Transition – Page 3 – St Ninian's Primary School

Nursery News

Its been a very short week in Nursery but we still packed in lots of learning experiences. Transition continued this week with both nursery sessions joining the Primary 1 classes to take part in either a numeracy or literacy carousel. The children got the opportunity to join in with a reading carousel listening to a story on the smartboard then moving onto working with a Primary 1 friend on a literacy app on the iPads . They also got a chance to make a Gruffalo story wheel which we will use to retell the story. In the numeracy carousel the children learned about time and made their own watches. All the nursery children showed a great attitude towards learning and were little superstars. Next week the children will be joining in with more carousels.

The children have continued to enjoy The Gruffalo topic and they got the chance to make their own Gruffalo masks. We will continue with this topic next week as the children have came up with lots of super ideas which are written in our talking books. Please feel free to have a little read when you are in nursery.

In P.E. with Mr McCurdy we have been concentrating on athletics. We enjoyed improving our running and jumping skills and next week we will be working on our throwing skills.

PEEP classes continue with group 1 learning about stopping, getting ready to think and go. They then got to take red, amber and green plates to take home to reinforce this learning. Group 2 have been working on their numeracy skills. They have had fun making their own skittles and using different sized balls to knock over huge tins and working with each other in order to listen and take turns. What fantastic fun they are having!

It is the turn of our AM children to share their learning experiences with us this week.

Dylan” I like being outside at Nursery.”

Carter” I played with the bricks and made a tower with my brother.”

Liam ” I was playing with the bricks and the magnets and I made a rocket. It was easy!”

Sophie” I played with the wee girl Celine.”

Micha ” I liked playing the bricks with my friend Oliver.”

Roma” I played with my friend Lucy”

Blake ” My favourite was playing outside with my friends.”

Just a little reminder that as the children are outside every day and hopefully the sun may shine can we please ask that suntan cream be applied before coming to nursery and that appropriate clothing is worn eg sun hat, long sleeve top. Thank you for your support with this.

For parents of preschool children a letter has been given out detailing parent meetings to provide you with important information before your child starts St Ninians. Please let any of the team know if you have not been given one of these letters.

Snack money is now due either £1 per week or £11 till the end of this term. This can be paid by iPad impact. If you are unsure of your payments please ask any of the team and this can be checked for you.

For more photographs please check our Nursery parents Facebook page.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery team.

A short week in P1R

Time continued to be the focus in mathematics and we welcomed some of the AM nursery children into our lessons. We learned about o’clock and the important job the hands on the clock do. We discussed why do we need to learn about time and sang a time song. In carousels we made clocks, played bingo taking turns to be the bingo caller, worked in pairs to match times and lots more.

During topic time we invited the nursery PM gps over to continue our work on The Gruffalo. We listened to the Gruffalo song as a warm up then discussed the characters from the story. We each made a Gruffalo story wheel which we will use later to retell the story in our own words.

On Friday we attended our committee groups,here are some of the highlights:
I learned all about cooking equipment-Bernice
I learned about Marie Curie, we are planning a tea party for charity-Paul M
I was outside and had to think of how we could make our playground more fun-Isla
We made posters about Fairtrade-Ephraim and Dawid
I was talking about my favourite thing this year – Lucy
I went on a litter pick-Amber
I listened to the Rainbow story and worked with Paige- James

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.

Time flies in P1…

As the title suggests we have started learning about time and this week the focus was on days of the week, months and daily routines. We listened to some catchy songs to engage us in our learning before doing some tasks. We did a cut and stick sequencing task, worked with a partner and in groups to discuss daily routines, made a class birthday chart and also tried to use simple timetables. Mrs Purdie popped in while we were making a birthday chart and we asked her when her birthday was, can you remember which month it was? Next week we will progress onto learning about analogue and digital clocks and how to tell o’clock times.

We planned out our new topic, The Gruffalo. We read the story and then came up with lots of ideas about activities we could do in class. We added this to our visible plan and our talking book. The nursery are working alongside us on this and we will have opportunities to share our learning as the topic progresses. One of the first suggestions was to create a collage for our classroom so we got to work in teams using different materials, felt, twigs, paint,crepe paper and feathers. It’s starting to look good on the wall and we add to it as we learn more. In reading we did a picture this activity when from memory we had to draw a detailed picture of the Gruffalo,we did really well with this. Then in writing we wrote a description of the Gruffalo using the drawings we had made. We added some of these to our class display.

Our transition work with the nursery continued and we invited the AM and PM groups over so we could share the Talking Transition Book with them. We told them all about school and answered some of their questions. Next week they will join us for a literacy and mathematics lesson.

Remember we are on holiday on Monday and PE kit (indoor and outdoor) needed for Tuesday.

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

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.

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.

Nursery News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nursery Team.

You are a star!

I am so proud of all the children this week as they have shown how confident and responsible they have become.

There have been various opportunities for the P1 children to support the pre-schoolers this week as part of our ongoing transition work. Every day we went outside in the morning and afternoon for some playtime, the P1 children were fantastic at assisting the younger children by opening their snacks, playing with them, showing them around, etc. We also had some science lessons and again the P1’s had to work with a nursery child to support them in the carousel activities. They went outside for a mini-beast hunt with Mrs Caskie and then worked with myself to do some senses experiments. I can’t believe that almost a year has passed and we are now preparing our current P1’s for their transition to P2. More details to follow in the coming weeks about these preparations.

In class we continued to learn about numbers within 20, with the focus on number names which can be really tricky. The children played some matching games, used flashcards, did some written work and used the smartboard games. All were very successful in these activities.

Mr Hunter took the children for a fun outdoor lesson and the children worked in teams showing their creativity. Have a look at their efforts!

We ended the week with our Achievements Assembly and P1R had the honour of presenting their class assembly to the whole school. I was so proud of each and every one of them as they all stood confidently in front of a large audience. They said their lines clearly and sang their hearts out.

This was the song the children chose to end their assembly with, why don’t you ask them to sing along at home with the link below.

Nursery News

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

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

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

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

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

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.