Milngavie Early Years Centre

We have found quite a few items of clothing with no names in the Nursery.  Please have a look and if you recognise any of the items as belonging to you please can you let a member of staff know and we can put them in their Nursery bags.

One of our boys is missing their jacket it is a Black Puffa Jacket with a furry hood age 4 – 5.  If you discover you have the wrong Black Jacket at home please return it to the Nursery.

Many thanks.

Today in the Nursery it was a very sad day as Caroline our Depute Head of Centre is leaving to move onto pastures new.  We have loved working with her and will all really miss her as will all the children.  We wish her the very best of luck in her new job and her future career.

Today all the children supported the Milngavie Primary School walk to show support for Cop 26.  The children made a shield, flags and banners.  Our Nursery children are learning about caring for the planet and small changes can make a real difference.

Today we had a party to celebrate Halloween in the Nursery.  We had a special treat for snack, played games and did some dancing.  Everyone’s costumes were brilliant even all the staff dressed up and joined in the fun.

Last week we celebrated our lovely Nursery Teacher Kate Cameron’s retirement.

Kate has been a much-loved member of the Milngavie EYC team for over 20 years!

Kate’s warmth, kindness, fantastic sense of humour and extensive knowledge and expertise in early learning and child development has had a huge impact on children, families and staff across the Milngavie EYC community.

We are missing Kate very much already!

Kate would like to thank everyone for being part of her retirement celebration!

We would like to wish Kate all the best for this new exciting chapter and we hope your retirement is filled with fun and happiness!

Take care and keep in touch!

Over the next few months Julie our Family Champion will be working  closely with Keyworkers to consider family learning opportunities based on children’s needs and interests.

Unfortunately due to continued COVID control measures we cannot invite parents to join in the group fun within the EYC (yet!). Instead Julie will post ideas on children’s Learning Journals and  send resources home.

Please remember to look at your child’s Learning Journal regularly.

Our children are really enjoying learning about Autumn, looking outside for signs of Autumn and getting creative with some lovely Autumn inspired arts and crafts.

If you’re going on a family walk at the weekend please take some photographs of signs of Autumn or invite your child to paint/ draw using Autumn colours. You can share their creation with us on their Learning Journal or via the blog!

Parents are often interested in learning more about documents and guidance driving the Early Years sector.

At Milngavie Early Years Centre we use the My World Outdoors (Care Inspectorate, 2016) document to develop high quality outdoor play opportunities. This document is targeted at the Early Years workforce however it may be of interest to parents. It is available online – click on the link below to have a look!

https://www.playscotland.org/resources/print/My-World-Outdoors.pdf?plsctml_id=19428

This Friday (22nd Oct) the EYC is supporting Show Racism the Red Card charity’s ‘Wear Red Day’!

We are inviting our children and staff to dress in red and/ or wear red accessories to show their support.

Children will take part in discussions and activities that celebrate diversity and promote equality, respect, fairness and empathy for all.

Show Racism the Red Card is the UK’s  largest anti-racism and anti-discrimination charity, promoting the key message that there is no place for racism or discrimination in our society.

For more information visit –

http://www.theredcard.org

October is always exciting in nursery.  The days become crisper and lots is happening in our garden and orchard which is fun to learn about.  Autumn is a highly sensory season and we will have great fun exploring the colours, scents, foods and temperature of the new season.

Our Author of the Month for October is Valerie Thomas – the creator of the wonderful Winnie the Witch.  Her stories are great fun and her illustrator – Korky Paul – makes the books able to be read countless times and there still be exciting new wee details to notice in the crazy pictures.   The books tie in well with Halloween, and lots of our children are already discussing what they want to dress up as, at Halloween.

We will be having a Halloween Party on Friday 29th October in Nursery  and the children that attend on a Friday are welcome to dress up to come to nursery if they wish.  This is completely optional and not everyone wants to – every year we have 2 or 3 children who just want to dress up as themselves.  This is absolutely fine! If your child is dressing up, please make sure they are not too gory or scary – our staff scare very easily!!!!

This year, due to Covid restrictions we cannot invite children who do not normally attend on a Friday.  We are sorry about this and hope it may be different next year.

We are starting our Word of the Week and Makaton Sign of the Month this week.  This is part of Word Aware – an Early Years Initiative to extend our children’s vocabulary.  Our word this week is “Adventure” and it is also the sign of the month too.  We will be sharing Winnie the Witch’s adventures this week and more than likely having some of our own.

I am starting out on a big adventure myself this month.  I have been Nursery Teacher at Milngavie for 20 very happy years and I am retiring next week.  I have loved my job – I have been fortunate to have been part of the lives of hundreds of wonderful wee people over my career and also got to know their lovely parents and families.  I have had really exceptional, crazy colleagues, over the years and I know I am really going to miss them, and the children terribly.  I am looking forward to spending more time with my grandchildren and meeting my mates for lunch!

Nursery will be closed this Friday – 8th October – for a staff In-service Day.  We are open again on Monday and will be open throughout the school’s  October Week holiday.  Happy holidays to everyone who is going away!!

Our School and Nursery Sustainability Committee have organised an Orchard Fun Day for this Sunday – 3rd October from 1pm to 3pm.

There are lots of exciting activities to enjoy for all the family.  These include:

Workshops from The Little Foragers Kitchen, where you can learn how to make healthy sweets, identify edible wild food and learn about their health benefits.

Apple Juicing- Have a go at making fresh apple juice using an Apple Press.  We would welcome any donations of eating apples from fruiting apple trees.

Insect Crafting Activities

Rounders and Sports Games on the Pitch

Take Part in our Orchard Survey

Re-wrap it Stall- pick up a re-usable food wrap from the Re-wrap it stall – (please pay in cash!)

And hopefully some live music and cake too!! We hope you can come along and join in the fun!

Our orchard is a really special place- this year lots of effort has gone into planting hundreds of  new plants to encourage biodiversity and over the summer, the orchard was absolutely teaming with wildlife.  Maintaining this wonderful resource for our school and nursery is a lot of work and we really appreciate the time that our volunteers put in.  Eric and Charles have spent many hours cutting the grass, so our children can use the area to play in, and Anne has spent a lot of time and energy creating plants for us from cuttings and filling our orchard with an amazing array of colourful plants.  Volunteers are crucial to our orchard-  we are very aware of  the need to encourage new orchard helpers to keep this fabulous resource for our school and our community beautiful and productive.  Please consider coming along to our Fun Day and to the Orchard Working Days – they are good fun and there are always jobs for volunteers of all ages and abilities making it a perfect family activity. Helping our planet and having fun working together are very worthwhile things to teach our children.

Many thanks to everyone who has paid their Treat Fund Contributions.  This is very much appreciated.  Our Nursery Treat Fund is very important – the money parents donate, allows us to provide special snacks each day, on top of the basic fruit and milk.  The children enjoy bagels, crackers and cheese, cereals, toast, breadsticks etc and it also provides the special food for parties, our Burns Supper and special celebrations.   Treat Fund is also the source of funding for the Birthday Book and Christmas Present each of our children receive.  It allows us to buy special resources for science experiments and plants, seeds and compost for our garden and outdoor area.  It also funds our baking activities.  In short, it makes our nursery a much better place!

We would be very grateful for your contributions for the first term.

The suggested donation is 50p per day.  For a child who attends every day this works out at £2.50 per week.

There are an average of 20 days nursery per month, which would be £10.

Treat fund can be paid termly

August to November – £40

December to March – £40

April to July – £40

Or £120 for the whole year.  Please hand in the money to nursery in an envelope with your child’s name on it and any cheques made payable to Milngavie Nursery Fund.

If your child does not attend each day, please feel free to calculate your contribution and adjust it accordingly.

WE VERY MUCH APPRECIATE THE DONATIONS PARENTS MAKE TO THE TREAT FUND.  MANY THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!