Milngavie Early Years Centre

Dates for Your Diary 2019-2020

Noted below are some important dates for your diary which we hope will be useful

(Please note – these may be subject to change)

Our Parents’ Information Evening  this Thursday Evening is a chance for our parents to have a look around nursery and find out what we get up to.  There will be a short Curriculum Presentation with information on our Learning Journals, and also a talk about the forthcoming 1140 hours and how they will be implemented and provided in our nursery.

Our Aiken Drum show has been fully funded by the wonderful fundraising tea party we had in the last term of last year.  Claire Forbes very kindly organised this for us and raised money for a special treat for the children.  Our last year’s pre-school children will also be there and we can enjoy the Bear Hunt together.

Our Magic Show on 31st October is also a joint Nursery/P1 event.  The cost to attend this is £3 per child.  If your child does not normally attend on a Thursday Morning, you are still welcome to bring them along for the show – though you will need to stay and enjoy it with them!! There is no cost for adults who bring their children along.  Gary Dunn is a very funny magician and his show is always full of great fun and laughter.  As it is taking place on Halloween, our children are welcome to have a dress up day, if they like.

At Milngavie ELC, we are very keen to make our parents feel as welcome in our nursery, as our children.  You are partners in your children’s learning and we want this to be reflected in the opportunities you have to take part in the life of our nursery.

We have scheduled Stay and Play sessions and also a new intiative – Families Connect , where Lynn will be providing some really fun learning activities for parents and children to share.  We have Tea and Talk sessions, where parents can access advice on aspects of child development and positive parenting.  Julie, our family champion, has years of experience and is mum to two sons – so she is the perfect person to chat to, if you need a wee bit of support or advice.

We also have a Parents Focus group where we invite parents to come in and have a cuppa with us, and give their advice and opinions on aspects of the service we provide.  In the past we have had invaluable advice from parents on a wide range of issues,  and have had help reviewing our policies and our Vision, Values and Aims for our centre.  We hope to continue this over this coming year and would be very grateful if you would get involved, to help us make sure our nursery is what our parents and children want, and get.  We realise that not everyone will be able to come in to nursery – our parents have many commitments and not everyone wants to participate.  We will therefore be putting out a nursery questionnaire to canvas your opinions and ideas about our service and the experience your child has at our nursery.

We are always interested in hearing parents opinions – if there is something we could improve on, or if there is something we have done well, it is always possible to leave a comment on the blog or Facebook page.  Or if you prefer, you can tell us when you are in dropping off or picking up your wee one.  You can phone us on 0141-955-2253 or email our Depute Head of Centre, Caroline at CMcMenemy@milngavie.e-dunbarton.sch.uk

Thursday is SFA Football Coaching Day for our pre-school children.  This week, it is also the last nursery day this week.  Friday and Monday are our half term holiday, and we are also closed on Tuesday for a Staff Inservice Training Day.

Our Nursery Lunch this Thursday is Fish and Chips – a change to the menu.

We would like to wish all our nursery families a very happy and relaxed September Weekend!  See you on Wednesday!

Our Book of the Month for October is Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson.  Fiona and Kate – our nursery’s literacy champions – will be exploring the story throughout the month with the help of books, puppets and animation.  We also be listening to the wonderful musical score for the stage show of Room on the Broom, by René Aubry.

We will be looking at the characters in the book, their emotions throughout the story, the plot of the book and the amazing pictures and enjoying the rhyming words which make the story so special.  Room on the Broom is a great story for exploring good and evil and provides the opportunity for us to talk about how we should treat other people.

We even have a Scots version of Room on the Broom so we will be learning the names for all the different animals in the “Guid Scots Tongue” too.

Our Word Aware Word of the Week is displayed in the hall.  Throughout October the words will come from Room on the Broom.  This week’s word is “Search”.  We will be talking about things that we search for and going on number and character searches in the garden to explore what it really means to search.

Our Makaton sign of the month is Good Morning- we have been trying it out before we sing our Days of the Week signing song at group time.

Room on the Broom – our Book of the Month

Our Word of the Week and Sign of the Month signs in the Nursery Hall

We are starting our new Family Learning sessions on  Tuesday 29th October at 10.30am in the Nursery and they will take place on consecutive Tuesdays thereafter.  Lynn Wilson, our Senior Early Years Practitioner will be running the sessions which will involve both parents and children. Lynn has been on training from Save the Children, who are sponsoring Families Connect across Scotland.  These sessions will give parents the opportunity to discuss and experience the type of fun activities we use in nursery, which are designed to develop our children’s numeracy and literacy skills.

We are keen to provide activities in nursery for parents to come in and work together with their child, and we hope that you find these experiences informative and great fun too.

If you would like to take part in this, please let Lynn or Caroline know. Everyone is very welcome.

Tomorrow morning, at 10.30am we are having a bit of a do, to celebrate the opening of our fabulous new playhouse.  Our very special guest is Mr Eric Avenier – the architect, project manager, procurer of materials and builder of our lovely wee house.  We are celebrating the special occasion with a special cake and some fizz (mineral water of course!)

If you are not busy and would like to see Eric cutting the ribbon to officially open our playhouse, we would be delighted to invite you in to the celebrations, in our playground.  It is a chance for us all to thank Eric for the many hours of thought, planning and hard work he has put into creating something really special for us.

Here are some photos of the build – you will be amazed at the transformation!

The roof is on!

Look what Emile’s dad, Eric. is building for us in our playground!

Building the frame

For some time now we have been cycling with dodgy or flat tires – our bikes have really not been at their best!

Last week though, David – Izzie’s dad – very kindly offered to get the replacement inner tubes we desperately needed, and spent all Friday morning getting all our bikes up to a good standard again.  It was really kind of him to do this for us and we all really appreciate it – especially the children who cannot believe how fast the bikes can go now!!!

We are looking forward to a lot of Play on Pedals activities in the next few months and are planning to create a wee bike track around the outside of the new Muga, in the orchard.

Our newly repaired, and ready to go, bikes! Thanks to David!!!

What’s on?

It’s Monday again, and we have a busy week ahead in Nursery.  On Monday, we have our gym sessions in the Infant Gym.  At group time this week we are looking at our Nursery rules and thinking what we think they should be. On Thursday, our pre-school children are having SFA football coaching. Friday is Snappy Sounds music day!

Collection of Art Work/correspondence and our Session Times

A wee reminder to check your child’s group drawer for any works of art or correspondence.  All letters etc are put in the drawers for collection by parents, this includes party invitations etc too.  A gentle reminder too, about session times – our morning sessional children are welcome from 8.40 am till 11.50am  and our wee afternoon people, from 12.50 till 4pm.  We respectfully ask if parents could be prompt for pick up times as it can be upsetting for wee ones to be kept waiting.  At lunchtime, our staff lunch break starts at 11.40 and if staff are kept late, it has a knock on effect for our afternoon session.

Juliana’s Cuddle Corner

Juliana has found a lovely new use for our look-out post – she has made a cosy, wee corner where anyone feeling a bit wobbly can have a cuddle from one of the special bears in the basket.  Juliana involved the children in the creation of the corner, talking with them about their teddies and getting them to draw lovely pictures of their own special bear, which she has put up in the corner in frames.  The first few weeks in a new environment are sometimes a bit daunting for our wee ones, and we want to let them know that it is ok to miss your mum, and that cuddles are always available.

A cosy wee place to wave to mum/dad, and if required, to have a teddy cuddle.

The children’s drawings of their teddies are wonderful!

Last week Maureen cleared the pond weed which was smothering our wee pond and spotted some interesting wee inhabitants.  Today she got the nets and viewing jars out and took the children out to do a bit of pond dipping.  There was great excitement when the children found tadpoles that were still developing, and also – tiny little NEWTS!!!!!  If you haven’t seen a newt before, they look like wee amphibious lizards.  Baby newts are even more exciting as they have gills that look like wings and they look a lot like a tiny baby dragons!!!  To our knowledge – this is the first time that newts have mated and produced eggs in our pond.  We are really looking forward to seeing how they grow up.

Having a close up look at our wee newts

We found tadpoles and baby newts in our pond.

We used wee nets to investigate what was living at the bottom of the pond

We really enjoyed pond dipping!

Some of us decided to draw the creatures that we found.

There was lots of excited conversation round the pond today.

We put the tadpoles and newts into viewing jars so we could see them clearly.

We are really excited about the things we have seen – we are going to find out lots more about newts!

This term we have new members of staff  and  lots of new children.  Here are some staff pictures to help our new wee ones and our new parents learn who

Eileen Canning is our nursery’s Makaton Champion. She also is developing loose parts play- sourcing lots of interesting items for our children to investigate and extend their creativity with.

Pam Cameron – investigating the natural world. Pam is our Real Tools Champion and will be manning the workbench soon for some creative woodwork adventures.

Claire Dishon – our Eco Champion and promoter of Global Citizenship – loves a bit of recycling and enjoys the outdoor environment!

is who. More staff photos will be posted later this week!

Angela Philip, our Forest School champion!! Loving the great outdoors! Angela has been fully trained in delivering Forest Kindergarten and takes groups to Barloch Moor to explore wildlife on our doorstep, expand our knowledge about visiting wild spaces and foster a love of being outdoors!

Juliana Conti – helping the children to prepare snack! Juliana is going to be our Play on Pedals champion this year and also work on the creation of Floor Books- helping our children plan and document their own learning.

Julie Bannerman – our family champion. Julie can give advice on aspects of parentlng using Five to Thrive and nurturing approaches.