Mrs Caskie

Nursery News

Another week has flown by in nursery. First of all we welcomed another member to our St Ninian’ s family. Khyla has joined the AM session. We hope you enjoy your time with us. On a sad note we said goodbye to Liam in our PM session who has gone to another nursery nearer his new house. We wish him well and will miss him.

The transition programme for our children going into Primary 1 continues with the nursery children working together with the children in both Primary 1 classes on Numeracy and Literacy carousels . This gave the nursery children an opportunity to see how they will be working when they come to big school. They were all excited and again were a credit to us. Well done everyone. In nursery we also listened to a song about the letter ‘m’ and we tried to think of things that began with this sound. As a home link activity we would love it if the children could bring something in beginning with this sound and also if you are out and about have a look and see what you can find that begins with ‘m’. Next week the nursery children will be going out for a short playtime with both their buddies and the Primary 1 pupils. This will be in the nursery outdoor area and the following week it will be in the school playground. If they wish the nursery boys and girls can bring a snack and drink with them which they can have at this time. It is only 15 minutes so something small to eat will be great. As they will be outside we would ask that the children come in appropriate clothing and shoes. Thank you for your support in this.

The children also received a lesson on personal safety this week when we had a fire drill. Both sessions had to stop what they were doing and leave nursery quickly and safely. All the children were amazing and we were very proud of them.

Outdoor learning has been very busy this week with lots of exciting adventures in their learning. The children have been using their skills of curiosity and inquiry when using our natural open ended resources. They have been on the bikes, making lots of yummy recipes in our mud kitchen, sitting in the sand pit and role playing at schools! We hope the sun keeps shining for us next week. A wee reminder that children should come to nursery with suntan cream already applied and proper clothing for the sunshine. Please check out our Nursery Parents Facebook page for some photographs of our outdoor learning.

Mrs Beattie’s PEEP classes continue on a Friday and this is what they will be doing this week. The first group will be working together choosing different size balls and finding ways of rolling , bouncing and throwing them to each other while singing songs. They will then enjoy snack and a story together. The second group after nearly being blown far far away on top of their large parachute quite literally and having so much fun doing so have decided to go outside again! Hopefully they will find other ways that they can use and play with the parachute together and also use stop watches to time themselves going over the school assault course which they had tried last week for the first time. Another exciting PEEP session ahead!

It is the turn of the PM children to share their learning with us.

On Primary 1 transition.

Liam ” I made a snake ” ( this was linked to our shared topic of The Gruffalo)

Riley ” It was good”

There was lots of chat at the snack table.

Martin” I like to have this at home” ( yoghurt)

Emilie M ” I ‘m tidying up ”

Outdoor learning

Scott ” I like to play with the train”

A little reminder that there is a information meeting on Monday 15th May at 6 o’ clock in the school for new Primary 1 parents.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.

Nursery News

Its been a very short week in Nursery but we still packed in lots of learning experiences. Transition continued this week with both nursery sessions joining the Primary 1 classes to take part in either a numeracy or literacy carousel. The children got the opportunity to join in with a reading carousel listening to a story on the smartboard then moving onto working with a Primary 1 friend on a literacy app on the iPads . They also got a chance to make a Gruffalo story wheel which we will use to retell the story. In the numeracy carousel the children learned about time and made their own watches. All the nursery children showed a great attitude towards learning and were little superstars. Next week the children will be joining in with more carousels.

The children have continued to enjoy The Gruffalo topic and they got the chance to make their own Gruffalo masks. We will continue with this topic next week as the children have came up with lots of super ideas which are written in our talking books. Please feel free to have a little read when you are in nursery.

In P.E. with Mr McCurdy we have been concentrating on athletics. We enjoyed improving our running and jumping skills and next week we will be working on our throwing skills.

PEEP classes continue with group 1 learning about stopping, getting ready to think and go. They then got to take red, amber and green plates to take home to reinforce this learning. Group 2 have been working on their numeracy skills. They have had fun making their own skittles and using different sized balls to knock over huge tins and working with each other in order to listen and take turns. What fantastic fun they are having!

It is the turn of our AM children to share their learning experiences with us this week.

Dylan” I like being outside at Nursery.”

Carter” I played with the bricks and made a tower with my brother.”

Liam ” I was playing with the bricks and the magnets and I made a rocket. It was easy!”

Sophie” I played with the wee girl Celine.”

Micha ” I liked playing the bricks with my friend Oliver.”

Roma” I played with my friend Lucy”

Blake ” My favourite was playing outside with my friends.”

Just a little reminder that as the children are outside every day and hopefully the sun may shine can we please ask that suntan cream be applied before coming to nursery and that appropriate clothing is worn eg sun hat, long sleeve top. Thank you for your support with this.

For parents of preschool children a letter has been given out detailing parent meetings to provide you with important information before your child starts St Ninians. Please let any of the team know if you have not been given one of these letters.

Snack money is now due either £1 per week or £11 till the end of this term. This can be paid by iPad impact. If you are unsure of your payments please ask any of the team and this can be checked for you.

For more photographs please check our Nursery parents Facebook page.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery team.

Nursery News

This week our learning has centred on our shared transition topic with Primary 1 ‘The Gruffalo’

The children discussed what they would like to learn and do within this topic and their ideas were written and drawn in our talking books. We drew our own gruffalos and made some mice. These are on the wall and they look amazing. We have also started to put up the childrens’ ideas on our learning wall. We will continue with this topic next week taking forward the other learning adventures that the children have come up with. Please feel free to have a look in our talking books and at our learning wall and any other ideas you have we would be delighted for you to add these.

In outdoor learning the children went bug hunting and were very independent at making their own resources for this. We have also seen great cooperative play. As outdoor learning is every day we would appreciate it if the children could come to nursery suitably dressed for the outdoors.

On Monday we had our monthly visit to the library and Mrs Campbell read us a story about robbers trying to steal a prize cow. We enjoyed making the animal noises and after that we all did a funny dance! It was great fun.

Transition events continued this week with our pre schoolers visiting the Primary 1 classes where they all sat at the smartboard in a circle with their Primary 1 friends and Mrs Roy and Miss Meechan showed them the talking book. This book is full of pictures of all the experiences the children will encounter when they come to school and has audio telling them all about the picture. Each pre school child will be given an opportunity to take this book home for one night to give them a chance to discuss it with their parents. The nursery children were all excellent and ready for this next exciting adventure in their learning. The transition activity next week will be the nursery children joining in with a Numeracy and Literacy carousel with the Primary 1 classes. We would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Roy, Miss Meechan and all our Primary 1 friends for inviting us to visit them.

The PEEP classes with Mrs Beattie are now up and running. We are in week 2 of a 5 week block. Group 1 are focusing on Health and Wellbeing and Group 2 are engaging in fun numeracy activities which can be then be followed up at home. All the children and the adults are having great fun in these sessions.

A little reminder that Monday 1st May is a holiday and Thursday 4th May is an In service day for staff , the children do not attend nursery on this day.

Have a lovely holiday weekend. See you all on Tuesday.

The Nursery team.

Nursery News

Although a shorter week it was just as busy for Nursery! First of all we welcomed new members to our St Ninian’s family. Joining our staff team is Mrs Brogan Conway who has replaced Mrs Craig as our other Nursery teacher. She will be in Nursery on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with Mrs Caskie in Nursery on a Monday and a Tuesday. Also joining us in the AM session is Mrs Carol Martinek an Early Years Practioner who will be the key worker for our new yellow group. We are looking forward to working with our new team members.

We also welcomed Abhay and Ameya who have joined the yellow group in our AM session. We have a further four children joining this group in the coming weeks. In our PM session we welcomed Martin and look forward to Harry joining us on Monday we hope you all enjoy your time with us at nursery.

We had to say goodbye to some friends at the beginning of the week as our caterpillars had turned into butterflies during the holidays. The children got the opportunity to have a look at the cocoons and observe the butterflies eating and drinking before we released them. They were not too keen to come out of their nets so Mrs Mushet and Mrs MacDonald had to lift them out, some flew away but others were placed gently amongst our flowers. We will be keeping an eye out for them in the coming weeks.

As part of Outdoor week and also our transition programme we went on a Gruffalo woodland walk along with our Primary 1 friends. No Gruffalo was found but we all had a super time exploring the woods. The Gruffalo will be a joint topic along with the two Primary 1 classes. We will be getting the childrens’ ideas next week in order to take this topic forward and put them on our learning wall as well as anything else that arises from the childrens’ interests. Our transition programme continues next week with the Nursery children visiting the Primary 1 classes along with their buddies to have a look at the talking books. These books are put together by the children in Primary 1 and show all the experiences that will take place when the nursery children come into school. Each pre school child will get the opportunity to bring this book home so that you can discuss this with them. It is going to be a very busy but exciting term!

On our Nursery Facebook page there are photographs of both the butterflies being released and our woodland walk.

Today Mrs Beattie one of our AM Early Years Practioner started another block of her PEEP classes. We will be putting a weekly update on our Blog of all the exciting activities they get up to.

On Monday we will walking to the library for our monthly visit to hear a story. We all love going along!

A small reminder that Monday 1st May is a holiday and Thursday 4th May is an inservice day.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.

Nursery News

Its hard to believe this is the last blog entry for this term! Another busy week in Nursery has ended.

On Monday we visited the library and Mrs Campbell the librarian read us a story called ” My granny is a pirate ” This fitted in really well with us having Grandparents Day on Thursday. She also taught us a song called 5 little speckled frogs. We sang it really well and it helped us with our numeracy skills by counting to 5.

We were all very busy this week too making Easter cakes, baskets and pictures to give as presents to our special people who were coming on Thursday.

Although we had loved playing in our shop we decided it was time to put out some different resources for our learning adventures. The children voted for some babies for the house corner and some dressing up clothes with a mirror for them to have a look at their reflection. We were all super excited to see how big our caterpillars have become and we noticed that they are preparing to go into their cocoons. As we were going on holiday for two weeks we were all worried that there would be no one at Nursery to look after them. Mrs MacDonald kindly offered to take them home and she has promised to take photographs and videos of them as they grow. You never know she may bring them back as butterflies!

We were all so excited on Thursday to welcome our grandparents and special people to our nursery. The nursery team were very proud of all our fantastic children as they confidently showed all their families round inside and outside the nursery and joined in with all their learning experiences. They then demonstrated their brilliant singing skills when they sang for all the visitors in the hall. The nursery team would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came along to this event it was fantastic to see so many and we hope you enjoyed your time with us. Thank you also for your generous contributions which will go into our nursery funds. Here are some pictures of the day there are lots more to see on our nursery parents Facebook page.

At our Achievement assembly today Dylan received the certificate for a super first term at nursery. Well done Dylan.

We finished our week though on a sad note as we said goodbye to one of our nursery teachers Mrs Craig who is leaving to have her second baby. We will all really miss her as she has been a fantastic teacher to all the children and a very special colleague and friend to all the nursery team. On behalf of the whole nursery team I would like to thank her for her commitment, enthusiasm and friendship. We wish her every happiness in the future.

As we are planning a walk in the woods the first week back could you please return your EE2 form on our return after the holidays. Thank you.

The nursery team would like to wish you all a Happy Easter and a lovely holiday and we look forward to welcoming the children back on Tuesday 18th April.

Nursery News

This week was Stay and Play at Nursery. The boys and girls were very excited to share their learning adventures with their families. They were so confident at showing them round all the areas of the nursery and were then able to join in with their learning. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came along to these sessions and hope that you all enjoyed your time with us. We look forward to welcoming some more visitors to our Come back and Play sessions which are next week.

We have been discussing and looking for signs of Spring in our learning and to help us with this we had some new additions to our nursery family. It was some caterpillars! We talked about how they grow and we noticed their special food in their tubs. We learned the special name for the home they make for themselves before they turn into butterflies. We also read the story of The very hungry caterpillar. We now have our caterpillars on display with an information board which explains how they grow. We are all super excited to watch the changes over the next few weeks and be able to talk about them. Please have a little look at them the next time you are in the nursery.

We have also been very busy this week making invitations for our Grandparents day which is on Thursday 30th March at 10am and 2pm. These will be making their way home next week. We would appreciate it if you could give us an idea of how many will be coming along to this event for catering purposes and also would be grateful for any donations of cakes or biscuits nearer the time.

Our numeracy and literacy skills have been developing too this week as at small group time we have been counting up to 10 and recognising our names. This has been developed further by the children having the opportunity to find their name at the gluing table and putting it on their work and also at the drawing/ writing table where they can try and find their name and practise writing it. What super workers we have.

Our pre school children were given a letter this week with our transition calendar. We will also be issuing a transition booklet soon which further explains some of our planned activities. This is an exciting time for the children who are getting ready to go to school in August . If you have any questions about any of the activities please ask any member of the nursery team who will be more than happy to help you.

We are trying to move towards a cashless nursery and in order to achieve this we would encourage you to pay your child’s snack money on the online payment of iPay impact. This will also be of benefit when your child goes to school as this system is also used there.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery team.

Nursery News

How the weeks are flying by in Nursery! On Tuesday we celebrated Pancake Day. We discussed what ingredients we needed to make pancakes and then the best part we got to eat them😊

The children decided that they would like to change our shop into a pet shop so we now have lots of pet food, toys and pets for sale. The children are really engaged in this learning experience using real money and trying to recognise the coins. Some are also extending this learning at home and even visiting Pets at Home to collect leaflets which is fantastic.

The children have also been enjoying outside learning with lots of cooperative play in all areas. We have had delicious food made in the mud kitchen and lots of imaginative play in our shed using lots of open ended natural resources. We were worried about the birds eating in the cold weather so we made more bird cakes we think they will be eaten very quickly. As it was windy we decided to make wind socks from cartons and material and we also used CDs to hang in the trees and we noticed that the sunlight caught these and made some lovely colours. Great work!

We celebrated World Book Day on Thursday with the children and the staff dressing up as their favourite book characters. Everyone looked fantastic! The children had the opportunity to talk about their favourite book at small group time and we talked about authors and illustrators. We also learned some new vocabulary. The children had even made their own Nursery story book and picked their favourite page in their books which we put out on our display. A very special visitor came to visit us too. It was gangster granny!! Luckily she didn’t get a chance to steal any of our Nursery toys and resources👍 Another special visitor was Szymon’s mum who very kindly read us a story in Polish. Thank you Mrs Dudek😀 We were also lucky enough to be invited to the Primary 1 classes to share a story time. We really loved going into school and getting to sit in a classroom. All the Nursery children were excellent at listening and even put their hands up to answer questions. We were all really proud of them. Thank you to Primary 1M and 1R for asking us😍

It is the turn of our PM children to share their learning this week.

Emilie M ” I like cooking in the kitchen of the house corner.”

Liam ” The Pet shop is my favourite as I love dogs.”

Rojin” I like making things at the play dough table.”

Robert ” I loved making the bird cakes.”

Mark ” We made wind socks and it showed us the direction of the wind.”

As part of our topic on shops we are planning a trip to Pets at Home for both sessions. Please let any member of the team know if your child has any allergies to pets or if for any reason you would prefer them not to take part in this trip. Thank you.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team😊

Nursery News

Although a short week we still had a very busy one! We returned after the holiday to discover that the birds had eaten all our bird cakes!! They must have been very hungry. We had used our identification sheets to tick off the different types of birds that we had spotted in our garden. We would like to make some more bird cakes as we are sure the birds are still hungry.

Some children came in on Wednesday and were keen to make some valentines so they made lovely heart shaped flowers and talked about their families and friends that they loved.

The children have taken their learning towards the topic of shops so it was decided that we would have our own shop in the Nursery. Our AM children wanted a toy shop last week and our PM children decided on a food shop this week so we have incorporated both. We have been developing our numeracy skills by counting and recognising real coins. Some children have been writing their own shopping lists and taking turns at being both the customer and the shopkeeper. We have all been very good at sharing all the resources. We also discussed the different types of shops that we have and what we could buy in these. We continued this theme at the gluing table by making our own bank cads to use in the shop and also price tickets. If you or your child have any ideas that can be taken forward within this topic we would love you to post them on our visible learning wall. You can also extend this learning at home by discussing with your child about the various different types of shops and what products can be bought in them. Also looking at real coins and helping them to read the numbers on them and look at the shapes. If you are out and about at the shops with your child you can also point out the cashier, tills and scanners. We would welcome any photographs or pictures that you might have or take too.

A little reminder that both sessions will visit the library on Monday. We seemed to have misplaced a library book called ” The monster in the woods” We would appreciate it if you wouldn’t mind having a little look at home just in case it has been borrowed by someone. Thank you in advance.

It is the turn of our PM children to share their learning this week.

Kayla” I love playing in the shop.”

Emilie B and Liam” We made a spaceship with the big blocks”

Mark ” I made some good things at the gluing table”

Milena” I like drawing”

Shea” I love to paint pictures”

Lucas” The sand was my favourite”

Jiya” I did lots of jigsaws”

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team😊

Nursery News!

This week we continued to make bird cake for our nursery garden, below are the instructions if you would like to try this at home:

1) We mixed together softened Lard and bird seed to create our special mixture.

2) We put the mixture into empty yoghurt pots and recycled netting.

3) The pots and netting were then placed in the freezer overnight to harden.

4) The next day we took our bird cakes outside and hung them from the trees and the fence using string.

5) Finally, we watched and waited to see what birds would visit us.

Check back next week to find out what birds we have spotted 🙂

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY SAINT NINIAN’S NURSERY!

Our big news this week was that it was our 30th Birthday!!! We had a surprise party on Thursday to celebrate with music, dancing, balloons and cake! It was absolutely fabulous and all of the nursery staff and children were so excited! All the teachers from the school came to visit us and wish us happy birthday, and the Primary 1 classes made us birthday cards too!! Thank you everyone!

We would also like to say a huge thank you to our fantastic Head Teacher, Mrs Purdie, who planned and organised this surprise for us. It was wonderful and very much appreciated. Thank you Mrs Purdie x x

Finally we would like to wish everyone a very restful and relaxing February break and we look forward to welcoming our children back on Wednesday 15th February.

The Nursery Team 🙂

Nursery News

In Nursery this week we had lots of Chinese New Year celebrations! On Tuesday Miss Pan a Mandarin teacher from the Confucius Hub in James Young High school visited both sessions. She told us all about China and taught us some Chinese phrases and explained about the twelve special animals in Chinese culture. We found out that this is the year of the Rooster, red is the colour of good fortune and giving a mandarin orange is a symbol of a strong friendship. We were lucky enough to get a chocolate coin in a special red envelope and an orange to take home.

We also listened to traditional Chinese music and joined in by dancing using ribbons and musical instruments. In our creative area we made huge Chinese dragons which we were able to carry round the Nursery and use percussion instruments to create our own dragon dance. We also had the opportunity to make dancing dragons.

For snack we were given the chance to try Chinese noodles with soy or spicy chilli sauce which we tried to eat with chopsticks.

Our bird watching area has continued to be popular and Miss Brien one of our students made some bird cakes with us. We are planning on hanging these outside in our garden next week and then hopefully we will see more birds arriving!

As part of the 40th Birthday celebrations for the school we were asked if we would contribute to the time capsule. We discussed our favourite songs, films and hobbies.

We finished off the week by having our Wellie walks. Both sessions were lucky with the weather and we all looked for signs of nature and listened for the birds. Thank you all so much for your generous donations. We made £170 which is fantastic and we will discuss with the children the resources they would like to buy with this money.

Just a little reminder that we have our February break next week. Nursery will be closed on Friday 10th February and we look forward to welcoming children back to nursery on Wednesday 15th February.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team😊