#stninianskidscan
Saturday 4th March
You can tweet us @StNinianPS , send it via the school Facebook page, sent it via Dojo or e-mail me (lisamaria.purdie@westlothian.org.uk)
#LentChallenge
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😊
Lent isn’t always about giving up things.
Remember to post below and tell us how you get on with the challenge.
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😊
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 🙂
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😊
We have had another busy and exciting week in Nursery.
Both sessions were super excited to meet Billie Bear our travelling teddy. This is part of our home link learning experiences. The children in both sessions will each be given the opportunity to take Billie home for a few days and share what they may be doing either at home or outside. Billie will be so happy to join in with anything. He comes with a backpack and a special letter which explains what is in the bag and how you and your child can engage in this super learning experience. We would love to see photographs of Billie and his special friend ( your child) spending time together which you can either bring into Nursery or upload to your child’s online journal. We can’t wait to hear about Billie and his adventures. If you have any questions regarding this project please ask any member of the nursery team who will be more than happy to help you.
We have also been looking at patterns in Numeracy and the children had an opportunity to make their own patterns using a variety of materials and also followed a pattern using our link elephants. This learning experience came from an interest the children had when drawing self portraits and talking about differences and similarities.
There was a lovely smell coming from the kitchen this week too as some of the children decided to bake their own play dough food and once cooled paint it. This will make its way into our kitchen in the house corner next week.
We even managed to get outside this week and enjoyed playing in our shed which has lots of natural resources for the children to experience. The bikes and new kitchen were also very popular.
As part of our consultative planning we will be asking the children next week what they would like to learn about Winter and this will go on display on our visible Learning Wall. We would love to hear any ideas that the children may mention to you at home and this can be added to our learning wall too.
To finish off our PM session yesterday we heard the sounds of pirates approaching the Nursery door. It was Mrs Roy with her band of pirates! We loved seeing the super pirate hats that the Primary 1 children had made and we joined in with lots of pirate noises! Both Primary 1 classes will be dropping in to both sessions of Nursery from time to time as part of our transition programme.
Its our PM children’s turn to share their learning experiences this week.
Emilie M and Emileigh Rose ” We loved playing in our new outside kitchen”
Mark, Kayla and Riley” We loved making our telescope and playing with the boomerang”
Shea and Lucas” We liked making things with the Lego”
Luke” Playing with the castle is my favourite”
Ethan and Jamie” We like drawing with the pens”
Scott” I liked the pirates ”
Just a wee reminder of upcoming events.
Both sessions will be visiting the library on Monday. If you have not handed in your child’s EE2 form please bring it to Nursery on Monday.
We will also be celebrating Burns day on Wednesday next week and Chinese New Year the following week.
Teeth varnishing will take place on Thursday.
Our sponsored Wellie Walks will be on Thursday 2nd February for PM and Friday 3rd February for AM. More information on this will follow.
Have a lovely weekend.
The Nursery Team.
Happy New Year from all the Nursery team. We are looking forward to lots of exciting adventures and fantastic learning experiences this term in Nursery.
As part of Vision and Values week we took the opportunity to revisit our Nursery Charter with the children. They were all excellent at discussing this with each other and have put it into practice over the past few days. The kindness Elves continue to help us to share and be kind to each other.
We welcomed five new children to our St Ninians family this week. Carter, Zaki and Isla joined the AM children and Lucas and Shea joined the PM children. It was lovely to meet you all and we hope you enjoy your time with us at Nursery. We were super proud of our older children who looked after our new friends so well.
It was also Happy Birthday on Wednesday to Christopher in AM session. He helped make his birthday cake with his friends. It smelt delicious.
Our AM children are sharing their favourite experiences at Nursery this week.
Oliver” I like listening to stories and playing in the house corner.”
Roma and Lucy ” We liked playing in the house corner and making some food for our friends.”
Amelia ” I loved making things with the play dough.”
Isabelle and Abigail ” We loved story time this week and reading stories.”
Blake ” I enjoyed playing with the bricks and working on the smartboard.”
Micah, Seren and Abu Bakr ” We loved being back at Nursery and playing with all our friends.”
As part of our Outdoor Learning we were hoping to make a small Music area and we wondered if you had any old pots, frying pans, small trays or utensils to spare.
Have a lovely weekend.
The Nursery Team.
Another busy and exciting week in Nursery. We can’t believe that we have nearly come to the end of another term!
This week we have been getting the Nursery ready for Christmas. We decorated the tree, put up some decorations and we even have our own post office where we can write our letters to Santa and weigh our parcels. The children have also been very busy putting the finishing touches to their Art work which was then put into our Art Galleries. A big thank you to all the parents and carers who came along and bought the fantastic items. We have very talented children. Once we have the amount made from the galleries we will let you all know and then in the New Year we will discuss with the children which new resources they would like for Nursery.
On Thursday our AM children attended the Achievement assembly. They all sat very well and Amelia received the award for being a kind and helpful girl in nursery. Well done Amelia.
It is the turn of our PM children to share their learning experiences this week.
Emileigh Rose, Szymon, Lily, Jenny and Robert ” We liked making things in the sparkly play dough.”
Kayla and Ethan ” We loved working at the gluing table.”
Emalie ” I made a manger from the Lego.”
Jamie and Luke ” We drew pictures at the drawing table and loved using the pencils.”
Riley ” I build lots of things with the big blocks.”
Jiya ” I love playing in the house corner.”
Just a little reminder that Tuesday is Nursery party day. The children can come to Nursery wearing their party clothes and you are invited to come back at 1030am and 230pm to see your child receive a present from Santa!
Tuesday is also the last day for handing in any P1 enrolment forms. After Tuesday the forms must be sent to pupil placement. Any questions regarding this please ask any member of the nursery team.
After all the excitement of party day the children will have a relaxing Christmas treat on Wednesday when they will get the opportunity to watch a Christmas movie with a little treat to eat.
The Nursery Team would like to wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas with your families and friends. Thank you for your continued support which is very much appreciated.
We look forward to welcoming the children back on Wednesday 4th January.
The Nursery Team.
Please find below some activities to keep you busy in the event of a nursery closure due to severe weather.
WINTER SONGS AND RHYMES
WEBSITES FOR EARLY YEARS
www.foundationyears.org.uk
www.earlylearninghq.org.uk
www.sumdog.com
www.topmarks.co.uk
www.activityvillage.co.uk
www.nrich.maths.org/early-years
www.crickweb.co.uk
www.bigeyedowl.co.uk
FUN ACTIVITIES TO TRY AT HOME
PLAYDOUGH
Put all ingredients in a large saucepan, and heat slowly, stirring all the time until it forms a ball. Keep it in wrapped in clingfilm or in a covered tub to stop it drying out.
MAKE A PAPER SNOWFLAKE
RECORD WHAT YOU DO!
Don’t forget to record what you get up to! Maybe you could take some photos for your online learning Journal or ask an adult to help you write or draw what you have done!
The Nursery Team 🙂
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