Nursery – Stane Primary School and Nursery Class

Loose Parts Play – What is it, and Why do it?

As part of our continued improvement work in the nursery, we are planning to develop our outdoor provision to enhance the play experiences we can offer our children. One aspect of this work will be to incorporate more ‘loose parts’ in our outdoor area, which research suggests can help our children to be more imaginative and creative.

What is ‘Loose Parts Play?’

In play, loose parts in a nursery environment can be materials such as stones, pebbles, wooden stumps, gravel, fabric, twigs, wood, plastic pipes, wooden pallets, plastic crates, buckets, boxes, pots/pans, tyres, balls, shells…the list is endless!

These materials can be moved, carried, combined, lined up, taken apart and put back together again in lots of different ways. There are no instructions for the play (apart from how to use the materials safely), leaving the children to lead their own learning.

What are the Benefits of ‘Loose Parts Play?’

Using loose parts in play offers the children a much wider range of learning opportunities rather than only adult lead activities, encouraging them to be imaginative. It can also help develop communication and co-operation skills, as children work together to solve problems and create and design objects.

Can you Help?

Any donations of loose parts (examples above) would be hugely appreciated. If you know of anyone who might have pipes, wooden planks, baskets, fabric, pebbles etc. that they no longer require, we would love to hear from you!

Nursery End of Year Celebration/Fun Morning

Thank you to everyone who came along to our nursery end of year celebration on Tuesday 21st June 2017.

The nursery boys and girls performed a range of songs told the story of their year at nursery. The children really enjoyed performing these songs to all their families.

After the children had finished their songs, the service moved on to the commencement of the children moving on to primary 1.

The children all did well and had a great time performing to their families.

After all their hard work performing, the children enjoyed a fun morning of two bouncy castles, face painting, glitter tattoos, a party snack and even visited the ice cream van!

We all had such a wonderful time.

April 2017 Newsletters

The April edition of the Stane Primary Newsletter and the Nursery News are available now.

Click on the images below to download an electronic copy.

Transition Visit to Primary 1

We had lots of fun in the infant area this morning when our pre-school children visited Primary 1. It was lovely to see all the boys and girls looking so happy and confident, as they moved around some fun activity stations.

We began the session With Mr O’Donnell telling us the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Then we had lots of fun as we explored the story further through some activity stations. We sorted some magic beans by matching the beans to the correct colour of cup.

We used our counting and measuring skills to check how long the beanstalk was. We used the giants footprints and Jack’s footprints to measure the beanstalk. Some of the boys and girls noticed that the giant footprints were much bigger than Jack’s.

Then we tried to see who could make the biggest beanstalk using our fine motor skills.

We practised counting by counting the number of seeds we ‘planted’ in each pot. Then we counted how many cubes long some of the leaves on the beanstalk were.

At the end of the session our buddies came along to meet us! They brought along some booklets for us with photographs of different places in the school. It was lovely to see how mature and responsible the buddies were, and lots of them are already asking when they will get to meet up with their P1 buddy next!

Well done to all of our pre-school children on a very successful visit to Primary 1. We look forward to welcoming you again very soon!

January 2017 Newsletters

The Stane Primary School Newsletter and the Nursery News for January 2017 can be downloaded by clicking on the images below.

Nursery Christmas Party

All the boys and girls came into nursery looking very smart in their party clothes today. When they came in, our elf; Chippy, had been eating our party sweets and taking ‘elfies’ on the iPad. He even left us a note to take some ‘eflies’. The children enjoyed taking ‘eflies’ and even got some on the staff to take ‘elfies’ with them. We all then went into the hall and danced lots and showed off our super dance moves. All that dancing was hard work, so we had a rest with some yummy snack and ice cream! Then a special visitor came….

Nativity Performance Tickets

Solihull Parent Workshop – Information Session

Taekwondo Taster Session in the Nursery

On Friday (9.9.16) Little Tiger Cubs Taekwondo instructor, Yvonne came in to visit the nursery children in the morning and afternoon. Yvonne had a chat with the children about why she was here and then we got straight to it! Firstly, all the children started with a warm-up obstacle course, then we stopped and stretched all our muscles, then lastly we learned how to do some punches and kicks! All the children had great fun at our one off taster session and we also learned from Yvonne that we don’t use the punches or kicks on anyone in nursery or at home.

Nursery trip to Edinburgh Zoo.

All the nursery children and their parents had a great time at Edinburgh Zoo. There was lots of things to see and do. Some of the children and parents were even brave enough to hold some small animals!