Tag Archives: Painting

Stick Man

The bairns found a stick in the playground one day a few weeks ago and thought it looked like Stick Man. We listened to the Stick Man Story and decided to make this our transitional story for our pre-schoolers moving up to P1. We have since watched and listened to the story and played with Stick Man in nursery. He was having so much fun with the bairns taking good care of him, they even selected the perfect new arm and fixed him when his arm broke! Since then Stick Man has relaxed a little more in nursery. He disappeared a couple of weeks ago and we received a video message from him the other day and another today. Here we have included the full video for you to see. It shows Stick Man is ready to move on from nursery up to primary 1 and he meets a few people on his adventure to find the primary 1 classroom. All the nursery bairns have really engaged with Stick Man, they have been recalling the story, writing messages for him, drawing maps and looking for footprints. They were delighted to see he finally found his way to primary 1!

 

 

 

Busy Start to Term 4

Where has the first 3 weeks of term 4 gone?!? It was lovely to welcome everyone back to nursery after the Easter break. We have all been soooo busy, so here is a quick catch up of what we have been up to!

On our first day back we went on a walk to find a Spring thing! There was lovely daffodils around nursery and someone wondered if the trees in the forest had turned green with their leaves yet so we headed there for a look. There wasn’t any leaves but there was different kinds of buds that will turn into leaves soon.

We went to check on the tadpoles at the pond and there were so many! We brought buckets and nets so we could catch them and keep them in a tank in nursery to watch the life cycle of a frog. The children have been feeding them fish food along with the pond weed  that we caught. Ruby thinks we caught 100 tadpoles!

We have enjoyed some beautiful days out in the sunshine in the playground with bubbles, bikes and scooters, water fights, potion making, different physical skills, painting the sandpit, some games all together and walks to the playpark and down to the shore! It has been warm enough to have snack on the bus too! With the weather getting better, could parents please remember to put sunscreen on their children before coming to nursery. Thank you!

Inside everybody has been busy planting sunflower seeds! The children wrapped their little sunflower seed in a wet kitchen roll sheet and left it in a greenhouse in the window and within 2 weeks some were ready to be potted! When we took the seedlings out, we looked at the roots in more detail and talked about the germination  process.

One afternoon, some of us planted seeds from more flowers in trays, including Nasturtiums, Marigolds, Violas, Pansy and Petunias. The children were every interested in why we were wearing gloves, what compost was and what was inside it as they found lots of different ‘bits’ in it.  So we had lots of discussion and then we compared the different flower seeds. The children were astonished how tiny the petunia seeds were and how weird the marigold seeds were. “They don’t really look like seeds”  “I don’t think they’ll grow”.   The bairn’s also wondered if the size of the seed will reflect in the size of the flower – big seeds produce big flowers, little seeds little flowers etc.   We discussed what plants need to grow and the best place to put them and everyone agreed to put them in the window because they need sun, warmth and water.   

Inside, everyone has also been very busy at the craft table, making their own lovely creations, flowers for the flower shop, their own stories or making their own PJ mask!

And finally, everyone has loved building, messy play and our vets inside!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 6 and 7!

WOW – how can we be on week 7 already?!  Here’s a peerie look at what we’ve been up to the last 2 weeks……

Inspired by the different genres of music we’ve been learning about, we extended our music into learning about our Super Powers – SENSES!.  We have been exploring our sense of sight and hearing and loved using these music bells to make our own music as well as copt patterns and rhythms of other music.

We made glasses and played games where we had to use only our eyes or only our ears to play the game.  “Winky” was our favourite where we all had to choose someone to wink or blink at and swap places without anyone seeing.

As always we’ve had great fun outside with a mixed bag of weather.  We’ve been painting, exploring the forest while being mindful of what we could see and hear each time.  We loved the sound of the rustling leaves in the wind and the crunching leaves under our feet.  We took leaves back to Nursery and enjoyed, leaf printing, making our family trees and a big thank you tree for Paul, who helped us care for our forest.  We even used the leaves to make our Christmas cards!

Our forest gives us great opportunities to talk about Autumn and see the leaves changing.  We looked for different animals that might live in our forest and thought about the hedgehogs who may be looking for somewhere to hibernate.  We even made our own Autumn tree in the playground.

We’ve enjoyed sunshine at the playpark and rainy days for puddle splashing.  We went fishing in the puddles for fish and sea creatures.  We made homes and aquariums for each sea creature which developed into a fun “sinking and floating” experiment.

We worked together to make a water fall and use the water to move objects down the pipes and what better way to end the day, than with a water fight!!  Lots of fun was had by all.

Lots of fun in the mud kitchen and mark making…..

 

Mark making……

We’ve been busy learning about road safety on our walks and recreating these in the playground with trips on our “bus”, road works and bikes and scooters, whilst building roads and ramps inside with different materials.

Looking forward to see what next week brings………

Christmas Advent Calendar

It’s fair to say the Christmas frenzy has hit us!  What an exciting and busy time we’ve had.

For our advent calendar this year, we really wanted to emphasize the value of quality time together, rather than just “things”. So we filled our advent calendar with activity and challenges tailored to each individual bairn’s interests.  Each bairn has a special activity to do and the opportunity to share it with their friends if the wish.  Quality one to one time and time with friends can often be overlooked at such busy times and we’ve all really enjoyed our advent times together so far.

Here’s a sneaky peek at what they’ve been up to…….

Christmassy Water play!

 

 

 

Digging for Christmas treasure!

Build a snowman………

 

 

 

 

 

….and knock it over!

Making hot chocolate…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Create a unicorn making craft station!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frozen dance off and musical statues….

 

 

 

Make your own christmas sand tray…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make a Christmas snack…

 

Make a John Deer Tractor…..

Busy bees….

It’s great to be busy, work together, problem solve and let friendships develop, all at play.

we have enjoyed making pizza for snack, lots of building and measuring and being creative.  The bairns really enjoyed themselves and transferred they play outside, using larger loose parts to build than the marble run and making pizza and soup in the mud kitchen.

Mrs Colvin “Oooh this tastes like delicious chicken soup.”  “No Mrs Colvin, it’s MUD soup!” 😂

The bairns made a games hiding balls in pipes and wondered how to get them out, how many would come out, which end would they come out and so on.  Lots of great counting, estimating and problem solving as well as great co-operation working together.

There’s a bit of a Frozen frenzy happening in Nursery too with the upcoming new Frozen 2!  Our bairns are turning their den into a Frozen palace, enjoying the princess dresses and songs.

our creative area has been popular making Frozen props and decorations with a focus on using squares as our shape of the week.

 

Stay and Play

What a glorious day it was for our last Stay and Play day this term!

We were all very busy painting, sanding, watering and building while the sun shone, but the highlight was most definitely building our Fire Pit at the end of the day to toast marshmallows and eating “shmores”!

Painting!………..

Making trampolines……..

Sanding, ready to build……..

”We look like scientists!” (Maximus)

Gardening and making planters……

 

Making fire, toasting marshmallows…..yum!….

The Fire Pit was a big hit with staff, bairns and parents.  Providing children such experiences with real tools and fire allow our children to directly experience and gain knowledge about the nature these things and of open flames within a safe and controlled environment. They develop a respect for fire and the skills to keep themselves safe, which they can apply throughout their lives.

We all had a fabulous afternoon in the sunshine.  Big thanks to John the Janny and all the parents who donated items and came along to help.  Some even managed a sneaky marshmallow or two!