Another week of lockdown has started, but we are definitely getting nearer to the light at the end of the tunnel!

Erin sent me this great lockdown version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  If you can teach it to your wee one, it would lovely to video it to send to grannies and grandpas and we would absolutely love to see it in your Learning Journal as a wee memory of how tough it was, not to see all our loved ones!

🎵🌟 Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Send my love out wide and far

To my family, to my friends

See you soon when lockdown ends

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Send my kisses wide and far!

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week.  It is perhaps particularly important this year as lockdown has meant challenging times for all of us.  The focus this year is on kindness, and this is something going on widely in our community just now. Many people are helping others in lots of kind ways.  In nursery we talk to children about emotions- on a daily basis through stories and group time activities and also with a resource called PAThS- (Promoting Alternative Thinking Skills), which explores emotions and how to manage them through stories based round a wee turtle puppet called Twiggle and his animal friends.  Our children quickly learn to recognise emotions in others using cues from faces and body language, and also become able to name the emotions they feel.  We learn how to manage our more difficult emotions and to talk about them and about how we can help ourselves feel better.  Empathy is encouraged and kindness is celebrated.   Children learn to compliment each other and this encourages good self esteem. This all sounds a bit worthy and boring, but PAThS sessions are always good fun and the staff who run them are always amazed by the wisdom many of our wee people already have.   We have put 3 kindness tasks on as our Home Learning for this week in our Learning Journals.  If you have time and feel up to it, why not put a photo or any of your child’s comments about them on your Journal!

We’ve got 3 videos on our Facebook page today- one of our tadpoles, some of whom are getting more froggy in shape, but still using their long wiggly tails to swim. One from Susan and Mr Snappy and also one of Olaf and Disney characters which sums up how the nursery ladies are feeling about not seeing you all!

Wishing everyone a week full of kindness! ❤️