welly Wednesday – Page 3 – St Ninian's Primary School

Nursery News

Food glorious food!

This week our learning context has been food! This has stemmed from observations of and discussions with our children about where there interests lie. Following on from our takeaway and restaurant role play areas, we have had a lot of discussion about senses, how things feel, smell and taste. We have consulted our children through using a talking tub filled with interesting things! Their ideas and comments have been added to our floorbooks and a consultative planner is on the learning wall, please read it and let us know what you think 🙂

Some children tasted some exotic fruit this week after our Asda delivery – Roma knew one of them straight away, the pomegranate seeds! She liked them. Dylan thought the Kumquat was ‘Yuck!’, but some of the children quite liked the sweet taste. We think the boys and girls might enjoy a tasting session at nursery to try some new flavours and textures!

Our playdough had a funny whiff about it this week as we added cinnamon to one batch! We have ordered some lovely spices to use in our playdough, for the children to choose and use as they like. Have you tried making playdough at home?? It’s very easy using just flour, salt and oil 🙂 give it a go!

Welly Wednesday was busy this week! We have been given lovely big empty tubs to use for foraging on our welly Wednesday sessions and we put them to good use this week! The boys and girls collected materials to make a bug hotel! We talked about what bugs would like in their hotel, not fluffy pillow and beds like us, but dirt and leaves and sticks. We have a treasure trove of goodies to use when building our bug hotels next week, in the nursery garden.

Food Prep Thursday snack continues to be a big hit! This week the AM boys and girls asked for crisps – but we discussed how crisps aren’t as healthy a choice as for example fruits and vegetables, so we compromised and decided to make apple crisps! It was a mixed reaction to these, maybe we will try something else next time? The PM boys and girls were still talking about pancakes so made lovely mixture with Mrs Macdonald, for her to fry in the frying pan! We enjoyed them with strawberries and blueberries 🙂

Our weekly update contains information about our busy week ahead! We would urge as many parents as possible to come along to our coffee morning on Wednesday to hear from our Speech and Language therapist about our Box Clever initiative. 11.20-12, supervision provided for children in the nursery! See you all there!

Have a lovely weekend!

Nursery News

Short and sweet week at nursery!

We enjoyed welly wednesday in our small groups, having group time in the nursery hut! The AM boys and girls read the Rainbow Fish and talked about what lovely things they had within them that they could give away to others, as the rainbow fish gave away his shimmering scales! Lucy said she could give away hugs.. Connor said he could give away smiles.. There were lots of lovely ideas! We then took a bit of weaving ribbon and weaved it onto the fence to remind us of the lovely things we can give to others.

The PM group were chatting about Valentine’s Day and enjoyed the story of George and Silvia the monkeys in love! Following a lovely story and discussion, they tied their ribbons on the fence for the people they loved in their lives!

Food prep Thursday was another roaring success this week with an old classic – fruity kebabs! The boys and girls are becoming more confident when using our kiddisafe knives, using a sawing motion of backwards and forwards. We talked about where food came from, how you prepare it properly to eat and what our likes/dislikes are!

The fast food restaurant has been super busy this week with lots of interaction, sharing resoruces and ideas about how we can use it! We watched a video about working in McDonald’s to give us an idea of how best to use our counter area and how to serve food, we were lucky to receive a donation of McDonald’s wrappers and food boxes which really brought our play alive!

PEEP is back this week! Mrs Beattie is looking forward to welcoming everyone for their five week block, starting today with some fun and creative ways to explore maths activities together!

We listened to this very special song on Friday morning to remind us of how to keep ourselves safe, and are thinking about this when we use the nursery toilet..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyalcd955lg

The boys and girls enjoyed this song and took part in a great discussion with Mrs Beattie and Mrs Martinek about who around them can keep them safe and how they can keep each other safe! We also loved adding our own ‘pants’ to drawings of the pantosaurus at the drawing table!

See you all next week – have a lovely weekend!

Nursery News

This week has been action packed – including the return of some snow!

The boys and girls have been full of creativity this week, painting on cling film, painting faces on plastic sheets – these exciting experiences have built on all the fun of tartan painting last week and have filled our easel with beautiful art work! We have been really interested in faces this week – have a look at our doorway to the school hall to see some of our handy work 🙂 this is something you can explore at home by checking what naming words your child knows to describe their face; eyes, nose, mouth are straightforward but what about nostrils, eyebrows and earlobes?

Food Prep snack on Thursday was scrambled eggs! Each week we take suggestions for food prep snack from our children and this week Lucy (AM) asked to make scrambled eggs! Miss Burns had a great time with the children as they cracked their eggs, added milk and margarine and whisked them before Miss Burns cooked them in the pan – the queue for snack was a mile long and the mini chefs were very proud of their accomplishments! Maybe your child could have a go this weekend? Share photos on their online journal gallery and/or our Facebook and twitter accounts!

Welly Wednesday was almost cancelled again due our glorious Scottish weather but fortunately we made it out, however briefly for some of us! As our Welly Wednesday sessions continue, Mrs Martinek has used the feedback from parents/children to create a plan for welly Wednesdays between now and the Easter holidays – hopefully as the weather improves so will the time we have available to explore on Welly Wednesday sessions!

Today we bade farewell to Miss Pinkett our college student who has been with us Wed/Thurs over the last few months! She has made a wonderful impression on our young people and will make a great practitioner when she qualifies next year – goodbye and good luck Miss Pinkett!

Please ensure you are receiving our weekly update emails over the weekend – any problems please speak to your child’s key worker 🙂

Have a lovely weekend!

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

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

An action packed week at St Ninian’s Nursery!

It was a busy start to the week with our individual and sibling photos on Monday! Our boys and girls donned their happiest smiles – we can’t wait to see the finished product!

Mr McCurdy has been the man of the hour in nursery this week after a very exciting PE session on Tuesday where the floor was lava!!! The boys and girls had lots of fun using their bodies and the apparatus to move around the hall in a safe way, taking their time and waiting their turn where needed and persevering when the going got tough! For the rest of the week the nursery has been alive with shouts of ‘THE FLOOR IS LAVA IN 3..2..1..’ – we might be able to adapt this to the outdoor area if the weather is kind to us next week?! Watch this space!

This week brought the third and last of our stories for the Bookbug awards! Mrs Campbell at Lanthorn library has read us (and P1) the three stories that are up for the bookbug picture book award! We voted for Gorilla Loves Vanilla as our favourite story! Today the AM nursery session and P1M joined together for structured play and lots of discussion about ice cream flavours! Mrs Conway loves chocolate ice cream with marshmallows through it! Mrs Martinek loves mint chocolate chip! Miss Meechan loves strawberry! But Mrs Beattie…….. she doesn’t like ice cream!!! She said she would like some cheese flavoured ice cream.. which we agreed might taste a bit strange! If you’d like to enjoy the story with your child you can watch the author read it on the link below;

Enjoy!

Welly Wednesday had us out in our local community to see what we could find. We realised we didn’t have enough cameras for everyone so we learned how to turn our eyes and brains into cameras – maybe your child can show you how?! We took ‘photos’ of interesting things we found and kept them in our brain to talk about when we got back! Some of our children knew lots about our local community;

Khyla – that’s Bankton school! That’s the pharmacy!

Emilie – you go there for medicine!

Carter – that’s a post box for letters

Luke – you go to the doctors when you have a sore tummy

Khyla – that’s the dentist, I went there.

Shay – you need pennies to get things from the shop!

We all enjoyed our snack at the Play park after our walk! We have deposited our pumpkins in the woods by the pond to be enjoyed by the creatures in the woods! We look forward to investigating them next week to see if any bugs have moved in!

Mrs Beattie is delighted to have two happy, smiley PEEP groups back this week! The parents and children enjoyed learning together as they went over, under and through different things and learned to listen to and communicate with one another. PEEP will continue next week 🙂

Sign up sheets are available for stay and play/come back and play! In the nursery cloakroom – the Wednesday slots will incorporate welly Wednesday, more information available next week 🙂 we also have sign up sheets for welly Wednesday helpers too! The more the merrier – we wouldn’t be able to run it if it wasn’t for the support of our parents and friends!

Many thanks to the parents who attended our coffee morning on Wednesday! If you couldn’t make it buy would like to share your views there are paper copies of the questions available in the cloakroom!

Have a great weekend!