Learning Zone

We love autumn time! We have discussed the leaves changing colours, the weather getting colder, the days not being so long and of course… seasonal vegetables! The boys and girls have been busy “cooking” and “making dinners” in the house corner using vegetables associated with autumn – the most popular one was a pumpkin! So we decided to buy some more big pumpkins to explore!

M: “Buy new pumpkins. 5 pumpkins.”
J: “They’re so heavy!”
A: “It’s big and round and orange.”

We placed the pumpkins in the middle of the room and decided that we need to take the top of the pumpkin off. Ania helped us do it as we had to use a sharp knife to do so. We then started taking all the insides out!

L: “It feels gooey!”
E: “I can smell it, I think it smells sweet. I don’t like it.”
M: “Can I use a spoon? It’s too slimey.”
O: “It’s like slime!”

We were then wondering what we could do with the insides out the pumpkins…

L: “I know! We could make a pumpkin soup!” – what a fantastic idea! We’re going to make it next, for our snack!

While exploring the outside and inside of the pumpkin, M did some good thinking. He stood up and brought a basket of golf tees to us. He started pushing the golf tees into the pumpkin – it was hard as the skin of the pumpkin was tough! M then decided that…

M: “We need a hammer!” – so off we went looking for hammers!

When we found some, we had so much fun! The boys and girls did fantastic sharing of golf tees and hammers between each other and we used our strong muscles to hammer the golf tees into the pumpkin. It proved hard as the pumkin was moving in all directions – L said “It’s because it’s round.” Great thinking! The boys and girls spent most of the morning and afternoon exploring the pumpkins and trying to cover them with all of the golf tees!

A: “It’s hard!”
V: “You need to watch your fingers with the hammers!”
R: “I can do it by myself now!”
O: “Look at all of the holes it’s making!”
P: “I can see the nails inside!”

 

Dear parents and families! We would like to thank you for contributing to our learning by selecting the topics you would like us to cover in our Early Learning and Childcare Class. We really appreciate your input to what we are exploring and learning about.

Please see the photos below to see the most popular topics:

Thank you for your participation. The topics chosen by you will be explored throughout the session in our Early Learning and Childcare Class.

 

The boys and girls have been enjoying the story about Harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs – we have been learning different names of dinosaurs, where they came from and what they like to eat!

E: “Some of the dinosaurs only eat plants.”
A: “This is a Triceratops!”
O: “Pterodactyl can fly and T-Rexes are my favourite.”

Well! On Wednesday we had a special visitor to our Early Learning and Childcare Class! Kevin, the DinoMan came to see us and he brought his friends with him – two dinosaurs! One of them was a Triceratops named Tracy and another one, Gary, was a T-Rex. We found out that Tracy likes to eat plants and trees and T-Rex likes to eat other animals and bones! We even got a chance to have a little cuddle with the dinosaurs, they were super friendly!

But that wasn’t all! Kevin also brought Fluffy the snake! We learned that Fluffy uses his sense of smell to follow directions and to make sure he’s got his dinner ready! Kevin invited us to give Fluffy a little gentle pat, too!

B: “He feels cold!”
C: “I’ve never touched a snake before!”
J: “His skin feels hard!”

Kevin told us a story about digging for dinosaurs bones in America – he even brought one with him! WOW, it was ginormous! He also brought a dinosaur egg for us to see – it was very big and heavy. Kevin was so super kind and he let us dig in the sand for more bones and eggs to find!

A: “The bones were in the desert.”
L: “This bone is so old, I think it’s a million years old!”
B: “When I grow up, I’m going to dig for dinosaurs bones, too.”
M: “Are Tracy and Gary real dinosaurs?”

We would like to thank the DinoMan for such a fantastic experience – we loved meeting Tracy, Gary and Fluffy! We hope to see you back soon!

The boys and girls worked very hard to guess the amount of sweeties in the jar as a part of Maths Week Scotland 2019 activities – well done and thank you to everybody who participated!

The number of sweeties in the jar was: 166.

WE HAVE GOT THE NAMES OF THE WINNERS!

The winners are!

Drum roll, please…

Nico Collins from the morning session, who guessed 166 sweeties and

Liam Balfour from the afternoon session, who guessed 170 sweeties!

Well done, boys! We hope you enjoy your sweets and the Crazy Golf experience!

YAY! The Skoobmobile came to visit us in the ELCC! We were so excited to have a couple of stories on the cosy Library Bus.

As we are participating in the Maths Week Scotland, Laurence and Karen from the Skoobmobile read us a story called “Ten little superheroes”! We haven’t heard that story before so we were all super excited to listen to it! There was lots of counting down from 10 and lots of new rhyming words!

We then got talking about… sausages! It turned out that all of us love sausages for lunch! Laurence surprised us with a fantastic book about ten fat sausages! But… The sausages in the story didn’t go POP and they didn’t go BANG… Instead, they tried to escape the sizzling pan! We  were all very curious to see if they successfully managed to run away!

We were so lucky to be able to choose one story each to take back to the ELCC. We know that we need to be very careful with the books and look after them as they are from the library. We will need to return them the next time Skoobmobile comes to visit.

R: “Is it a banana bus? It’s all yellow!”
K: “I go to the library with my mummy.”
V: “They went POW!”
O: “Now there is eight superheroes!”
A: “Can we take this book to the nursery?”
M: “I had lots of fun on the Skoobmobile bus!”

Skoobmobile is a Renfrewshire’s Library Bus which promotes literacy and reading in nurseries and schools. We will have more visits from Skoobmobile over the next months. If you would like to find out more about the Library Bus itself, please click on the link below:

https://libcat.renfrewshire.gov.uk/iguana/www.main.cls?p=13961a65-033a-4fdd-b6b1-cd91360ede1d&v=b5ebb92d-5d97-4b1a-80ba-4c9e6e2cffd6

And remember:

“If you read just ONE book a day to your child, they will have read 1825 books by their 5th birthday.”

The boys and girls have shown a great interest in “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” story. There has been a lot of story re-enacting, re-telling and discussing the events in the book. We have been busy chatting about the foods that the caterpillar ate and which ones we like and dislike.

A: “I like the apples, oranges and ice-cream.”
M: “Sure lollipops and ice-cream isn’t healthy? It’s just a treat.”
L: “The caterpillar was healthy but also a little bit not.”

We decided to play a blind tasting/smelling game! First, we chopped the fruit and veg and with our eyes closed, we had to guess what we’re tasting! Beforehand we also grouped the items into vegetables and fruit, how clever!

A: “I love lemons, they are sour!”
L: “I like peppers, this one is juicy.”
J: “It tastes like strawberries.”
K: “I don’t like cucumbers.”

After our blind tasting, the boys and girls started talking about different scents that they like and dislike. We decided to play another “blind game” – only this time, we used our noses to guess what it was!

A: “It smells like lemons, I love them.”
M: “It smells sweet and wet, is it lettuce?”
O: “This smells like my toothpaste I use in the morning!”
L: “It could also be mint tea.”
C: “This smells sour.”
A: “Ohh this smells delicious, is it chocolate?!”
L: “Lemons make me go squirmy”

We then recorded our likes and dislikes in the Imaginative Floorbook – together, we made a graph to see which scent was the favourite one and which one got the most thumbs down.
You are more than welcome to pop in and see the floorbook for yourself!

If you’d like to learn a little bit more about Our Rationale, please click on the image below.

We have been busy doing lots and lots of sewing, threading and desgining in the imaginative area. We have been using a variety of materials, ribbons, buttons and threading beads to create dresses, jewellery and different accessories.

One day, we noticed that we ran out of a few colours of the ribbon! We decided to visit our local haberdashery to stock up. We talked about different things we can buy in a haberdashery and what we can do with it all!

On the way to the shop, we had so many great ideas about what we need to buy and what designs we can create!

While in the haberdashery, we found a very old sewing machine. “It’s for sewing and making clothes” said J. We thought it looked very old, but the lady in the shop said it’s still working, WOW!

P: “I want to make another wedding dress.”
O: “I want to make a necklace for me and mummy.”
J: “I want to buy blue ribbon.”
H: “I’ve never been to a haberdashery before. Can you buy buttons and needles there?”

Welcome back to all of the boys and girls who came back to our Class after the summer holidays and a big warm welcome to all of our new friends who have just started at nursery! We would also like to welcome all of our lovely parents and families, we hope you’ve all had a fantastic summer!

Well… Haven’t we been busy! Since our first day, we have been doing lots of baking, playing games, singing, painting, dancing, exercising.. Ah, we have been having so much fun!

One day we decided to go to the park to HIDE SOME BOOKS! Hide some books you might ask? We proudly took part in “Look for a book, Scotland” initiative – it all started on Facebook, where you can join the group. The whole idea is to get the children interested in reading! The boys and girls all over the UK are hiding their favourite books for other children to find, read and re-hide them! We went on a stroll to Barshaw Park and hid four story books chosen by us. When we were coming back to nursery, one of the books was already gone!

A few days after, we checked the group online and we found out that a little girl called Ellis found our book while on a walk with her mum! You can see how happy and excited she is on a picture below, kindly given to us by her mum, Emma. Ellis is now going to re-hide the book in Largs – we wonder how far it can travel!

We invite you to join the “Look for a book, Scotland” group on Facebook and take part in this great initiative!

P: “I want to hide mine at the swings!”
J: “Look, the book is gone!”
C: “It’s for the boys and girls to find and read.”
K: “You need to be careful with the books.”

We would like to invite all of the boys and girls with their parents and families to come and visit our new Library, which is situated upstairs.

The Library will be open every Wednesday at drop-off and pick-up time, both morning and afternoon sessions.

We invite you to come up with your child and choose a book to take home until the following week! Our Chatterbox Challenge is up and running, too – we would love it if you joined in! You are welcome to choose one (or more than one!) letter every week and have fun using the activities suggested on the back of each card.

We want to make sure that our new Library is relaxed and flexible – you don’t need to record what books you are taking home, we would just kindly ask you to write your name in our “I visited the Library today” diary, so we know you have visited us!

There will be a member of staff present in the Library to assist you with any inquiries and questions. If you can’t make it to the Library on Wednesday, please speak to your child’s
key worker to arrange another time.

We hope to see you in the Library very soon!