Milngavie Early Years Centre

These photos show all the fun things we did when learning about apples with Elisabeth.  We watched a video about Johnny Appleseed and Elisabeth even got into the spirit of the story by wearing a saucepan on her head – just like Johnny!  We looked at the orchard apple trees and saw the blossom – every flower has the potential to turn into an apple if the bees have pollinated it.  We enjoyed dissecting the apple and we also ate quite a few too.  We found out there are many, many different kinds of apples and that apples grow in lots of different places in the world, including Scotland.     We made apple prints which showed that the pattern of the seeds in the core, when cut sideways, makes the shape of a star.

On Wednesday afternoon the Newts group were given the apple seed challenge.  They watched a story about a man called Johnny Appleseed, who spread apple orchards in America.  Then they went outside to look at the apple trees in the orchard and Elisabeth told them how bees and butterflies pollinate the flowers, which then grow into fruit.  We dissected apples and found the seeds and finished off with some apple printing- finding a star inside every apple.

On Tuesday morning the Newts group were given the land art challenge.  Make a huge art installation from a big pile of willow!  The Newts rose to the challenge and worked as a team to create a huge tree, with roots, a trunk and lots and lots branches!  Brilliant work Newts!  They celebrated at the end of the challenge with a big group hug!

Last week one of our active learning activities was to hunt for as many worms as we could find in a square metre of ground in the orchard.  Our original plan was to weigh and measure each worm and record it on our list, but this turned out to be a bit too tricky.  The worms were wriggly and wouldn’t lie still beside our ruler to be measured, and most of them were too light to register on our scales. In the end we counted the worms and put them all on the scales together – 101 grammes of wriggly squigglers!!!   This group found 30 worms!!  Maybe they are going to win the Worm Championship Prize!! Great hunting!

We are starting the week with an exciting first – today Angela and Maureen are taking their first group of children to Barloch Moor for a Forest School session.  They are armed to the teeth with tarpaulins, ropes and all manner of fab outdoor things, and, despite the rain, it is going to be awesome.    We are hoping to have some photos of what goes on, soon!

On Tuesday morning and Wednesday afternoon we are continuing our Joint Active Learning project with Primary 1.  Last week was great – we had beautiful weather and we found worms and lots of insects.  We dissected apples and found apple seeds and created a huge tree and a huge spiders web from willow branches on the football pitch.  We all change activities this week so we have a chance to try everything on offer by the end of the project.

We are getting our garden and outdoor area ready this week for the big Orchard Opening on Saturday Morning.  This takes place at 10.35am just before the PTA’s Spring Fayre.  Our guest of honour, Linda Murphy will be cutting the first ribbon and Caroline McElney and myself are having the honour of cutting the ribbons to the other two gates.  As this is the only time I’ll ever have the chance to help open anything, I am really, really excited!  Please come along and keep fingers and toes crossed for a beautiful day.  The PTA have got an amazing Fayre planned- it is their main fund raising event of the year.  Please come along and support it – The PTA in our school are fantastic – they raise money for activities and resources which enhance our school and nursery and make Milngavie Primary a place of learning second to none!

On Thursday we are tidying up our garden and outdoor area, ready for the big opening on Saturday.  We are going to plant the strawberry plants from the cold frame in pots and put them in our polytunnel – we might even get strawberries before the end of term.

On Friday we are having another visit from Susan and Mr Snappy.  Last week we were listening to beautiful music and being fish in an aquarium.  Susan even played it for our fish and we all thought they looked as if they were really enjoying it.

Friday evening brings the social event of the year – The Milngavie Nursery Night Out – 8-12pm at the Fraser Centre.  Tickets are available in the Nursery Hall.  Please come along and bring your friends – its BYOB and is always a wonderful night and a great chance to catch up with old friends and meet new ones.  Many thanks to our lovely mums for organising it for us.

SATURDAY – SCHOOL SPRING FAYRE AND ORCHARD OPENING! 10.35AM – 1PM

What a busy week!

Autism is a condition that affects a percentage of our children every year. It is a condition that can range from mild to very severe and it affects the lives of everyone who is close to it.   Everyone knows someone who lives with Autism, but it is very difficult to define or explain – especially to children.  Julie found this amazing video which explains very simply what autism is and how it affects people.  We are really grateful to her for sharing it with us.  See what you think!

https://www.facebook.com/aimediaAUS/videos/10154777513669220/

Today, Valerie- the green fingered member of our team, helped the children plant up the sunflower seedlings we had left. We are going to put them at the front of the nursery in a really sunny place and see how big they grow! Oscar also likes gardening and he and Scott were Valerie’s special helpers today.  Scott was wearing a rather handy pair of glasses to nursery today which, he said,  helped him to see extra well!   He was very handy too, when it came to tying the knots on the string for the hanging baskets!  Looking good boys!

Kate, the not so green fingered member of the team, had a nice session of planting in the new polytunnel with Lauren, Arav and James. We planted salad leaves and pumpkin seeds and we asked lots of our friends to help water them in. We also watered the new plants in the herb garden. We forgot to take the camera- oops!!!

Lots of creativity today- exploring paint and squirty bottles, painting with twigs, grass and leaves, creative role play in the willow tunnel and  a chance to gather big bunches of bright yellow dandelions, enjoy the colour and their distinctive smell.  Lots of time to enjoy watching creatures in our pond, work outside under our new colourful sails or just chat with friends at our new picnic tables- our garden is a very beautiful place at this time of year!

Last week we rediscovered a construction resource called ‘Acrobats’.  In the past we had often used the pieces to make beautiful crowns but today, the emphasis was on team work, and building the longest acrobat chain it was possible to build.  Ellis, Scott and Dexter were keen to build one that went all the way up to the ceiling.  Valerie kindly supplied the ladder and the human support necessary for this superhuman feat.

Aimee, Eilidh and Millie concentrated on maximising the length of their chain and it stretched all the way from the book corner to the sand tray, and beyond!

In both projects, the team work orchestrated by the children was impressive and there was lots of chat using the language of height and length! Great work!

Good morning!  It’s a beautiful day after a lovely weekend and we are looking forward to a fabulous week at nursery.  At the weekend, the volunteers working on the orchard project put up the fixings for our colourful sails, which will give us cover at the side of our nursery.  They are so good we now think we need them for the other side too!!  Our lovely wee picnic benches are assembled too and the willow tunnel has had a radical hair cut!  We can’t wait to get outside today!!  Our mud kitchen is  brilliant and Maureen has been introducing boxes of interesting ingredients for us to experiment with.  This week at homebase time we are doing a bit of drawing and writing for our special folders.  It is lovely to see how children’s drawing develops over the time they are with us, another benefit of having our children for two years and watching them grow!

On Tuesday and Wednesday we are starting our Active Learning Project with Primary 1 in the orchard- just our pre-schoolers are involved in this and we are hoping to be lucky and have lovely weather.

We now have a fully operational polytunnel and the nursery have been given the huge job of planting the very first crops in it.  We already have our beans growing and this week are going to be adding lettuce, mixed salad leaves and pumpkins to the list.

Our caterpillars have now gone into a chrysalis state – really exciting!  We will be making sure they get peace and quiet and no shoogling to let them develop into butterflies without any stress!  The wee ladybird larvae are not nearly as dramatic and, as we are not sure what to expect, we are still watching them carefully.

On Friday we are looking forward to another session of Snappy Sounds with Susan.  I wonder what Mr Snappy will have for us this week?

A week of outdoor adventures this week, enjoying and learning about all the things happening in our garden.