May 2017

Take a look at our Sway below which tracks how our learning and play has developed over the weeks here at Bathgate West Nursery. We are currently following the children’s interests in bees and other insects and mini beasts to develop our planning and activities over the next few weeks. If you and your children discover any interesting information about mini beasts at home please share it with us at nursery and we can add the information, pictures or photos into our floor books. As always, we welcome any comments or feedback on our blog, so please feel free to leave us a comment below.

The benefits of outdoor play on a child’s development are huge and here at Bathgate West Nursery we recognise, value and promote this using our fantastic outdoor environment daily and in all weathers.

Outdoor play promotes better mental health by improving better moods. In terms of physical health it provides more opportunities for movement and development of fine and gross motor skills. Cognitive health benefits with more opportunities to make decisions, problem solve and allow creative thinking. Emotional and social health benefits include increased self esteem and higher levels of sharing, co-operating and help with increased social interactions.

Play is so much more than just Play. Take a look at some of the ways we have been playing outdoors this week, including painting, mark making, den building, climbing, making ‘mud soup’, digging, building together, throwing and catching, growing and planting.

Our outdoor area is vital for your child’s development and we are always looking for ways to develop it further, so if any parents or grandparents are happy and willing to get involved in helping us spruce up our outdoors, help children plant and grow fruit and vegetables or have any sports/craft skills that they could come in and share with the children we would love it if you could let us know.

We had a very special visitor at nursery this week. The Easter Bunny hopped by with some sad news… he had lost all of his Easter Eggs out in the nursery playground. Luckily the boys and girls at Bathgate West were keen to help and they managed to find all of the hidden eggs! Great job everyone. 

It was a fun ending to a busy week at nursery where the children have been busy making Easter nests in the snack room and creating their own Easter Bonnets for our Easter parade with the Bunny.

April 2017

Thank you to all the children who came into nursery with crazy hair last week. We had lots of fun, but more importantly we raised money for Comic Relief. We talked about Red Nose Day and some children watched a small clip about a little girl whose life was changed by Comic Relief projects. The children reflected on the positive changes  and how the money had helped her. Then they helped to count out the money in our collection pot. We sorted the coins into groups first, discussing their shapes, colour and size and then Mrs Waddell helped us to count the coins. We raised £62 in total. So a big thank you to everyone who donated money.

Take a look at how our learning and play and been developing over the past few weeks with Spring changes around us…

The rain doesn’t stop our  play or learning here at Bathgate West. This morning we have been outside in our wellies playing ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ and creating a restaurant in our mud kitchen.

Today some of the children helped to recycle old cable drums that have been handed into the nursery from a local electrician. We had a look at some examples of how we can creatively recycle them and set to work painting them. Take a look at what we have been busy creating….we have lots more cable drums to use and lots more ideas, so keep an eye out for our masterpieces dotted around the nursery and the gardens.

Take a look at our Sway which shows how our learning develops and progresses here at nursery. Our current topic is People who help us.