Our second week in school has proved as successful as our first, with all our pupils showing they have settled very into their new classes and routines.  We began our week with our Assembly as usual, although without our Primary Sevens, as they were invited to Mass by Fr Millar during the 40 Hours Adoration.  On Tuesday, our Primary Six pupils also celebrated Mass in the Cathedral Church.  Thanks to those parents who took the time to accompany our children.

Tuesday brought our first Football session of the year with ‘Willie the Football Man’, otherwise known as Mr McBirnie, who started working with our P5 – 7 girls this Tuesday.  Our ‘Friday Football’ will be re-established in the coming weeks with P6 and P7 boys taking part.

It was all smiles on Wednesday, as our Primary One pupils were photographed by the Motherwell Times for the first time!  Look out for all those smiling faces coming soon.

This week, Mrs Duffy  met with Jenny Thompson, our Active Schools Coordinator, known in school as ‘Jenny Duracell’!  Jenny works with great enthusiasm in our school, providing many and varied opportunities for our children.  Our ‘Young Leader’s’ programme, which was trialled to great success last session, will begin soon with our Primary Seven pupils.

We ended our week with our first whole school Mass of the session.  Primary 1 – 7 gathered in the hall, with many parents, grandparents and parishioners.  Together with Fr Millar and Deacon Tom, we celebrated Mass for our new session and all pupils, particularly our Primary 1 pupils, participated very well indeed!

And now to the nursery!

This week has flown by so quickly. We continue to settle in our new recruits as another few children joined us this week at the start of their nursery journey.

As we get to know our new children we are finding out lots about them and their families. To help us even more the children have been asked to bring photographs in of them and their families. These will be shared with their new friends and added to the family tree in the middle of the playroom.

All children had the opportunity to design their own flower for the “All About Me” wall. Please take a minute and let your child show you their fantastic designs. To make it easier the flowerpots are coloured co-ordinated with each group. This helps the children to relate to which group they belong to.

This week in the literacy area the children have been reading stories relating to the “All About Me” theme, they read a story about jungle friendships and from that they decided to create their own story using the nursery monkeys. They wanted a snake in their story like the original one and they decided to make one. They squashed up newspaper and stuffed an old pair of patterned tights (always a popular activity) made a forked tongue and named him Snakey. They took photographs of all the characters and these will be put together next week to finish their book. Look out J.K. Rowling!!

In the numeracy area the children have been busy sorting and matching the washing. They have sorted the patterned socks into pairs and matched the vests and pants by colour. They have pegged them on the washing line using different coloured pegs. This activity created a discussion about the washing at home and this led to some children helping to do the real laundry in the nursery. This activity will continue next week looking at the different sizes of the clothes.

Outdoors the children continue to explore the nursery garden and all its nooks and crannies. They had the opportunity for the first time to use the bikes this helps promote sharing and turn taking and the importance of wearing a helmet. As the weather got worse at the end of the week the new children discovered the nursery waterproofs. As always we encourage independence in getting ready to go outside and the children are working hard to get used to the nursery routines.

In the expressive arts area the children have been making their own handprints using paint. They created their own family tree in the middle of the playroom to display them. The family photographs will be displayed beside them next week. They also had the opportunity to explore the shaving foam and made handprints and numerous other designs with them.

In the home corner role-play continues and this week the children were discussing their own families and who lives in their house. The children drew pictures of their family members and these can be seen displayed in the nursery.

Through continuous use our wellies are needing replaced. If you have a spare pair of wellies lying about the house please bring them in and we will place them on the welly wagon.