Author: H Rafferty

NURSERY – LEARNING AT HOME IS FUN

Virtual Book Club for Kids is a learning website you can share with your child to read, sing, play, create, have fun and learn. L.1. I enjoy exploring and choosing stories and other texts to watch, read or listen to, and can share my likes and dislikes.

Get ideas for activities, crafts and recipes based on popular themes and featured books with important skills and weekly activity plans for each of the themes. For more information please click here

 

Seeing other people wearing masks is a free printable book which is available at http://drive.google.com/file/d/1B2FEF1DTXomgH8ZL79Vg7E_Bu7ZOkBOA/view

Supporting your child with understanding why people are wearing masks. L.1. I understand that my feelings and reactions can change depending upon what is happening within and around me. This helps me to understand my own behaviour and the way others behave.

 

Some other great indoor activities to try at home

A great way to introduce your child to different materials and their properties L.1. Through creative play, I explore different materials and can share my reasoning for selecting materials for different purposes.

              

 Pavement chalk activities to keep your child active outdoors

The good weather is to last another few days, take the opportunity to take fun learning outdoors, all you need is chalk and a pavement or driveway. L.1.I am enjoying daily opportunities to participate in different kinds of energetic play, both outdoors and indoors. 

      

                    

Remember you can also have a look at West Lothian Early Years Blog for more idea’s by clicking here.

Stay positive and remind your self your doing the best you can and that’s good enough.

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

NURSERY – FOR ALL OUR PARENTS

For all our Parents

Look after yourself too!

There is no point pretending that this isn’t a strange and difficult time. And you may feel so busy looking after everyone else that you forget to look after yourself. It’s important that you find time for you when possible, and to look after your own wellbeing.

Remember, this situation won’t last forever and you might one day look back fondly on this time you spent together as a family.

Parent Club Scotland have some useful online advice on looking after you and your child’s mental health during this time:-

Mental health advice for parents during coronavirus

Mental health advice for soon-to-be and new parents during coronavirus

Supporting your child’s mental health during coronavirus

You can also find advice on the Mind website about coronavirus and your wellbeing.

 

Keeping well

A few simple things you can do to keep yourself and your children as healthy as possible are:

  • Keep to routines.
  • Go to bed and get up at the same time as usual.
  • Eat and drink healthily.
  • Stay in touch with friends and family (phone and online).

ParentClub and Parentline have some good advice.

One Parent Families Scotland has produced information about how to keep your children occupied during social distancing.

 

Doing the best you can is what counts

It’s hard for everyone to be staying at home the whole time whether you’re working from home or not. Some of you will be trying to continue your children’s education, others will be doing their best just to get by.

Some parents will be looking for information and resources to help with their child’s education at home; others will be just trying to get by.

Just remember, maintaining the health and well being of your family is essential, everything else is optional.

If you are worrying about your children missing out because they are not at nursery or school, you might be tempted to do more than you all can really manage, like trying to make them do learning or school work for so many hours a day. You can help as best you can, but they also need you to give them and yourself a break:

  • Like us, they’ve never experienced anything like this before. Although the idea of being off nursery or school might sound great to them, like you, they’ll find it hard being stuck at home and not seeing their friends.
  • So, you might see more in the way of meltdowns, tantrums and opposition. This is natural and to be expected.
  • What your children need right now is to feel comforted and loved, and to know that this time will pass.
  • If you’ve got a garden, play outside. Go out for walks but keep your distance. Make meals together, paint pictures, play board games and watch films. Do science experiments together or find online tours of zoos and museums and other places. Start a book and read together as a family. Snuggle under blankets and do nothing.
  • Everyone’s in the same boat. When they get back to nursery or school, the teachers will pick up and start again. Your children won’t lose out in the long run. Do your best to encourage them, but there’s no point in fighting with your children about all this.
  • Do your best with them and try to keep in mind that, after this time has passed, how your children feel will be more important in the long run than what they missed at nursery or school.

 

Screen time

Like it or not, we’ll be using our screens more than usual: for fun; for learning; for working; and for keeping in touch with others. We’ll all be on our screens a lot more but try to keep some sort of limit on this if you can.

And more generally, all curling up to a good film or favourite programme is a great way to have family time and wind down.

Hello Everyone

We hope you are all well and enjoying the decent weather.

The government recommend during lock down you access the outdoors once a day to benefit your physical health as well as mental health, so we have suggested idea’s you can share with your child outdoors incorporating into your daily walk to help access much needed daylight, fresh air and exercise.  We are lucky to have so much green space and natural woodland on our doorstep. These will help to capture your little one’s interest, imagination and continue to support their learning.

There are many nature related activities you can do allowing your child to experience and explore natural materials. These ideas have been tried and tested at East Calder Nursery in the past and they always prove popular with the children.

Art with Natural Loose Parts

     

Encourage your child to collect natural loose parts outdoors and excite their curiosity and creativity by giving them the opportunity to experiment with them.  They can have fun recreating what they have seen during their walk or simply enjoy exploring the materials – no end result is necessary!  Allow their imagination to guide them. L.1. Working on my own and with others, I use my curiosity and imagination to solve design problems.

Numeracy/Maths

If your child is showing an interest in numbers and counting reinforce this by using collected sticks, leaves and stones to match, sort, count and recognise numbers.  The above idea can support them with their learning in numeracy and maths.  Borrow a dice from another game and turn this activity into your own game. Roll the dice and sort, match and count the amount of natural loose parts to the numbers/dots on the dice and copy the number with sticks.

L.1. I can match objects, and sort using my own and others’ criteria, sharing my ideas with others.

 

Literacy and Communication

If your child is showing an interest in letters and writing their name, use collected sticks to copy letters, names and words.  The following idea can support them with their learning in literacy.  Chatting with your child about what they are doing and your shared experience of your walk – what you seen, found, and heard supports and extends their vocabulary and listening skills.

L.1. As I play and learn, I enjoy exploring interesting materials for writing and different ways of recording my experiences and feelings, ideas and information.

Exploring and caring for Wildlife

    

            

Engage your child in caring for plants and animals.  Indoor plants and pets are fine, but it’s even better to engage children outdoors. Consider working with your child to provide habitat for wildlife. You can do this by setting up a bird bath or bird feeder. You might also plant a butterfly garden. It’s also important to show children how to relate to other living things in a gentle and caring way: water the plants; avoid breaking branches or stripping bark from trees; and avoid disturbing the homes of birds and bugs. If you collect an animal from outdoors for closer observation (such as a snail or beetle), return it to its natural habitat within a short period of time and explain to your child why this is important (wonder: a survival skill – www.communityplaythings.co.uk 2020). L.1. I have observed living things in the environment over time and am becoming aware of how they depend on each other.

 

Have fun and enjoy the outdoors safely! And remember you can access more play and learning ideas at http://blogs.glowscotland.org,uk/wl/snonursery

 

 

NURSERY – Fun Learning at Home

Welcome back, we hope you all had a relaxing break over Easter.

We have enjoyed reading your posts on the home learning section of your child’s learning journals, thank you so much for keeping in touch.  Sharing your news and photo’s have helped to lift our spirits as we continue to miss all of our little friends.  We really appreciate the time you have taken to do this.  Please continue and if you haven’t managed to log on yet, instructions have been posted onto each child’s learning journal to make this easier for families. Say Hi, we would love to hear from you and we will reply back to all posts.

If you are looking for some new idea’s to try at home this week, please give these a try………..

Star Gazing – wrap up warm and enjoy a hot chocolate with marshmallows whilst sharing family time star gazing at night with Elon Musks satellite. Find out more information by clicking here.

This week you can also see the Lyrid meteor shower which happens this time every year.  Its said to peak tonight and if your lucky you could see between 10-15 meteors an hour! L.1. I have experienced the wonder of looking at the vastness of the sky, and can recognise the sun, moon and stars and link them to daily patterns of life.

We would love to hear about any star gazing finds!

 

Stone Matching Game – Find a selection of different sized stones during a local walk and use them to trace around, ask your child to match the correct stone to the tracing.  Support your child with movement language to help them learn and understand position and direction including in front, above, below, left, right, forwards and backwards, this helps to challenge your child further. L.1. I can collect objects and ask questions to gather information, organising and displaying my findings in different ways

 

Painting Stones –  If you have paint or felt tip pens at home, why not continue the play with stones and allow your child to decorate them.  When they are finished your child can have fun hiding them in the local community for another child to find.  This great idea has been shared on Home Learning in our Learning Journals, so we know there are already some stones hidden waiting to be found in East Calder.  Have fun painting, hunting or both. L.1. I can create a range of visual information through observing and recording from my experiences across the curriculum.

Enjoy and most of all have fun and please remember you can access more learning and play idea’s from blogs.scotland.org.uk/wl/snonursery

EC Nursery Team

NURSERY – Learning at Home is Fun

A big Hello to all our families, we are hoping that you are all well and keeping safe at home.

Some more idea’s to try with your little ones….

         

We’re going on a Bear Hunt

So many children in our Nursery know and love this story so why not change it into a game for your daily walks during social distancing. L.1. Moves at different speeds – slowly, steadily and quickly.  Please put a teddy at your window for the local kids to spot whilst out on their walks. It will bring some excitement and happiness at this strange difficult time. You can share the story with your child or access online by clicking here. L.1. Engages with stories and texts in different ways.

There is a West Lothian Facebook page dedicated to this, where you can join and share your photos of your walks. Look it up and share with your friends. Find out more by clicking here.

If you have a printer at home why not print off this certificate to give to your child after your bear hunt. L.1. Celebrates, values and uses achievements to build next steps.   

You can find the above certificate here.

You can continue the Bear theme by providing your child with a blanket, dishes and real food so they can invite their bears/cuddly toys to a teddy bears picnic!

L.1. Invents own stories and characters to share with others in play, imaginative and real contexts.

Encourage your child to practise their counting by playing ‘hide and seek’ with their bears/cuddly toys. You could hide their bears around the house or garden and ask your child to count forwards or backwards to a challenging number and then find all the bears.  L.1. Recalls the number sequence forwards and backwards within the range 0-30.

         

Remember you can also have a look at West Lothian Early Years Blog  for more ideas by clicking here.

Have fun and stay safe!

NURSERY – fundraising

Thank you for your kind donations towards our nursery welly walks.  We have raised £24.99 so far, this will be used towards purchasing more waterproof trousers for our children to wear when exploring the outdoors.

East Calder Nursery Parent Group  –  We have a small group of parents who are passionate and dedicated to raising more funds for the nursery to help buy further waterproof trousers as we still need to purchase another 30 pairs to enable us to take all the children outdoors together.  They met up last week, in our parent room within the school to discuss future fundraising and already have a fundraising event running in Peacock’s/The Edinburgh Woolen Mill at Dobbies in Livingston. All money raised at this event will be kindly donated to our Nursery. This will run throughout the month of March, there will be fun filled activities for children and a gift wrapping service for any  Mother’s Day gifts.  A tombola and raffle will also run alongside this (raffle tickets can be purchased in nursery, please ask a member of staff). On Saturday 14th March children can make their own little bird house and decorate a Mother’s Day card for £2.  Please pop into Dobbies Livingston to support this fantastic fundraising event and to help raise money for our nursery.

We are looking for donations towards the tombola.  If you have any unwanted Christmas gifts or a bottle of wine or chocolates at home, please donate them in our basket in the main foyer at Nursery.

A new noticeboard for East Calder Nursery Parent Group is now displayed in the main foyer, please check regularly to find out  about current and future fundraising events.  All parents/carers and grandparents are very welcome to meet up with the group to get involved in fundraising.

Many thanks  for your continued support.

NURSERY – Parent Fundraising Group Meeting 25th/26th February

A little reminder that our first parent group meetings will be held tomorrow and Wednesday.  This will be a very informal meeting for parents and a staff member to get together and see how much interest/helpers we can gather for raising much needed funds for the Nursery.

We would love to hear your idea’s for fundraising and would be delighted if you could attend either meeting. Refreshments will be available.  Please meet in the nursery and we can use the school parent room.

Tuesday 25th February – 12pm

Wednesday 26th February – 1.30pm

NURSERY – WELLY WALK

We are planning a welly walk with the children to celebrate and try out our waterproof trousers that the PSA kindly purchased.  We will be doing this during outdoor group time on a wet day when there are lots of puddles.  Rather than ask parents to sponsor the children, we are asking for kind donations to help us raise further funds to buy more waterproof trousers.  A donation tub is in the main foyer beside the registers.  Your donations would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

 

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