We are sending out a little plea for any old pots, pans, baking trays and utensils to stock up our mud kitchen in our garden and also to create an outdoor music/sound board. So if you have anything that you might be throwing away please bring it into nursery for us to recycle and reuse. Thank you.

As part of Bathgate Music Festival fortnight we were lucky again to have two lovely visitors today playing a selection of musical instruments. We danced, clapped and sang along to the Fiddle, a Whistle and even a Ukulele. It was lots of fun as we learned about the different instruments and went on a journey to music land.

A very warm welcome back to our returning children and all of our new children joining us here at Bathgate West Nursery. We hope you all had a wonderful summer break and and we are enjoying hearing about all of your holiday adventures. As we settle back into nursery life our focus is on establishing and developing routines throughout the nursery and reviewing the ways in which we can keep our nursery a happy place to be for all.

If you have any questions about nursery life at Bathgate West please speak to any of the staff who will be happy to explain any of our routines to you. As we like to encourage independence please send your child into nursery wearing shoes or boots that they can put on themselves.

Have a look at some of our photos to remind you of important places around the nursery… Can you remember what we do in these areas?

The children had a fantastic time at Wellsfield Farm Park today. The sun was shining and they enjoyed playing with all of their nursery friends, exploring all of the fun activities available at the park. We all enjoyed hearing all of the things you had been doing and seeing you have so much fun with your friends and families. A lovely way to end a very busy year with you all.

The rain just about held off for our sports day on Monday and a great day was had by all. Thank you to all those who came along to cheer and support the children. They all took part in the races with enthusiasm and determination and enjoyed receiving their well deserved medals.

What a fabulous day we all had on Saturday  for the Bathgate Procession… the sun was shining, we marched along in our wonderful costumes and we all cheered and sang loudly and proudly “Bathgate West is the Best!” and even the judges agreed as we won First prize for best costume once again this year!

You all looked absolutely fabulous representing the nursery and a big THANK YOU to Mrs Bett and the parents group who worked so hard to make all of our costumes. The turn out was great and the singing was super and we did ourselves proud… Bathgate West really IS the best!

Whilst the sun has come out to play we have been making the most of our outdoor area again. There has been lots of exploration of measuring with water using the giant scales with some of the boys trying hard to balance the two buckets equally. Jude noticed ” You need to put more water in this side to balance it.” and Oliver observed the following… ” I just put a big bit of water in it and it went that way!”.

Some children have been busy building a den in the corner of our garden and even decided to make a flag and sign for it. There has been lots of tree climbing and activity on the bikes and scooters and we have even taken our Rainbow Room outside with sand play, water play and painting outside too.  The sun has been helping our vegetables grow and our greenhouse now has a tomato plant to grow in. The left over charcoal from our fire pit has been very useful as some of the children used this to draw  pictures, exploring a range of materials.

We have also been busy learning our Gala day Safari song and can’t wait to sing and cheer on Saturday…. We are just hoping that the sun stays out over the weekend and everyone has a wonderful day! We look forward to walking with you or waving to you if you are in the crowd watching!  HIP HIP….

Following on from our fire pit experience last week the children have been helping to set up a camping role play area and there has been lots of discussion about holidays, camping and camp fires. Some more children had the opportunity to toast marshmallows on the real camp fire again today. We will be developing our planning around the children’s ideas about holidays and summer.

Today some of the children were able to experience building their own camp fire using our lovely new fire pit. We worked in small groups and Ollie the Owl helped to teach us how to be safe and wise near a fire. We showed great respect for the fire and followed all safety rules and as a treat we got to toast marshmallows on our fire. We talked about the fire, flames and smoke and what fire is used for.

By using our Fire Pit we are developing:

Social interactions

Life skills

Risk Taking

Confidence

Experience

Co-operation

Communication

We will be using our fire pit again soon to allow other children to have the experience.

Our little chicks are settling into their lives at Bathgate West this week with lots of cuddles from the boys and girls. They have attracted lots of attention from parents, grandparents, brothers and sister and they are growing very quickly! Some children helped clean out their cage today in preparation for their holidays at the weekend. They will be back on Monday and we will be looking to see how much they have changed over the weekend. Chick number 9 still has no name so any suggestions will be appreciated.