Milngavie Early Years Centre

On Monday I took a wee group out to water the polytunnel.  We were all amazed by how well our lettuces, pumkin plants and strawberries had grown,and delighted to see bean pods on our bean plants.  We had sown the seeds for two of our lettuce beds ourselves and they are just amazing.  We were given more seedling lettuces from the kind people in Milngavie in Bloom and they have been fantastic too.  Next week we will harvest our lettuces and if you would like to buy some we would be delighted to sell you them.  All money raised will go towards new seeds for our next crop!  The children love watching plants grow and the polytunnel reduces the time it takes to see this happening.  We always have great fun doing the watering and if it is really warm in there, which it usually is – we like to water ourselves as well!

Going through the ipad this morning, I found some photos of the trip.  It looks great fun and I’m so sorry I missed it – though the bus fiasco did sound a wee bit stressful!  The children’s faces in the photos give their verdict on the day- wonderful!

Graduation day – Tuesday

This week we are having our graduations for our wee ones going to school.  If your child is graduating and doesn’t usually come on a Tuesday, please could you bring them to the nursery at 10.50 so we can all go over together.   We are holding our celebration in the Infant Gym and doors open at 11am.    The graduation starts at 11.15.  We have been practising our songs and are almost ready to go!

Our boat is here!

On Friday Pam took delivery of our boat, which we are going to make into a fab sandpit.  We are going to revarnish it over the summer get it ready for next term.  We love it!  We are looking forward to hoisting the sail and sailing off on lots of imaginary adventures!

Nursery Sports

Fingers crossed for a lovely day on Friday – it’s nursery sports day!  This exciting event takes place in the nursery playground.  The morning sports starts at 11.00 am and the afternoon sports starts at 3.10 pm.  Come along and see your wee future olympic medal winner in action!  There will, of course, be a mums’ and dads’ race so wear your trainers and come and win a medal.

This is our last full week of nursery – we finish nursery next Wednesday for the summer.  We are tidying up and enjoying our lovely new playhouse.  Today we are putting the lovely new ikea kitchen together.

A big thank you to Aaron’s mum Jan, for the lovely new cushions and afternoon tea set for our playhouse.  It is going to be the smartest wee hoose in Milngavie!!

Aren’t we so lucky!!! This dinky little fairytale house is now in the school garden! Katie was here for the delivery and installation of it on Tuesday, and today Katie and I gave it a protective coating of decking oil- designed to extend the life of the wood and keep it looking beautiful.  We also put a CCTV warning sign on and a big padlock on the door to deter any vandals.  The children can start to play in it tomorrow- a happy and exciting prospect!  Katie also has plans for solar powered lights and some new furniture and curtains to make it really homey!  It fitted perfectly on the base built for the old one and looks as if it has always been here.  Just perfect!!

The cutest wee house there ever was!

Katie- protecting the wood with decking oil.

Our CCTV system which watches over our new playhouse, shed, polytunnel and orchard.

This morning the pre-school children went to gym.  Afterwards they played out in the Infant Playground to see what happens at playtime in Primary 1.

This afternoon is the second induction day for Primary 1’s going to Milngavie Primary.  All our pre-schoolers are looking forward to going back to spend time in their classrooms.

Tomorrow morning we are going to visit the Active Learning Zone in the infant department to see what else happens in Primary 1.

This afternoon our new playhouse is arriving and being assembled in the garden.  At the weekend a group of lovely volunteers came along and demolished our old one, so we are all ready for our new one.  If we have a dry afternoon tomorrow we might manage to get it painted.  If you are free and feel like wielding a brush just let us know.  We’ll polish your halo and ply you with tea and biscuits.  A huge thanks again to Mrs Katie Risk who singlehandedly organised the fund raising for our new house!  The CCTV camera will be trained on the new house so hopefully this will be a deterrent against any further vandalism.

Next week we have a really busy time again – Tuesday morning is our graduation for all our pre-school children and next Friday (23rd) is our Sports Day.  Fingers crossed for some nice dry, sunny weather.

Oscar helped water the salad seedlings.

He watered the strawberries too!

We had a very busy afternoon on Tuesday.  A wee group came to help Kate in the polytunnel.  It was very warm and it didn’t take long for us to get our cardies and jumpers off.  Everything needed water – we all took turns to water the salad seedlings, the strawberries, the pumpkin patch and the broad beans.  Kind friends from Milngavie in Bloom had brought us more lettuce seedlings and some strawberry plants.  We got a compost bed ready and planted them in rows.  We had to be careful not to break the tiny wee roots and the children were extremely gentle with them.  Later Millie used the hose to clean the trowels and did a great job- even managing to water Oscar a little in the process. Everyone thought this was hilarious – fortunately- even Oscar!  We are looking forward to watching everything growing over the next 5 weeks and maybe we’ll  be able to supply the whole of Milngavie with salad!

Lauren brought her apple seeds to nursery.

“Let’s plant them,” she said. “We could put the wee trees into the orchard when they grow!”

Aimee got the wee trenches ready to plant the seedlings in. ” I help my grandpa do this!” she said.

Lauren planted her seeds in pots.

Aimee also helped with the watering.

Eilidh, Millie and Lauren did a bit of digging to get the new bed ready for more salad seedlings

The green fingered girls, very busy in the polytunnel

Apologies for the lack of news yesterday – I was a bit partied out after the orchard opening and certainly not firing on all cylinders!

This week we continue our active learning with the Primary 1’s – fingers crossed for dry weather on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Parents consultation times are on Wednesday evening – please sign up in the nursery hall if you’d like a time.

Thursday is a staff in-service day.  We are meeting our new head teacher Mr Gary Graham- our lovely Ms Murphy’s replacement.  It will be a hard job to fill Ms Murphy’s fabulous Louboutin shoes.

We have heard great things about Mr Graham from his previous colleagues, and are really looking forward to meeting him.

Friday 26th and Monday 29th of May are holidays – We wish all our wee stars and their families a lovely long weekend.  We’ll be back next Tuesday!

Sadly, our nursery mums’ night out has been cancelled due to poor ticket sales.  This is a busy time of year and just not enough people bought tickets to make it a viable event.  If you would like your money back, please ask any of the nursery staff and we’ll refund you.

Angela has asked me to say that some mums are now meeting up for a drink at Cyan, tomorrow night at 8pm instead.  If you have booked your babysitter and have been looking forward to a girls’ night,  please come and join in!

Undeterred, Angela is planning another one for sometime in October to help us welcome and get to know our new families.

Nikki helped Eden take her butterflies out of the net.

The butterflies are Painted Ladies, the same as the ones we are watching grow in nursery.

Nikki showed us how to pick them up safely and let us hold them.

The butterflies flew away into the orchard. We saw them later in the day on the flowers. We hope they make our orchard their home

Thank you so much Nikki, Noah and Eden,

Eden brought her mum, Nikki and her wee brother Noah to help her release her butterflies.

for letting us share this lovely experience.

Angela has asked me to ask everyone who is thinking of coming along on Friday night to buy tickets tomorrow.  If you are coming, why not bring your mum, your gran, your aunties and all your best mates too?  It would be such a shame to have to cancel!  We are hoping that perhaps, people are just leaving it to the last minute to buy tickets.  If we haven’t sold enough by Thursday we will have to rethink.  Please check your calendar and phone some friends!