Category: Our Learning

Good morning everyone!!!

Free School Meals

There has been new schools added to the list of where free school meals can be accessed. Please use the link below to access the new information regarding free school meals.

https://www.westlothian.gov.uk/coronavirus-schools

Keeping Active

Remember you can  access a 30 minute fitness session daily at 9AM on Youtube by the Body Coach. This is the link to access this:

The children enjoy taking part in yoga sessions in the nursery. They watch and follow the instructions onscreen. The session is in the form of a story so developing their listening skills and gross motor skills at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnlDBKD2S78

Activity ideas for your children

With the weather being nice and dry at the moment  why not take to opportunity to have some fresh air in your own garden (if you have one). In nursery the children enjoy painting on the pavements using water and paintbrushes (or old clothes if you don’t have paintbrushes). They can paint pictures, write their names, write numbers etc. If you have food colouring you could add it to the water to enhance the experience. Why not give it a go! If you able to you could upload pictures of their busy work onto your child’s online Learning Journey, it would be great to see creations.

Stories, Rhymes and songs.

“The 3 Little Pigs” is a traditional tale that children enjoy . The audio story can be accessed through the following link:

https://youtu.be/W-WLnxbvMyw

Numeracy

Below is the link to help develop children’s awareness forward number sequencing and counting using 1-1 correspondence within 20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By2hmo323xM

Keep safe and well!!!!!

Good morning everyone!!!!

Keeping Active

Remember you can  access a 30 minute fitness session daily at 9AM on Youtube by the Body Coach. This is the link to access this:

Activity ideas for your children

Activities for children can also be found on the ‘Five Minute Mum’ website. To access this use the address:  www.fiveminutemum.com You require an email address to subscribe to the free site.

Stories, Rhymes and songs.

“Giraffes Can’t Dance” is a popular rhyming children’s story. The audio story can be accessed through the following link:

Three Craws is a popular nursery song which encourages backward number sequencing. The link for this is:

“I can clap my hands” is an action song by the Sticky Kids. Children can listen and and follow the instructions in the lyrics. This can be accessed using the link bellow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwCqyRYzQy0

Keep safe and well!!!!!

Good morning everyone.

We will endeavour to upload to the Blog everyday with some activities for you to do with your children.

In the nursery we have been learning our new values song

To the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star tune.

We’re part of Deans nursery,

Where we love to learn and play,

We’re kept safe in all we do,

nurtured and respected too,

We’re part of Deans Nursery,

Where we love to learn and play.

Keeping Active

The Body Coach is doing a 30 minute fitness session daily at 9AM on Youtube. This is the link to access this:

This is maybe something that you could do together as a family.

Story Time

Today’s story is a Squash and Squeeze by Julia Donaldson. This is the link to the audio book:

https://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrExwiKhXheufcAIg2c3olQ;_ylu=X3oDMTBncGdyMzQ0BHNlYwNzZWFyY2gEdnRpZAM-;_ylc=X1MDMTM1MTIxMjcwMARfcgMyBGFjdG4DY2xrBGNzcmNwdmlkAzhUNzU5REV3TGpGcnVYODBYaHRiQ0FBaE1UZzFMZ0FBQUFDRHJzV1MEZnIDeWhzLWFkay1hZGtfc2JudARmcjIDc2EtZ3AEZ3ByaWQDNWQ1Y2x3QUNRVkNfNmJfWU4wQkhMQQRuX3JzbHQDOARuX3N1Z2cDMQRvcmlnaW4DdWsudmlkZW8uc2VhcmNoLnlhaG9vLmNvbQRwb3MDMQRwcXN0cgNlYXJseSUyMHllYXJzJTIwZnJlZSUyMGF1ZGlvJTIwYm9va3MlMjBzcXVhc2glMjBhbmQlMjBhJTIwc3EEcHFzdHJsAzQ0BHFzdHJsAzY1BHF1ZXJ5A2Vhcmx5JTIweWVhcnMlMjBmcmVlJTIwYXVkaW8lMjBib29rcyUyMHNxdWFzaCUyMGFuZCUyMGElMjBzcXVlZXplBHRfc3RtcAMxNTg0OTU2ODQz?p=early+years+free+audio+books+squash+and+a+squeeze&ei=UTF-8&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asa&fr=yhs-adk-adk_sbnt&hsimp=yhs-adk_sbnt&hspart=adk#id=1&vid=ea1d72e1296bde72a639e0627cab5a74&action=view

We hope you are all safe and well. We will post more activities daily.

Reuben shared his Home Learning with us this week and told us all that a palaeontologist is someone who studies dinosaurs. This week we have been learning all about dinosaurs teeth and what fossils are. Reuben also shared that most dinosaurs had a plant based diet. We found out that dinosaurs who ate plants had pencil shaped teeth, those who ate fish have knife shaped teeth and those that ate meat have razor sharp teeth. We learned that fossils are made when bones etc are compacted into the ground by soil etc and left for a very long time, their image is then visible on rocks and stones. We have been making our own fossils using different resources to make impressions in the play dough.

We have also been using different ways of measuring our heights and the dinosaurs. We measured our height using different sizes of dinosaur feet, we have recorded these in a graph so we can compare heights. We have been using tape measures and measuring lines both vertical and horizontal to measure height and length.

In the art area we have been making dinosaur eggs using paper machete, we glued newspaper to balloons allowing each layer to dry before adding the next. We discussed what colour the dinosaur eggs should be, the children wanted blue and yellow eggs. Once the paper machete was dry we painted them our chosen colours.

We have also been learning about the “network on our hand” which is a network of people who we can trust if we are worried, scared, sad or needing support. We drew the individual people we could trust and talked about how they could help us. We linked this to the story of A Huge Bag of Worries that we have been reading in the nursery as learning about how to keep us safe both physically and emotionally.

Our latest topic in the nursery has been Pirates. The children have been doing lots of activities relating to this topic including making treasure maps and telescopes. They have learned a new action song which they have enjoyed singing and dancing to. Perhaps you could sing the song at home with your child.

There was a treasure hunt in the garden where the children had to solve the clues on the treasure map to find the treasure chest. Some of the children made Pirate ships using apples and there was lots of discussion about floating and sinking.

During our weekly sessions with Planet Soccer there has been a focus on fitness. The children have been playing different games during the sessions with a focus on developing their gross motor skills as they moved their bodies in different ways. There was a game with “Spiders and Flies” where the spiders had to try and catch the flies and another game of “Shark Attack” where the children who were sharks had to try and catch the other children, the fish. All the children had great fun at the end of the session when they had to try and catch their coach.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to continue with our community learning due to the adverse weather conditions over the last few weeks. I am sure you will understand that their safety is paramount and taking them out in high winds or very slippy conditions is not putting their safety first. We hope that the worst of the weather is behind us now and that these sessions will restart in the next few weeks.

Some of the morning children had a visit to the wood this week. We had to wrap up as it was cold and a bit damp but this didn’t hinder our adventures in the least. Firstly we put up the windbreak to make an area for us to use as a toilet.

We made a den using a tarpaulin, twigs and branches. We were able to use this as a shelter when the rain was on.

We had great fun playing Hide and Seek finding lots of different places to hide. We also enjoyed climbing the trees and Leighton found a log which he sat on stating “Look a seat”.

In the nursery we have been making rockets in the art area. We have been looking at different ways in which we can use paper to make 3D models of rockets. We enjoyed decorating the rockets and watching them “blast off into space” once we had finished.

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We have been writing some letters to Santa, we hope that he sends us a reply back.

We have been continuing to practice for our Christmas Sing-a-long next Wednesday and are getting really good, we hope that the parents and carers have been practising as well.

We have had a busy week in nursery learning all about “ice” and “rockets”.

The children have taken an interest in the ice they have seen out in the garden due to the falling temperatures over the last two weeks. Maya found a dish in the garden that had flowers and water that had frozen over night and asked the question “How do we get the flowers out?”. This has developed into a full investigation into how water can change state due to temperature. Reuben also told us that “salt melts ice” which then lead to an experiment to see what melted the ice quicker, the warmth or the salt. Prior to carrying out the experiment we predicted what we thought the result should be and recorded these on a graph. Ask your child what the outcome was and they could share their learning.

The children have also been making rockets using junk modelling and at the craft table. There is more to follow on this next week with another experiment to capture the children’s attention. I’m sure NASA will be interested in our little scientists!!!!

This week our children had a lovely Teddy Bears Picnic with their buddies, we played games, read books and had a lovely picnic treat.  It really was great fun.