Health and Wellbeing – Page 9 – St Ninian's Primary School

Nursery News

What a great health week we have had in nursery. We enjoyed all sorts of activities and had healthy snacks.

We started off the week with trips to the park and learning some football skills. On Tuesday morning our AM children had their visit to Almondell country park where they went on a Gruffalo walk, listened for sounds of nature, made pictures from natural resources and enjoyed the park. Both sessions loved expressing themselves in the dancing and yoga activities. On Thursday the children were encouraged to bring their scooter to nursery and had great fun ‘zooming’ up and down the playground . It was great to see so many parents and carers join us for the daily mile and also the Fun run. A big thank you to Mr McCurdy for arranging such a brilliant week and also to the parents and carers who helped us on our trip and activities. We couldn’t have managed these without your support. All the children had super fun as did the nursery staff.

Transition events continued this week with the preschoolers joining the Primary 1 pupils for the daily mile and a measuring activity.

PEEP classes with Mrs Beattie have started again with both groups learning sign language for the hello and goodbye song and being introduced to “The old woman who swallowed a fly.” Group 1 were also counting bubbles and trying to see how fast they could pop them. Group 2 were asked to draw round their hand and their parent/career’s hand and find words about their feelings.

Transition next week will be the Moving up mornings on Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th. Arrangements for both these days have been outlined in a letter given out on Thursday / Friday. If you have not received your letter please see a member of the nursery team.

There will also be menu options available on Monday for the preschoolers to choose what they would like to eat the following week at the lunchtime experience. Please note the choices depend on which particular day your child is going. These details were also included in the same letter. If you have any questions about any of these events please ask any member of the nursery team who will be happy to help you. We would also like to ask if anyone has the talking book at home as we are unable to locate it and some children have still to get the opportunity to take this home.

Our AM children will share their favourite Health week highlights this week.

Lucy” I liked the bus”

Christopher ” I liked the fun run”

Anna ” I liked the healthy food”

Celine” I like running the best”

Isabelle” I like the dancing”

Blake” I liked being outside with my friends”

Annabelle” I liked dancing n the playground”

We would also like to invite parents and carers to a drop in session on Wednesday 7th at 11.15 am to discuss ways in which we as a nursery can improve to make your children’s learning experiences better. This will be held in the P7 classroom and you will get the opportunity to chat to staff and other parents over a cup of tea. Children who come along will be able to watch Trolls on the smartboard! We would love as many as possible to come along.

Just a little heads up on some dates. Nursery sports day will be held on Wednesday 14th June at 10.00 am and 2 pm weather permitting. Nursery graduations for preschoolers only will be on Thursday 29th June at 10.00 am and 3.15pm.

For more photographs of our Health week please check out our Nursery parents Facebook page.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery team.

Health Week

What a fantastic week we’ve all had. This week the focus has been on health and wellbeing and all activities linked to this. Our timetable has been jam packed and every day has been full of fun.

Check out our class story on dojo for photographs of some of the events and follow us on Twitter for more photographs and video links, @mrsroy16.

Monday

We started the week with the daily mile and invited our nursery friends along to join us. We all chose a partner and showed them the route. We then went straight to gymnastics which was good fun, we even got to make a human pyramid at the end with the full class taking part. Amber, Klaudia and Mark were very flexible and showed us some great cartwheels. After break we went straight to cross country with Mr McCurdy and had a practise at pacing ourselves for the fun run on Friday. Mrs Roy was exhausted and couldn’t keep up with some of us! In class we learned about the different parts of the body and the special jobs they all do, we watched a video about this and joined in with a fun song. After lunch it was time for fit and flex, this was a circuit with high intensity activities. Nathan couldn’t stop laughing at Mrs Roy when she tried to pull the stretchy band!

Tuesday

Judo was very popular in the class with many voting for this as their favourite activity. James and Brooke had to help demonstrate some of the moves which we all found really funny. Mrs Stewart did really well too when she partnered up with children! We went over to Dedridge PS for micro fitness, a huge inflatable with lots of challenges. Everyone managed to have lots of turns, it was really exhausting. In dance we learned a short hip-hop routine, Rafay and Ephraim had some impressive moves! The day ended with a nature walk, we spotted lots of signs of plant life and animals, we even met the new cygnets at the pond! In class we used the UNICEF launch pad to learn more about the rights of the child, we focused on article 5.

Wednesday

Before school started we had our parent and child bootcamp, well done to those who made it along.

It was a very relaxing start to the day with a yoga session, Mrs Roy loved how quiet and peaceful we all were!!! Football followed this and we got the chance to work on our dribbling skills and technique. In the afternoon we learned about the Eatwell plate and discussed different food types. We did a carousel which included making our own healthy plates and food technology. At the food technology station we made fruit kebabs, the ingredients we could choose from were : bananas, melon, pineapple, grapes and strawberries. It was great to so many children trying new flavours.

Thursday

Cheerleading was exciting as we learned a routine and used the Pom poms. We quickly picked up the routine to music and then got a chance to make up our own parts of the routine to two counts of 8, great teamwork everyone! The nursery joined us to learn about measure and we worked in teams to measure how tall we all were creating our own height charts. Boot camp was next, we got the chance to get outside and dirty taking part in different challenges-tug of war, follow the leader, the cone squatting game, walk the tight rope, etc. In the afternoon we had cricket where we got the chance to practise our throwing and batting skills. Isla was very good at this! We then finished off the day with a turn on the trim trail.

Friday

The day of the fun run arrived and we all went outside to do our warm ups to music, the whole school were there! Some families came along to support us, thank you. Well done to Ephraim who ran very quickly and finished first for our class.

Mrs Purdie then had a reward for 2 children in our class, Dexter and Isla, they were awarded the Headteacher Award, the theme this week was respect. They enjoyed a healthy smoothie as their reward.

Thank you

A huge thank you to Mr McCurdy for organising such a successful week and thanks to the children for participating so enthusiastically! Mrs Roy is away for a long soak in the bath to ease her aching muscles after all those activities!

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.

P2/3 Weekly update

In maths we have been using coins to 99p then using our number skills to pay for items up to 99p. We’ve had to use our skills in counting in tens too. We enjoyed playing this game to practice using and counting money http://www.topmarks.co.uk/money/toy-shop-money

We have also been working on our counting skills, counting forwards and backwards from any number up to 100. This is a good one to work on at home. A handy activity is http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?f=NumberSequences We’d love it if you leave a comment to let us know how you get on!

In Spanish we’ve been working hard to learn the months of the year now that we’ve mastered the days of the week. We’ve had great fun playing this game http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/spanish/my_calendar/games/magic_cards_months/ Try it at home and see if you can beat the magician.

Everyone worked really hard in our Literacy Carousel on Wednesday. One of our highlights was reading in pairs then giving each other feedback. We also worked on spelling using pipe cleaners, improving our handwriting skills and finding interesting vocabulary in our reading books.

Pupils from P2/3 and P3 paid a visit to St Philip’s chapel on Thursday for their Sacrament of Reconciliation rehearsal. Some of the children have been a little worried about the format so it was really helpful to have the opportunity beforehand to go along. All of the children have worked really hard completing their Sacramental lessons in school as well as their homework tasks. They know their prayers and the hymns well, so we have been reassuring the children not to worry about anything at all!

Some of our other highlights include:

Michelle – I liked writing about my friend. I used lots of connectives.

Matthew – I liked doing Sumdog because I got lots of coins. My maths skills are improving.

Kuba – I liked the maths carousel because I worked hard with number lines.

Oma and Maya – I liked the Health and Well-Being committee because we went outside today.

Alishba – I liked singing with Mrs Steele.

Chloe – I liked it when Mrs Smith came to do maths with us. I learned how to find the difference between numbers.

Levente – I liked learning about responsibility in Health and Well-Being. We thought about it in the school and in the community.

Brooke – I liked the STEM committee because we worked on the laptops to design eggs.

Carly and Angel – I liked preparing for my First Reconciliation on Saturday.

Maeve – I liked learning about Cleopatra and looking at her face so we can draw it in art next week.

Aaron – I liked Technology when I switched on the netbook, logged on, found a website then played a maths game. I used loads of skills.

What a busy week in P2/3. We’d love it if you would leave us a comment.

From Mrs Howley, Mrs Keegan and P2/3.

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!

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😊

Nursery News

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.

How do you stay active?

This month’s Health and Wellbeing focus is ACTIVE.

How do you keep active as a family?

Comment below for a chance to win a healthy family hamper.

All about numbers in P1R

This week our school took part in a numeracy review and our learners were able to showcase what they have been learning in numeracy. James and Lucy were selected to meet some special visitors and talk about their learning-well done to both of them for speaking so confidently!! On Wednesday Miss Smyth and Mr McDowall, the Depute Headteacher from St Margaret’s visited our classroom and joined in with our number talks lesson and a numeracy carousel. They were really impressed at how well the children could talk about their number work and enjoyed using play dough, the ten frames and the iPads. Everyone was keen to share what they had learned about addition and number stories.

The children were all excited this week when we began learning about Advent. We all went over to our class altar and set up our purple colours and the manger were baby Jesus lay. We all learned that Advent is a time of waiting and preparing. On Thursday we also began opening our Advent calendar to help us count down the days to Christmas.

Looking after ourselves is really important to us and we managed to get outside to do our daily mile. Everyone is managing to run more and walk less! In PE we are getting really skilled at dancing and impressed Mr McCurdy in the Grand Ole Duke of York dance. We are also looking after our teeth and brushing them during the school day.

In literacy we learned our last sound for this term, z. Everyone made their very own z zebra and thought of different words with z in them. Bingo was one of the favourite activities of the week. Our focus for the rest of term will be blending all of the sounds we have learned and spelling. We have been continuing to work on our Frys words and our word wall is looking very busy. Some of us are now using these words in our writing and are looking for them in our reading books.