Hello to everyone,

This week the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears has been in all areas of our nursery. Children have been exploring porridge, measuring how many spoons it takes to fill the three different sized bowls. They also discovered it is absorbent as they first “fed the fish” in the water tray and then continued this by adding water to the tray of porridge and then continuing to add water- “Yuk!” “It’s sticky!” “It’s stuck to me” and “What happened?” was frequently heard. Though their hands were covered in soggy porridge they did enjoy this experience.
Children retold the story in the home corner, using puppets and other props to create their own Bear’s house. Let us not forget the outdoor area as crates have mobilised to make chairs for the bears and children still retell this wonderful story. This story also focused on the language of mathematics with differentiation of sizes such as big and biggest or small, middle and large.

Continuing from our water focus children have been creating boats and testing them out to see if they sink or float. Those who made boats out of paper/cardboard recognised that their boat floats to start off with but depending on size will sink “’cause it got wet and the water made the paper all soft.”

The primary schools had invited Jidel Judo 93 into the community centre and we were lucky to be be included too for a wee taster session in the morning. Most children were very keen to participate and were certainly enthusiastic in following instructions. John was the instructor and Anna supported him in demonstrating some of their moves such as “Link sausages”. Both John and Anna were impressed how children worked collaboratively to do this as it requires concentration and team work. Well done everyone.
Children thoroughly enjoyed their time and left saying, “That was great, I really enjoyed it!” and “That was super cool”. Though John doesn’t do Judo for under fives, he was impressed with the hall and said he may start up a class on a Tuesday night in August – we have some flyers if anyone is interested.

Our snack menu is changing from June 6th 2022 as we can longer buy supplies from Tesco. But don’t worry our food will still be fresh and nutritious as we continue to follow the guidelines in place from the NHS Setting the Table.

Dates for your Diary

Monday 30t May Parent Consultation starts for the next two weeks.

Friday June 3rd 2022 nursery will be CLOSED for celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee. This is the last time the nursery will be closed until December.

Thursday June 2nd 2022 a change to our Lunch Menu as West Lothian Council kick off this event with a royal theme meal.

Friday 17th June Leaver’s Assembly (Graduation) for children going to school in August.

Good day to everyone, thankfully the weather started off cold and miserable, hardly showing that next month will be summer!but it has ended with with the promise of warm sunny weather.

As was mentioned last week children have been focusing on creature under the water. Children have been exploring the Artic and the Antarctic as they touch on Penguins and Polar bears. Most recognise penguins are ‘down the bottom’ ( South of the equator: Artic) and polar bears are ‘up on top.’

All children had the opportunity to explore squids and their cousins octopus. Most children were saying “Yuk!’, ‘It’s disgusting!!” or “It smells”. However some children were highly engaged in investigating these creatures. Lots of interest and learning occurred as you can see from the photographs.

As you can see they discovered both the squid and octopus has two teeth (one lower and upper) and it looks like a parrots beak. Their arms have only one row of suckers and the octopus will actually eat their cousins along with crabs, mussels etc. They also learned that both are invertebrates and they are challenged to discover other creatures which are also boneless. You can support them by giving some answers.

Further learning took part as children explored ice and water linking it to penguins and polar bears living on opposite sides of the world.

Addiewell Community Garden

Huge thank you for Liz and Robert from our Community Garden. They kindly invited us last week to bring children to plant bulbs in their garden in a raised bed.
Liz and Robert and they have planned this amazing garden. You can certainly see lots of work has gone into this and they rely on volunteers (which they are looking for more) which they have two others from the community so far. The garden is beginning to flower with some bulbs and plants.
On a beautiful and sunny day all the children freely explored and discovered activities which they played with sitting on picnic benches having a great time. All children planted and watered a bulb and hopefully we will soon see more colours in the garden. It is hoped the garden will be open to everyone in the community where they can sit, relax and be calm in the this idyllic area. Thank you again for a wonderful time.

Transition
This is going really well as most children met P6 children who will be their buddies from August. They also had another visit into the classroom where all children were excited going and returned with huge smiles. On Wednesday 25th at 6pm parents are invited to an information evening where Mrs Brown will share information about transition and starting P1. All parents are very warmly welcomed.

Sunny Weather

Please because of the sunshine can we ask for parents to bring into nursery some sun cream for your child. If you could add your child’s name that would be great however we can add a label.

Please remember we are OPEN on Monday 23rd even though schools are closed.

This is the song I can hear children singing by themselves or in small groups this week in nursery. This song links to our current focus of creatures under the sea/water or lives beside the water or maybe a little bit of both. It’s all about the water and what you can find in it. Children have been highly engaged in discovering and learning about the vast range of creatures. Penguins were the start children needed to start our focus and from there it has grown.

Next week we look forward to discovering more about penguins and perhaps the South Pole.

Children are also learning article 8 from the UNCRC where they are becoming aware that everyone has the right to an identity. Last month it was learning about all children having the right to play where we had some interesting discussions where some thought they could only play one game rather than having time to be free to play. Play promotes learning as we know we are keen to do something if we find it fun.

Transition

We are under way for our transition for children and their families who will be starting school this August. Primary 1 teachers from both schools have already popped in to visit the children so they are becoming familiar with each child and vice versa. Today is the first visit to school where they will stay for an hour (Children who don’t attend nursery on a Friday morning can be collected @ 9.45am). Most children appear to be a little nervous however very excited. Some comments from their return include, “I saw my sister, Abigail”,”I got to play”, “There was playdough”.
Visits to the school will continue for another three weeks. Also, children will visit during the school closure in July so hopefully there wont be any anxious children – just parents.There is an opportunity for parents to visit school on Wednesday 25th May from 6:00 pm to hear about transition.
Please can children be collected from nursery before this time if they are going to school in August.

Baking

With the abundance of strawberries and the fresh taste of pineapple, children had the experience of baking a cake featuring these two ingredients and then eating it as part of our snack. A big thumbs up was the answer from some of our children. All this was thanks to Miss Thomson as part of her college course. She took the additional time of tweaking this recipe so children can enjoy making and eating. She was kind enough to share the original recipe which as you can see includes an assortment of nuts. So if you wish you can bake this at home and share your results on your child’s Learners Journal page.

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Our communication tip for this month is repetition.

Communication is Key calendar 2022 May
A copy of this leaflet can be found in the entrance door of the nursery where you can take a photo of the QR code linking their site to further support our learning through these very useful tips.

Dates for your diary–

Monday 23rd May we are OPEN. Schools are closed for this Victoria day holiday but we remain open.
Wednesday 25th May School Transition Night – parents only.
Friday June 3rd we are CLOSED for today only – Queen’s Jubilee.
Tuesday 7th June Nursery Natter
May/June Meet your child’s key worker (parent’s consultation) DTBC