Nursery – Page 12 – St Ninian's Primary School

Nursery News

Here’s some evidence of the children discovering mathematical language and skills through play in the nursery this week. Maths Week in the nursery ran alongside every other experience and we’ve all had great fun along the way!! Fractions in the play dough, problem solving and measurement with the blocks and a number song with bears at the Smartboard.

NEXT WEEK IN NURSERY

MONDAY – HOLIDAY

TUESDAY – IN SERVICE DAY

WEDNESDAY – STARTING TOOTHBRUSHING

THURSDAY – PARENT COUNCIL AGM 6.30PM

FRIDAY –

Have a great long weekend !! See you all back on Wednesday x from the Nursery Team.

Nursery natter

The nursery team just want to say a great big thank you to our parents who visited the nursery tonight for Ninians Natter. Sorry there’s not enough room to add all the pictures, but we hope you enjoyed the insight into your child’s journey in St Ninian’s nursery.

Nursery News

In St Ninians Nursery Class our vision statement is;

‘Where Adventure Nurture and Learning go hand in hand’

This week in nursery we have witnessed beautiful evidence of this through children at play. We are embracing loose parts and open ended resources in the nursery, children are using their imagination to use these resources to create their own learning environment. In the garden they built their own climbing frame and a road from crates and wooden blocks as they went on different adventures. The children are learning the routines of the nursery as they go about their day, staff ensure they feel comfortable and foster a nurturing relationship with each individual child to enable each child to feel secure and free to investigate. The children made their own paint this week and have been preparing their own snack each day. The PM children had ‘Teal’ paint made by Kian and you can see what a social time snack is in the picture. Every child is an individual and they learn at different paces. In St Ninian’s Nursery, it is in a free flow environment where children are learning as they play.

NEXT WEEK

Monday –

Tuesday –

Wednesday – Ninians Natter 6-7 pm, come and meet the staff.

Thursday – P.E.

Friday – All break for Holiday, children back Wednesday 18th September.

Have a lovely weekend from the Nursery team!!

September GIRFEC theme – SAFE

Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC)

GiRFEC is the national approach in Scotland to improving outcomes and supporting the wellbeing of our children. To help make sure everyone – children, young people, parents, and the services that support them – has a common understanding of what wellbeing means, we describe it in terms of eight indicators. (see wheel)

Each month we focus on one of the indicators in class and at assembly. This month we will focus on SAFE.

In school some of the activities we will do the develop this theme are:

House Captain assemblies to look at being safe in school
Fire alarm drills to make sure children know what to do in the event of a fire
Every child will identify 5 key adults they can talk to – at school or at home

Working together at home is a really valuable part of this topic. Below are some ideas for family learning around this theme. We would love you to share how you get on!

Repeat a road safety routine whenever you are out and about.
Introduce your child to people who help us in the community.
Discuss how to make an emergency call and the dangers of doing this when there is no real emergency.
Make a list of people and their phone numbers your child could contact in an emergency and display it in your house.
Discuss the best way to react/respond to this situation with your child – a stranger makes contact with your child online and asks for their personal details. What should they do?

Nursery News

Welcome to our first Blog post of this session!! We have had such a busy first two weeks with new children starting and new friendships being built. What a joy to witness. The children have enjoyed investigating and choosing from our new resources around the room and have had great fun outdoors in the garden. We started off the week on Monday with new children in the morning and the afternoon. Tuesday we has Chloe’s birthday celebration in the morning, we had more new children on Wednesday and Thursday was our P.E day with Mr McCurdy and Eva’s birthday too!!. Friday saw us out most of the session making friends and investigating all the garden had to offer.

NEXT WEEK:

GIRFEC – SAFE

Monday- 3 new children PM

Tuesday –

Wednesday – New Parent Helper’s meeting 9am in school.

Thursday – P.E.

Friday –

Have a lovely weekend from the Nursery team x

Nursery News

It was our SPORTS DAY this week!! And what a sports day we had! There was cheering, screaming, running, jumping, giggling and falling over… and that was just the staff – heehee!

Our boys and girls have spent the week rehearsing for sports day – changes to routines and patterns in the nursery can be difficult for little minds to understand so the staff team took time to explain to them what sports day would include and let them practice, practice makes perfect after all. We also made wonderful coloured banners to lead our teams in with – green, yellow, red and blue teams, with some children managing to wear their team colours! Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side on Thursday – but our contingency plan worked just beautifully…

We came roaring in to the cheers from the crowd as we did a lap of the hall for waves and smiles, before we got down to business and started racing. There were a few ‘cheat-abix’ moves on show – I’m talking to you Mrs Beattie 😉 but that all entered in the spirit of the day, where our boys and girls showed off their wonderful sporting talents in front of their parents, grandparents and friends. After all the hard work was over, the boys and girls received their medals as a huge well done for taking part in a fantastic day! Then we made our way back to the nursery where ice poles were awaiting us, to cool us down after all the physical exertion! A huge thanks to the crowd on the day for making it special for our children with their encouraging cheers, words and smiles – we couldn’t do it without you all!

In addition to Sports Day, this week we have taken on board a very exciting idea for our Welly Wednesday session next week… A few of our parents have made us aware of a ‘movement’ in West Lothian called ‘WEST LOTHIAN ROCKS’ – the idea behind it is that you find a rock, paint it and hide it somewhere outdoors, for others to find! You can then re-hide it for someone else to enjoy 🙂 once explained to our boys and girls they were super keen to take part! We went on the hunt for some rocks, and the PM group painted some for us to hide next week! If your child finds a rock they’d like to paint over the weekend, bring it to nursery on Monday to be painted in time to be hid on Welly Wednesday!

We also got a quick peek at the new baby signets on the pond – unfortunately one of the nine signets had to be taken away by one of the SSPCA officers due to having a poorly leg.

A little reminder, we capture the voices of our children in many different ways.. Now that we near the end of the session please take some time to look over our floor books, planning wall and learning journey wall – these are all tools that we use which are made to be shared with our children and their families 🙂 have a look and let us know which bits your children remember clearly…

Image result for its not what you teach its how you make them feel

Keep your eyes peeled for our new school website which will be launching very soon!

Nursery News

Well it was a big week for some of our children and their families as the future P1 children had their transition days in St Ninian’s Primary School!

Wednesday and Thursday of this week brought much excitement, and some nerves.. as the preschool children prepared for school by taking part in the next phase of our transition programme – spending time in the P1 classes. Miss Boyes and Mrs Davenport were so excited to welcome the children and had lots of fun planned for them all. The AM staff were lucky to be able to peek in to see how everyone was getting on and we are so proud of how well they adapted 🙂 well done boys and girls! Next week we have our lunch hall experience where the boys and girls will experience school lunches, and their parents will have an opportunity for an informal chat with Miss Boyes and Mrs Davenport.

We have started to get ready for our sports day!! This week we have started to talk about what will happen at sports day and have had a shot of trying some of the races and lining up in our colour groups! Everyone is welcome to attend on Thursday 14th. 10am and 2pm – bring your loudest voices to cheer on our sporting superstars! After our busy wellbeing week last week we were glad to spend some time with Mr Mccurdy on Tuesday during our usual PE slot. We had the parachute out and have been practising our throwing skills – why don’t you have a go at home?

Our AM session was super quiet on Wednesday and Thursdays transition days! But we still packed in lots of fun.. none more so than our emergency trip to the shop for butter for Mrs Beatties pancakes! A disaster was averted and we had some great discussions about what we could and couldn’t get at the shop and how many pennies we needed!

Both sessions enjoyed picnic snacks this week and a welly Wednesday trip to the trim trail! Please keep a look out in our weekly update for details of our final welly Wednesday session.

Many thanks to those parents who have agreed to help out with our big clean 🙂 there will be a list in the cloakroom for sign ups, there’s still time to get involved 😉

Our learning context for the next few weeks is ‘school’! Our learning wall is for everyone to look at, with our consultative planner added at the top. As with all of our planning, we consulted the children (have a peek in our talking books to see what they said!) and used their ideas to think about possible lines of development (PLODs). This will help to frame some of the activities in our nursery environment in the coming weeks. Some of our children have been talking about ‘homework’ – we are pleased to say there will be a ‘help yourself homework’ box for any and all interested children from now until the last week of term 🙂

Nursery News

Wellbeing week has taken it out of us all this week – in the best way!

Monday was a great start to our wellbeing week! Some of our parents and children made it along to Bootcamp with Mr McCurdy at 8am, starting the week as they meant to go on – well done everyone, Mrs Conway still hasn’t recovered! The nursery children had great fun in a session with Star Harmonies. Ask your child if they can remember the ‘Toe – Knee – Chest – Nut…’ rhyme they learned! This session included singing and dancing.

The wellbeing week continued in the sunshine outdoors on our trim trail. School children demonstrated their caring ways by helping the nursery children to complete the course.

Tuesday brought our first parents for their stay and play and come back and play sessions. Parents were able to join us in a Yoga session in the school. It was very relaxing and zen. Lots of children found the funniest part was talking about filling their sandwiches… sounds strange but led to some good yoga posing!

The P6 buddies and the current P1 classes were down to have fun in our garden at school playtime today for transition fun this week. Parents of future P1 children are reminded that only a small snack is needed at playtime 🙂

Wednesday was a whirlwind of excitement as we had our ‘park picnic’ trip for our ‘Welly Wednesday’ focus, some of the parents were lucky enough to join us as part of the stay and play/come back and play sessions. We also had dancing! Lots of great moves were displayed, and that was just the teachers and parents 😉 the routine was simple but effective! Our favourite part was the freestyling without a doubt! We hope your weekend will be filled with dancing!

Thursday begun with football for the groups – this involved lots of careful listening to the coach… And lots of lovely laughing as we played games together to help us develop our movement, balance and ball skills. The future P1s enjoyed a real playtime in the school playground with their friends from P1! It was very exciting as they learned which areas they were allowed to play in and what happens if you need the toilet at playtime (you don’t ring the nursery bell.. haha!) – this has been a wonderful experience to help our children build their confidence in preparing for school in August!

Friday was a quiet day, we made most of the wonderful sunshine (and enjoyed a story in the shade) before the forthcoming rain and stormy weather!

Please stay tuned to your emails for next weeks weekly update 🙂 transition for P1 on Wednesday and Thursday next week! Have a lovely weekend 🙂

Nursery News

St Ninian’s Nursery has been a hive of activity this week!

Our boys and girls who are off to school in August have had an exciting week! On Tuesday, there were transition carousels in P1 classes – this gave the boys and girls a feel for how they will learn when they get into P1. The P1 pupils did a great job of modelling, showing them the ropes in the big school! There was much excitement during these activities, which helps to build the transition to P1 into a positive time of change in our children’s lives! We have also had buddy visits this week – this is a highlight for our boys and girls, who regularly ask ‘is my buddy coming down today?!’. It has been lovely to watch the relationships between the children and their buddies blossom over the weeks 🙂 next week, we have PLAYTIME for transition! On Tuesday, the P1 boys and girls (and buddies) will come to the nursery garden for a ‘playtime’. And on Thursday, they will go to the infant playground for a ‘playtime’, again with the P1s and their buddies. Preschool children should bring a small snack on these days to practice eating, playing, chatting all in the one! A drink is not necessary as they will have milk/water available in nursery beforehand, and when they get to school they will be able to have a water bottle in their classroom and milk after playtime.

In addition to all of this, the P1 classes have been finalised and the children now know which teacher they will have in August 🙂 Miss Boyes and Mrs Davenport (who used to be called Miss Meechan!) are very much looking forward to meeting their new pupils and their families.

Our interest in the garden has multiplied since the beginning of this beautiful weather spell! We have more than made the most of the lovely sunshine as we have scooted, climbed, ran, rolled and chalked all over the garden! Our welly Wednesday focus this week was chalk drawings.. we love to look at mark making in different ways and chalking was one of the suggested activities for our welly Wednesday sessions! By the end of the day there wasn’t an inch of garden that was untouched by chalk! We look to build mark making skills from basic shapes and lines, to more controlled written numbers, letters and detailed drawings. Which stage is your child at? Have they access to mark making materials at home? Share your views with your child’s key worker to see if, together, we can help them build their skills and confidence in this area 🙂

Jelly proved to be a very popular snack this week! The boys and girls loved talking about how it felt, with some of the AM boys and girls keen to play with it! On Friday we had jelly play and a sensory walk in the garden. The language and vocabulary around this play was fascinating – gooey, cold, gloopy, slidy! Great job boys and girls, maybe this type of messy play will make a reappearance sometime soon!

Make sure to consult our weekly update for all the details about wellbeing week next week – parent and child bootcamp begins at 8am on Monday morning on the school field. Mrs Conway and Mrs Martinek will be attending with their own children – will you join them? Letters will come home on Monday about our family wellbeing festival on Thursday evening (6-7.30pm) – it is set to be a highlight of the term with lots of interesting activities planned – make sure to get you choices handed back asap to ensure you get your first choice of workshops!

Have a lovely weekend!

Nursery News

A royal wedding to end the week – what more could the princes and princesses of st Ninian’s Nursery want!

We were jam packed and book bug focussed this week as we celebrated the national ‘Book Bug week’ alongside the P1 classes.

The AM group enjoyed a storytelling session with our special guest – Miss Meechan, who shared a story chosen by the P1 pupils. The boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed this and it was another lovely build up to the transition into P1 by sharing a story with the P1 class and their teacher.

The PM group had another special guest in the shape of Mrs Smith, our depute head teacher. They thoroughly enjoyed a twisted fairytale all about Goldilocks eating her greens! The boys and girls who are going to school are becoming more familiar with school staff in their interactions with them across the nursery session, especially when they get a blether in the office with Mrs Findlay and Mrs Vetesse!

Our welly Wednesday was a glorious one this week as we basked in the beautiful sunshine in the garden. We have planted our veg patch which can been seen on the side of the hill which faces into the school car park.. we have so far planted tatties and will add carrots and Brussels sprouts to our list!

We also planted some sunflower seeds and put them in our little green house to flourish before we can transfer them to pots in the garden 🙂

Our book bug activity on welly Wednesday was being joined in the garden by our P6 buddies and parent helpers where we could all share a story in a small group/pair in the garden. The boys and girls loved this reading buddy set up and many lovely stories were shared.

Thursday was national ‘Outdoor Classroom Day’ where many school staff donned their outdoor learning kit of wellies and waterproofs.. not the staff of st Ninian’s Nursery – who got all glammed up to join their very well dressed boys and girls to celebrate the upcoming royal wedding with a garden party! There were sandwiches, croissants and cakes galore as we all enjoyed music, dancing, a fashion parade and the beautiful weather to mark the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan at the weekend.

At the end of book bug week let us remind you about the fabulous initiative that is Book Bug via the Scottish Book Trust;

http://scottishbooktrust.com/bookbug/about

The below Facebook page gives a list of the free book bug sessions available in West Lothian..
https://m.facebook.com/BookbugWestLothian/

Happy weekend!