their own ghosts and zombies!

Some children wanted to make their own skeletons and were able to get help to draw around their bodies to make a life size one! This encouraged discussion about the bones in our bodies.

Outside, some children created their own shelter where they invited others to join a tea party! This tea party included table service, cupcakes and lavender tea. There was also 2 DJ’s! The children showed great team work and communication skills as they shared their ideas with one another.

We had another great forest session where we did lots of exploring. Children went on a bear hunt, made their own tree from strings and berries and also toasted their own marshmallows on the fire where they decided how toasty they wanted them to be!

Flynn has been developing his number skills as he writes numbers on a grid in the garden with an adult.

Timothy has been very independent this week helping his peers and he adults out without being asked. When Timothy notices and area needs some tidying he will do what he can to make the area look lovely again.

Sophie and Cora were interested in what noise their cereal was making this morning…..”Can you hear it Cora? Snap, crackle and pop!”

Reminders:

• Please remember to send a spare change of clothing with your child to nursery as well as a jacket as it is now getting colder and our children love playing in all weathers!
• 30th October is the Halloween disco night from 6pm-7pm
• If anyone has any junk they are wishing to get rid of we will take! Any old boxes/cardboard boxes or baskets, kitchenware, table cloths, piping/guttering or any other household items please let the staff know! Thank you

 

 

Have a great weekend! See you next week!

 

The Newport Nursery Team 

Hello everyone, we hope you have had a lovely week at nursery and have enjoyed your first forest session of the year! Here is a look at what we have been doing this week…

 

Groups of children have been showing an interest in group games this week as children have been inviting their peers to play. They have been exploring adding and subtracting as well as a memory game.

Sophie requested that we have hot chocolate for snack as it would be nice and warm. Sophie helped Miss McKenzie to prepare and make the hot chocolate as she discussed experiences at home with her mum making hot chocolate.

Children have been expressing their feelings in a really positive way this week. At snack, children spoke to one another and said “this is really delicious, I really like this snack” “wow these are the best hot dogs ever” “I really liked the forest didn’t you? It was so fun!”. Children have been keen to share their likes and dislikes with one another in a range of situations.

It was our very first session at the forest this week and everyone had a really positive experience. Children explored all areas of the forest and were able to take risks and communicate well. We had hot dogs for snack which went down a treat as children expressed their love for the hot dogs and forest experience as a whole.

Children have been showing an interest in writing where they are using a range of media to mark make. Some children chose to write in diaries or create their own pictures based on real life experiences.

Eli and Chloe were inspired by Oran and created their own music using tin foil! They blew into the foil which created a funny sound!

Hubert and Timothy have been working together as they created a picture in art using the paints and painting easel.

Oran and Elyn had taken their yoga moves they had learnt and used these in their play outside this week.

Some children chose to look at their PLJ’s and helped to add in photos of themselves into the right sections!

This week we explored the story of the gingerbread man and used the playdough area to extend our learning from the story. We used cinnamon to mix into our playdough mixture and used the story to read along as we rolled out the dough and cut out our own gingerbread men shapes.

Children worked together in the block area as they used their communication skills to build a castle! They recognised each others abilities and praised each other for the good ideas that they had.

Fraser has been exploring facial expressions and how to capture these using the iPad. Fraser was able to learnt how to use different controls as he flipped the camera and pressed the capture button.

A group of children have been exploring rhyming through a matching game as they have to listen and look at the words to see what rhyming box it goes into.

Thank you to everyone so far who has handed in a learning wall sheet to put on our learning wall! You all have fantastic ideas and have done amazing with your mark making 😄

We had another yoga session to end our week as we spoke about our feelings and emotions. Children shared their own moves and were even able to roll away their mats and were inspired to help others too! New children joined in for the session and some just chose to watch to see what the session was all about 😄

 

Reminders

• Forest is on a Wednesday, please can you park and drop off our child at waterstone crook car park and not in Forgans art centre. We will wait at waterstone crook until 9:15 and then head up to the forest location.
• The yellow spaces in the car park are for staff only, please only park in the white spaces.
• Please make sure your child has wellies and waterproofs for playing at nursery as you never know when the weather might change and the children love water play!
• Please help yourself to another learning wall sheet if you would like one!

 

Have a great weekend everyone, see you next week!

 

The Newport Nursery Team x

 

Hello everyone, we hope you have enjoyed your first full week with us at Newport Nursery. Here is a look at what we have been up to in nursery this week….

 

We have been making choices at snack time where we have been helping one another with ideas about what could be for snack that day. Some of the choices this week were bagels with ham and cream cheese, tomatoes and apples, crackers with butter and strawberries and raspberries.

 

Almost all of the children have been engaged in mark making in the writing area, art area and outside. They have created pictures using a wide variety of materials to showcase their ideas and learning.

 

Groups of children have been creating models with Lego. This has encouraged them to communicate their ideas with others which has helped to spark friendships.

 

 

We had a discussion about what would happen in a fire drill and even had a practise of our own where we walked around the school grounds to get familiar with the area and the children did great discussing how to keep each other safe and what would happen if we heard the fire bell.
Cameron- “the firemen come”

Archie- “you need to go outside, be safe”

Timothy- “we go to the special place to stand”

 

Timothy started off an interest in watering the plants where he watered the plants in the room and discussed how they grow from seeds and need the water to grow. This encouraged his peers to water the plants outside where they shared responsibilities and discussed how much more water each plant needed.

 

Everyone is getting into the new lunch routines where they are able to collect their lunches using their bands, take their trays to the table and then put everything in the right place when clearing up at the end. Individuals have been making an effort to give foods a try before deciding if they like them or not.

 

 

Children have been sharing personal experiences with staff such as discussing their families and things that they have at home that they enjoy such as stories and favourite teddies.

 

It was Elyns first day with us on Monday where she was keen to get helping as soon as she came in. Elyn helped to unpack and put away our first Tesco delivery and stayed to help until the very last item was put away and did this all on her own accord!

 

Archie and Christian have been very keen to give themselves “homework” in nursery where Christian has been doing his writing and Archie has been doing his equals (sums). Archie has been identifying random numbers up to 100 and writing these all down independently!
(Disclaimer….We don’t hand out homework in nursery don’t worry! 🫣)

 

Chloe and Cora have been keen to role play where they chose different outfits to dress up in to portray different character in the house corner or when using the rocking horse as part of their play.

We have created an autumn display for the children to explore and start an interest in talking about the changing seasons. Alex brought in something from home to add to the display and to share with his friends!

 

All children have been doing a great job at performing personal hygiene routines such as washing hands when needed before snack/lunch or after playing outside as well as brushing their teeth and remembering which toothbrush is theirs by looking at the symbols and colours.

 

We went on a walk around the school and decided to collect some apples for baking! The children gave good suggestions such as apple sauce, apple pie and apple crumble!

Children have been eager to help set up at snack time and Alex took it upon himself to set the table ow he thought it should look whilst Elyn poured milk into a jug ready for drinking.

Children have been really interested in audiobooks and have been beginning to follow along with the pictures in the books.

Groups of children have been creating pictures using the apples we collected where they cut the apples in half and then used paint to press them on the paper.

Children have been using their skills to record their voices using the talking tins. They were able to press the record button and listen back to what they had said. They talked about what would be important to say into the talking tin at snack and Isla said “we could say what is for snack” where Eli then said “we can tell people to wash their hands”.

 

Thank you for a great week and we hope you have a great weekend! See you on Monday!

The Newport Nursery Team 

 

Reminders:

• Can you please make sure that you sign your child out at the end of the day at pick up time by letting one of the staff members know so we are aware of who is here and who is not to keep your children safe.
• Forest will be starting some time in the next month, we will make you aware of when this is when we know.
• Can we please ask that when dropping off or picking up your child to park in the white car parking spaces only as staff members start at different times and can often not get their spaces.
• Outdoor clothing and wellies are essential at nursery as we are always outside enjoying all weathers!
• Can we ask that you please apply suncream before arriving at nursery

 

 

Hello everyone, we hope you have had a great last week of term and are looking forward to the summer holidays! Here is a look at what we have been up to on our final week…..

We had our nursery graduation where children graduated into primary one or their second year of nursery. Children wore hats and gowns and were able to collect a certificate from Miss Allan and Miss Donaldson. They sang some songs for parents and families and even enjoyed some lovely strawberries after! We also shared a video of pictures of all the children throughout the year which you can watch on the seesaw app!

 

 

 

Children took part in their last play on pedals session where they all concentrated very well and tried their very best! They also received their certificates this week to celebrate finishing the course!

Its Lucy’s birthday tomorrow so we celebrated with chocolate cake that she brought in to share, happy birthday when it comes Lucy!

 

 

Thank you so much to everyone for the support over the past year, we can’t wait to see you blossom in primary one! Please come back on your first day to show us you in your uniform! To our returners, have a great summer and see you all again soon! ❤️
Good luck to Miss Nelson who is leaving to have her little baby! We will miss you and can’t wait to see your little one! 🌟

Have the best summer! ☀️ 🌴

The nursery team x