Sound School Nursery

We have made the most of the snowy weather by encouraging the children to play outside while learning and having fun. The cold weather has given us the opportunity to explore the properties of snow and ice. The children have also enjoyed making snowballs and building snowmen. Mark making in the snow proved to be a popular activity.

The four and five year old children at nursery visited the galley shed on Thursday 25th January. Like our previous trip to Mareel in October, travelling on a big bus proved to be very popular once again. The children enjoyed being able to look at their surroundings from a higher vantage point. It was interesting to hear them chat to each other about what they could see.

At the galley shed, the children were split into two groups with Graeme Garrick showing one group around while Gary Smith took the other. The children were very keen to climb inside the galley and enjoyed pretending to be Viking raiders. We also got to see the meeting room upstairs and had the chance to sit in the Guizer Jarl’s chair and hit the wooden gavel to get people’s attention. Many of the children were fascinated by the bear skin that was on display. We also had the opportunity to watch a short video of last year’s procession with several children singing along to the well-known Up-Helly-Aa song.

We spent a very interesting hour at the galley shed and when we returned to the nursery many of the children were eager to draw pictures relating to the visit. Sound Nursery is very fortunate to have a small galley which was given to us a few years ago. The galley is a great resource and has contributed to lots of imaginative role-play throughout the week.

The Junior Jarl, Oran McCulloch and his squad visited the nursery on Up-Helly-Aa day. The children were very excited to see the squad.  We also had a surprise visit from some members of the Senior Jarl Squad later in the week.  The children enjoyed having the chance to try on helmets and hold shields and axes.

December was a very busy month in the nursery. The children showed great enthusiasm for the variety of Christmas and winter themed activities on offer which was based on their interests. Mark making was particularly popular with many of the children choosing to make and write cards before posting them in the Christmas post box. Our Christmas performance was a huge success with lots of positive feedback from family members. The Christmas party was one of the highlights of the term. We had a surprise visit from Santa before enjoying a special snack and playing lots of different party games. Unfortunately, our Christmas Bookbug Session did not go ahead as planned due to the school closures for weather at the end of term.

During term 2, the children have had great fun practising gymnastics skills using the apparatus set up by Mrs Ritchie in the gym hall. Throughout the weeks, the children have become more confident when using the apparatus and have worked hard at developing their balance, co-ordination and flexibility.

We enjoyed taking part in numeracy week which happened to coincide with stay and play visits for parents and carers. It was great to see the children engaging with their parents while learning about 2D and 3D shapes, counting, number recognition, measurement and fractions. The children were also keen to share their individual learning story journals with parents.

We also used our maths and problem solving skills to design and make a new jingle bell for an elf’s hat. The children used a range of objects to explore different sounds before deciding that coins, marbles and dried pasta made the best jingling sounds when placed inside different containers which the children then went on to decorate. This was part of the ‘Chaos at the North Pole’ challenge with each year group in the school completing a different numeracy related task. The design criteria for the nursery was to make an attractive bell that jingled, which the children were successful in achieving while working together in their key groups. Take a look at the ‘Chaos at the North Pole’ display in the foyer outside the office to see how the whole school was involved.

The children and staff wore yellow or spotty clothes for Children in Need on Friday 17th November. We had a special yellow themed snack and tasty homemade Pudsey biscuits. There were lots of Pudsey ears on show and the children made a puppet by decorating and cutting out Pudsey’s face which was then attached to a lollipop stick.

The school aim for this term is safety which the children have been learning about through road safety and keeping safe on Bonfire Night. In groups, the children practised crossing the road safely while using ‘Stop, Look, Listen’ and learned the actions for each word – a hand signal for stop and pointing to eyes and ears for look and listen.

We have also learned about the importance of reflective clothing through the ‘Be Bright, Be Seen’ campaign. Our janitor Tony, visited the nursery to show us his hi-vis jacket and school crossing patrol sign.

The outdoor environment and role-play was used to reinforce the children’s understanding of road safety and the traffic lights displaying the red/green man proved to be very popular.

The children enjoyed playing interactive games and listening to stories using the wide range of resources available from the Road Safety Scotland website. They have also been introduced to Ziggy who is the Road Safety Scotland mascot.

Click on the link below if you want to find out more about the early level resources available from the Road Safety Scotland website:

https://roadsafety.scot/children-and-educators/early/

The children had lots of fun taking part in various Halloween themed activities at the craft table and in the water tray. They also enjoyed dressing up and carving pumpkins. We had a special visit from Bookbug during our library session which the children really enjoyed. Scary spiders were used for practising counting and sequencing numbers to 10.

On Wednesday 25^th October, the pre-school children at nursery went to Mareel to see an interactive dance adventure show for under 5’s called ‘Paper Moon.’ The show was about a girl called Poppy Diddle who wakes up after falling asleep to discover that the MoonMoo (the cow that jumped over the moon) has got stuck on the moon. Poppy goes on a space adventure with her dog Peppy to help rescue the MoonMoo. She needs the help of the children in the audience when she goes on her space mission.

The children were very excited about the bus journey to Mareel and enjoyed pointing out familiar sights on the way there. It was the first time that many of the children had been on a bus. When we arrived at Mareel, we had to take off our shoes before sitting down on pillows which were arranged in a circle. The area was set up as a bedroom with a space theme. The children were engrossed in the show and enjoyed having the opportunity to be actively involved in the story telling.

Here are some of the children’s comments about the trip:

“I loved the show, it was exciting.”

“It was good fun going on the big bus.”

“I liked the paper rockets the best.”

“It was funny watching Poppy dance on the bed.”

“The music was really cool.”

“Can we go and see another play?”

Here is a short video taken by Miss Wilkinson:

We enjoyed a recent visit to the adventure playground. It was great to see the children using the equipment so effectively while working together and taking turns. It was good fun being outside on such a windy day where we could see and feel the effects of the wind.