Category: Nursery

Worms

 

 

When we were digging in our Mud Kitchen we found lots of big juicy worms. Mrs McNee explained that worms are good for the soil as they “break it all up”.

We didn’t understand what she was saying so we invited the Local Authority Waste Management Department to bring their wormery to the nursery to show us. Joanna from Waste Management, explained that a wormery had a kitchen, a livingroom and a bathroom. The kitchen is on the top floor and we added chopped vegetables for the worms to eat. The livingroom is in the middle as this is where they bury themselves in the soil. The bathroom is on the bottom floor and they go there to cool down.

We learned that worms do not like to eat meat, crisps, sweets or animal poo!

We observed and cared for the worms for 1 week and now have a better understanding of how important they are to our soil.

Our Scottish Learning

We have been very busy learning all about the country we live in. We have tasted haggis, neeps and tatties, baked shortbread and finished off with some oatcakes and cheese.

We have been learning about tartan patterns and have created our own tartan kilts using strips of paper at our PEEP classes with our carers.  We also looked at patterns created by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and created stained glass windows.

We now know that the Scottish flag is called a Saltire and the Scottish flower is called a Thistle.

We have also shared our learning with our Primary 2 friends by joining in with singing the songs we have learned. They treated us to a rendition of “If You’re a Midgie and You Know It”, whilst we sang “Ye Cannae Shove Yer Grannie Aff a Bus”. We finished off by all joining together to sing “Three Craws Sat Upon A Waa”.

 

Haggis, Yum!
Haggis, Yum!
Haggis Neeps and Tatties
Haggis Neeps and Tatties
Working together to bake shortbread
Working together to bake shortbread
Baking Shortbread
Baking Shortbread
PEEP 3s creating Tartan Kilts
PEEP 3s creating Tartan Kilts

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Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh

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Still Life Paintings of Scottish Thistles
Still Life Paintings of Scottish Thistles
Still Life Paintings of Scottish Thistles
Still Life Paintings of Scottish Thistles
Sharing our Learning with Primary 2
Sharing our Learning with Primary 2
Sharing our Learning with Primary 2
Sharing our Learning with Primary 2

Sensory Learning

We have been using our senses to help us learn and have enjoyed getting messy in the process! We have been having fun playing in our rice pit running the rice through our fingers and watching it bounce and make noises, we thought sounded like rain. It felt cold and smooth as we played with it. We have also been making volcanos with vinegar and bicarbonate soda. We thought that the vinegar smelled yucky but we liked how it fizzed and frothed as it exploded. We have been playing with paint and loved squishing and squeezing it through our fingers and rubbing it up our arms, making hand and arm prints in the process. During the cold weather we froze water and once frozen and hard put it in the water tray and spent a long time playing with it as it melted in our warm hands, it felt very cold and wet. Last week we began to dry slices of fruit to make decorations for our natural sensory Christmas tree. We have also made popcorn which we have threaded together to make garlands. It smelled so nice when we cooked it we just had to eat it! Our tree looks and smells great.

National Galleries of Scotland Competition

This year some of the nursery children took part in National Galleries of Scotland art competition. Over 7000 children from across Scotland entered the competition and we were delighted to be informed that two of our children had won an award in the nursery category. Congratulations go to Owen Davies who won 3rd place and to Katie Ewesor who was awarded a special merit.
As part of Owen’s prize the nursery was given an opportunity to attend the Gallery for a special tour and a practical workshop.
We went on the bus and were welcomed by the staff. We were taken around the Gallery and learned about some of the pictures. We then got messy! We made our own pictures using paint, glue, pens and crayons and produced lovely flowers in vases. We had a great day out. We will display our paintings in our own gallery next week.
Katie and Owen will attend an awards ceremony at the gallery to receive their awards and then their pictures will be displayed in the gallery until October when the full competition exhibition will then travel around various venues in Scotland.
A big well done to Owen and Katie and thank you also to the National Galleries of Scotland for the great opportunity which we all enjoyed.

Nursery Garden

We have been busy weeding and planting in our nursery garden as we work towards gaining our green flag award.
We have also been learning about healthy eating in the nursery so we invited Willie Carruthers the community gardener along to show us how to plant properly and talk to us about different types of fruit and vegetables we can grow in our garden. We have at the moment planted strawberries, peas, potatoes, carrots and cabbage and we are looking after them and eagerly awaiting to see the first signs of growth.
The photographer from the West Lothian Courier came along and took our photograph and our picture appeared in the paper that week.

Marie Curie

We recently took part in the Marie Curie Mini Pots of Care fundraiser. Mini Pots of Care is a fun and creative way for children aged 3 to 11 to learn about science, nature and the work of charities. While we were learning we raised money to help Marie Curie Nurses care for people with any terminal illness. We planted our daffodils in November and helped to care for them and water them. Once they were ready we decorated our pots and took them home. We raised a fantastic £137.46 Thank you to everyone who made a donation and well done.

Fairtrade Fortnight

We have been learning about Fairtrade and Foncho the Fairtrade Banana Farmer and can now recognise Fairtrade products by the symbol on them.
We ate Bananas all week at snack. Banana Smoothies, Banana Sandwiches and homemade Banana Cake it was delicious.
We decided to have a Fairtrade Coffee Morning and made our own posters to advertise our event.
On the day we helped to serve our parents and carers tea, coffee and cake and retold them the story of Foncho.
We celebrated our learning at the primary school assembly last Friday morning by telling the boys and girls of Foncho the Banana Farmer.

January

Last month our learning focused on developing our story telling and rhyme reciting skills during our Story, Rhyme and Song time. We have been listening to traditional tales such as The 3 Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears and The Gingerbread Man and have participated in retelling the story using role-play costumes and puppets. We have been learning and reciting different nursery rhymes and songs including Old MacDonald, Hey Diddle Diddle and the Row, Row, Row your Boat.

During our Scottish Week focus we learned many different Scottish words to describe our clothing, including our semmit, breeks and bunnet and used our art and craft skills to design our own tartan kilts. We held our very own Burns Supper where we tasted Haggis, Neeps and Tatties and entertained our parents and carers with an impromptu Scottish Singalong with songs including Wee Willie Winkie, Yi Cannae Shove Yir Grannie, and the children’s favourite, The Midge.

Home-Link activity sheets and booklets supporting the children’s learning in Nursery Rhymes, Traditional Tales and Scottish Songs are available in the cloakroom.

Group Time activities take place at 9.30am and 1pm where the children engage in key learning opportunities to develop their listening and talking skills through sound matching and rhythm games or activities such as cutting, drawing, throwing and catching to develop their gross and fine motor skills.

A small snack is served mid-session. We have introduced an opportunity for the children to practice their fine motor skills using a knife and fork as well as offering tasting sessions for the children to try different foods.

We have also been learning to cook and have really enjoyed making our own Krispie cakes.

Christmas

We have been very busy in the nursery learning about all things Christmas. We used our painted hands to make Christmas cards and a variety of a paint and glitter to create the perfect tea light candle gifts.
The Christmas tree was put up and decorated and shiny paper chains made to decorate our party room. Many Santa letters were also written. Hopefully we will get what we are wishing for.
Last week we really enjoyed having a Christmas dinner of turkey, sprouts, sausages in bacon, stuffing and roast potatoes, it was lovely and most of the children tried it.
We have been learning all about the Christmas story and the children have worked really hard to learn their lines and perform their version of the Nativity. Everyone has a role, whether it be an actor or a member of the angel choir. Our Bethlehem scenery was created by the children using their drawing, painting and cutting skills and I’m sure you’ll agree it looks fantastic. Well done to everyone.
We will return after the holidays on Tuesday 7th January 2014. Have a lovely holiday and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all the staff at Knightsridge EYC.

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