active learning – Page 4 – St Ninian's Primary School

Nursery News

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.

Primary 2/3 Weekly News

It has been another busy week in Primary 2/3! Mrs Keegan and Mrs Howley are really proud of the children and all of their hard work.

The children would like to let you know about some of their highlights:

Maya liked learning the colours in Spanish and using them to play a game.

Levente, Annayah and Zuzanna liked learning about gravity when we investigate how a helter skelter works in our Funfair topic.

James has enjoyed joining letters in handwriting.

Oma loved learning about 3D shapes in maths.

Andrew and Rachel loved exploring money in our Funfair topic and deciding which coins to use for different rides.

Carly liked writing an imaginative story about a visit to the Funfair. We thought about sights, sounds and smells and everyone produced fantastic writing!

Maeve liked when our surprise visitor, ‘Terence’ popped in to our class on Thursday to help us with our writing.

Aaron liked learning about Advent and painting an advent wreath.

Matthew loved talking about maths to our visitors during our numeracy review on Wednesday.

Alishba has loved rehearsing for the Nativity play and thinks that our Primary 2s are doing a great job!

Calvin has enjoyed skip counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s during our maths lessons.

Chloe really enjoyed yoga because she thinks that it helps her learn better.

Have a lovely weekend.

From Mrs Howley, Mrs Keegan and Primary 2/3

Nursery News

First of all we would like to say a big thank you to all the parents and carers who came along to our Stay and Play or Come back and Play sessions over the past two weeks. The children loved being able to share their learning experiences with you and show you round our nursery .

On Monday there was a spooky atmosphere in nursery as we had our Halloween parties. We all had a great time dooking for apples, trying to eat doughnuts and listening to a spooky story. We even managed to visit the library and pick some spooky stories to bring back with us.

We have been making firework pictures this week using paint, glitter and cardboard tubes. They look fantastic. We have also been discussing what we like and don’t like about fireworks and putting our ideas into our talking books. These books are on display and you are welcome to have a look at them at any time. We have also been having great fun in our leaves sensory box where we can walk on the leaves and listen to the sound we are making and look at the patterns in the leaves.

This week it is our PM children who will share their learning with us.

Mark, Riley and Luke ” We liked painting the Firework pictures”

Robert ” I liked playing in the sand.”

Courtney ” I liked playing in the water with the spiders! ”

Kayla ” I liked playing with the trains.”

Emileigh Rose and Lilly ” We liked playing in the kitchen and house corner ”

Emilie M and Jiya ” We love building things with the magnets ”

Szymon ” I love snack.”

Next week is National Nursery Rhyme week. We will be looking at a different nursery rhyme each day and there is a quiz which you can take home and try with your child. These will be given out on Monday. Good luck.

Parental appointment times have now been given out for either Wednesday 9 th November or Thursday 10th November. If you have not received a time and would like to talk to your child’s key worker please just ask any member of the nursery team who will be happy to help you.

We are also wanting to update our Nursery Behaviour Policy and we would really appreciate your thoughts and ideas. Please join Mrs Purdie and some of the Nursery team on Tuesday 8th November for Breakfast Blether at 10.30 or Afternoon tea at 2.15 to have a chat regarding this. We will also be asking for the children’s ideas and we have some exciting small visitors who will be coming to our Nursery to help us. Watch this space!

As you know the children also experience outdoor learning at Nursery and we are looking to build on the resources we already have to enrich further learning opportunities. If you have any of the following items to spare we would really appreciate it if you could hand them in to any member of the team.

Nuts and bolts, nails and screws, bricks, small hammers, saws and screwdrivers, pieces of wood, curtain hooks or rings, jars with lids and pieces of material. Thank you.

Have a lovely weekend and stay safe with Firework and Bonfire night.

The Nursery Team.

A surprise for P1M

This week we have been really busy completing all of the tasks that Trex asked us to do. We took a walk around the school grounds to look for the different things in our local area. We saw shops, another school (Dedridge Primary), the park, the Lanthorn and we recognised the path that would take us to the pond. After our walk we had a look at all of these different landmarks on google earth – this was lots of fun! We then made our own maps for Trex. We gave each different route we created a number to help Trex find his way around our local area.

We had a fantastic afternoon at the park on Thursday. The children wanted to bring in their own teddies to meet Trex so we decided to take our teddies and Trex to the park together. When we were at the park we all played so well together. We shared the apparatus and took turns too. We also spoke about ‘stranger danger’ and we know that we should only speak to adults that we know.

Thank you to all who sent in photographs of your houses and your address. We had so much fun looking at our houses on google earth. We then used the photographs of our houses to paint our own representation of these. Our painting skills are constantly improving. This week we were working on using the correct amount of paint on our brush and ensuring we cleaned our paint brush properly so the colours didn’t mix together if we didn’t want them to.

Last week, we went to the library and took out some books which we would like to read in class. We have enjoyed reading our own books in class this week and sharing our books with our friends too. Ask your child what book they took out from the library?

Do you remember about our letter from Trex last week? Trex told us that his baby brother was going to join our class. Well… you will never guess what has happened this week! A nest with an egg in it has appeared in our classroom. When we came into our classroom Trex was watching over the nest so we think it must be his baby brother that is inside the egg. We are so excited about the egg hatching, we keep checking on the egg throughout the day to check it is safe. This week in our writing lesson we wrote stories about what we think Trex’s baby brother might look like. Our writing is fantastic and well done to Adam our star writer this week!

Our numeracy skills are constantly improving and this week we participated in some fun activities to improve our numeracy skills. We are becoming much quicker at recognising random dot patterns and we loved using sand trays to work on our number formation too. We played the caterpillar ordering game on the smartboard. Search for this on your device at home too to play this game. We are continuing to work on our ordering of numbers, we used numicon and lollipop sticks to order our numbers this week. Can you believe that we are also learning about addition too! We are clever clogs in primary 1!

A big well done to Kerr who joined Mrs Purdie for ‘hot chocolate with the head’ today. Kerr always works hard and is a good friend to everyone in our class. A well deserved treat for you, Kerr.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Meechan

Nursery News

First of all we would like to thank everyone who came along to our MacMillan Coffee morning and afternoon. We have raised £135 for this fantastic cause. Thank you.

Both sessions had their first visit to the library this week and they both chose story books about wolves! The children really enjoyed this learning experience and can’t wait till they go back next week. Their chosen story books were then read at Nursery and the children were very good at listening and discussing the storyline.

There was a lovely smell in the Nursery on Wednesday and Thursday when both AM and PM children helped bake lovely cakes for our MacMillan fundraiser. They learned to measure out the ingredients and also talked about why we were baking these cakes. They also developed their cutting skills and were very creative when making invitations too for this.

All areas of the Nursery have been very busy this week in particular the construction area and the house corner . The children have continued to engage in their planning wall putting up their own ideas. Next week our focus for learning is going to be Autumn and we plan to have group time where we can get the childrens’ views and ideas on how to take this forward. If you are out and about at the weekend we would appreciate any signs of Autumn that the children could bring in. We would also love to have any ideas from parents or carers on this topic or if your child discusses any ideas with you which can be added to our planning wall.

Just a little reminder that we are having a Numeracy workshop on Wednesday 5th October one from 6.00 till 6.20 and the second one from 6.30 till 6.50. Both workshops are the same and this will hopefully give those parents and carers who have children in the school an opportunity to come to one.

Have a lovely weekend and thank you all for your continued support in all we do.

The Nursery Team.

Nursery News

First of all we would like to thank all the parents and carers who came along last night to our Ninians Natter. It was lovely to see you all and we hope you found it helpful and informative. Don’t worry if you didn’t manage along please ask any member of the Nursery Team and they will be happy to share what we discussed.

This week it is the turn of our PM children to share what they have enjoyed doing in Nursery.

Mark ” I learned about making things. I made a house in the construction area.”

Kayla ” We made a stage so we could all sing and play instruments.”

Liam” We have made rainbow fish for the wall”

Riley and Emilie ” We like playing in the sand”

Jiya ” I like the play dough”

Robert ” I like building things”

A little update from our AM children they have been very busy in all areas of the Nursery and have even been writing their own plans for our new Planning wall which is fantastic.

We continue to welcome new children to our St Ninian’s family and we are very proud of our older children who have made them so welcome and looked after them. You are all superstars.

In P.E. with Mr McCurdy the children were learning how to use all areas of the hall and developing their coordination skills using hoops. Even the teachers had a go!

Just to let you know that paper copies of the Nursery calendar for the year are now available in the Nursery. However if you receive our weekly Nursery update via email on a Monday you will receive an electronic one plus the Nursery handbook in the next few weeks.

A little reminder that Nursery is closed on Monday and Tuesday. We look forward to welcoming the children back on Wednesday 21st.

Have a lovely holiday weekend.

The Nursery Team.

A Great Week in P2/3!

What a great week we’ve had in Primary 2/3!

Our literacy carousels have been a great success, with the children working on spelling, reading and handwriting activities.

Drama was a huge hit, when we played ‘Hot Seating’ and took it in turns to ask questions of George, from our novel George’s Marvellous Medicine. We explored healthy living when we thought about medicines and how we feel when we are ill.

We tried yoga on Thursday to help make our concentration even better and we all had great fun.

One of our favourite activities this week was our Go Noodle PE session where we improved some of our dance moves!

On Thursday we said goodbye to Father Paul with a surprise assembly and we all contributed to a special book which the school made for him.

We’re all looking forward to another exciting week next week in Primary 2/3.

Primary 2/3, Mrs Howley and Mrs Keegan

Nursery News

Another busy and exciting week has flown by in Nursery. Our Transition programme continued with our pre schoolers getting the opportunity to have a school lunch in the dinner hall alongside our school pupils. They all coped with this new challenge so well and there were plenty of empty plates !

We enjoyed the lovely warm weather and took our learning outside a lot this week. The children used their curiosity and creativity when they made a den out of material, pegs and bricks and worked really well as a team to complete this. Our buddies also came along to play with us and we enjoyed showing them all the exciting things we were able to do. Our potatoes are really growing well in the heat and hopefully we can use these when they are finished growing. The children also enjoyed singing and dancing on our stage. What talented children we have! Can we please ask that the children come to Nursery in hot days wearing suntan cream and a hat. Thank you for your help in this.

We had a special visitor in our AM session when Eilidh brought in her pet turtle Sheldon to see us and some children were brave enough to hold him. We were able to think up some interesting questions to ask her about him. Thank you Eilidh.

We continue with our Transition programme next week with our two moving up days . On Tuesday 7th June the children should be brought to the main entrance of the school for 9 o’ clock where you will be taken into the main school hall. The children will be taken down to their new classes and get the chance to meet their new teacher and the other children in their class. There will be a meeting for parents while the children are away where you will be given important information about the school. The children will be brought back to the hall at 11 o’ clock.

On Wednesday 10th June the children should be brought to the infant playground for 9 o’clock where they will line up at coloured cones and the Primary 1 teachers will come out and collect them. The children should then be collected from the cones at 11 o’ clock. As the children will also go out at playtime on both these days they can bring a small snack to eat when out. Please ensure children have suitable clothing depending on the weather.

Transition letters have been issued with all the information for these two days. As usual if you have any worries or questions please don’t hesitate to ask any member of the Nursery team who will be more than happy to answer these for you.

Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the sunshine if it stays.

The Nursery Team.

Nursery News

Wow what an even busier week than usual in Nursery. We have been taking part in lots of activities during Health week. These included football, yoga, the Daily Mile, playground games with the buddies and dance clips on the Smartboard. We have been discussing what we need to do and eat to stay healthy and building on teamwork and working together.

The children in both sessions also visited the local library and enjoyed listening to a story about a baby kangaroo called, ” No room for Roo,” which was then followed by a talk about Australia using animal puppets. The children all enjoyed this fantastic opportunity to visit the library and we have planned three more visits which take place on Mondays starting with Monday 30th May.

Next week our transition programme continues with the children who are starting school in August joining the Primary 1 pupils for 10 minutes to experience playtime in the playground. This will involve both sessions. This will be outwith the normal playtime hours so it’s not too busy for them for their initial experience. We would appreciate it if the children could bring a small snack with them which they can eat during the playtime. The nursery children will also be joining the Primary 1 children for a shared learning experience which will be Science based. There will be a lesson in the classroom and one in the Outdoor area. We are sure they will all enjoy this collaborative learning. The nursery children will also be asked to choose their lunch for the following week as they will be able to have the experience of joining the school at lunchtime in the dinner hall. More details of this will be given out next week.

Also next week we are planning a Polish breakfast on Wednesday 25th May and Nathan and Leons’dad has very kindly offered to come in and help us with this. All AM children are welcome to come to this when Nursery opens at 805am.

Just a wee reminder that Nursery is on holiday on Monday. We look forward to seeing all the children back on Tuesday. If you haven’t received a time for our Parental consultations on Wednesday and Thursday and would like one please contact the school office and they will be happy to give you a time slot.

We hope the children have all enjoyed Health week and we are sure they would be very tired. The Nursery Team certainly were! Please check out our Nursery Parents Facebook page for more photos of Health Week.

Have a lovely holiday weekend.

The Nursery Team.

Nursery News

Although a shorter week at Nursery it has been as busy as usual. We have continued with our Fairy tales topic with the children leading on the planning and learning experiences.

Our AM children have been busy in the construction area building lots of exciting models including the Gingerbread house. They have been writing about the characters in the story and drawing them too. We also had some special visitors on Wednesday. Four teachers from Panama were visiting the school and nursery. They were very impressed when we greeted them in Spanish and loved our bright and nurturing environment.They took lots of photographs to take back to their school.

Our PM children have been loving the puppet theatre and have been retelling the story of Hansel and Gretel using the puppets they made themselves. The audience have been very impressed by the shows! They have also been busy in the construction area with lots of fantastic models being made.

We have also been outdoors and continued with our construction ideas using our natural materials. We are hoping for lovely warm weather soon,

Our transition programme continues next week with our PM children who are going to school in August visiting P1R to rake part in some carousel activities. They are looking forward to having this exciting experience. We also have some special visitors on Monday and Tuesday. Watch this space next week for details!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.