Milngavie Early Years Centre

I like to welcome everyone to our Nursery.  All of the children have settled really well and learning our Nursery routines.  I would like to introduce you to our Nursery Groups which are all names of  beautiful flowers from the garden,

This consists of

Angela – Sunflowers

Claire – Buttercups

Eileen – Bluebells

Jen – Poppies

Jenna – Snowdrops

Josh – Roses

Julie – Daisies

Marianne – Lillies

Pam – Peonies

Next week in Nursery we are hoping to do the following activties as long as adult ratio to children allows.

Monday – Visit to the Park in the Village

Tuesday – Baking Day/Library visit

Wednesday –  Games Day

Thursday – a visit to Colpi’s Ice Cream Shop in the Village for an ice cream

Friday – Teddy Bears Picnic – children are invited to bring in their teddy to have a picnic with them.

We have had a lovely week in Nursery this week.  All the children have had a lovely time taking part in different fun activities which have been going on.

Monday the children made smoothies with a selection of fruit of their choice.

Tuesday the children made their own kites, then flew them up in the Orchard and in the Playground.

Wednesday it was Wacky Wednesday where all the children were invited to dress up in wacky clothes along with wacky hair.  All the staff dressed up too and looked amazing in their wacky clothing along with crazy hair.

Thursday everyone was invited to bring either their scooter or bike to Nursery.  We then took all the children up to the pitch to ride their scooters and bikes.  For any children that did not bring anything in we took a selection of our bikes and scooters for everyone to use.

Friday it was Karaoke and a disco day.  The children enjoyed singing along to their favourite songs using a microphone,  we had some good dance moves and vocals throughout the day.

Everyday this week we have enjoyed being out in the garden, orchard or playground too.

Please see some of our upcoming nursery activities happening next week…

We had lots of apples left over from our lunch so the children had a think about what they could make with them.  They thought it would be a nice idea to make bird feeders with them.  First of all they had to prick the skin of the apples with a fork to make holes to enable them to push pumpkin seeds into the skin of the apples.  Fiona then removed the core from the apples and threaded string through them to enable them to be hung up from the trees to feed the birds.

Some of the boys and girls decided to make a book all about the Very Hungry Caterpillar after reading the story and having our very own caterpillars in the Nursery.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar uses predictable text that helped our children to  learn the story very quickly. Count the fruits eaten each day etc.  We were able to use the picture clues to encourage our children to predict what fruit will be eaten next and count them.

The children were learning about the beginning, middle and end of the book.  It enouraged their literacy and maths skills along with their pencil control.

We have been learning all about the lifecycle of a caterpillar.   We had our very own caterpillars in the Nursery which we have been looking after.

We learned about the four stages of the caterpillar turning into a butterfly.  The four stages are the egg, the larva (caterpillar), the pup (chrysalis or cocoon) and the adult.  We discovered that caterpillars grow very quickly and that one day the caterpillar will stop eating, hangs upside down from a leaf or twig and spins itself a silky cocoon or molts into a shiny chrysalis.  The caterpillar then transforms its body and eventually emerges as a butterfly.

We had special butterfly nets for our caterpillars to live in during their time at Nursery and they hung themselves onto the side of the net when they were chrysalis/cocoon.  Once the butterflies emerged from their cocoon/chrysalis we had to collect flowers and give them water.  We then released them in the orchard beside the wild flowers.

Safely inside the butterfly garden!

Butterflies being released onto the wild flowers.

Holding one of the Butterflies before it was released.

We have been enjoying lots of fun out in the garden.  Some of the children have been turning over the soil in our garden beds to get them ready to plant some vegetables.  We have also been growing tomato plants in our polytunnel.

We have made a letter wall beside our reading steps.  We have cushions for our reading steps and a selection of books to enable the children to have stories when out in the garden.

When we were out in the garden the children wanted to do a water experiment.  They used the stands to put the guttering on, poured the water down to find out how fast or slow the moved.  The children would then collect the water at the bottom and do it all over again.  They had lots of fun investigating the speed at which the water moved.

On one of the days when it was raining in the Playground the children used the side of our gazeebo to make a Star Wars Ship.

Angela is working with the children in the Literacy Area where they have been learning how to write letters and what you need to post them.  During this activity the children have been learning their home address and all about the postal service.  Some of the children have sent letters home and are hoping to receive some back at the Nursery to share with their friends.

From this activity it would be beneficial for all your children to learn their addresses.