Author: Miss Kitchin

We would like to thank everyone who bought raffle tickets to help us raise some funds for the nursery.

We have raised a fantastic £91!!!!!!

The winners of the raffle were:

Hamper: Mrs Smith (Evan’s Gran)

Knitted Santa: Nannie (William’s)

Wrapped gift: William

Tub of sweets: Skye

Selection boxes: Mrs Campbell (Holly’s gran) and Mrs McNab.

The raffle tickets were drawn on Monday by the parents/carers when picking up and dropping off children.

Again we would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing everyone in 2022!!!!

 

 

 

Nativity

In the nursery we have been very busy practising and filming our nativity play. We have now finished filming it and parents will be sent the link very soon. We wont post any pictures as we want you to experience the full effect when you watch it at home. Our children were amazing as always and make sure you have a tissue at the ready!!!!

Christmas Crafts

Again the children have been very busy making different things in the nursery. Once all these are complete they will be sent home with your child. Again no photos as we do not want to waste the surprise!!!!

Christmas Raffle

We will draw the raffle on Tuesday morning so if any parent/carer still wants to but tickets please speak to a member of staff. The main prizes are a household hamper and a knitted Santa, there are also some smaller prizes to be won. Good luck everyone who has purchased a ticket.

Christmas Party

As in previous correspondence, the children’s Christmas party is on the last day of term, Wednesday 22nd December. The morning session children will be bringing a packed lunch home on this day. Afternoon children will be offered a sandwich at the start of the session. If your child is a full day child and does not normally attend on a Wednesday they are invited to come along to the afternoon party with their friends. These children will be collected from the party between 3-3.15pm. Any child in for the full day will receive their gifts from our special visitor in the afternoon.

Party food will be served to the children during the party.

Have a great Christmas everyone and we will see you back at nursery on the 5 January 2022.

Our school/ nursery environment

Mrs Dobbie has been working hard with the children in the school improving our school playgrounds and the areas around the school. During the outdoor learning sessions they have been planting trees and shrubs to enhance the areas, they have also created a bug hotel at the top of the trim track. Mrs Dobbie sadly has noticed that the bug hotel has been damaged with some of the resources being taken out of the structure. When you are dropping off and picking up your child from nursery could you please be vigilant and report anyone you see damaging the areas to a member of staff. Thank you for your cooperation on this.

Christmas is coming fast

We have been busy practicing for the nursey nativity. We have sent home the words to the songs we will be singing during the nativity and would appreciate if you could practice these with your child.

We will be holding a raffle in the nursery to help raise some funds. We would like to raffle a food hamper and are asking parents/carers if they would like to make a donation to this. Please just pop any donation into the bag sitting at the nursery gate. From Monday there will be a knitted Santa on display that is also being raffled. If you would like to purchase raffle tickets for either of these please speak to a member of staff. Tickets are £1 a strip or 3 strips for £2.

Achievements from home

We have created a display wall in the nursery where the children can celebrate their achievements at home with their peers. We are looking at the 4 capacities from the Curriculum for Excellence: Successful Learner, Confident Individual, Effective Contributor and Responsible Citizen. If your child has something to celebrate please share this with staff so that it can be included on the display wall. We celebrate all achievements so for example if they have helped to prepare the dinner, tidied their room, learned to ride their bike, walked the dog, tied their shoe laces or fastened their jacket independently please let us know. Photos are also welcome and can be sent to the school  for us to print out. The email  is:  wldeans-ps@westlothain.org.uk

Skye was a Successful Learner this week which she proudly shared her peers. Well done on passing your junior yellow belt at Karate!!!!!!

The Nursery Garden

Mrs Galbraith and some of the children have been busy this week out in the garden. They have been harvesting some of our vegetables that have been growing over the last few months. Our pumpkins are looking good and we will finish ripening these in doors. The children have been asking to cook with them so in the next week or so we will all be trying some pumpkin soup using our own ingredients to make this. The children have also been helping with some general maintenance in the garden, weeding and turning over the soil, getting it ready for the winter.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

West Lothian Football Association have started doing a session with the children in the nursery on a Tuesday morning. These sessions are aimed at developing listening and attention skills along with developing movement and coordination. Today the children were looking at different body parts and how they could hold a ball still using these. They played a game that developed hand to eye coordination as they had to turn over the cones with speed and dexterity as they competed in 2 groups to see who could do it the fastest. Everyone enjoyed the session and are looking forward to next week!!

This week we have been exploring in the forest when we have been out and about in the community. We enjoyed listening to our story about the Gruffalo and we went looking for him in the woods. We found somewhere that he might try and hide in the bottom of a tree and we searched under the bridge to see if there was any signs of him there. We enjoyed exploring moving our bodies in different ways as we moved along the tree trunk and through the stream. We sat on the tree trunk and ate our snack before coming back to nursery. Even with our waterproof clothing we still managed to get a bit wet but it was all great fun!!!!

The children have been invited to attend story telling sessions at Carmondean Library on a Monday over the next 3 weeks. When they are there the will be listening to 3 different stories and will vote on which one they like best, this book will be included in the “Book Bug Bag” that will be issued next year to children. The children will be walking to and from the library and will have snack while they are there. On the walk the children will be encouraged to look at the wider environment and see the changes that are happening within it due to the changes is seasons and weather. I am sure they will all have a great time!!!!

Monday 25th October visit will be in the afternoon.

Monday 1st and 8th November the visits will take place in the morning.

 

The children have had great fun making kites out of bin bags and wool. They have been exploring how the force of the wind can make their kites fly higher. The children discovered that if they ran with their kite initially it helped them to begin to fly it and as it filled up with more air it flew higher. With the wind being so strong if the children did not hold on tight to the wool their kite blew away and several had to be retrieved from the nursery garden and the metal fence.

Peep

This months Peep focus was exploring movement. Lucas and Lacey have enjoyed playing with the bubbles in their Peep packs. Out in their garden they have been exploring how the bubbles float on the air and have had great fun running after them trying to catch then before they pop. Looks like they have had a lot of fun and exercise!!!!

Nursery Garden

Mrs Galbraith has been busy with the children in the garden doing lots digging and planting. The children have  been choosing what fruit and vegetables they would like to grow choosing pumpkins, onions and butternut squash to plant directly into the garden. In some of our tubs we have also planted sweet peas and are continuing to look after the potatoes that we planted in April, the plants are getting really tall and bushy now so hopefully wont be long before we can begin to harvest them. The berry fruit trees are also beginning to grow and we have had to build a frame using bamboo canes to support them, Our strawberries and tomato plants are beginning to flower hopefully we will begin to see strawberries and tomatoes starting to grow soon. We have also been planting different flowers in the garden, in tubs and on the fence, so hopefully our garden will be full of colour if the weather continues to be nice!

Minibeasts

Our current topic of interest in the nursery is minibeasts. Emily-Ann brought some snails into the nursery that she found in her garden 2 weeks ago. The children and Mrs Whatcott used a large plastic tub to create a habitat for them. Using the iPads they found out how to look after the snails to make sure that they stayed well and healthy. You can see that the children have enjoyed this experience and we eager to be involved in looking after them. We released the snails back into the wild on Tuesday finding a natural habitat where they would thrive and when we went to look today all the snails have moved on so obviously are happy to be back in nature.

Numeracy

We have been doing lots of counting using 1-1 correspondence and matching quantity to numerals in the nursery this week. The children counted to number of dots in the dot pattern on the card and matched the quantity to the numeral having a choice of 3 numerals. We are getting really good at recognising numbers and relating these to quantity.