Nursery news

Snow Week!!

Well what a wonderful surprise we got this week when the snow arrived! It feels like we have been waiting for a long time after all the discussions about snowy Christmas scenes and sledging – we definitely made the most of it this week! Mrs Beattie is thawing out this weekend in front of the fire!

Our week started with lots of chatter about winter as Mrs Mushet started to get ideas of what the children knew about winter and what they might like to learn about! Luke told her about storms – and this became all too real as the week progressed! Lots of the children spoke about snowmen – about building them at home, and wanting to build them in the nursery. We used a great smartboard game to build our own snowmen with lovely details added such as bow ties and reindeer antlers! Have a look in our floorbooks, around the smartboard and on the learning wall where these masterpieces have been displayed! ICT skills can be tricky to develop on our temperamental smartboard but what a great job the boys and girls are doing of learning to use our ‘pointer’ correctly – well done.

To warm us up we made soup on Thursday! Mrs Beattie and Mrs Hogg were hard at work with the boys and girls – chopping, slicing, mixing the vegetables and creating wonderful potato and leek soup! Roma and Lucy wrote a letter inviting Mrs Smith down to the nursery to taste their yummy soup – she was delighted and commented that it was delicious!

The creative area was awash with paintings in snowy colours – and the children even made snow dough! A super easy recipe of cornflour and water with added glitter made a crumbly, compactable dough for the boys and girls to play with! This was a very popular activity this week and one that would be easy to replicate at home – if a little bit messy!

We managed to bring some of the snow indoors into the water tray this week and use it to create homes and Play areas for our arctic animals! Next week if the snow reappears we are going to take our Mr and Mrs Potato head pieces out to build snow versions in the garden.

Thankfully we had one parent come along to the coffee morning on Wednesday where we discussed nursery snack and the results of our annual environmental health visit – a successful pass. We also had a few of the ‘big questions’ answered by parents who couldn’t attend. The team have collated the results of these questions – keep an eye out for it with your weekly update via email! Printed copies are also on display in the hallway.

Next week is a busy week for our nursery with the bedtime read relaunch for the children on Tuesday and a Burns Supper snack on Thursday – take home a copy of the Selkirk Grace to practice with your child in preparation for this celebration.

A reminder that our Ladies Night tickets are on sale this week – we have a minimum number to sell in order that the event can go ahead – round up your friends and family to come and have fun whilst raising funds for our children!

have a lovey weekend 🙂

Nursery News

What a wonderful return to nursery we have had this week!

The boys and girls have filled our talking books with chatter about CHRISTMAS! It seems that Santa has been good to everyone – have a look in our talking books about what exciting things we got, seen and done at Christmas time!

It has been icy this week – this has led to lovely discussions about Winter/Snow/Ice. We will spend next week consulting the children so we can plan for their interests around this area. We loved throwing sticks onto the icy pond on our Welly walk on Wednesday – this led to lots of talk about what happens to water when it is cold, what happens to ice when it is warm… Super scientists! We have had ice cubes in the water tray and even painted with coloured ice cubes! Lots of boys and girls have enjoyed making winter collages this week and painting with cold colours.

We have had a reshuffle of furniture on the carpet area which has been very popular with the children – we have had so many lovely teas being made in the house corner, games being played at the games table and the garage and car mat have been well used! We will observe the children in this environment and adjust resources/spaces over the coming weeks depending on how the play progresses – it has been lovely to see so many engaged learners return from their Christmas break!

Mrs Beattie is looking forward to getting PEEP up and running for 2018! The sign up sheets will be available in the cloakroom next week with classes beginning again on 26th January.

Our parent/carer coffee morning is Wednesday 11.20-12 – please do come along as we discuss snack, food preparation and our future vegetable patch!

Have a lovely weekend!

Nursery News

Nativity week has been and gone – what a wonderful week it was 🙂

The staff team were bursting with pride after two fantastic Nativity performances on Thursday! In a packed out school hall, our wee stars shined brightly as they wow-ed their parents and families with their performance of ‘The Nativity’. Mrs Purdie took some photos and videos of our dress rehearsals which she will share with parents this week – we bet you can’t wait to relive some of they magic moments! A huge well done to all the boys and girls – if Santa was watching we would bet that he would have been pretty happy with that!

Elsewhere in the nursery there has been a hive of activity! Between Christmas cards, reindeer dust and snowmen names we have all been exploring Christmas and winter in different ways. We have loved continuing our daily advent celebration where we light the advent candle and share a Christmas story book before choosing someone to blow it out and move the calendar to the next number 🙂 isn’t advent a wonderful time to talk about numbers before and after? We have been delighted with the number recognition and counting experiences during these sessions.

Our monthly focus for December is NURTURED. As a staff team we recognised that the build up to Christmas can involve lots of changes for our children, whether that is the decorations around the house and nursery or the changes in routine to accommodate nativity practices, or Christmas shopping/visiting at home. In relation to this we agreed that we would, as key workers, find five minutes of every session to chat to our key worker group (coloured group) about how they were feeling and if there was anything they wanted to share. We have loved having this time to talk to our children and hope that it has helped them to feel more settled as they get caught up in the whirlwind that is Christmas!

Next week we look forward to Christmas parties and the AM panto trip!

Nursery News

Wow! Has that really been a week??? How busy we have been!

Elfie our naughty elf has been hiding from us this week! He ended up playing in the flour in the kitchen and he stole Mrs Findlays socks and hid them all over the garden!! Cheeky elf! We have enjoyed talking to the boys and girls about how we are trying to make good choices and prepare for Christmas, not only for Santa coming with presents, but also for the birth of the baby Jesus.

The nativity rehearsals are well under way! We tried on our costumes on Thursday for the first time – it was so exciting! We can’t wait to show off our singing skills next THURSDAY 14th DECEMBER 10am and 2pm for our nativity show 🙂 can you please let a member of staff know how many adults you plan to bring so we can be organised for seating! We will have mince pies, cakes and refreshments available for afterwards – please stay for a festive blether and a bite to eat!

The creative juices have been flowing this week! We have made Christmas gift bags to keep all our special Christmas gifts in 🙂 we have sent home invitations to the Nativity and have talked about what we can make for next week! We have started crafting a gingerbread house on the entry to the school – so many wonderful pieces of artwork have been added as sweeties and candy canes! Someone suggested we make reindeer food so we are looking to do that in the coming week 🙂

The fundraising stall was a great success! Thank you to everyone who supported us in this venture! We have raised over £90 and will have a final total for Monday 🙂 thank you!

Next week the school is having a Christmas jumper day on Friday – we are so lucky that we can wear our Christmas jumpers ANY DAY OF THE WEEK! We would love to see children in their festive wear between now and the Christmas holidays so if they would like to come with any jumpers, tshirts, hats or headbands they are more than welcome to do that!

PM panto trip is on Tuesday – the bus will be leaving at 12.20pm – please ensure that your child is dropped off at 12pm sharp, if you haven’t paid for the panto or filled in the EE2 form please do so on Monday.

Here are the final four nativity songs for you to practice this week 🙂

An Angel Appeared in the Sky

Three Kings Were Riding

Away in a Manger

Ring out the bells

Enjoy!

Nursery News

Technical issues resolved – here’s a quick recap from last week!

We were all very excited after the addition of a STAGE in the nursery! It has been a fantastically popular area in the nursery this week with lots of practising for our nativity ☺️ Maybe your child has been singing some songs this last week? The nursery team have been so impressed with the boys and girls effort during our performances so far – we can’t wait to showcase it on Thursday 14th December! Letters went out last week to detail times/dates of Christmas activities – if you need a new copy ask a member of nursery staff ☺️ Although we can’t give everyone a copy of the music to practice at home your child might enjoy watching these performances of familiar songs..

Welcome Welcome

Clip Clop

Knock Knock knock

Flicker Flicker

Mrs Beattie had a wonderful Friday afternoon at PEEP afternoon tea! Due to the Christmas fair (great to see so many nursery children there!) PEEP was a bit different with children making their own sandwiches, wraps and pittas and enjoying them round the Christmas table with their parents. Mrs beattie also had a wonderful bubble machine and a Christmas story! PEEP will continue as normal in the school hall this week ☺️

We had had lots of boys and girls interested in sorting and grouping this week! Sorting by colours, by shape and by different things – maybe your child could help sort things at home? Like Christmas baubles or cutlery? Feel free to share some photos on our Facebook or twitter accounts!

Another busy week ahead!

Nursery News

What an exciting week!

This week we welcomed some parents and caters to our nursery as we had our Stay and Play and Come Back and Play sessions! We love seeing the children share their environment with their parents/carers as they play and learn together.

We kicked off the week with P1 and the JRSO (Junior Road Safety Officers) to launch Road Safety Week! There was much discussion about Ziggy who has given us an important song to learn which will help us when crossing the road – you can listen and learn at home here;

We have had such interesting conversations this week about transport. Some people have made boats to sail on the water tray, while others have been drawing and colouring traffic lights! Have a look at our lovely work on our learning wall!

Welly Wednesday was a bit dreich this week! We all got wrapped up warm and donned our wellies for jumping in puddles and talking about road safety. We talked about ways we can avoid crossing roads by using underpasses and bridges. We then found a bit of unused road to practice our safe crossing skills while singing Ziggy’s song! We also practiced our understanding of red, amber and green by playing the traffic lights game! The highlight of this trip was perhaps waving at the cars and lorries from the bridge – we got a few toot toots and some flashing lights!

Thursday brought a whole wave of excitement to the nursery as we welcomed two special guests! First up we had Colin, an author and father of Mrs Martinek, who read us all The Disgusting Sandwich! We loved joining in by shouting ‘ IT’s DISGUSTING’ !! This was followed by a visit from BOOK BUG HIMSELF! Book bug had bags of books to give our 3 year olds and a special book to hand to our 4 year olds! We were so excited with these lovely gifts and all agreed we couldnt wait to get home to read them!

Mrs Beatties PEEP groups were busy today doing literacy based activities! Including using and acting out words like stomping happily and grumping! The boys and girls also enjoyed making funny faces together with their families! Mrs Beattie has a different PEEP session planned next week due to the Christmas Fair taking place in the hall. She will run a Christmas Afternoon Tea in the nursery where boys and girls can make their own sandwiches and have a wee cake before dancing around to some Christmas music and enjoying the bubble machine! This will not last the full hour but will allow parents to spend some time (and money!) at the Christmas fair 🙂

We have started to practice our nativity! There will be letters handed out next week to firm up the plans for our Christmas term – it’s a busy one!

Nursery News

This week has been wonderful in St Ninian’s Nursery! We welcomed the arrival of our kindness elves on Monday! They are going to be looking out for boys and girls who can do wonderful things – this might be involved with learning, sharing, confidence or even having super ideas! They are always on the lookout for ‘I can..’ moments but are also really interested in the I Can moments that come from home! Please share any achievements your child has at home with us so we can let the elves know 😉

Welly Wednesday was interesting this week as we discussed the changing weather! Mrs Conway couldn’t see out of her car window and we realised it was because Jack Frost had been out! We talked about the changing seasons and that we are expecting Winter very soon. We watched a lovely clip about birds in winter and learned that it can be hard for them to find food – we decided to make them food to take with us to the woods! The boys and girls enjoyed threading cheerios onto straw and mixing lard with bird seed to make feeders. We seen so many creatures this week! Including squirrels and even a rat!!! How interesting! We are going to go back next week to collect our little pots used for food so we don’t litter the woods.

Thursday brought our Children In Need celebration! We looked great in our spots and stripes – Mrs G and Miss Burns even had a Pudsey eye patch painted on their face! The boys and girls enjoyed talking about how they were lucky to have things that they needed and how their pennies could help Pudsey help other children who need him. We raised over £60! Fantastic!

Thursday PM and Friday AM brought a little bit of a different snack… The boys and girls, along with P1 have been going to the library to listen to the stories up for the Book Bug Picture Book award! We chose Gorilla Loves Vanilla as our favourite and one of the AM group asked if we could have ice cream cones! We joined the P1 group to discuss our favourite flavours which Mrs Martinek ordered – chocolate was the most oooular flavour! The boys and girls enjoyed their wee spoonful of ice cream and the chance to talk about ice cream flavours they might not like – such as worms! As in the story! We look forward to working with P1 on Monday to kick of Road Safety week 🙂

Remember Stay and Play and Come Back and Play next week! We look forward to seeing you all 💜

Nursery News

It’s been a spoooooooky week this week at St Ninian’s Nursery!

The boys and girls had so much fun at the Halloween party on Tuesday! Dooking for apples, biting donuts off a string and decorating biscuits to name but a few – we have loved having the nursery decorated this week to add to the eerie atmosphere!

There have been many many wonderful additions to our water tray this week! We have had shaving foam, jelly and spaghetti to get our hands on – this has led to wonderful discussions about how it ‘feels’ in the water tray with super words like sticky, squishy, squashy and ‘like gummy bears’ 🙂 we love to hear our boys and girls using interesting vocabulary! Be sure to check the weekly Box Clever words on the weekly update to help your child expand their vocabulary at home!

We have also had lots of interesting conversations about Autumn, hibernation and nocturnal animals! Does your child know what hibernation means? It was one of our box clever words last week and there are lots of lovely stories out there about bears going to sleep for the winter! We read Mr Bear Snores On in the hut this week and a few boys and girls were able to tell us that he was hibernating!

The writing table was covered in black on Thursday like the night sky as we talked about and drew fireworks in preparation for Guy Fawkes this weekend! The PM group also collaged some lovely sparkly rockets to add to this – we wonder if anyone will have a story about fireworks night on Monday at nursery??

Mrs Beattie is looking forward to having PEEP start back next Friday! The five week block begins 10/11. Classes are now full but keep an eye out for new sign up sheets for PEEP into the new year!

We have our termly Parental Coffee Morning on Wednesday 8th November from 11.20-12. AM children and parents are encouraged to stay on at the end of the session with PM parents encouraged to come along early with a packed lunch for their child. Children will be able to watch a movie in the nursery while parents enjoy a cuppa in the hall. We value your views and have acted on all points raised at last terms coffee morning in order to make our kids experience of nursery the best that we can!

Please keep an eye on your email inbox for the nursery weekly update – usually sent on a Sunday night. It has a plan for the week and important information to share!

A gentle reminder that parents are asked not to take any photos or videos in the nursery environment.

Thank you for your continued support!

Nursery News

What a busy week – and a great return after the October holiday!

Halloween has been on everyone’s lips this week! We have had lots of fun talking all things spooky – our talking tree has lots of lovely ideas from the boys and girls about what we could learn about around Halloween! Have a wee read – and check our learning wall for some of our fantastic work! Freya brought in some apples from her garden – after we had made apple crumble, we cut these in half and used them to print pumpkins with orange paint!

The staff team were so proud to see how much effort our boys and girls have been putting in with adding detail to their paintings – so much so that Paul received a head teachers award at assembly today for super effort! He was joined by Carter who received an achievement wristband as a well done for his achievement of going a whole mile! Novembers well being focus is ACHIEVING – based on the feedback from our coffee morning, we are looking to create an achievement area to celebrate all the fantastic things our children do! Keep a look out when in and around the nursery 👀

It was lovely to hear about the autumn adventures our boys and girls had! We shared these with our friends and will finish off next week! If anyone has one at home please return on Monday 🙂

Lots going on next week – make sure you check your email for the nursery update on Monday to keep you in the loop 😊 Can’t wait for Tuesdays Halloween party! Fancy dress encouraged!

Nursery News – Term 1 Round Up

What a term it has been!

Highlights of this term include;

*Welcoming our new children and their families following the successful introduction of home visit/one to one enrolments!

*Outdoor learning – Welly Wednesdays! Learning opportunities in our local envirnment, supported by parent helpers on a weekly basis.

*Big Bedtime Read📚Our PEF initiative set up by Mrs Caskie, aiming to have our nursery children having a bed time story on four or more nights of the week!

*The return of PEEP! Fridays at PEEP are a great start to the weekend, keep an eye out for the next block starting next week!

We have been busy! We continue to be blown away by the progress of our children, we can’t wait to see what next term has in store!

Some things to look forward to include;

*Halloween! Parties will be during sessions on Tuesday 31st Oct.

*Children in Need fundraising!

*Road Safety Week – our next opportunity for stay and play/come back and play sessions!

*All things Christmas! Nativity, Parties and Panto!

We have a lovely new display at the nursery doorway – leave us some feedback on a welly! Let us know if there’s something you’ve enjoyed or if there’s anything you would like us to look into/change!

Have a lovely, restful holiday! See you all back on TUESDAY 24th OCTOBER!