St Andrew’s Day was celebrated this week with a special snack of warm mini haggis pies and Scots stories and songs. We have been making the most of the lovely weather this week and have had lots of fun in our outdoor space. Children have been developing their gross motor skills by playing on our ride on toys, climbing, sliding, rolling, pushing and pulling our giant rocker and by digging in our mud kitchen area. Some children made a helicopter together, using cardboard boxes. They even made sure it had a winch. It has been very well used all week and has been a great stimulus for imaginative play. The children have also been using their imaginations and problem-solving skills to use toys in different ways. Outside, the pincer sticks have been used as fishing rods to collect lots of different sized and shaped objects. This has been a great way to develop the children’s fine motor skills. The children have also been giving outdoor musical performances and creating their own games and outdoor stories, using the play equipment to hide from trolls, climb mountains and catch sharks. After all that fresh air the children have also been enjoying sharing stories together in our cosy indoor spaces.

This week we have been enjoying listening to and learning Scottish songs, like Three Craws. We have also been exploring the Scots language through Scottish  poetry. Next week we will be having a  celebration  of Scotland, with Scottish music, songs, poetry and traditional foods.

In our outside space the children found some ice which they enjoyed exploring. They pushed on it and it broke into pieces which they could see through and ” see little round circles in”. They thought the ice pieces were ” really, really cold” and “very slippery”.

The children are really enjoying playing turn-taking games, such as the Shopping List game and Dominoes as well as creating their own games with cars. They have also developed their imagination and team work skills by creating an outdoor obstacle course together.

We very much welcome your feedback on your children’s learning and our Blog, so please feel free to leave comments.

This week we have continued exploring the Christmas story and have used the costumes and our ‘stable’ to understand the characters and events in the story. We have also enjoyed sharing and talking about Christmas books.

We have been developing our understanding of numbers by ordering numbers and placing numbers on a number-line. We have been problem solving to create and experiment with the marble run and we have been using sticks to make triangular Christmas trees, which has developed our understanding of different shapes and their properties.

Christmas crafts and making snowman biscuits have been fun ways to develop our fine motor skills and we developed our creativity and problem solving skills when we used bricks of all shapes and sizes to build an obstacle course. We have also worked together to build Santa’s Grotto.

We have been playing with the Frozen  characters in our Small World area, which  has stimulated a lot of discussion about cold, ice and freezing.

We have also talked about why we are washing our hands regularly and covering our mouths when we cough, so that we don’t spread germs.

On Tuesday we celebrated Mrs Martin’s special birthday with a Birthday Breakfast at morning snack time. We all sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and had a lovely time celebrating together.

On Friday we had another firepit snack time, when we learned about campfire safety. We enjoyed having hot chocolate and marshmallows and singing Christmas songs.

Finally, just a wee reminder to please complete and return the Feedback sheet that came home with your child’s Interim Report and Wellbeing Flower. It would be much appreciated if these could be returned before the end of term on Thursday 23rd.

We have had a very creative week and have been experimenting with different ways to use paint. We collected twigs and small branches and used them to paint with and we have been using apples to print with to make baubles. Our Christmas role play area has been very popular and we have had lots of fun learning about the Christmas story and dressing up as angels, donkeys, kings, Mary and Joseph.

We have continued to develop our fine motor skills through mark making with pens, pencils and paintbrushes. We have also been using glue and scissors to make Reindeer antlers. We have developed our gross motor skills by experimenting with different containers to pour water.

We have had more fun sorting and matching colours and shapes this week and we are becoming confident at recognising the properties of shapes to compare and group them.

Finally, we have been practising our Christmas song, which we are looking forward to sharing with our families very soon.

We have had another busy week, which started with our St Andrews Day celebrations when we enjoyed dancing to Scottish music.

Our Christmas tree has arrived and we have worked together to decorate it beautifully. We have also been practising our fine motor skills to make paper chains to decorate the nursey and experimenting painting with different materials. We also enjoyed a winter walk to collect sticks to make Reindeer antlers.

We are continuing to learn more about shapes, through matching activities and using shapes to make pictures. A lot of us are also keen to complete  jigsaws as independently as possible, which is helping to develop  our observational skills and spatial awareness. We are also  developing our fine motor skills and pencil grip through mark making, with some children trying to write their name all by themselves.

We have been preparing to celebrate St Andrews Day on Tuesday 30th November by weaving tartan, making flags and bunting, dancing to Scottish music and finding out who St Andrew was and why we celebrate him. We will share more photos of our celebrations at the end of the week.

Our ambulance and hospital are still very popular and the children are really enjoying being paramedics, nurses and doctors in our role play area. They are demonstrating kindness and teamwork looking after all the patients.

Maths and Numeracy continue to be embedded in all areas of the children’s learning, both inside and outside. Some children have wanted to make number and shape books and they all enjoyed working together to make different shapes with their bodies. They had great fun on a ‘Shape Walk’ looking for shapes around the school grounds and playing in the Autumn leaves. The children are becoming more confident at recognising different shapes all around them and they can talk about the shapes and compare them.

Welcome back to everyone at Kingsland ELC. It has been lovely to see all the boys and girls playing and learning together again this week and to see them having great fun with the new layout.

We are continuing to focus on being responsible by practising our ELC rules, looking after all our toys and equipment and keeping each other and ourselves safe. This also helps us to remember our Wellbeing Rainbow and think about how we can look out for each other with kindness, teamwork and friendship.

We have being enjoying playing lots of games outside and in our St Andrew’s Room. The Name Game is helping us to learn each other’s names and games like Ring o’ Rose and Duck Duck Goose are helping us to practice taking turns and following the rules of the game. We have also loved being Superheroes and have been wearing our Superhero name badges and capes with pride. Our Outdoor Learning Tree helps us to share all our different outdoor activities and to see just how much learning takes place while we are playing outside.

We are also learning about colours in lots of ways, including talking about the colours all around us, mixing paints and colour sorting.

We are having great fun using our fine motor skills to create giant spooky spider’s webs outside.

Next Friday, 29th, we can dress up for Halloween, if we want to. We will be having lots of Halloween fun in our ELC, which we will share with you on our blog.

Finally, we would like to share with you our Golden Tree. This shows how we base all our planning for learning through play, on current policy and guidance. Each branch is an important part of how we ensure that our children have meaningful and positive learning experiences at Kingsland ELC.