Welcome to our new starts this week.  Everyone at Tingwall Nursery have enjoyed meeting, welcoming and settling in the new starts over the last few weeks.  The Lego Dinosaurs have been particularly popular and played with.

There has been such a lot of learning again this week. It is a real pleasure to see the creativity and skills being developed as the year progresses.  We have seen lots of pictures, designs and experimenting with making marks.  We have also started working on the torches for our Up-Helly-Aa procession.

We have worked a lot on our fine and gross motor skills.  The peg board beads have been used a lot to create patterns, sort colours and make faces!

The block play area is fantastic resource that can facilitate such a variety of creative play and learning opportunities.  The hollow blocks have been used to made paths to escape the “giant”, we were stomping using our “left foot” and “right foot” stomps.

The smaller unit blocks can be transformed into almost anything that springs to mind. This is a shoe shop, with a car park, money and a window to see the customers coming.  It was a collaborative effort which was added to by all the children playing together.

All children are enjoying hearing stories either in small groups or as an individual.  We have been speaking about the characters, picture detail, and listening carefully to see if we can find any words that rhyme.  This is a really helpful skill to develop as it helps with all sorts of work up through the school.

Staff have taken a little bit of time this week to work in smaller groups.  The 3 year olds formed one group, and those who are age to go into Primary 1 after summer were in another group.  We have been using the hall (gym space) and the more open outdoor areas of the school to have a bit of time to run, jump , spin and let off some steam.

We are having a big focus on using kind words, gentle hands and looking after the resources in the nursery at the moment.  All staff take opportunities to discuss acceptable behaviour within the day to day operations of nursery life, throughout the year.  However, right now, we would appreciate any help at home to discuss looking after our resources and each other.  We are working hard at joining in for the short periods of time, where everyone needs to help tidy up.  We are also practicing showing our skills in caring for others.  This will be an ongoing class target for the term.

The opportunities that present themselves in play experiences are endless.  This week, some pupils been looking at clocks in our environment.  We have used language such as “hands”, “face”, “short hand”, “long hand”, “numbers”, “minutes” and “o’clock”.

Up Helly Aa has been a great success this week in nursery.  The children have been making their own burning torches in the junk modelling area, and have been so delighted to watch videos about Up-Helly-Aa.  There has been some role playing, singing and we will build up to throwing our torches into the galley at the end of our procession!

There has been a lot of counting groups of things, and we are trying to look at ways that we can make counting easier to “see” at a glance.  We have been setting things out in an ordered way to help us count.

Next week we will be looking at “5 frames” and “10 frames”, and also working on ways to count at a glance.  We will still be working on tidy up time together as a team and being respectful of everyone.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Please see the planned snacks for the week ahead below. There is always a good selection of healthy snacks offered.

Morning-snack-WB 31st January 2022

ELC Shetland are hosting a number of online training events for parents and carers to complement training currently being delivered to Children’s Services staff.  These training sessions are being delivered by Educational Consultant, Kate Hookham.  They are free of charge and bookings can be arranged through the Workforce Development Team.  Places are limited so be quick if you want to be ensured your place.

Please see the posters below for further information.

We hope parents and carers will enjoy being able to have a look that their child’s learning story this weekend.  It is a great opportunity for the children to share their learning with you at home.

Learning stories should be individualised and have meaning for each child.  It is their story and they should feel like they have ownership of their story and what goes into it.  There may be a selection of in-depth observations made by staff in the setting, or smaller snippets of information to say what a child has been occupied in.  There could be photo attached, a child’s own drawings or comments throughout the story.

The document allows children (and adults) to see and value the progression made in learning over time.  It is also valuable to share learning at home in a collaborative way, so that the adults in nursery know what interests and experiences children are interested or engaged with at home too.

There is a sheet included within the learning story for people at home to add their feedback/comments, and their child’s comments.  We enjoy having a collaborative approach to working with families and value comments and connections that allow us to support learning.

As this is an important part of documenting your child’s learning journey, we would appreciate these learning stories to be returned by Tuesday 1^st February.

If you have any comments that you would like to discuss with staff privately, rather than written comments, these can also be received in a more confidential way as always.

As you may be aware from local advertisements and social media campaigns, Shetland’s annual “Registration Week” for nursery placement requests is almost upon us.  This year Registration week will run from Friday 4^th February until 6pm on Friday 11^th February 2022.

Any child who is already registered at Tingwall nursery, and wants to continue, need not apply again.  However, we will be sending out a form to complete if you have a returning child and would like to change your nursery pattern from August 2022.

For anyone who uses Facebook, there is the “ELC Shetland” Facebook page, which has lots of useful links, videos and information for parents and carers to explore.

Please see the poster below.  Anyone who would like to discuss nursery attendance patterns and the entitlement to provision available, please feel free to be in touch.

We have seen the welcome return of milder weather this week, meaning we have been able to explore outdoor areas a little more.

In the Nursery Garden, we were geared up and ready to explore our water way resources.  The children are able to access the outdoor tap independently, and experiment with the different lengths and heights of pipe to see how quickly or slowly the water flowed.  “Dat wan was really quick!”

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There was a lot of interest in this experience as well new vocabulary used and lots of exploring and learning opportunities.

The children and staff took a walk to the loch this week, to see if there were any swans to be spotted.  Wrapped up warmly and armed with lots of bread for the birds,  the group set off.  Unfortunately, despite a thorough search, there were no swans to be seen or fed, however the opportunity to get beyond the Nursery and explore the community was not wasted.  There was lots of other birds to see, as well as people in the community and a chance to speak about the weather about us.

We look forward to being out and about in groups a bit more, exploring all the things we can see and experience in our outdoor community. Give us a wave if you happen to see us!

The children have spent time exploring magnets this week.  They were testing to see how well they could stick to items in the nursery as well and how much weight they could bear without sliding down a surface.  There were lots of problem solving opportunities,  patterns made and followed as well as  following instructions.

It was also a good opportunity to make dens and investigate the properties of 2D and 3D shapes.  We have spoken about sides, corners, angles, squares, circles, triangles and even pyramids.  We were also delighted to see the reflections on the wall when the sun was shining really brightly.

We found some more instructions in a super cook-book, and spoke about oven temperature as well as ingredients and how the illustrations were helping us to understand what to do next.  The instructions were numbered, so we knew which order they were to be completed in.  Some children were also able to talk about which numbers they recognised in the instructions.

The children have been making waffles this morning.  We followed the recipe, took turns to add the ingredients and then really enjoyed eating them for snack too.

There are lots of opportunities through the week for children to explore fine and gross motor skill development.  This week, there has been some junk models made as well as a painting, drawing, gluing, cutting and sticking.  This is a super time to make marks, practice holding a pen or pencil and speak about letters  too.  All the children are encouraged to explore and develop their skills, write their own names on their art work and creations, and extend their writing skills when the time is right.

There has been an interest in writing labels and signs this week.  Brilliant!

Continue reading Learning in Nursery This Week – 17th – 21st January →

Hello

It has been lovely to meet bairns, parents/carers and some grandparents as the Tingwall Nursery Teacher this week.  I have been warmly welcomed and look forward to working together to support your bairns in their learning and development.

If any parents would like to discuss anything nursery related with me, I would be delighted  to speak quickly at drop off or collection times, or arrange a time that is mutually agreeable for anything that might take a bit longer.  My current working days will be Wednesdays and Fridays.

Early Learning and Childcare Registration Week Poster 2022 – FinalELC Shetland Guidance 2022-23

Nursery Menu 2022