Haddington Primary School Nursery

For our maths focus this week we have been learning about measure by weight and volume. We have been exploring weight through the balancing scales, finding items around the nursery and weighing them to find out which item is heavier or lighter. We have been using vocabulary such as heavier, lighter, balanced, same as etc. We have also been using the skills we have learned and put them into practice with some baking activities, weighing out the ingredients.

In the water tray we have been exploring volume using jugs, cups, scoops etc. We have bee using vocabulary such as full, empty, half full, more than, less than etc. The children have been setting each other challenges to see how many jugs does it take to fill the containers to find out which containers are bigger in volume. We also used lentils to explore volume.

21.04.23

For our numeracy focus this block we have been learning about measure by length and height, exploring tools for measure through play and using vocabulary such as longer/shorter, taller/smaller etc. We have been using the measuring cubes to measure ourselves and each other, counting how many cubes tall we are and comparing each others height.

We have also been using measuring tapes to measure different items around the nursery and find items that are smaller than or taller than.

30.02.23

With some of the colder weather recently the children have been interested in learning about how they can help the birds in our garden find food etc. After some discussions we decided we would make some bird feeders and water baths for our garden. We used our step by step bird feeder instruction book to make individual bird feeders. We had to 'read' and follow the instructions, count out the correct amount of ingredients and mix them all together. We also had to learn to be safe when using a candle. We hung our bird feeders in the garden and decided we would watch to see if any birds came to eat them. 

The children wanted to make binoculars to help them spot birds easily. We provided materials that they may need e.g. tubes, string, glue, hole punch etc. and the children had to work out and problem solve to create their binoculars. 

We made a tally chart to record what kind of birds visited our garden to find out which bird was visiting the most. Pigeons seemed to be th emost popular.

The children had a fantastic idea to try and make some nests they discussed and sourced items that they thought they may need e.g. sticks, mud, leaves, feathers etc. and had to work out how they could make it all stick together. They also decided to put these in some bushes and trees in our garden to see if the birds would use them,

2.2.23

Today we were very lucky to be invited along to the music room by the school music specialist Mrs Askew. Mrs Askew had brought her harp into school this week and performed  for us. She told us the names of parts of the harp and demonstrated some of the different sounds it made. Some of the children got the opportunity to feel the vibrations the harp made whilst she played. Mrs Askew played 2 pieces of music, she asked us to close our eyes and think about how it made us feel.

1.2.23  P6 Buddy's

This week we had a visit from Mr Goodbourn and P6B. The P6 buddy's have been introduced to develop relationships and links with some of our older school children. Mrs Murray 'trained' all P6s prior to the visit, teaching them how to support with the nursery children's learning, how to question them to support and extend learning, getting down to the children's level etc. The nursery children have been learning how to work alongside older peers and leading the learning in the nursery. The P6s will also support the nursery children as part of their transition to P1 and go on to be P7 buddy's to the P1s next year.

This was a fantastic and very successful visit which both nursery and P6 children and staff both enjoyed. We look forward to working with Mr Goodbourn's class again and of course the rest of P6 in the coming weeks

27.01.23

For our maths focus this block we have been learning about repeated patterns. The children have been copying and creating repeated patterns by colour using a variety of media.

25.01.23

We have been celebrating Burns Day in nursery this week with our annual Burns Supper. The children helped to prepare our Burns Supper and learnt new skills by washing, peeling, chopping and mashing the neeps and tatties. We all sat together to eat our Haggis, Neeps and Tatties discussing our likes/dislikes and talking about some Scottish traditions that we know about.

19.01.23

For our maths focus this week we have been looking at patterns in the environment. We made a pattern hunt  in the garden where we had to follow the clues to match the patterns. We read the story of My Mum and Dad Make Me Laugh by Nick Sharatt and decided we would make some striped and spotted prints using resources we found around the nursery. As we have been discussing Scotland we have been exploring the tartan pattern. We made our own tartan prints using cars to create the straight lines on a tartan print.

https://youtu.be/4rEntnr-iuk - link to My Mum and Dad Make Me Laugh

25.11.22

We have been learning about nocturnal animals. 

Isla - "Owls are nocturnal. They're awake at night and sleep in the day."

Kodi - "Owls don't exist."

Millie - "Owl's poop and they fly."

Ava - "Foxes try to find food at night."

Freya - "Foxes eat mice and rats and run so fast. Foxes are nocturnal."

Struan - "Owls fly at night. Thye can see in the dark."

We have also been looking at the habitats that different animals live in. The children have been sharing their ideas about how we can create habitats for some of the woodland animals in our block play area. This then led onto building a hedgehog house in our nature garden. The children planned what materials they wanted to use and tried different ways to construct the hedgehog house, sharing ideas, listening to others and working together as a team.

18.11.22

For our numeracy focus this block we have been developing perceptual counting. Counting items in a collection, counting out a requested number of items and counting items presented in different ways.

We have been exploring this through different activities around the nursery, such as counting out the correct number of 'nuts' for each squirrel, roll the dice and count out the correct number of spikes for the hedgehog, using natural loose parts to count items, counting items for snack and the Gingerbread Man game on the whiteboard. Link below if you would like to try it at home.

The Gingerbread Man Game - Counting, Matching and Ordering game (topmarks.co.uk) 

11.11.22

As part of our maths focus this block we have been learning about events that happen during the day and at night. We have used picture cards to sort these events into day and night. We have also been sequencing events that happen during the day and night e.g. wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush our teeth etc.

We have also been learning the Days of the Week song and talking about what day is it today? What day was it yesterday? What day will it be tomorrow?

4.11.22

Some of the nursery children have brought conkers into nursery to show at together time. We used some of these conkers as part of our mark making focus, dipping the conkers into different coloured paints and rolling them around on paper to see the different marks and patterns they make.

31.10.22

East Links Family Park very kindly donated some pumpkins to our nursery. We discussed with the children what they would like to use our pumpkins for. The children decide they wanted to carve some spooky Halloween pumpkins. We read the story Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper and decided we could work together to make some pumpkin soup. We also set up a tuft tray with some pumpkins for the children to explore using a variety of tools and scoops, investigating the inside of a pumpkin and using describing words to describe how it felt and smelled. We even used some pumpkins for printing. 🎃🎃

14.10.22

This week in nursery we have been exploring some of the vegetables that we harvested from our nursery vegetable patch. We grew beans, potatoes, courgettes and carrots. We discussed with the children what we could make using our vegetables and the children decided we would make soup.

Miss Walker helped us to wash, peel and chop all the veg ready for our soup, we had to be very careful and safe when using the tools. The nursery was smelling amazing!! The soup was delicious.

We then used some of the vegetables to do some printing with. We cut the vegetables through the middle and used our senses to look, touch, smell, listen and taste and describe what we thought about each one. We then made a tally chart to record which vegetable everyone liked the most. Carrots were the most popular choice. 🥕

07.10.22

This week in nursery we have been learning all about the process of making bread. We read the story of The Little Red Hen and decided that we would like to try and make some bread for snack. We had to read the recipe, follow the instructions and weigh out all the ingredients we needed. The children chose what they would like to put on their bread e.g. butter, jam, honey or cheese.

Our bread was delicious!!!

Here is a copy of our bread recipe if you would like to try and make your own bread at home. You could take a photo and send it in to nursery to share with everyone at group time.

W/C - 05.09.22

This week we have been working together to develop our nursery mud kitchen. We gathered the children's views, opinions and ideas on what they like/dislike about our current mud kitchen and what they would like to develop and add to create a inspiring space to explore. The staff have also been researching some of the benefits of playing in a mud kitchen. The children have also been researching different resources and equipment using the internet and catalogues and sharing their ideas with staff who have gathered all feedback in a mind map. We have recorded our development in our nursery self-evaluation floorbook which is located in the nursery cloak room area, please have a look through if you can spare some time.