Numeracy and Mathematics – Page 6 – Bathgate Early Years Centre

March 11, 2016

Pizza Chefs

The nursery children have enjoyed making and tasting pizzas this week for snack. When discussing the types of pizza that they like to eat, during writing a shopping list for the following weeks snack, the children discovered that they liked different/similar toppings on their pizzas. They decided they should make their own pizzas for snack, so then had a discussion to decide on which toppings they would like to order. The boys and girls worked well together in small groups to create delicious vegetarian, chicken and pepperoni pizzas. Lots of collaboration, cooperation, compromising and problem solving took place to ensure everyone was in agreement and happy about the choice of topping on each pizza…….

HWB 0-14a HWB 0-19a HWB 0-23a HWB 0-35a LIT 0-02a/ENG 0-03a MNU 0-11a

March 7, 2016

Developing measurement concepts through play.

The balance scales have been really popular in the water tray recently and lots of meaningful learning has taken place, here is a little snapshot of the dialog between a group of children who were “making experiments” by filling the buckets with water on the balance scales.
Z “I pour more in and it goes down into the water. That one has lifted away up.”
R “Mines are balancing with the same water.”
E “It goes down with a lot of water.”
Z “Empty buckets go up, loads goes down when it’s full.”
E “How many inches do I have?”
Children investigating measuring jugs/containers and making predictions as to which will hold the most.
Z “This one will be heavy because it is bigger.”
E “ I think this big one will hold the most. E used a small jug to fill up two containers, medium and large sized. We counted together, first 5 and then 13 jugfuls. “This one has the most water, I was right.”
R Predicts how many little bottles it will take to fill the bucket. “I think 10.” He fills and counts 12 bottlefuls “That’s a lot!”.
Miss W points out the number on the measuring jugs and explain the measurements are in milliliters and they help us count and measure correct amounts when baking etc.
R “ My mum doesn’t use measuring jugs. She just puts lots in and makes spicy things!”
Z “How many hundred did I get up to? How many meters did I get up to?”
The balance scales begin to drain and float.
Z ”Why are they wobbling?”
Miss W explains that the water weighs them down because it makes them heavier.
Z quickly fills scales back up. “Look now it is staying still, full of water.”
O has been standing observing and now joins in filling up measuring jugs. He asks “What number have I got?” each time he fills the jug and waits in suspense as Miss W counts the measurement markers on the jug.

Measurement

I have experimented with everyday items as units of measure to investigate and compare sizes and amounts in my environment, sharing my findings with others. MNU 0-11a

January 29, 2016February 2, 2016

Winter Learning Story

Have a look at our Winter Learning Story to find out what we have been learning about at nursery recently.

January 27, 2016January 29, 2016

Outdoor Music Station

The boys and girls along with staff members worked together to plan how to develop our outdoor music area. We had small planning meetings to discuss what objects we could find around nursery which could make the most noise/music – pots and pans were our favourite choice! We then used a pallet from St Mary’s Primary to fix our selected ‘instruments’ onto. Once we gathered all our noisy instruments we got wrapped and went into the garden to build our musical instrument station with Miss Kelly. This was great fun.

HWB 0-19a MTH0-16a LIT- 0-04a EXA 0-17a

January 13, 2016January 14, 2016

Try at home – feed the birds

Please collect a pack from the ‘Try at home’ table in the foyer. Did you know you can also make a simple bird feeder using Cheerios? Thread the Cheerios onto wool or string or a pipe cleaner and then hang outside in your garden.

We would love to find out how you get on? Perhaps you could take photographs and bring them into nursery to share with you friends?

(Or alternatively email Miss Wilkinson: eva.wilkinson@westlothian.org.uk)

HWB 0-50a LIT 0-14a MNU 0-02a MNU 0-11a

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015

Working hard at Transition PEEP

Well done to all the boys and girls and their parents/grandparents who worked very hard at our Transition PEEP groups this year. The Transition PEEP group aims to help prepare children for Primary One by focussing on a variety of literacy and numeracy activities, while building confidence and developing concentration and listening skills.

The groups ran on Friday mornings from March to June with sessions focussing on;

Getting to know each other
Following instructions
Working together
Playing with stories
Having fun with letter sounds
Rhyming sounds
Environmental print
Handling money
Recognising progress, praise and PARTY.

Children and parents/grandparents worked very well together through every day and ordinary learning experiences, where children’s efforts and achievements were recognised and valued by giving them praise and encouragement. The noted increase in the children’s confidence was very noticeable over the months.

Thank you to everyone for the very positive evaluation comments and suggestions for ways to improve future sessions.

HWB 0-11a HWB 0-12a HWB 0-13a HWB 0-14a HWB 0-23a

LIT 0-01a/LIT 0-11a/LIT 0-20a LIT 0-01c LIT 0-02a/ENG 0-03a LIT 0-04a

LIT 0-09a LIT 0-09b/LIT 0-31a ENG 0-12a/LIT 0-13a/LIT 0-21a LIT 0-26a

LIT 0-09b/LIT 0-31a MNU 0-01a MNU 0-02a MNU 0-09a MNU 0-20a