Milngavie Early Years Centre

Good morning- we have another busy, fun packed, week of  learning ahead in nursery.  We are looking at signs of Sping, which are suddenly all around us.  There was great excitement  this morning when we spotted a deer in the orchard!  Frogs are regularly seen in the garden – who knows what else we will see today!?

Our SFA coaching session is on today for our pre-school children.

On Wednesday – green and yellow am groups are going to the gym, and all our pm sessional children.

On Friday our Forest Kindergarten sessions are taking place on Barloch Moor for the children who went last Friday.  We were lucky – the weather stayed dry and we had great fun setting out our boundaries and exploring the woods.  Fingers crossed for another lovely day on Friday.  Please could we dress warmly with extra socks, gloves and hats as the weather is still chilly and hours of being outside require layers of warm clothing!

Our learning focus this week is on number recognition – numbers 1-5.  We will be displaying numbers in all areas of the nursery, matching the numbers first, and learning their names, then going on to number washing lines where we can practise sequencing them.  Although some of our children can do this, it is always good to consolidate our knowledge and really embed good number knowledge and we are going to have fun doing it!

Word of the week, this week is “Environment”

It is forecast to be a nice day and we are playing out in the garden.   Last week we had a really great time outside – we found a frog, did lots of climbing and built amazing things with tyres and sticks.  We have been aboard our currently unnamed boat, and it is really great for climbing, jumping and imaginative play.  We would be very grateful if you would enter our NAME THE BOAT Competition, to give our boat a name.  There is a box for suggestions in the hall and entries cost £2 each – all proceeds go to the renovation of our playboat!!  The winner will get to officially launch our boat and unveil their chosen name!!

We also have a wonderful new sofa in the book corner – thanks to Laura, Charlie’s mum, who very kindly gave us a really solid, immaculate leather sofa.  Thanks to, to Eric and his friend, who Emile calls Coco Bee, for bring it from Charlie’s house to our nursery.  It was a tough job as it is very big, and heavy, and comfortable!!  We are looking forward to lots of snuggly stories in the book corner!

Eric and Richard also worked incredibly hard last weekend, chopping down the trees which were blocking all the light from our nursery playrooms.  It has made an amazing difference and we now have lots of big logs to use as stepping stones and building materials.  Many, many thanks for all your hard work Eric – you are an absolute star!!

This week we are starting on Monday with SFA football coaching for our pre-school children. Wednesday is gym day for our morning Orange and Red Groups and our afternoon sessional children.

On Friday we are meeting Twiggle and his friends again,  for more fun chat about how to manage our emotions, in another PAThS session.

Last week, pupils from Douglas, Boclair and Bearsden Academies gave our boat a facelift.  She is now a safe and functional playboat – all she needs is a name.

The materials for renovating the boat were expensive- a total of £195.86.  We are hoping to raise enough money to pay this by holding a competition to think of a good name for our wee boat.

The winner, not only gets their chosen name on the boat, but will be invited to christen the boat with a plastic bottle of bubbly!  It costs £2 to buy a ticket and you can buy as many tickets as you like so all the family can take part!!

The winning name will be drawn out of a hat by Mr Graham.  Good luck!!!

We are all ready for another fun filled week in nursery!  Our new focus of study is Numeracy and we are starting by counting – learning to recite the sequence of numbers and also counting physical objects.  We have lots of fun activities which help us practise  and extend these skills in every area of the curriculum.  Later on we will be working on recognising the number symbols, but initially our focus is on counting physical objects so children have a solid understanding of what numbers are used for, and mean.   It would be great if you could practise counting at home too- asking your wee one to find a number of objects is a good way to gauge your child’s understanding of counting.  Children are often quite skilled at reciting the numbers and even recognising the symbols, but don’t make the connection between the abstract and the physical, so can’t count accurately.  Happy counting!

On Monday we our pre-school children have another session with the SFA Football coach in the gym.

On Wednesday morning Green and Yellow Groups will be going to the gym.  Our afternoon children will also be going to gym.

Last Friday, due to Susan coming for an extra session last week, we missed our PAThS session, so this will happen this Friday.  Twiggle is going to help us explore our different feelings, and help us begin to develop strategies to manage them- in a fun and child-friendly way!

If you have any good ideas for counting games or know great number songs you could share with us, we would be very grateful for your input in our planning.

We would love to receive reviews of our Chatterboxes, Story Bags and Weekend Pet Bags, so if your child has had one of these we would love to  hear what you think.  My email address is KCameron@milngavie.e-dunbarton.sch.uk.  We will put these in our Language and Communication Friendly Environment Evidence folder.  Many thanks!

Many, many thanks to Laura – Charlie’s mum- who has very kindly offered us an amazing 4 seater leather couch for our reading corner.

We now have to arrange to transport it to nursery – Lynn and I brought our last one here on the back of her pick up truck, but our new couch is much bigger and really needs a van.

If you could help us – we would be very grateful indeed and will come and help lift it in and out.  Please phone the nursery and speak to Kate!

Welcome back to a very short week!  We hope you had a great half term break!  The ladies were back in yesterday, working on their Language and Communication Friendly Nursery evidence folder.  We would be really delighted if any parents would be prepared to have a look at it for us and see if there is anything they think we could add in the way of evidence.  We would also love some written comments on how you feel the Chatterboxes, the Story bags or the Weekend Pet Bags impact on your child’s communication skills.

This week we are talking about our holidays in our groups and on Friday, in our PAThS session, we are going to talk about our feelings, and how feelings can be changed.

We are looking for donations of plastic bottles – our student, Seoinad, is going to do some planting in the polytunnel and is combining this with raising our children’s awareness on the importance of re-using plastic.  Any size of plastic bottle will be gratefully received.

We are also on the lookout for a new settee for our story corner – if you know of anyone who is getting rid of one, we would be really happy to arrange to pick it up and give it pride of place in the book corner.

Today the weather is warmer and nice and sunny – just perfect for outdoor play.  Also perfect if you happen to be working on a boat in the school garden, as a group of 6th Year pupils from Douglas, Boclair and Bearsden Academies, are doing today.  They are working towards  a Mark Scott Leadership for Life Award.

The Award is inspired by the life of Mark Scott, a 16-year old schoolboy who was murdered in 1995 in an unprovoked sectarian attack. In response to this tragic event, Mark’s parents, Niall and Judith Scott, established The Mark Scott Foundation in 1996 to help young people to develop their talents.

After a few years, the Trustees of The Mark Scott Foundation decided to develop and focus exclusively on The Mark Scott Leadership for Life Award. Through the Award the Foundation helped to bring together young people often separated by different backgrounds, sectarianism, racism or territorialism. Since 1998, more than 2,300 young people have taken part in and benefited from the Award.

The Mark Scott Leadership for Life Award brings together over 170 S6 pupils from 55 schools across the Central Belt of Scotland.  The participants are drawn from different social, economic, religious and cultural backgrounds, to work together to deliver projects to benefit their local communities. The innovative combination of an outdoor learning, residential and urban community based project helps to break down barriers that exist within our communities, supports young people to develop their confidence and provides them with the skills and attributes needed in transition to further education, training and employment.

We are very lucky to have a dedicated, enthusiastic wee team of volunteers, who look set to transform our old boat into a great climbing area, and imaginative play venue for our children.  They are accompanied by Dave – from the Outward Bound Trust, who is there to see how the young people organise and carry out the project.   One of the young men – Jack Weir – actually is a former pupil of the nursery and the school, and we are delighted to see him again, all grown up and working hard to improve his community.

Our SFA Football Coaching is on today, both morning and afternoon – for our pre-school children.

On Tuesday we welcome back Elisabeth Taylor, who has been on maternity leave with baby Patrick for the past year.  Tuesday is also Chinese New Year – we will be learning about the animals of the Chinese Zodiac and talking about the Year of the Pig.  We are also making a dragon to take on a dragon dance round the school to bring good luck and prosperity to our school community.  Kung hey fa choy everyone!!!

Wednesday is gym day – Red and Orange groups today!!!

On Friday we are looking forward to an exciting musical workshop with Susan and Mr Snappy!   I wonder what he’ll have in his back pack this week!

On Tuesday 5th we welcome back Mrs Elisabeth Taylor, who has been on maternity leave this year and is returning to work. Welcome back Elisabeth!!!

Claire Dishon, who has been standing in for Elisabeth, is leaving us for a secondment at Castlehill Nursery.  We would like to thank her for all her hard work and wish her good luck in her new post.  We are also hoping that she might just return to us when the new jobs for our extended hours posts are advertised.  Claire has been a great team member, and is very popular with staff and children alike- we are going to miss her.

Claire’s last day with us is Monday 4th February – we wish her all the very best and hope to see her again soon!

This afternoon was gloriously sunny, so we took the opportunity to take the afternoon children down to the precinct to check out the new playpark.  We enjoyed trying out the new castle and looking at all the fun levers and gears, and places to look through.  We really liked the talking flowers!  Although some of our wee ones found it hard to reach the high up binoculars, the general concensus was that the new playpark gets a big thumbs up from the afternoon crew!!