We have been busy painting in the nursery. We have been doing life paintings of sunflowers using the vase of flowers as the stimuli. We have been talking about the different colours that were on the flowers and what the names of the different parts of the flowers were called. We are going to display our paintings in the nursery art gallery.
We also used different resources to make sunflowers. We have used pipe cleaners for the stems, green leaves were attached to the stem and tissue paper used to make the flowers heads.
In the nursery garden the children have been busy with construction.
In the mud we have been creating pathways for the water to flow moving it from one area of the mud pit to another. By digging channels in the mud the water was redirected and channels were closed off by the creating of dams to stop the water flow.
The foam building bricks have been used effectively to build towers and bridges. The girls happily worked together to create their bridge changing the direction of the brick by placing them long and short ways. Once they were finished they walked along their bridge and were happy to allow others to use their bridge. Another child used the blocks to build a tower.
We have been doing lots of work around our Vision, Values and Aims recently in the nursery. The children have had a real focus on the nursery values: Safe, Nurtured and Respected over the last few weeks with the children working really hard to ensure that they were recognising these values. We have given out lots of stickers in recognition of when the children were able to demonstrate behaviours that supported the nursery values. At the end of the sessions the children enjoyed the opportunity to share with their peers why they had received their sticker and everyone enjoyed dancing to ‘celebrate’ their achievements.
We would like to take this opportunity to refresh the nursery Vision, Values and Aims with the parents. Please click on the link below to watch a sort presentation. I am sure that you will enjoy seeing some of the children performing the nursery values song at the end of the presentation.
This is a short video that explains clearly what we are observing in the nursery when we are talking about numeracy including forward/backward number sequences, numerals and subitising. It explains how we can support our children, through play, to become more number aware and begin to develop the skills they will need as they transition through nursery and into school to become confident with their number skills.
Recently in our nursery garden, the boys and girls have enjoyed making obstacle courses with wooden pallets, cable reels and planks. This activity has linked in brilliantly with our nursery values in every way! We have seen some really good problem solving as the children figure out how to cross the course while feeling SAFE. The boys and girls have RESPECTED each other as they waited their turn and gave each other space to cross. Some children have NURTURED their peers as they helped them across by holding their hands or giving advice and encouragement. It has been a lot of fun and a real pleasure for the nursery ladies to see and be part of!
Good morning boys, girls and parents. This will be the last blog of the school year so I have included lots of activities and ideas that you could use over the holidays
We all wanted to send you a message
Keeping Active
There are lots of Goonoodle dance video’s for you to access using this link:
First make the cabbage water by roughly chopping a red cabbage and boiling until the colour is extracted. Strain and put to one side to cool.
Assemble your ingredients in containers – we used some nice bottles I found in Flying Tiger along with some beakers from a science set.
Think up names for the different ingredients. Have a look at the book for inspiration or come up with your own!
Start by giving each child a jar containing some cabbage water.
Allow them to add ingredients as they wish, EXCEPT for the vinegar…save that until last.
Enjoys their oohs and aahs as their dream potions change colour!
When their dreams are ‘ready’ allow them to add the vinegar (‘liquid imagination’, I think we called it). Make sure you have a tray or a mat underneath! This gets messy!
To begin, colour about 1/2 cup of water with food colouring.
Take the Alka Seltzer tablets and break them into 2 or 3 pieces. Place them in a small cup or container.
Fill a glass about 3/4 full with vegetable oil. Then pour in the coloured water until the liquid in the cup is about 5cm from the top.
You don’t want it to overflow! Well, unless you want to turn it into an eruption experiment too. For this reason and quick clean up, I like to do this on a tray.
Let the children take turns adding a piece of an Alka Seltzer table to the cup. *DO NOT let them put the tablet in their mouth at any time.
Make tunnels from card and sellotape and make up a little game for you and your child to try and roll the balls through the tunnels. Use any kind of small ball for this.
You can use the tape to mark out a road/garage or rooms on the floor to make a castle/house/dungeon for children who like to play with small world (dolls,figures, characters). Ask them what they would like. This encourages imaginative play.
Creative Activities
Making Grass Heads
You will need:
Empty plastic tub or cup
Sticky eyes, pompoms, etc to create the face on the tub
Soil
Grass seeds or Cress seeds
Method:
Let your child make a face on the outside of the tub using the art resources. You could use felt pens if the tub is white but this won’t show up on a clear tub once filled with soil.
Fill the tub to just below the top of the tub with soil.
Press the grass or cress seeds lightly into the soil and water.
Place the tubs in a bright area and watch them begin to grow. Remember to water them regularly.
Marbling Pictures
You will need:
Large bowl or flat tray filled with water
Vegetable oil
Different food colourings
White paper
Watch the following video to see how to create marbling pictures:-
Make a Kite
Make an easy kite to fly when on your walk. You can decorate it with stickers, or colour it in. Watch this video to see how to do it:
At home: When you get home maybe you could have a look in your house for more shapes and letters and you could cut them out and make your own poster or name card!
Some painting crafts using all sorts of different materials
Gummy bear slime –
1 cup gummy bears
2 Tablespoons icing sugar
2 Tablespoons cornflour
1 teaspoon coconut oil, optional
Heat the gummy bears in the microwave for 10-15 seconds, stir, and reheat as necessary to break down the gummy bear shape. (Be sure to use a microwave-safe bowl and handle carefully).
Stir and then knead in your icing sugar and cornflour in equal amounts, until the gummy bear slime forms a cohesive dough/slime consistency.
The more you add, the less sticky the slime will be – but also the more you add the thicker and less stretchy it will be, so try to find that perfect sweet spot.
Children love to smoosh, squish, stretch and taste this delicious gummy bear slime!
Adding the coconut oil makes it more stretchy. You can play about with the recipe to find how you like it.
Playdough monsters
Make playdough monsters with googly eyes, pipe cleaners, feathers, lolly pop sticks or any other materials you have lying around that your child could add and stick on. Encourage your childs imaginations and talk about what monster you have both made.
Make your own Playdough
This super-easy playdough recipe is the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon inside. It’s quick enough to hold a young child’s attention and you only need a few storecupboard ingredients. Little hands can play with the results straightaway, so there’s immediate gratification for all involved!
Makes 1 coloured ball Prep 10 minutes
You will need
8 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp table salt
60ml warm water
food colouring
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Method
1. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the water, a few drops of food colouring and the oil.
2. Pour the coloured water into the flour mix and bring together with a spoon.
3. Dust a work surface with a little flour and turn out the dough. Knead together for a few minutes to form a smooth, pliable dough. If you want a more intense colour you can work in a few extra drops of food colouring.
4. Store in a plastic sandwich bag (squeeze out the air) in the fridge to keep it fresh. You can make a batch of colours and give away as kids’ party bag favours or hold a playdough party for your child’s next birthday.
All the staff want to wish you a fantastic summer holiday. Please feel free to keep adding to your Learners Journey over the holidays it will be great to see what you have been doing.
Keep safe and well and we look forward to seeing you all in August!!!!!!
This is the link to the traditional Teddy bears Picnic story. It would be nice to hear the story as you enjoy your picnic with your Teddy Bear and your family.
You can also listen to the Teddy Bears’ Picnic song once the story has ended just allow the clip to run on.
Mrs Anderson has also read a story for the boys and girls in the nursery to listen to as they eat their picnic with their teddies.
Songs
Here is the link to a nice picnic song that you could play/sing as you are getting ready for your Teddy Bear Picnic today.
Another Teddy Bear song
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around,
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground,
Teddy bear, teddy bear, clap your hands,
Teddy bear, teddy bear do a dance!
You can do the actions as you sing the song
Games you can play
Balloon Tennis
A simple game that is easy to play. You can make your own bats using paper plates and lolly sticks or cardboard tubes from inside kitchen roll. You could even use an old pool noodle cut into shorter lengths. If you don’t have these resources your hand makes as good a bat as anything! This game can be played both indoors or outdoors.
Who is it?
Sit in a circle and put all the teddies in the middle. Describe one of them, and children must guess which teddy it is. Choose the language level and vocabulary appropriate for your kids. For example; “It’s big. It’s blue. It’s wearing a T-shirt.” Kids can then take turns to describe a teddy for the others to guess.
Blindfold Bear
Put a blindfold on each child in turn and hand them several different teddies to feel. They must guess which teddy is theirs!
Photos
Please send us photos of your picnic so we can make up a Teddy Bears Picnic display for the children returning after the summer holidays. It will be nice for them to see that they all took part and bring back some lovely memories. It will be a great discussion point and help with the transition back into nursery.
Please send pictures to: wldeans-ps@westlothian.org.uk
All the staff in the nursery have been taking part in the picnic as well. Here are some of our pictures for you to look at.
We all hope you had a lovely picnic with your family and your teddies. We are all missing you so much and look forward to seeing you all soon. Check out tomorrows blog for a special message and more activities to keep you busy tomorrow and throughout the holidays.
Today doesn’t look like it is going to be a very nice day with rain forecast. We will give you lots of suggestions you could do to help prepare for your Teddy Bear Picnic tomorrow.
Keeping active
Join in with this fitness video using your teddy.
Song
My Teddy Bear is a sweet and simple kids song for learning parts of the body with our favourite teddy bear friend. Use this link to access the song:
Rhyme
This is the link to the nursery rhyme Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Story
Old Bear has just finished packing a picnic basket full of food when Little Bear dashes in, followed by the other toys. They are all playing hide-and-seek but, unfortunately, they have forgotten to choose a seeker. Old Bear agrees to look for them and soon finds everyone.
This is the link to the story:
Lets get creative
How to make a teddy finger puppet. Use this link to find out how to make your own finger puppet:
Make a simple Teddy Bear face treat. Using toast covered with peanut butter make the teddy face using banana and blueberries. You can change it and make a teddy bear face with different vegetables, fruits, ham, cheese etc.
Make a Teddy biscuit using a cookie or digestive biscuit. Use chocolate spread to make the face, add smarties to make the eyes and nose. If you have icing you could use this to add more detail to your biscuit. You can also use mini Oreo’s or something similar to make the ears.
We look forward to our Teddy Bear Picnic tomorrow and hope you are to!!
Getting ready for our Teddy Bear Picnic on Wednesday.
Being Active
Today’s yoga session is Going on a Bear Hunt. To access this use the following link:
Teddy Bear Picnic song/dance
Perhaps you could make up your own dance to the song.
Games
Why not play Hide and Seek with your Teddy Bear. Get a family member to hide your favourite teddy and then you go and find him. Once you have found your teddy you could re-hide it and get someone else to find him. You can play this game both indoors or outdoors.
Story
Hide and Seek Pig is a story from Julia Donaldson. Help the reader of the story find the different animals in the book by listening to the clues. To access this story use the link below:
Activites
This link will give you access to free printable activities relating to Teddy Bears.
Joe Wicks can be accessed through the following link:
Available at 10am:- A story to support Children with anxieties about returning to school/nursery
Colin is a small blue creature from another planet, curious about Earth and wanting to learn through stories; his best friend Becky, will try to explain why Earth is a little bit different now. Becky will need the help of the young audience to answer Colin’s curious questions and make him feel a little less anxious about going to school, where he will be the only blue creature in the class….
What does it mean to be green? Find out different ways in which you can help the environment by being green.
Song
Going Green is a song that goes through different things we can do to improve the world we live in.
Items of Interest
This link has 20 activities that will help your children to learn about sustainability. These are really simple and easy to introduce into everyday life. Follow this link to look at the activities:
The following link gives you access to 21 different activities you can do with your children to make ornaments for the garden/outdoor space by up-cycling things you may have lying around your home.
Sunday 21 June is Fathers Day. Here are some ideas of simple Fathers Day cards you may wish to make with your child for someone special in their lives on Sunday.
Health and Wellbeing
This is the link to songs that you can use to support your child to develop good habits such as brushing their teeth properly.
Tooth brushing game
This game helps to develop the children’s understanding of good oral hygiene. They have to completely clean the teeth to finish the game. Some of the areas needing cleaned are not as easily seen as others just like their own mouths. Use this link to access the game:
https://www.sesamestreet.org/games?id=132
The nursery staff will be out and about today making a special delivery to all our children. Hopefully we will be able to see you from a safe distance as we do these deliveries.
