Milngavie Early Years Centre

We would like to book a Summer outing for the whole nursery and wondered if anyone has any suggestions about great places we might go.

In the past we have chosen places with free entry as this keeps the cost down to just transport.  We also used to charge just for children with parents accompanying us travelling free. This has usually worked out at  £5 per child in the past.  If we were to visit an attraction that charged an entry fee, the costs would rise quite a bit.  Perhaps though, this would be something that parents would be prepared to pay more for?

We would really welcome your ideas and opinions.  Our trips policy is that all ante-pre-school children need a parent with them.  We also feel it is important that a parent should be allowed to accompany their pre-school child if they would like to.

Please could you let us know

a) if you would be willing to pay more for the nursery trip.

b) if you would like to suggest a venue- either paying or non paying entry.

c) if you think we should charge parents for transport for themselves and their child- or just children, with accompanying adults travelling free.

If you could let us know by leaving a comment on the blog or facebook page or telling your child’s keyworker – we would really, really appreciate it.  We will see what everyone thinks and then get somewhere booked up.

This morning the Red, Yellow and Green groups went exploring in the village.  The PTA recently bought us very smart HiViz vests and we decided to give them their first outing.  As you can see from the pictures, they are instantly noticeable and staff said they felt they could see all the children, at all times – which on a trip is of utmost importance!!!!  The children really enjoyed wearing them too!  Many thanks PTA!

Here we are checking out the chemists shops!

While we were out we noticed that all the shops have signs up above them with writing on.  Next week we are going to photograph the signs and draw and paint some of our local shops at the painting area with Maureen.

We went to see Gavin’s Mill – we had looked it up in our Old Milngavie book to see how it looked in the past when it was a working mill.  Kate found a great video of a working water mill which grinds wheat into wholemeal flour – the blue and orange groups saw this today and tomorrow we will have a chance to show everyone else.  It worked the same way Gavin’s Mill would have done!

Our explorers today found the mill and when they walked round the back they found the big water wheel.

At the front of the mill building we found some of the machinery wheels!

Wow! The waterwheel is really big!

Next we visited the fish ladder.

The water flows down the fish ladder very fast and makes a rushing noise.

There was a sign to tell us about the fish, called salmon and how they jump up the ladder to swim up the stream to have babies.

It was such a beautiful day we had a wee play in the playpark before going back to nursery.  We love living in Milngavie!

We visited Mr MacDonald and his lovely staff in the chemist shop.

Here we are outside another chemist – we counted 3 in total!

We visited the chemists and were really pleased to see that our chemist in the nursery was quite like the real thing.  We spoke to one of the ladies who told us that she liked working in the chemists as it was good to help people to get well again.

We visited Gavin’s Mill – the mill that Milngavie takes its name from. We explored round the back of the building and we found the water wheel!

Fred noticed that the waterwheel was very rusty – it must be quite old!

We saw some big metal wheels outside – they looked as though they maybe were part of the machinery from inside the mill,  which the water wheel turned to grind the corn into flour.

A piece of the mill machinery

Another wheel!

There was even a wheel in the pavement!

On our way back we visited the fish ladder!

The water flowed down with a lot of force and it made a loud noise!

It was quite a long walk and some of us needed a wee lie down on a bench to recover!

The old mill was really interesting and a wee bit spooky!  We are going to see if we can find out any more about it on the internet and in books.  Our outing today felt like a real adventure and we learned a lot and found that we want to learn more!

Please-if you have not already done so- could you fill in and return the recent permission slip for your child to go on outings in the local area. East Dunbartonshire have recently reviewed their trips policy and we must have your child’s form to be allowed to take them outside nursery.  If you have lost it, don’t worry we can print a new one for you! Many thanks!

We watched a short video on Hydro power and talked about water mills.  Maureen reminded us that Milngavie is called after a watermill on the Allander Burn.  We are going to investigate this on our walk tomorrow.  We also had a chat about how water power empties our toilets – a group of children  investigated the flushing of the staff toilet (with the cover down and the lid off the cistern!)

Some of the children were interested in air power and wanted to make kites with Pam.  They looked at different shapes of kites on the internet and then chose a shape to make.  They used straws to give the kites structure that wasn’t too heavy to fly.  Then they tried out the kites in our our playground to see which shape worked best.  Great fun!

Some boys and girls read a book about sharks – there was a funny looking shark called a Saw Shark and the book gave instructions for making a Saw Shark mask.  Murray, Cait and Jamie all made brilliant masks and painted them on the painting easel.

The weather was wonderful and we enjoyed being able to play outside and climb on the climbing frames without our wet suits.  Fingers crossed it stays dry for the week!

This week in Nursery we are looking at Hydro power.  We are going to look at some video footage of hydro electric power stations on You Tube and have a look inside the cistern of a toilet to see how water power helps us in our homes.

On Tuesday morning the Red, Yellow and Green Groups are going to the gym and the Blue and Orange groups are off to the village for a look at chemist shops.

On Wednesday we are hoping to have a Safe/Dangerous hunt in the garden (using cards showing the items – not the items themselves!!!  We are also going to revisit our numbers with some number rhymes and songs, consolidating our knowledge of numbers 1-10.

Thursday is Learning Journey Day – a chance to look at our folders, look at what we have learned and think about what we want to learn next.

On Friday we have Susan visiting Nursery with Snappy Sounds for another musical adventure.

What a busy week!

We have completely run out of newspapers for covering our art table.  If you have any you were thinking of recycling we would be very grateful for them.  We recycle them after we have used them so your halo would shine doubly bright!  We would also love any boxes, cartons, tubs, etc for our junk modelling.  It is amazing how much we can get through in a week in our hive of creativity.

Hazard Awareness

At the moment in nursery we are learning about the dangers we might find in our homes.  The children have been discussing the effects the dangers might have on their bodies, and we have been thinking about what we can do if we find something which is dangerous.  To consolidate the children’s learning we are sending home a sheet for them to spot things in different rooms of the house which we need to be careful with.  Feel no pressure to do this but if you do, return it to nursery and we can put it in your child’s learning journey.

Outdoors just now-

Angela has started investigating water pressure, and the power of water outdoors with the children.  She has devised lots of fun experiments and we are going to look at water mills and hydro electric power stations on you tube.

Scientific Table of Interest

Pam Cameron, one of our HNC students has also been doing some experiments and interesting children in Science.  She has started a Scientific Table of Interest for children to bring in sciency things to show their friends.  We have been lent some amazing fossils and stones and are thinking about trying a bit of excavation in the garden to see if we can unearth some authentic , Milngavie archaeological artefacts.  We might even find a Milngavieosaurus!  If you have anything of scientific interest that you could lend us to look at (that isn’t too precious or delicate!), we would be delighted to display it and find out all about it.

Travelling Pets and Make it and Move it Kits

We introduced these as a way of encouraging our children to talk about home and what they did over the weekend.  Often young children are reluctant to revisit experiences, and the added stimulus of a soft toy to share the adventure can make this easier for them.  There should be a postcard and information sheet in the bag too.  If you return the postcard we can put it in your child’s learning journey to remind your child of their visit.  If you have not had a visit from one of our Travelling Pets – we have a gorilla, a cat, a dog, a sheepdog and a highland cow- please let your child’s keyworker know and we will organise one.  We would like your feedback on how you and your child felt about the bag.    Our make and move it kits are a recent addition.  They, too have a feedback sheet.  We care about your opinions and want to make these bags a positive experience for the children.

Wellies

We are going to try keeping our group wellies boxes in the nursery vestibule.  Please can we have a set of nursery wellies to keep in nursery, clearly labelled with your child’s name.  We are going to try this to see if it impacts positively on our welly management problem!  Many thanks!