Milngavie Early Years Centre

We have another busy week planned in Nursery.  On Monday the yellow and green groups are off to look at another of Milngavie’s amenities – the charity shops.  We are going to find out what they sell, how they get their stock and who receives the money from the sales.  We are also going to revisit the Corby Ha’, Milngavie’s oldest house, and take some pictures, so we can make a model of it for the Milngavie. 

Tuesday – Orange and Blue Groups to the gym.  This morning we welcome visitors from East Dunbartonshire Council who are carrying out a Quality Inspection visit.

Wednesday- Walk round village to see charity shops and Corby Ha’ with the Blue, Red and Orange Groups

 Thursday- Learning Journey day

Friday-Snappy Sounds Music

Many thanks to all the lovely volunteers who came to the garden day yesterday and for Anne for doing her usual, brilliant job of managing us all and organising it.  There was a fantastic turn out, with families coming to help, and we moved and burned and composted an amazing amount of weeds.  The ground was all dug over, ready for the plant a meal project which the P7’s are organising.  By the end of the session the garden looked great!  Everyone worked so hard!  Katie Risk provided an amazing high tea, with delicious sandwiches, cakes etc. (Apologies for the lack of photos of this – it really was incredibly lovely!)  Everyone who came along really enjoyed it and we were very lucky with the weather, which was perfect for gardening.

Our immaculate garden!

Today Fudge become one of our newest recruits to the Infant Pupil Council.  Finn and Murray held his hand as they crossed the road and together with McKenna, they were our nursery Council Heroes.  At the meeting the children discussed how to stop rough games going on in the school playground.  They are going to think of better games that could be played that would be safer and happier for everyone.  The nursery children were given the job of thinking about things we could improve in the nursery and outdoor areas.  Finn and Murray said they liked the garden just the way it was!

The possibility of nursery children visiting the Active Learning Zone to play was discussed and we are going to look into this, initially for the pre-school children, next week.  Fudge thinks this is a great idea!

Thank you to the parents who have returned bricks for Humpty Dumpty with comments about our Learning Journeys.  What has become apparent from the parental response to these, is that not all parents know about our Learning Journeys.  Your child’s folder is kept on a shelf  in the nursery hall, beside the door to the Creativity Zone.  It is a record of some of the work we have done in Home Base Time throughout the year and shows their progress.  Parents are welcome to look at these whenever they like and if you would like to take them home for a longer look, just let your child’s keyworker know you’ve taken it

Learning journeys are arranged with 4 different coloured sections -Blue pages relate to language and literacy, yellow – maths, red- health and well being, and there is a special green section at the back to put achievements and experiences from outside nursery.  You are very welcome to either send in photos to put in this section of things you have done in the holidays etc, or if you prefer, you can take the folder home to put things in with your child. .

The folders are given to the children at the end of their pre-school year as a record of their years at nursery, so anything you put in the folder will be part of this.

Our children love looking at the things they have done- when we asked for the childrens’ 2 stars and a wish for their Learning Journeys, most of their wishes were that they could do more!

Many thanks to Jane and Julie who alerted us to the GroupOn offer which Briarlands Farm are offering today.  I contacted Briarlands to see if we could book our trip through GroupOn as it would, on the face of it, have saved us money.

The lady at Briarlands told me that not enough family tickets were issued to GroupOn to accomodate a group of our size, and that as a Nursery group we got special discounts and inclusive tractor ride as part of our package.  The promotion was designed to encourage more families to try the farm for a family outing.

As we have not booked our buses yet, or firmed up numbers with Briarlands – it would be possible for individuals to book family tickets and travel there themselves, meeting us at the park.  This might be an attractive option for those with younger children who also wish to come.  The responsiblity for booking and organising this would have to be with those choosing to do this – the offer is only available for a day.

Thanks for letting us know – we unfortunately can’t organise our whole trip using the offer, but it might be of interest to some of our parents!

Tuesday is gym day at nursery and this afternoon it was actually warm enough to have our first outdoor gym session of the year.  We went up to the football pitch.  Here we are warming up with the Bean Game.

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We then had great fun with the parachute and played lots of games eventually disappearing completely – it was amazing!

 

We finished off with one of our very favourite games – Duck, duck, goose!

  This morning Lynn brought in some lovely pansy plants to put in pots to decorate our Nursery.  We looked at the different parts of the plant and we saw roots, stems, leaves and flowers.  Lynn explained how important the roots are as a plant uses them to take in its food to make it grow.  After she had very carefully planted these pansies, Cate was asked what else she needed to do to help the pansies grow.  She replied immediately -“They need watered!”  Later in the morning other children planted sunflower seeds.  We are keeping these in nursery until they start growing and then the childen can take them home to grow big over the holidays.

 

Angela put some boats in the water tray and asked the children a question:  “How can we make the boats move without touching them?”

There were lots of ideas:

Lara:  “We could wave things at them!”    Nina:”They will float themselves!”

Ava:  “I don’t know ………maybe blow them!”

Hollie:  “We could blow them!”  Ailsa:”We could use straws”

James:  “You touch them!”

First we used our mouths to blow the boats.  Lara’s boat won the race!

 

Ailsa suggested we use a straw.  We raced our boats using a straw this time.  Ailsa thought blowing with her mouth was better but Lara thought the straw worked best.

  

Euan came over to see what we were doing.  He said,” You need a big puff to make it move it move!”

Angela then asked him “What else could move the boats?”

Euan thought hard, then said “Maybe trees – trees give you oxygen!”  Euan then tried to blow the big boats and discovered that the little boats moved faster.

We are going to continue experiments with moving air throughout the week and look at what air power can do.

After consultation with parents about the Nursery Trip – the feedback we got indicated that parents were willing to pay more to go to a paying venue for the trip this year.  The most popular suggestion was Briarlands Farm Park, Stirlingshire. This does mean that the cost of our trip will be substantially higher this year- £18 for a parent and child to travel together on the bus and go to the farm park.  The entry fee includes a trip on a tractor ride around the farm- there are lots of animals to visit and fun things to do.  For more information on all the attractions, please visit http://briarlandsfarm.co.uk/

All nursery children are welcome to come on the trip, even if Wednesday is not their regular day.  They will of course need to be accompanied if they do not attend on a Wednesday.  We ask that ante-pre-school children must be accompanied by an adult. If you cannot come and would like your child to attend the trip, maybe granny or grandpa might like to join us instead!  Nursery trips are always great fun!  We unfortunately can’t take little brothers and sisters on the bus, but if you would like to come and bring younger ones you can drive yourself and meet us at the park.

Nursery will be open for children who attend on a Wednesday, but do not wish to go on the trip.  Please advise staff should you require this.

We appreciate that £18 is a lot to ask for, so we are happy to start accepting part payments each week if this would help.   Please give your instalments to your child’s keyworker who will put them in the safe in an envelope with your name on. Alternatively – if you prefer to pay the whole amount- we will need this by Friday 20^th May.

A letter is coming out about the trip.  We would be really grateful if you could let us know quickly if you and your child will be coming, so we can organise the numbers for buses etc.

We are hoping for a beautiful sunny day and the best Nursery trip yet!!