Milngavie Early Years Centre

Good morning!  If you want to download the video to your own computer, please click on this link and follow the instructions.  It’s quite easy!  It will be available for 7 days!

https://we.tl/t-ViCsBUP4zG?src=dnl

Many thanks to our Super-mums, Giselle and Kate for making our day such a special one for all our wee stars of the show.  Kate moved mountains to bring us our disco despite a technical disaster that would have caused most of us to admit defeat. The Party Shed was a brilliant alternative venue and it was just amazing to see all the wee faces, we’ve been missing for months, all in the one screen!

Our graduation film was lovely and I bet there was hardly a dry eye in the house!  If you would like to download it to your own computer, Giselle is giving me the link to do this, and I’ll post it on the Learning Journals site tomorrow.  It’s time limited so if you want to download it, you need to do it this week.  If you just want to watch it again, just use the YouTube address you used this morning.

The last day of term is Wednesday.  We would be very grateful if you could drop off any cloaks and hats at the front door of nursery.  If you have left clothing/shoes etc you should be able to pick these up.  There is no access for families, to the building, but staff have been hard at work clearing the cloakroom and should be able to locate your belongings for you!  There will be a big box to put graduation stuff in to save having to hand it over!

We are hoping to have some building work done during the holidays,  and our very own human whirlwind- Lynn Wilson- has been masterminding a cleaning and clearing program to get our nursery ready for the workmen.  There will be no access to the building at all for staff either, from Thursday onwards so please collect your things and return graduation kit over the next 2 days!

Thanks for your help with this!

Some people have had socially distanced graduation parties today.  We hope you had fun! This is Josefina’s beautiful cake made by her very clever mummy, Ana! Wow! Delicious!

Monday 22nd June is a very special day for all the pre-school children at Milngavie Early Years Centre.  It’s graduation day and because of the Corona Virus Lockdown, we are not able to celebrate in the school hall with all our friends, as we usually do.

Instead – this year- we are going to watch our wee graduates on a special film specially created from photographs by Giselle Avenier – Emile’s mum.  We hope that we can all sit down in our homes to watch this at 10am and that we will enjoy it apart, but together.  The link for the film will be put on the Learning Journals on Monday morning.  We are doing it this way to avoid it being published in the public domain, in the interests of our children’s  privacy.  It is perfectly ok to download this video or  share the link with grandparents, aunties, uncles etc, but we would ask that no one posts it on Facebook/Twitter/Youtube or any other public social media.

Our wee ante-pre-schoolers might like to watch it to see their friends who are setting off on their big school adventure in August.

I really hope you enjoy the film – Giselle has worked incredibly hard and has made it really special by putting special backgrounds on each of our wee one’s quotes and creating a wonderful wee film which will be lovely to keep, to look back on when they’ve all grown up!

At 11am – Kate P – Eilidh’s mum, has organised a Zoom Disco for us, so we can have a chance for a bit of physical celebration together.  I have put the Zoom address on the Learning Journals Message service so you should receive it in an email .  Any problems – let me know!

Looking forward to a great day tomorrow.  We are so proud of all our children and are thankful that Giselle and Kate P have made it possible to give them a great virtual send off!  Thanks too, to our wonderful keyworkers who delivered all the cloaks, hats and scrolls and the mums and dads who sent in the photos and comments for our Graduation Film.

That is Susan’s big question for today? She and Mr Snappy are ready, if you would like to join in with your own instruments! She’s got a shaker, her home made tambourine and a wooden spurtle and a wooden spoon- though you could use a 2 wooden spoons if you like!Are you ready to listen and play?

At our graduation, we usually sing special songs.  Julie and Angela have recorded some graduation songs for our pre-schoolers to try learning at home.

Click this link to see the video!  https://youtu.be/m0D42i0KWfk

Lynn and Blue the Elephant have had a very educational adventure this week.  Lynn took Blue on the back of her bike and they cycled to Roman Road in Bearsden and discovered an exciting piece of local archaeology.

Lynn and Blue found the remains of a Roman Bath House

Archaeology is when people find out about the olden days by digging in the ground.  Sometimes they find bits of buildings, sometimes they find things that people left behind – like pots, or hair combs or even shoes!  The people who do archaeology are called archaeologists.

About 30 years ago, some builders were digging the foundations to build flats on in Bearsden, when they came across some very old foundations, already in the ground.  They phoned some archaeologists who came along and helped dig and they uncovered something very old and exciting.  They found buildings from nearly 2000 years ago.

2000 years ago, a great big army came from Rome, in Italy to conquer England and Scotland.  They were called Romans.  The North of Scotland was just a bit too

wild for the Romans so they decided to build a big wall right across the country to stop the wild people from coming in.  It was called the Antonine Wall and it went right through Bearsden.  The army that built the wall also built themselves camps to stay in – there were no hotels in Milngavie in those days!

The Romans were quite clean people – they liked to have warm baths after their mucky work of building the wall.  In Bearsden, they built themselves a Bath House.  It had underfloor heating and a steam room and a big bath – not as big as a swimming pool but big enough to let lots of people have a bath together.  They heated the water for the baths and the underfloor heating with a big furnace which worked by burning wood and coal to heat the water.

The Romans were also quite tough people – once they had been in the lovely hot bath, they liked to jump right into a big bath of freezing cold water to cool off.

Brrrr! Blue doesn’t like the idea of a cold bath!

“This would have been a very big bath! I could have had a bath with all my friends at once!” thinks Blue!

Blue loves climbing on the old walls and trying to imagine what it looked like.

Luckily, the archaeologists had left some pictures of what it might have been like.

“What’s a latrine, Lynn?” asked Blue. “Its the word used for camp toilets!” said Lynn.

Yes – the archaeologists even dug up the building where the Roman’s toilets had been.  They discovered they wiped their bottoms on bits of moss.  They even managed to find a 2000 year old sewer that had Roman poo in it and from that they discovered some of the things that Romans ate!!!!  “OOOOH YUCK!  I’m quite glad I’m not an archaeologist!!! ” says Blue.

Blue learned lots about the Romans and their bath house when he looked at the signs. Lynn read the words and together they found out lots of Roman facts.

Maybe you will visit the Roman Bath House yourselves and enjoy exploring the ruins.  It’s open to the public all the time – even at the moment and you can wander in and discover how Romans kept clean!

The address of the site is

8 Roman Court

Bearsden

G61 2HS.

It seems very unnatural – usually by this time we have been preparing our pre-schoolers for the hop to Primary 1 for a whole term.  This year, like everything else, its all different.

Claire has found two excellent stories to read to you

Today is the 20th Anniversary of our school’s Millennium Garden – a favourite place for many of our school community. I wonder if the designers and creators of this wonderful place had any idea of the impact this fabulous resource would have on our school over the years!

This garden was built on the site of an old house, which had belonged to the school and which had the Domestic Science classrooms in it, when our school was Milngavie’s high school.  Later it housed classrooms for the Primary School. Our garden was created, built and paid for by the PTA of Milngavie Primary School and Nursery, families who volunteered, and members of the school staff.

Our school and nursery community would like to thank every single person that helped create this beautiful space, or has helped maintain it over the years.  It needs maintenance and it is only through the hard work of volunteers that it, and also the school orchard, remain exciting and also safe places for our children to play, learn and explore.

 Over the 20 years of its existence, hundreds of nursery and school pupils have enjoyed outdoor learning here.  Frogs are spotted, birds are watched, pine cones collected and still it remains a haven for wildlife- despite the noise we sometimes make when we are out here!

This outdoor classroom has provided an incredibly rich learning environment for our children.   Our pond brings frogs and newts, and a myriad of insect wildlife including dragon flies and water beetles.  The pond evolved originally from the nursery digging pit which our wee ones had very enthusiastically excavated.  We put a pond liner in and created a small but very productive pond which quickly increased the biodiversity in the garden!

2 years ago, we applied for a Tesco Bags Of Help grant to help us pay for wood to replace some of the wood in the hard landscaping which was beginning to rot. This was project managed by our amazing Garden Commitee Chairperson, Anne Madsen, who was also responsible for our Orchard Project in 2016. Raised beds were put in and rotting wood replaced with railway sleepers.  Lots of families came to the gardening days for this project and we had great fun working together to conserve and improve our lovely garden.

Over the last 3 months, Eric, Giselle and Emile Avenier have worked very hard to turn our garden from a bit of an overgrown wilderness, to a beautiful and exciting space to play and learn in. It has been almost a full time job for Eric and Emile, and in that time they have created new wooden railings, built a performance area, built a castle, built a sandpit,  pruned the willow tunnel, cut back literally tons of weeds, brambles and ivy.  Eric also sourced bark from Scotia Tree Services, who kindly delivered 4 loads to us free of charge.  This has been spread over  the garden to create a safe, mud free play surface.  Our garden is now ready for next term when we return in August, with plenty of space to run and play, and exciting new structures to explore.  I really can’t wait to be out there with children again and share in their joy as they make the space their own again! 

The good ship Finn-ready to spark the imagination and sail the seven seas!

Culinary delights happen here! Mud pies a speciality!

Eric working hard, beside the newly tamed willow tunnel.

Emile, spreading new bark in Chateau Avenier- built by Emile and his dad!

Our wonderful sandpit! Maureen kindly set it up to show some of the activities we will enjoy there! Thanks Mo!

Emile looking at a frog that surprised his dad at the top of the wall!

Our garden notice board

Our garden is a magical place! I wonder who might be living here?

Our bark area makes sliding and climbing safer.

Eric tackling a very thorny problem!

Raised beds have even sown with wild flowers. We hope they will be colourful in August.

Herb and flower beds surround the benched area.

Eric climbed high up into the willow to cut and weave the canopy.

New reclaimed wooden fencing! Eric has deconstructed pallets to make this wonderful fence!

Emile loves dancing on our new stage. The blackboard can be used for drawing scenery, or for a bit of group teaching al fresco!

A new crop of pine cones has blown down in last week’s high winds providing lots of maths opportunities!

There are paths to follow and journeys to make in our fabulous outdoor classroom! 

Many, many thanks to our garden’s creators and builders and to everyone who has helped us maintain our amazing garden over 20 happy years! Here’s to the next 20 years! 

Susan and Mr Snappy have sent their latest video for us to join in with! If you’ve got sleigh bells or a shaker, you might like to play along! If not, you can just clap to the music instead!

Lynn and her wee elephant friend have been out exploring in the sunshine! Can you work out where they are-and can you spot Blue hiding in each of the photos?