The ladies from Pre-School Home Visiting Service visited again this week.  They came armed with lots of new games to play, songs to sing and of course signs to learn.  This week we were learning how to sign family members.  We read a story about a family picnic, then played a game to practice signing and then we sang the wheels on the bus song.  We had to choose which family members were on the bus and signed along to the song.  As always, we had a lot of fun learning with the ladies.

Next week the ladies will not be with us at nursery, so they have left the signs, story and games for 2 weeks.  The week after will be their last visit for signalong.

We have had another super week, enjoying more light and the changing seasons.  We have been looking for signs of spring and spotting bulb plants like snowdrops and crocuses.

We have enjoyed being outside in the park and exploring how to use the large resources there.  We have been speaking about how we are aware of the spaces we use and how to move our bodies safely in the bigger outdoor space.

Some children made a stage from blocks and put on a puppet show this week.

We also had a visit from Child Smile, reminding us how to brush our teeth, and how important it is to do that for healthy teeth and gums.

We have some visual reminders now up in nursery showing our  nursery rules.  We have spoken about these a few times this week, particularly at the beginning of the session and any times when children may need a reminder of them.  The 4 rules are:

Gentle hands, gentle feet, quiet voices and be kind to our toys and friends.

The children have been building amazing things again this week.  We have had bonfires with marshmallows, a campervan, a puppet show stage, towers and a salmon feed boat and salmon cage from built from Lego blocks.

We have been singing songs, reading stories, writing messages, using numbers, exploring our environments and learning through play.  Our quiet space has been used more this week as children seek out a quieter space in our setting.  There are blankets, fairy lights, cushions and different materials in there to relax with.

Next week our song of the week is the days of the week song, our story of the week is The 3 Little Pigs and our rhyme of the week is Incy Wincy Spider.  If parents want to explore some more super resources from bookbug, here is a helpful link.

Bookbug Song and Rhyme Library – Scottish Book Trust

We have had a lovely week and we hope you enjoy your weekend!

Welcome to our new staff Member Lee Paton, who this week has commenced her established post as Support Worker at Tingwall Nursery.  Lee replaces Emma Sandison who left in December.

We have also had a number of relief staff in the nursery covering absences this week and we welcome those staff too.  Practitioner Bonita Riise will be in next week again.

At snack and mealtimes,  we aim to provide a relaxed atmosphere and time to taste and try new and healthy food options, whilst speaking with friends and staff.

We offer a wide range of healthy options for snack each week.  This is the menu for the week ahead.

Snack Menu for 14th March 2022

The ladies from Shetland Pre-School Home Visiting Service have visited us this week again for our Signalong session.  This week the theme was food.

We sang 10 fat sausages, and heard the story of the Very Hungry Caterpillar.  This helped us speak about the food items and learn the signs.  The ladies left us with some games to play, to practice the signs, including a magnetic fishing game, and a story maker to illustrate all the items the very hungry caterpillar ate.

If you want to practice these at home too, these are the signs we have been learning this week:

Here are some photos of the session with the PSHVS ladies.

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Although this has been a shorter nursery week than usual with the long weekend, there has been no let up in the engagement with play and the opportunities that leads us to with our learning.

There has been continued enthusiasm for our construction and block play areas, both the smaller blocks indoors and the larger, hollow blocks in our “indoor/outdoor” area.  The bairns made a campsite from the large blocks this morning, as they continued to think about where they might go on their holiday travels around the isles.

What a lot of stories we have read this week, and have enjoyed sharing a quiet space to look at books, retelling stories and also drawing pictures of some of the characters we read about.  Lots of wonderful discussions, and some really good listening too.

We have really enjoyed transporting water into the stone chips area, as well as filling up the different sized containers.  We have explored lots of different ways to make marks and patters.  We have also really enjoyed lots of games and different ways to play together this week too.  This has helped us to create lots of lovely things, learn or develop our skills, take turns and share our time and resources as well.

We have been in the hall for gym lessons again this week.  We used our bodies to move in different ways.

Transition activities are also continuing very gently, as we take every opportunity to visit the school, meet the people who go there to work and learn, and look through the window into the Primary 1 classroom.

We have enjoyed meeting some of you on line for parents/carers evenings this week too.  Another very busy week has come to an end.  Have a lovely weekend everybody.

We finally were able to spot the swans this week on one of our walks within the community!  We were so delighted with the fine day on Wednesday and the chance to feed the swans.  If you look really closely you might be able to spot them too.

We also had a chance to see and speak about our shadows with the arrival of the sun again this week.  Real life experiences, are always our first point of conversation with children as it helps us all  put experiences in context.  There is no better way to understand weather, science and nature, than to be outside in it to learn.

We  really enjoy eating our delicious and very healthy snacks.  In the last week, we have enjoyed making and tasting fruit kebabs and a cracker and fruit ” layered cake”.

The selection we have available is a great way for all children to try new foods, tastes and textures at our sociable, nursery-family kitchen table.

Our Snack Menu for the week ahead is here:

Morning-snack-WB 7th March 2022

Children and staff have really enjoyed celebrating World Book Day at Nursery today.  The option to dress up proved a popular choice, and there were so many great characters from favourite stories and books to be seen.

Nursery staff were able to read some of the particularly popular stories to children which was much enjoyed.

The love of books, characters and stories is clear to see.

With so many staff off this week, there has not been many opportunities to take photos, but we will get more again another week.

Lots of enjoyment in the outdoors as always though.  Today, we have been looking at the clouds moving quickly across the sky, and looking out for any “water spouts”.

The tape measures have been used for measuring lots of different things like the slide and ourselves, but also as “fishing lines” and “skipping ropes” and “rescue lines”, we even tried them as hula hoops but that maybe didn’t, work as well.  Lots of imagination, collaboration and play from these open ended resources.

The blocks and indoor outdoor area have been well used again.  The children have been sharing, taking turns, problem solving and speaking together to make different structures and play experiences.

We have had no sign a long this week unfortunately, but we are looking forward to seeing the ladies again another week.  Enjoy the long weekend everybody!