This week we are continuing the learning context “All about Me!”. We are looking at emotions, what these look like and what makes us feel this way. We are looking forward to the children’s interpretations and descriptions of feelings.

We are also continuing measuring the children’s heights. There is a height chart at the front door of the nursery which is going to be developed over the course of this week to show the heights of different animals to see which we are as tall as. Come and measure yourself and see which animal you are as tall as . . .

Please continue to complete the WOW cards as the children and staff are really enjoying sharing this news with the other children.

Please return any outstanding placemats so we can laminate them and  the children can start to use them at snacktime. The ones we have received so far are fantastic and we have enjoyed discussing the pictures and information on them with the children.

This week in nursery we are continuing “All about Me” as our learning context. The children are painting  large self portraits and over this week and next we will be taking heights to compare with their heights at the end of the year to see just how much they grow over the session! On Friday morning there is a parent/ carer Read and Play session (at 9.30am and 10.30am) with Lydia Simpson from Action for Children who we are working with on some Literacy Projects which was thoroughly enjoyable and well received last year. (The afternoon children will get the same opportunity later in the term).

Please continue to complete Wow cards/ notes for the board as we are really enjoying hearing what the children are getting up to outside of nursery, and the children have enjoyed so far sharing their exciting news at gather times.

Any outstanding personalised snack placemats can still be returned to be laminated. The placemats we have received so far are fantastic and we thank parents for putting so much time and effort into making these with their children – we have certainly enjoyed looking at them and discussing them with the children!

The library is running a competition where people of all ages can enter pictures of their pets (or favourite toy pet) looking like a book character. Take a photo or draw a picture and take it to the library by 26th September and you could win a prize. If you fancy having a go, contact the library for further information!

This week we are continuing to settle the children into nursery, reminding them of and introducing them to nursery rules and routines. Our learning contexts are “Settling in” and “All about Me”.

The children have a home activity to complete with parents or carers to make a placemat for the snack table. This is an A4 piece of card which can have anything put onto it; photos, drawings, stickers, glitter, writing, pictures cut from magazines etc. They will be laminated at nursery by staff and then used by the children at snack time, hopefully assisting with conversations amongst the children and providing a comforting link with home. Please return these when completed ensuring the child’s name is clearly noticeable on the place mat and the decorations are flat to allow them to be laminated. We are looking forward to seeing the finished products!

We have a few “Wow” cards/notes  on the “Wow wall” which is great. We love to hear of all their achievements and it is great for the children to be able to share these with others. We look forward to seeing this wall build up with evidence of success stories both in and out of nursery, and these will then be transferred to the children’s learning journeys.

Just a reminder, the nursery children will be having their individual photos taken by “Catchlites” tomorrow (Tuesday 25th August) in the nursery building.

Our learning context this term is Julia Donaldson. She has written many books that a lot of people are familiar with, for example, The Gruffalo, What the Ladybird Heard, Room on a Broom, Tiddler, Stick Man . . . . . and many books that people are not so familiar with, Goat goes to Playgroup, Cave Baby, Paper Dolls . . . .

Prior to our move we were using the illustrations of these stories to act as a link between the old and new building and the children were selecting illustrations and recreating these in a large frieze format to decorate the walls of Lady Cathcart whilst familiarising themselves with the characters and story content. These stories are such fun due to their rhyming passages, quirky characters and child friendly storylines so we are going to be looking at the children being able to retell and sequence main events from these stories, link certain free flow play activities with the stories, and use these stories as a means for discussion, along with a variety of other activities linked to individual books.

The children will be visiting Buckie library on Wednesday 20th May for a Bookbug session held by library staff. Our visits to the library are always really enjoyed by our children and we are looking forward to seeing what is on offer for the children during this session. As always parent help is requested and much appreciated to assist us with accompanying  our children safely to the library and back to nursery.

As you will hopefully be aware by now, the Nursery is moving down the road to the Lady Cathcart building during the refurbishment works.  We are going to be using the large hall as our main area and setting it up into play areas just like we have in our current building. We also have the sole use of Room 1 which will be our snack room with our kitchen and a room for us to do some group work. The long corridor that is outside this room is where the children’s coat pegs are.  This corridor can only be accessed through a security door with a key pad which will need to be opened by either Millbank staff or Teddy Bear Developmental Playgroup staff to let in parents or visitors. There is a buzzer situated outside this door. The children’s toilets are also being refurbished to make them more fit for purpose for our children, child height sinks for washing hands are being installed in the main hall and a child height worktop for baking and food preparation has been included in the snack room.

We plan to take the children down to visit the building on Friday morning and afternoon to have snack and play some games in the hall and talk with the children about where we can set up certain areas.

If you still have any concerns please come along to the meetings to be held in the school on Wednesday 13th  about the refurbishement in general and find out what has been done so far to improve the building for our use over the next 2 years.

Please note that as of Tuesday 17th February the snack payment will increase from £1 to £1.50 a week. 

Thanks

On Tuesday 17th February we are inviting parents to have a pancake snack with us. Details of times to follow.