This week we have focussed on our forthcoming new P1 children who are due to join us in August of this year. We have been busy enrolling all week. It has been lovely to see our nursery children come to enrol in ‘the big school’ and to meet so many new families joining us for the first time. Everyone who has come into school has commented on the lovely friendly atmosphere and the beautiful surroundings. We have been in our new build for quite some time now and naturally begin to take things for granted, however, when someone comes in for the first time and is overwhelmed it reminds you of how lucky we are to have such wonderful facilities.

Snow this week saw our first ever ‘Cathedral Snow Team ‘ of footballers! The children had a great time building a football team worth of snowmen on the pitch. It truly is an ‘all weather’ facility. Great fun was had by all. More cold weather expected this week, please remind children to wrap up warm to allow them to be outside indiscriminate of the weather. As they say in early years…There is no such thing as inappropriate weather, you just have to have appropriate clothing.

Throughout this week Fr. Millar has been meeting with each on the Confirmandi on an individual basis to discuss the importance of this sacrament which they are about to prepare to receive. This is a great way to highlight the importance the Church gives to Confirmation and the responsibility which lies with our young people. Thanks to Fr. Millar for taking the time to do this.

Deacon Tom was also in and around the school speaking to P4 P5 & P6 pupils recruiting for Altar Servers. Let’s hope many of our children accept this opportunity and begin to participate in their parish in this unique way.

On Friday of this week P7 hosted a lovely coffee morning with our pupils taking responsibility for providing delicious cakes and a wealth of raffle prizes – well done P7 a  most successful coffee morning, and their last ever in our school…Awwww

I must apologise for not being present at the coffee morning, I was meeting with a head teacher who had come from Fife to join us for the day. Our lead HMIe inspector Moira Cumming (who is now North Lanarkshire Council district inspector) had suggested this Head teacher come to our school to view the excellent practice ongoing throughout our school and nursery. This is a great accolade for our school and nursery and I was delighted to ‘show off’ all of our children’s work and the excellent teaching and learning which takes place day and daily. Moira Cumming had come to see our new school and our continued progress a few months ago, this is a clear sign that she is delighted with what she witnessed. Well done to everyone in our fabulous school and nursery.

Speaking of our fabulous nursery (who were doing a snow dance to bring winter back…and it worked) here’s Mrs M M Murphy with all of what’s been happening.

This week the group activities resumed with the children discussing the nursery rules and area routines.

The topic of Winter continued and the request from Olaf for Winter to be returned has certainly came true. The children have been very busy helping Olaf to look for his friends and to make the playroom into a Winter Wonderland. They painted icy blue bricks to make an ice castle, this is a work in progress and will continue well into next week.

In the Literacy area they created an icy Winter word castle, please take a look at the fantastic Winter words that the children have written and the stories of Olaf’s visit can be seen here to. In the music area they sang Winter action songs and rhymes.

Over in the art area the children made their own snowfrom cornflour and oil, this didn’t last long as the real McCoy fell the very next day. They also had the opportunity to make their own cut and stick Olaf. These can be seen in the snowy display in the corner of the playroom and in the numeracy area where the children have been creating their own patterns for Olaf’s scarf.

The children have been looking at different patterns in the numeracy area and have made an interactive wall where they can make their own patterns. They continue to explore the Ipads for numeracy games.

In the snack area they have been extremely busy making their own ice cream, ice lollies, frozen yoghurt and crushed ice courtesy of Mr Frosty. They have all been discussing how water changes when frozen.

On Tuesday Olaf’s wish came true and the snow fell and all of the children had the opportunity to make their very own snowman, sledge down the hill, make snow angels and throw snowballs. A great time was had by all but in particular it was the first time one of the children had seen snow as she has recently joined the nursery from a very warm country and she absolutely loved it.

On Wednesday we welcomed our final intake of nursery children. We look forward to them all joining us in the next few weeks.

On Thursday one of the children discovered that Olaf had moved from his cold spot in the playroom and was sitting in the art area with a giant snowflake, a book and a letter. The children gathered together to see what the letter said. The story was all about Jack Frost and the letter was from him. He asked the children to help make their own snowflakes to keep the playroom cold for Olaf. The children conitnued to discuss different things that could stop Olaf from melting. They got busy and strarted to make their own snowflakes which are now hanging all over the playroom and the tree in the middle has now been transformed into an icy tower with sparkly snowflakes and icicles hanging from it. One of the ideas from last weeks visit was to make an icy house (igloo) for Olaf and this idea was mentioned again. To enable this to come true we need more milk cartons. A letter went out during the week to ask for empty, washed 2 litre milk cartons to make the childrens ideas come to life. If possible could the labels be removed.

Friday brought more snow and each group went out to have fun in it.

A date for your diary. The pre-school workshops will take place on Wednesday 25/2/15 at 11am and 2.30pm.

As always; thanks for reading, please feel free to comment on any aspect of the Blog or indeed on any aspect of our school and nursery.

Mrs Shields