Milngavie Early Years Centre

Today we had an important visitor, Ms Karen Bradley, our Care Inspector. Care Inspections are carried out by the Care Inspectorate every 2 years.  Many thanks to all parents who completed a questionnaire or talked to Karen today.  We will let you know when the report is published and hopefully be able to provide a link to it from the blog.

Gritty, slippy, soft, soapy – all words to describe the mixture of shaving foam and sand, Eileen provided on the malleable play table this afternoon.  This kind of sensory experience is wonderful for promoting children’s descriptive language as they explore the texture and scent of the mix.  It also lends itself to exploring mark making as, as you can see from the photos, you can easily make marks and draw using your fingers.  These girls spent ages exploring this activity – always a seal of approval!

Transport was the choice of the children today for our outdoor area – Maureen got out bikes and cars and asked the children for other suggestions about what they might like.  Here are their suggestions:

In the afternoon, Lucy was outdoors, the drizzle descended, but this did not deter her.  She asked the children to look at the roads beside the nursery and see what markings we might need to make a road.

Yellow and white lines were what was needed said the children, so our intrepid practitioner brought out some white and yellow poster paint and some big brushes!!! Great fun!

We drew the lines with chalk and then painted the poster paint on top.  It worked really well, and despite the rain, which none of the children seemed to notice at all, the lines stayed in place!  We had great fun driving our bikes and cars round our new streets!  I couldn’t help but notice the double yellow line and wonder if Lucy has plans to introduce the Traffic Warden, as part of the ‘Jobs People Do’ in the Social Studies part of our curriculum!!

“Don’t worry -She’ll be fine, Doctor Archie!” says Nurse Robyn

“Hold still, Angela!” says Nurse Robyn

Our hospital was very busy indeed this morning with an influx of very ill patients, all needing urgent attention.   Poor Angela was rushed from A&E into an isolation ward where she had a surgical hat and mask put on, and some very invasive procedures, involving syringes and big spoonfuls of horrible medicine, carried out!  After some excellent nursing from Nurse Robyn and Doctor Archie, she was eventually discharged- all better!

Next patient is our lovely NC Student Christy. It’s very lucky that Dr Lauren has just started her shift and is looking after her!

“Hold very still!” says Dr Lauren, wielding a big syringe.

It was Christy’s turn next to be patched up by the fabulous medical staff.  Dr Lauren had just come on shift and was quick to see she needed swift attention.  It was soon apparent that Christy had broken her arm and, after a big syringe of something helpful, Charlie set about plastering her up!

Emily assists and before too long Christy has a lovely plaster on her right arm.  She looked very relieved to be leaving hospital!

AAAAAH! says Christy, as Drs Charlie and Emily set about her!

All fixed!

On Thursday morning, our Parents’ Focus Group is meeting to discuss how we can improve communication to parents about what children are learning in Nursery.  At present we chart your child’s progress using assessment recorded in your child’s learning journey.  Printing photos – which often are best at showing evidence of learning, is costly and time consuming.  This year,  the PTA have given us CDs to put photos on.  Other nurseries are beginning to use e-journals.  The set up costs for this are very expensive.  We would like your opinion on what you feel would be the best way to keep you informed.  Perhaps you are perfectly happy with what we are currently doing- perhaps you have a better suggestion.  We would really like to hear what you think.  If you can’t attend the meeting but want to comment please fill in a comment form – these are in the nursery hall next to the noticeboard- and hand it to any member of staff!  Many thanks! We hope you will be able to come, have Tea/Coffee and Biscuits and help us plan where we go with this.

A massive thank you to everyone who sponsored our Nursery Rhyme Challenge!  We raised an absolutely phenomenal £565.00!!! This is a huge boost for our nursery fund and will allow us to buy better resources, and help us fund special events that would be outwith our budget normally.  It will allow us to make nursery a more interesting and fun place – many, many thanks.

Look at all the amazing wee  people that came along on Halloween to Nursery.  We had a fabulous day!  See if you can guess who they all are!

This wee girl brought Toto too!

and she was wearing ruby slippers!

A beautiful pumpkin witch!

Here’s Buzz!

A pretty in pink, Paw Patrol puppy!            

and with this one!!!!

The dark force is very strong with this one!                 

Superscary! 2 Darth Vaders! Oliver and Zac!                                                       

Eddie really IS Ironman!

A super Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus from the front – look who it is!!

A lovely pumkin and a wee witch!

A beautiful princess

A wee pumpkin witch

A very glamorous wee witch

Two wee pumpkins who brought mum to see the show!

Mirror, mirror on the wall – Snow White is the most beautiful of all!

Peter Pan with his pixie dust!

A perfect princess

A scary wee Medieval Queen!

A very angelic wee ballerina with her leg warmers on!

A very glamorous wee pirate!

A very pretty, purple princess!

The cutest vampire bat you ever saw!!!

A gorgeous Halloween Pumpkin

A very handsome, scary vampire

Beautiful Belle without her beast!

Charlie the Apple dooker!

A very gorgeous witch who brought her gran to see the show

Fabulous six-pack!

Two Batmen

One wee batman

Flash – Aa, Aa!

Wee Max is looking a bit thin!

Let it Go Elsa! Looking gorgeous!

A smashing wee pumpkin at the Apple Dooking

A princess witch with wonderful black wings!

A beautiful witch in velvet, satin and lace!

‘I see fun ahead!’

Shiver me timbers – a beautiful pirate!

A graceful unicorn with 4 legs and a princess on her back!

Meow! A very cute kitten!

Pretty kitty – the face behind the mask

A pretty, pink witch with fabulous witchy tights!

A handsome, wee superhero who just liked the look of Kate’s hat!!!

A beautiful, spooky spider-fairy!

A terrifying tyrannosaurus rex

Our Halloween Cake Raffle took place on Monday – many thanks to Elisabeth for making such a wonderfully spooky cake.  Many thanks too, to everyone who bought tickets – the raffle raised £70 for our Nursery!!!!

Clare and Finlay kindly agreed to draw the Halloween Cake Raffle for us!

Wow – it’s Millie!!

Millie and her dad were very happy! The cake looked delicious!