Milngavie Early Years Centre

Waterproof suited and Welly booted and ready for an adventure in the woods!

On a damp, overcast Thursday afternoon the yellow and orange groups set off on a woodland walk to look at the changing season in the woods.  We had a think about what we might see in the woods – “We might see a squirrel! said Robyn.  “Maybe a gruffalo!” said Emily – “Or a bear!” said Samuel.

On the way to the woods, we noticed lots of leaves on the pavement – brown, red, green, yellow and orange.  When we reached the wood there was a carpet of them.  We enjoyed the noise they made as we walked on them and kicking them into the air was good fun!

We saw lots of different types of berries in the woods.  “You mustn’t eat them!” said Isla -“They could be poisonous!”  “Birds can eat them!” said Aimee.

Crossing the bridge – we thought there might be a troll but Kate checked and it was safe!

When we reached a clearing we ran about trying to catch leaves that were falling – and also Elisabeth and Eileen who are surprisingly fast runners!

We found a house in a tree we thought might belong to Stick Man and his family. We looked but they didn’t seem to be in!

On our walk we discovered one of the properties of autumn leaves – they can be very slippery.  We had a few wee nose dives but also found that landing on them was quite soft so luckily, no injuries!!!

Walks like this in our beautiful, local area stimulate our children’s curiosity about the natural world and encourage imagination and exploration. We can read books which describe the wonders of autumn, but nothing beats getting out and experiencing the season with friends!

More groups will be out and about tomorrow- fingers crossed for a dry day and maybe even some autumn sunshine!

The new hospital is taking shape – we now have a ward, a nurses station, a waiting area and a hospital canteen.  The role play is fabulous!  Valerie’s observation gives a flavour of what goes on and how much our children already know!

We are learning about the jobs people do, how the body works, what happens in hospital and we are using our own experiences to help further the knowledge of our friends.  Children that have had a stay in hospital enjoy sharing their stories and our children are aware that a hospital is where you go to get better – though you might not think so, when watching some of the brutal treatments carried out in our ward!!

Our morning children really enjoyed their session in the gym with Gary, from Enjoy-a-ball.  They had great fun with the Mr Men game, Finding Nemo and being Buzz Lightyear.  Our afternoon children will have the same experience tomorrow afternoon and we might even manage a photo or 2!

We have now completed our Nursery Rhyme Challenge and everyone was wonderful and got full marks!  If you managed to collect any sponsorship for your child we would be very grateful indeed, if you could hand it in to Nursery.  We will use the money raised throughout the year to subsidise fun activities and events.  Thank you so much for supporting us !

October is seemingly the most active month for head lice.  They seem to love the autumn.  They also love the clean, silky smooth hair and tender scalps of little people,though they are not fussy and will crawl onto anyone they can access.  It is definitely worthwhile checking your child’s scalp when you wash their hair.

Head lice are not something to be ashamed of – they have been on the planet as long as people and they are easily dealt with.  In nursery we are used to looking out for them and quite regularly staff check each others hair, as the instant the subject is raised, we all feel itchy!  If your child does happen to catch them it is useful to let staff know.  We can offer support and can ask everyone to check hair to make sure we don’t keep passing them around.  Wearing long hair up or in plaits helps make life more difficult for the beasties, but boys can catch them too and so can mums and dads!  Bet we have made you feel a wee bit scratchy – for peace of mind, take a peek every week!

If you are not sure of what to look for the following article is very informative.

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1083881/october-peak-head-lice

We are all back from our October break feeling refreshed and ready for all the excitement of the run up to the festive season in Nursery!

On Tuesday morning and Wednesday afternoon, courtesy of our generous PTA, we are off to the gym for our first of 8 sessions of Enjoy-a-ball.

On Thursday and Friday we are taking groups out on Autumn walks in the woods to look at the changing season and enjoy the beautiful autumn colours.  We will take our cameras and post pictures to show you what we see.

This week is also our week for telling spooky stories and learning Halloween songs and poems.  Julie and Annabel are going all Halloweeny in the art area with lots of green, orange and black paint.  Outdoors, Maureen is taking forward the children’s interest in creating an Ice Cream shop, with lots of crazy flavours on the menu.  Mud and slug looks like being a best seller!  Valerie has unwrapped a new Witch’s Cauldron maths game and changed around the materials in our maths area, giving the children lots of new experiences to enjoy.  Angela, Kate and Eileen are canvassing children’s opinions on what should be in Milngavie General Hospital, which will be happening this week in our imaginative area.  Lynn has lots of creepy resources and autumnal artefacts to put in the sand and the water and will be planning Halloween Snack with the children.

Elisabeth is also very busy baking this week.  There will be raffle tickets on sale from Tuesday onwards, giving a chance to win one of Briar Bakery’s AMAZING Halloween Cakes.  All profits from the raffle are going to nursery funds.  Elisabeth’s cakes are legendary!!!

It’s shaping up to being a very busy and enjoyable week!  Please could everyone bring wellies as it is a bit muddy underfoot!

Coen drew an amazing picture for Angela.  It showed the INSIDE  of his body.  He told Angela it was an x-ray- this led to talk of broken bones and what happened when you broke a bone.  Angela found a great video clip of Dr Raj of CBeebies, showing how plasters were put on.   We all enjoyed watching it and learned a lot!   Julie found pictures of her son, Luke who recently broke his arm and actually brought in the outer fibreglass cast of Luke’s plaster to show the children.  We all tried it on!  This led to lots of talk about hospital experiences and Angela asked the children if they would like to make a hospital in Nursery.  Here are the ideas for the things we would need to have.  After the October Holiday we are looking forward to seeing it all take shape!!

On Monday we took the wood work bench outside.  We used wood and nails and tried out our new vice to hold the wood while we hammered.  Look what Murray made!  We thought perhaps he had drawn inspiration from his trip to the church for the harvest festival but were, very secretly, faintly disappointed when he told us his creation was a crossbow!  Murray was super happy with it though,and proudly took it home!

Goggles – a good idea when hammering!

On Lucia and Catherine’s last day with us they brought us  lovely surprises – a big pass-the-parcel box which contained wild flower and sunflower seeds to plant in our orchard, a new till for our cafe from Lucia and a fabulous book by Drew Daywalt called The Day the Crayons Quit, from Catherine.  A huge thank you to both Lucia and Catherine from all of us at Milngavie Nursery, both for their kind, thoughtful gifts and for their hard work on their Nursery Placement.  We wish them both the very best of luck for the rest of their Teacher Training Course and in their future careers.

A big box with a surprise in it! Wow!