Parental Involvement – Page 8 – St Ninian's Primary School

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

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

Another week has flown by in nursery. First of all we welcomed another member to our St Ninian’ s family. Khyla has joined the AM session. We hope you enjoy your time with us. On a sad note we said goodbye to Liam in our PM session who has gone to another nursery nearer his new house. We wish him well and will miss him.

The transition programme for our children going into Primary 1 continues with the nursery children working together with the children in both Primary 1 classes on Numeracy and Literacy carousels . This gave the nursery children an opportunity to see how they will be working when they come to big school. They were all excited and again were a credit to us. Well done everyone. In nursery we also listened to a song about the letter ‘m’ and we tried to think of things that began with this sound. As a home link activity we would love it if the children could bring something in beginning with this sound and also if you are out and about have a look and see what you can find that begins with ‘m’. Next week the nursery children will be going out for a short playtime with both their buddies and the Primary 1 pupils. This will be in the nursery outdoor area and the following week it will be in the school playground. If they wish the nursery boys and girls can bring a snack and drink with them which they can have at this time. It is only 15 minutes so something small to eat will be great. As they will be outside we would ask that the children come in appropriate clothing and shoes. Thank you for your support in this.

The children also received a lesson on personal safety this week when we had a fire drill. Both sessions had to stop what they were doing and leave nursery quickly and safely. All the children were amazing and we were very proud of them.

Outdoor learning has been very busy this week with lots of exciting adventures in their learning. The children have been using their skills of curiosity and inquiry when using our natural open ended resources. They have been on the bikes, making lots of yummy recipes in our mud kitchen, sitting in the sand pit and role playing at schools! We hope the sun keeps shining for us next week. A wee reminder that children should come to nursery with suntan cream already applied and proper clothing for the sunshine. Please check out our Nursery Parents Facebook page for some photographs of our outdoor learning.

Mrs Beattie’s PEEP classes continue on a Friday and this is what they will be doing this week. The first group will be working together choosing different size balls and finding ways of rolling , bouncing and throwing them to each other while singing songs. They will then enjoy snack and a story together. The second group after nearly being blown far far away on top of their large parachute quite literally and having so much fun doing so have decided to go outside again! Hopefully they will find other ways that they can use and play with the parachute together and also use stop watches to time themselves going over the school assault course which they had tried last week for the first time. Another exciting PEEP session ahead!

It is the turn of the PM children to share their learning with us.

On Primary 1 transition.

Liam ” I made a snake ” ( this was linked to our shared topic of The Gruffalo)

Riley ” It was good”

There was lots of chat at the snack table.

Martin” I like to have this at home” ( yoghurt)

Emilie M ” I ‘m tidying up ”

Outdoor learning

Scott ” I like to play with the train”

A little reminder that there is a information meeting on Monday 15th May at 6 o’ clock in the school for new Primary 1 parents.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.

Nursery News

This week our learning has centred on our shared transition topic with Primary 1 ‘The Gruffalo’

The children discussed what they would like to learn and do within this topic and their ideas were written and drawn in our talking books. We drew our own gruffalos and made some mice. These are on the wall and they look amazing. We have also started to put up the childrens’ ideas on our learning wall. We will continue with this topic next week taking forward the other learning adventures that the children have come up with. Please feel free to have a look in our talking books and at our learning wall and any other ideas you have we would be delighted for you to add these.

In outdoor learning the children went bug hunting and were very independent at making their own resources for this. We have also seen great cooperative play. As outdoor learning is every day we would appreciate it if the children could come to nursery suitably dressed for the outdoors.

On Monday we had our monthly visit to the library and Mrs Campbell read us a story about robbers trying to steal a prize cow. We enjoyed making the animal noises and after that we all did a funny dance! It was great fun.

Transition events continued this week with our pre schoolers visiting the Primary 1 classes where they all sat at the smartboard in a circle with their Primary 1 friends and Mrs Roy and Miss Meechan showed them the talking book. This book is full of pictures of all the experiences the children will encounter when they come to school and has audio telling them all about the picture. Each pre school child will be given an opportunity to take this book home for one night to give them a chance to discuss it with their parents. The nursery children were all excellent and ready for this next exciting adventure in their learning. The transition activity next week will be the nursery children joining in with a Numeracy and Literacy carousel with the Primary 1 classes. We would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Roy, Miss Meechan and all our Primary 1 friends for inviting us to visit them.

The PEEP classes with Mrs Beattie are now up and running. We are in week 2 of a 5 week block. Group 1 are focusing on Health and Wellbeing and Group 2 are engaging in fun numeracy activities which can be then be followed up at home. All the children and the adults are having great fun in these sessions.

A little reminder that Monday 1st May is a holiday and Thursday 4th May is an In service day for staff , the children do not attend nursery on this day.

Have a lovely holiday weekend. See you all on Tuesday.

The Nursery team.

Primary 2/3 Star in Egyptians Assembly!

Well done to Primary 2/3 for all their hard work in planning and performing in their Ancient Egyptians assembly and to all the parents and grandparents for coming along and providing a fabulous audience.

Some of our highlights this week have been:

Kuba – I liked rehearsing for our assembly.

Annayah – I liked singing songs in the assembly, especially the mummy song.

Alishba – I liked when we were drumming in music and keeping the beat.

Levente, Aaron and Andrew – I loved the mummy song in our assembly.

Pawel – I liked Big Writing and making props for our assembly.

Carly – Farmer Jess told us about crops that grow in Scotland and she showed us lots of pictures.

Chloe – I liked doing the Daily Mile because I’m getting fitter and faster.

Harry – I liked going on a walk and looking at the land around our school then finding out what it was used for.

Zuzanna – I liked Big Writing because we wrote about our walk.

Rachel – I liked our assembly because I loved the songs.

Angel – I liked it when Farmer Jess came to visit and showed us oil seed rape seeds and we got to hold them.

Oma – I liked rehearsing for our assembly. We used our singing skills and our listening and talking skills.

Matthew – I liked doing Sumdog because I got lots of coins. Sumdog helps me get better at maths.

Maeve – I had great fun when Farmer Jess came to visit because she talked about lots of animals and we found out about wee and poo from cows!!

Have a great weekend!

From Mrs Howley, Mrs Keegan and Primary 2/3

Nursery News

Although a shorter week it was just as busy for Nursery! First of all we welcomed new members to our St Ninian’s family. Joining our staff team is Mrs Brogan Conway who has replaced Mrs Craig as our other Nursery teacher. She will be in Nursery on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with Mrs Caskie in Nursery on a Monday and a Tuesday. Also joining us in the AM session is Mrs Carol Martinek an Early Years Practioner who will be the key worker for our new yellow group. We are looking forward to working with our new team members.

We also welcomed Abhay and Ameya who have joined the yellow group in our AM session. We have a further four children joining this group in the coming weeks. In our PM session we welcomed Martin and look forward to Harry joining us on Monday we hope you all enjoy your time with us at nursery.

We had to say goodbye to some friends at the beginning of the week as our caterpillars had turned into butterflies during the holidays. The children got the opportunity to have a look at the cocoons and observe the butterflies eating and drinking before we released them. They were not too keen to come out of their nets so Mrs Mushet and Mrs MacDonald had to lift them out, some flew away but others were placed gently amongst our flowers. We will be keeping an eye out for them in the coming weeks.

As part of Outdoor week and also our transition programme we went on a Gruffalo woodland walk along with our Primary 1 friends. No Gruffalo was found but we all had a super time exploring the woods. The Gruffalo will be a joint topic along with the two Primary 1 classes. We will be getting the childrens’ ideas next week in order to take this topic forward and put them on our learning wall as well as anything else that arises from the childrens’ interests. Our transition programme continues next week with the Nursery children visiting the Primary 1 classes along with their buddies to have a look at the talking books. These books are put together by the children in Primary 1 and show all the experiences that will take place when the nursery children come into school. Each pre school child will get the opportunity to bring this book home so that you can discuss this with them. It is going to be a very busy but exciting term!

On our Nursery Facebook page there are photographs of both the butterflies being released and our woodland walk.

Today Mrs Beattie one of our AM Early Years Practioner started another block of her PEEP classes. We will be putting a weekly update on our Blog of all the exciting activities they get up to.

On Monday we will walking to the library for our monthly visit to hear a story. We all love going along!

A small reminder that Monday 1st May is a holiday and Thursday 4th May is an inservice day.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.

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.

Nursery News

This week was Stay and Play at Nursery. The boys and girls were very excited to share their learning adventures with their families. They were so confident at showing them round all the areas of the nursery and were then able to join in with their learning. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came along to these sessions and hope that you all enjoyed your time with us. We look forward to welcoming some more visitors to our Come back and Play sessions which are next week.

We have been discussing and looking for signs of Spring in our learning and to help us with this we had some new additions to our nursery family. It was some caterpillars! We talked about how they grow and we noticed their special food in their tubs. We learned the special name for the home they make for themselves before they turn into butterflies. We also read the story of The very hungry caterpillar. We now have our caterpillars on display with an information board which explains how they grow. We are all super excited to watch the changes over the next few weeks and be able to talk about them. Please have a little look at them the next time you are in the nursery.

We have also been very busy this week making invitations for our Grandparents day which is on Thursday 30th March at 10am and 2pm. These will be making their way home next week. We would appreciate it if you could give us an idea of how many will be coming along to this event for catering purposes and also would be grateful for any donations of cakes or biscuits nearer the time.

Our numeracy and literacy skills have been developing too this week as at small group time we have been counting up to 10 and recognising our names. This has been developed further by the children having the opportunity to find their name at the gluing table and putting it on their work and also at the drawing/ writing table where they can try and find their name and practise writing it. What super workers we have.

Our pre school children were given a letter this week with our transition calendar. We will also be issuing a transition booklet soon which further explains some of our planned activities. This is an exciting time for the children who are getting ready to go to school in August . If you have any questions about any of the activities please ask any member of the nursery team who will be more than happy to help you.

We are trying to move towards a cashless nursery and in order to achieve this we would encourage you to pay your child’s snack money on the online payment of iPay impact. This will also be of benefit when your child goes to school as this system is also used there.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery team.