Nursery – Page 4 – St Ninian's Primary School

Nursery News

Today we had our Big Bedtime Read launch. It was a lovely day and I would like to thank all the parents, carers and grandparents who came along some even dressed in their pyjamas. It was fantastic to see so many and I know the children really loved you being there.

I hope you you enjoy reading your pack of 5 books which you have for a week . Once returned next Tuesday you can then pick another pack to take home. I can’t wait to see any photographs of the children enjoying this new learning adventure. Please don’t hesitate to ask either myself or any member of the nursery team any questions you may have about this initiative.

Here are some photographs of our exciting day.

Mrs Caskie

Nursery News

What a wonderful MATHS week we have had in St Ninian’s Nursery!

The boys and girls have explored many wonderful areas of maths, including; numbers, counting, bigger/smaller, shape, pattern….. and many more!

We have been tweeting from our new twitter account @StNinsNursery giving an insight into what maths week looks like in our nursery.

We have welcomed parents/guardians/family/friends along this week for stay and Play sessions, and come back and play sessions. These have been very popular and we have had great verbal feedback from those who made it along 🙂 please take time to pop a few words on a post it to tell us what you thought of the sessions – how can we improve?

Mrs Beattie has been drumming up support for new PEEP classes which start on Friday 22nd September! There will be two classes running and although they are full for this block, if you would like to attend the next block please let a member of staff know so they can pop your name on Mrs Beatties list 🙂

Our Facebook page has a poll to come up with a catchy name for our outdoor learning Wednesdays – go on to vote for your favourite! We will be asking the children to vote next week too, let’s see what the winner is next Friday!

*NO NURSERY MONDAY OR TUESDAY*

It is the September holiday weekend – we will see you all back on Wednesday!

Nursery News!

This week has seen the beginning of our Outdoor Learning days! What a day it was 🙂 the AM and PM groups enjoyed a woodland walk to the Mid Calder woods, across the bridge. We discussed many things before, during and after our walk. Some of these included safety when out and about; we seen broken glass and dogs mess and discussed how to keep ourselves safe from these hazards. We talked about when it is ok to run and when we need to stop (when Mrs Conway, or another adult, shouts STOP!). When we got to the woods we learned about ‘jaggy’ nettles and dock leaves – we even had two ‘nurses’ on the PM walk who took charge of the magic leaves incase anyone needed them. We all collected some interesting things and brought them back to nursery, including sticks, stones, leaves and acorns.

We are looking for a catchy name for our outdoor learning days – feel free to add one to our facebook post, or tell the nursery staff any ideas you have!

Mrs Caskie has been busy this week setting up our ‘Big Bedtime Read’ initiative. We are hoping to increase parental engagement and give children great literacy experiences through this initiative, where each child will receive a book pack with five stories each week. As part of our Pupil Equity Funding we hope to achieve 80% of our children to be sharing bedtime stories with their families on four nights of the week or more. You will see our lovely ‘bedtime’ area created in the nursery – letters went out today to outline the plans for this and we look forward to launching it at the beginning of October.

Next week is ‘MATHS WEEK SCOTLAND’ – the boys and girls have enjoyed exploring the talking tub which was full of interesting maths resources, their views and ideas have been taken into account and will be used to plan learning for next week. Please come along to stay and play, or come back and play next week – sign up sheets in the nursery!

PEEP classes begin on 22nd September – Mrs Beattie is hoping to meet some of our PM parents this week to encourage their attendance at these classes 🙂 a fantastic way for kids and parents to bond!

Ninian’s Natter is on Thursday 6-7pm – please do come along! Nursery staff will be on hand to chat all things nursery and have you joining in with maths week activities 🙂 kids and parents welcome!

Nursery News

What a wonderful week we have had at nursery! All of our August starts have joined us and we have been very proud of how involved they have become in the activities in our nursery.

We have got almost all of our EE2 forms back from parents – please return these asap as our outdoor learning days depend on them 🙂 in our nursery Welcome area we have all sorts of sign up sheets next week! Take a minute when dropping off or picking up to read over them and sign where suits..

PEEP Sign up

Outdoor Learning Parent Helper Sign Up

Stay and Play/Come Back and Play Sign Up

We value our parents, carers and families very much and thank you for your continued support.

The boys and girls have learned so much this week! We are exploring our changed nursery environment and learning about independent, collaborative and imaginative play across all areas. We have been really interested in the old cameras and have used these in both the morning and the afternoon. Mrs Macdonald has got some photo albums and we hope that parents/carers will bring in some photos from home to help us fill these 🙂 we will also look to get the photos printed that the children take in the nursery.

The Travelling Teddies are back out and about on adventures this weekend! We can’t wait to see what they have been up to 🙂

Mrs Conway was blown away this week by the fantastic skills the boys and girls are developing around the snack table. Last week the AM group used pictures of food and a weekly timetable to choose snack for the week ahead. This week was the turn of the PM group. Once we chose, we then wrote shopping lists to include everything we needed to buy. Some children helped order the food online to be delivered the the nursery. At the snack area we have chopped cucumber, carrots, strawberries and bananas in preparation for snack time. The boys and girls also spread butter on their own crackers this week – which provides them with a wonderful opportunity to build up skills in food and health education. We would love to see some photos of the boys and girls helping to prepare food at home!

A wonderful week and we can’t wait for the next

Nursery news

We can’t believe this is the last blog post of the session. What a quick year it has been full of exciting learning adventures.

Both sessions enjoyed our Gruffalo party on Tuesday. It was a pity about the weather but we didn’t let it dampen our spirits. We enjoyed party games including pin the tail on the mouse. Mrs Mushet did some fantastic face painting we had our own Gruffalos! Our party food included Gruffalo crumble, Gruffalo cake and purple grapes as his spikes. Both Primary 1 classes joined us to share our learning with each other and we were amazed when we looked in our talking books that we had actually thought up lots of the same ideas.

It was a very emotional end to the week on Thursday when we said goodbye to our fantastic pre school children who are moving on to their next exciting step in their learning. We were super proud of them all and we wish them lots of luck in Primary 1. As we were so busy we didn’t get a chance to take photographs so if you have some and are happy to share please post on our nursery Facebook page where you will see the photographs taken of the children and what they wanted to be when they grow up.

The whole nursery team would like to say a huge thank you to all our families who shared kind words, lovely cards and very generous presents. We have been so touched by this. We are so thankful for the wonderful support we receive from our families.

Just a little reminder of staffing in the nursery next session. Both Mrs Mushet and Mrs Martinek will take on new leadership rolls as Early Years Officers and Mrs Conway will continue as the nursery teacher. Mrs Mushet will now work all day Monday and Tuesday with Mrs Martinek continuing to work all mornings. Mrs Beattie, Mrs Hogg and Mrs McDonald our Early Years Practioners will continue to work their usual mornings or afternoons with Mrs Conway in on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Mrs Caskie ( teacher) will continue to work in the nursery on a Tuesday providing direct literacy and numeracy teaching as part of our Pupil Equity Fund arrangements. Full details of all these changes are detailed in Mrs Purdie’s Headteacher headlines given out at the beginning of this week. Any questions regarding these changes please ask any member of the nursery team.

We would like to wish all our families a lovely summer holiday and look forward to welcoming back our returning children on Tuesday 22nd August and we are excited about all our new children who will be joining our nursery family. We would also like to say good luck to some of our children who are moving onto other nurseries after the holidays.

Happy Holidays 😊😊

The Nursery Team.

Nursery News

Another week flies by at St Ninian’s nursery! This week has been super exciting as we prepare for our final week of the 2016/17 session next week 🙂

Planning for the Gruffalo Tea Party is well under way! The boys and girls have given us so many fantastic ideas and we have done our best to put them into action for them 🙂 we are hopeful for nice weather so we can celebrate in our nursery garden with games, dancing and a lovely tea party. Our P1 friends will join us at the beginning of our celebration to share all the learning that has been shared across the transition period. We have invited our P6 buddies to join us for the final part of our tea party to share a small snack and look forward to our adventures next session!

We have also been chatting to our pre-school children this year who have given us some great ideas for their ‘Graduation’ ceremony! The staff have been having some lovely discussions about how much the children have changed during their time at St Ninian’s nursery – and this fed in to our enrolment induction meetings this week as we welcomed our new children and families into the St Ninian’s nursery community.

Although the rain has been threatening to ruin our outdoor fun, we have managed to have a great time in the nursery garden! The boys and girls have been helping the staff ‘clear out’ our ‘bunker’ in the garden by testing out the ride on toys and sorting through our old resources – the cars and tractors have been a BIG hit! We have also had our balance bikes and helmets out – we will look at managing these resources effectively in the new session 🙂

Mrs Beattie said farewell to her PEEP groups today – with a lovely spread and some lovely words. She is very proud of all the children and families who have joined in with the PEEP classes this term and has enjoyed seeing children grow in their confidence and interactions with their parents/carers, and with each other. We are delighted to confirm that PEEP will continue into next session – keep your eye out for our sign up sheets in the cloakroom area!

Next week brings our Gruffalo Tea Party on Tuesday – just throughout the nursery session as normal. We also welcome the parents/carers of our preschool children to our graduation ceremonies at 10am for the AM group and 3.15pm for the PM group – siblings also encouraged to attend 🙂

A reminder that the last day of term is Friday 30th June. Pupils will return on Tuesday 22nd August.

Nursery News

How the weeks are flying by in Nursery! Our transition programme concluded this week with the children getting the opportunity to try school lunches in the dinner hall. They were all amazing and they seemed to enjoy eating the lunches! We hope that you have found our transition programme helpful and it has prepared the children for their new exciting move into Primary 1.

On Wednesday we had our Sports day and we were lucky with the weather. The children were all excellent and learned how to participate in a sports day, be part of a team and encourage their fellow team members to do their best. Thank you to all the adults who came along to support the children. Well done to everyone who joined in with the races.

Also in our learning adventures this week the children got the opportunity to use real tools ( under close supervision! ) They all showed great maturity and used their curiosity and imaginative skills to measure , hammer and build exciting models.

Next week we will be making and discussing what we would like at our Grufdalo tea party. This idea came from the children and is an exciting way to round off all our learning within this topic.

In PEEP this week with Mrs Beattie Group 1 are playing memory games to help with their concentration skills and Group 2 are joining in with new parachute games to improve their listening skills.

Our PM children are sharing their favourite learning experiences this week.

Rojin” The bean bag race was the best.”

Harry” I liked Sports day.”

Mark” What was good was that I got a medal and a lolly.”

Luke” The best bit was running.”

Elena” running”

Scott” Scott goes fast!”

Just a wee reminder that graduation for our preschool children will take place on Thursday 29th June in the school hall at 10am and 3.15pm. All families of our preschool children are invited along to these. Our anti pre children will remain in the nursery during the graduations where they will get a little treat.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery team.

Nursery News!

We have had a busy week at St Ninian’s nursery this week.

In transition the boys and girls have had their ‘moving up mornings’ and enjoyed getting to know their new teachers – Miss Meechan and Miss Boyes. They were missed in the nursery in the AM group where we were depleted in numbers, in the PM group we were very impressed with how well they joined in after a busy morning at school! Next week in transition we will have our ‘lunch hall experience’ in groups.

Red Group – Monday

Blue Group – Tuesday

Green Group – Thursday

Children and parents should report to the school office at 11.45am. The children will go to the dinner hall and the parents will get the opportunity to chat to Miss Boyes and Miss Meechan in the hub. The kitchen staff have all the chosen options for lunches but will also provide the children with a wee ‘taster’ of the other trays so they can see how a school dinner is served and the kinds of food it has 🙂

We are fast approaching the end of term and as such life in the school and nursery is very busy!

This week in addition to the transition lunches we also have NURSERY SPORTS DAY! Please send your child in a tshirt/jumper the same colour as their group on sports day 🙂 it will be weather dependent but we are hopeful for some sun to come and shine through for us! Parents and families are invited to come and watch (and cheer us on!) – 10 – 11am for morning group and 2 – 3pm for afternoon group. Get running around this weekend so you have built up your fitness!

We have been chatting lots about summer this week and have changed our seasons display from Spring to Summer. There have been some lovely summer pictures drawn and great discussions had. The AM floorbook has some ideas from the boys and girls about summer which we will use to plan learning over the next week 🙂

School has been a big talking point this week and the addition of school uniform to the dress up area has been very popular! The ties have been like gold dust – we are thinking that the boys and girls might like to make some of their own next week so that everyone can have one 🙂

We had a good turn out at our parents coffee moring – all feedback is recorded in the talking books. We are looking to enhance our outdoor learning provision next session and would value very much your views on this 🙂 there was some great discussion between staff and parents on Wednesday which will help us in our planning of these developments for next session!

Have a lovely weekend everyone – see you next week!

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.

Nursery News

The sun has got his hat on – hip hip hip hooray… The sun has got his hat on and he’s coming out to play!

We have been blessed with beautiful weather this week and we have made the most of it in the nursery!

The PM group had their second, and final, trip to Almondell on Tuesday – have a look in our talking book for all the wonderful pictures that were created whilst we were there with Kirsty the ranger! The AM group are very excited about their forthcoming trip on Tuesday of next week. Thank you for the prompt return of permission slips – we have a few payments outstanding, please ensure you have paid £1.50 by Tuesday.

Transition was fantastic this week as we had a playtime, with our buddies, in the school playground! The boys and girls got the opportunity to join the P1 classes in the school playground and learned all about what happens at playtime at school. They have to get used to eating a snack as they play with their friends – and of course, putting their rubbish in the bin. We listened for the sound of the school bell and the whistle used by Mrs Smith so that we know when to come back and line up in our classes. Next week our transition will be in joining P1 for some health week activities.

Next week is HEALTH WEEK! We have a busy timetable, thanks to Mr McCurdy and the nursery staff for finding lots of fun activities to promote a healthy lifestyle 🙂 some of us had super ideas about being healthy and drew some lovely pictures in our talking books – have a look and see what we know and what we want to learn! The timetable for health week will be displayed in the nursery and will be on the weekly update. Please note that THURSDAY will be a ‘bring your scooter to nursery’ day – we have a selection of bikes and scooters for anyone who doesn’t have one. And we will welcome parents/carers/friends from 10.30-11 and 2.30-3 as we walk the daily mile together.

We are offering a parent/carer drop in session on WEDNESDAY 7th JUNE from 11.15am – 11.50am. We will have Trolls on the SmartBoard for the boys and girls to enjoy, and tea/coffeee/biscuits for the adults. We are looking for YOUR views before we tackle our nursery action plan for Session 17/18. Parents, carers, grandparents, friends – your views matter to us and will help us move forward positively for our children next session.

Have a great weekend!