Why not take a minute or two and read the wonderful BLOG written by Sandra and Mary regarding our Story Massage Parent Training which was led and organised by Christine son Saturday 12th November 2019.
Following this training session Christine will be providing fortnightly opportunities to this wonderful group of parents and anyone else who would like to come along and learn a little bit more with their children. Christine is just waiting to find out what day suits the majority of parents.
We could not be any prouder for our parents and carers who gave up their Saturday to learn something new to support their child’s emotional wellbeing.
The Story Massage Programme combines the benefits of positive touch with the fun and creativity of words – whether as story, rhyme or song. Ten simple massage strokes form the basis of the programme. These strokes have a name, such as The Circle or The Sprinkle, and an easy to recognise symbol making it fully accessible for all ages and abilities.
We now have all our staff who were trained alongside 6 colleagues from Dykehead Primary School In November 2018, to deliver this programme with our children. And cannot wait to see how the parents will use this at home.
Over the course of the year the programme has been steadily embedded into our approaches, with the children readily asking for and giving story massage either from a practitioner or their peer.
Alongside our Mindfulness Parents Programme we are now going to be offering bespoke sessions for parents and carers who can come
on a weekly basis and practice their learning with a key member of staff and their child.
And not forgetting our newest staff recruits who again give up their Saturday to ensure that they are keeping up to date with their own learning and development.
We are delighted to continue to offer our Bookbug Family Sessions. Last year we had over 90% attendance at these sessions, which was a tremendous commitment from our families.
After the success of Big Chef Little Chef, Jen Dawson (Homelink) and Isabel would like to invite you to take part, with your child, in our Walk and Talk sessions, starting on Friday 1st June, afternoons only.
Outdoors is special, it is meaningful, stimulating, motivating and fun and it can develop many areas of learning and support the building of relationships and friendships.
We will visit several areas of our local community, discovering a variety of learning opportunities to engage in with our children.
Our focus will be on the ‘talk’; through an encouraged curiosity for their environment children can extend their vocabulary and language, they can develop a confidence that will support their use of questions about the ‘how’, ‘why’ and ‘what’s’ of their journey, together we can reflect and consider the possible answers.
Outdoors is a language rich environment and we would like you to be a part of our walking and talking journey of literacy learning through exploring the wonders of our local community.
Look forward to seeing you then.
A huge big thank you to all parents/carers who attended the recent workshop with Nicola and Christine your attendance was greatly appreciated and feedback has suggested that those who had attended found it to be informative, interesting and have taken many ideas home, which they can use to further enhance their child’s skills in literacy.
The workshop began with a fun interactive Nursery rhyme quiz as the importance of having fun with these was discussed we then went on to talk about the 4 areas of literacy – oral language, phonological awareness, concepts of print and fine motor development. The session ended with the much deserved story massage of “Pete’s a Pizza”. The group were introduced to the strokes that the children are learning in nursery and will be presented with a story massage book for use at home with their wee ones.
Monday 26th
Welcone back to Elaine as she rejoins the Caterpillar Group after helping SID and Shanarri on their adventures across North Lanarkshire Council.
Kirsty not in nursey this week, therefore Isabel will continue to support the Firefly Group.
Susan not in nursery this week, therefore Lynn will continue to support the Rainbow Room.
Mary from ELCAT will be in the nursery this afternoon
Karen, lecturer from Langside College will be observing Taylor in practice today.
Tuesday 27th
Michelle from ELCAT will be in the nursery this morning
Wednesday 28th
Bookbug session with Rainbow Room children and parents/carers 9 am – 9.20 am
Gemma, speech and language therapist will be in the nursery today
Ann, educational psychologist will be in the nursery this morning
Thursday 1st March
World Book Day remember to dress as your favourite character and bring your favourite book to share
Supporting your child’s emerging literacy, information session with Christine and Nicola, 8.50 am and 1.10 pm
Friday 2nd March
Isabel AL today
A huge thank you to all the parents and carer’s who are continuing to attend our Family Learning Sessions. You supported us to bring a fantastic book to life “Dear Zoo” for your little ones, by helping them choose the prop to match the narrative and provided the accompanying sounds! You then helped the children extend their learning by finding the various animals out in garden. While adding to their vocabulary and emergent literacy skills with descriptions of where to look for each animal.
These opportunists have been carefully planned following “have your say consultations” with parents, carers, children and staff.
We hope that you have returned your response to Nicola regarding Forrest School Family Learning opportunities – Nurturing Nature.
