Haddington Primary School Nursery

24.4.24

We have been learning what a seed needs to grow. We read the story of Jaspers Beanstalk by Nick Butterworth and decided we would try and grow a beanstalk just like Jasper. the children identified that we would need, a pot, trowel, soil, seed and watering can to plant our seed. In our groups we took it in turns to help fill the pot and plan the seed. We made a chart to record how much our beans have grown each day. We will measure them using the measuring cubes and compare with all the other groups to see whose bean has grown the most.

26.3.24

We have been learning all about the lifecycle of a frog. We have been observing the frogs and frog spawn in our nursery pond and watching the transformation into frogs happen before our eyes. We brought some frog spawn into the nursery and used the magnifying glasses to closely observe what was happening and identify what point in the lifecycle they are at. We made a game were we had to put the photos in the correct order from frog spawn > tadpole > froglet > frog. We used non-fiction books to find out the correct names of each stage and find out some information. We were inspired by the frog spawn to try different techniques to create frog spawn pictures we used bubble wrap to print with and blew through straws into paint and printed the  pattern from the bubbles, we then used cotton buds to create the black dot in the middle. We are very excited to continue observing the transformation over the next few weeks. 

5.2.24

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.

25.01.24

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

18.01.24

With all the cold and frosty weather we have had recently it has sparked lots of different discussion around winter weather. The children have shown a great interest in learning about animals that live in the arctic. We used non-fiction books to find out information about arctic animals e.g. where they live, what do they eat? how do they keep warm? etc. We set up an arctic land in our small world area and in the water tray. We have also set up ice experiments, discovering how ice is made.

16.01.24

We have been exploring pattern in the environment. We have been discussing patterns we can see around us, in the nursery, in the garden or even on our clothes. We have been taking photos of our findings and recording our findings in our pattern book. At the art table we explored creating our own spotty, stripy and tartan patterns using a variety of different media.

14.12.23

Some of the nursery children went along to visit our friends at Our Community Kitchen today to sing them some Christmas songs. We had a fantastic time spreading some Christmas cheer and making everyone smile!

23.11.23

We had a visit from Helen from Our Community Kitchen this week to do some winter planting with us. Helen helped us to plant onions and garlic as these are vegetables that can grow over the cold winter months.

20.11.23

We have been learning about hibernation. We learned that during the winter when the weather's cold and food is in short supply, animals like hedgehogs, bears and bats become inactive to save energy. These animals have to eat lots of food to prepare for a long hibernation.

We set up a small world woodland area where the children have been creating homes for the animals using logs, leaves, sticks etc. that they thought would be comfortable and safe for hibernating. 

We used clay to create hedgehogs, exploring the different textures and media. We counted out how many sticks we wanted to use for our spikes.

14.11.23

As part of our numeracy focus this week we have been learning to recognise a regular array on a dice and count out a requested amount of items. We have been doing this with our hedgehog game, rolling the dice and counting out the correct amount of spikes (pegs) to put on our hedgehogs. 

As a challenge we introduced 2 dices. The children had to recognise the amount in 2 collections and then identify how many there were altogether

13.11.23

With all the rain we've been having recently the children were listening to and watching the rainfall, identifying if it was heavy or light and exploring some of the raindrops.

Grace - "It's very heavy rain! It's pitter patter!"

Aaron - "The rain comes out of the clouds"

Henry - "Rain is water"

Annabelle - "Rain makes a pitter patter noise. We could make a rain cycle or put water in a bottle and shake it to make rain noises"

Grace - "There are different sounds of rain like pitter patter or psssssh or tap tap tap"

James - "You need to wear waterproof trousers and wellies and you need an umbrella"

Grace and Annabelle suggested we leave some buckets out to catch the rain, so we set up containers in different parts of the garden to see how much rain we could catch and made a rain chart so we could measure the rain fall and made some predictions of what we thought might happen.

Aaron - "The water will be in the middle"

Grace -"I think it will fill up but we will have to keep checking them"

Annabelle -"If it stops raining the water won't rise"

We made some rain shakers at the gluing table to see if we could make the same sound as the rain. We gathered some items we thought make good rain sounds such as pasta, rice, buttons, oats and cheerios to fil containers with. We then discussed the different sounds we were creating and how the rain makes us feel.

Amber - "It sounds like heavy rain"

Summer = "These buttons make really loud rain"

Millie - Mines is soft and gentle rain"

Myla - "The rain needs to go away"

We then used our rain makers along with some musical instruments to recreate the sound of rain from light drizzle to a thunderstorm.

We also created rain drop paintings by using pipettes to drip wet paint onto the paper and see what patterns emerged.

6.11.23

We harvested the spring onions from our vegetable patch today, they were huge and smelled very strong! The children decided they would like to make a spring onion soup with them which we thought would be a fantastic idea to keep us warm on these chilly days. We found a recipe where we needed only 4 ingredients, spring onions, potatoes, garlic and vegetable stock. 

We followed the instruction on the recipe. We washed, peeled and chopped the vegetables, the spring onions were so strong they were stinging our eyes a bit and making them water!

We sat round the snack table together with our friends to enjoy our delicious soup and give our opinion on what we had tasted. 

1.11.23

We have been learning about Autumn, discussing the changes that happen and identifying signs of autumn that we can see.  We learned that in the autumn time the leaves change colour and fall off the trees, it starts getting a bit darker, the weather starts to turn colder and some animals start preparing for hibernating.

We made autumn tree artwork this week. We used pegs and sponges to print our autumn leaves developing our fine motor skills and sharing our knowledge with others.

Ivy - "The leaves fall down in the autumn"

Mirren S. - "Leaves change colour to yellow, orange and red"

Summer - "It's cold outside"

Alfie G. - "The leaves change colours and it's cloudy outside"

Macy- "Animals hide in the trees"

Xander- "The weather is cold"

Millie - "I see conkers on the ground"

Ruairidh- "Brown leaves"

Mirren W. - "The leaves turn red and they all fall down"

Koldo - "We can find leaves on the ground"

Lila - "It's windy"

Murray - "Leaves change colour and it's colder and we need a jacket"

Willow- "I collected pinecones"

Ellie-  "The leaves are yellow"

Amber- "The leaves are falling down"

26.10.23

As part of our child led responsive planning we have been learning about jungle animals. We used the internet and fact books to find information about the animals. The children wanted to find about where the animals live and their habitats, what they eat, whether they can swim or not and about the patterns on their bodies and why they have them.

13.10.23

We harvested our last vegetables in the nursery vegetable patch this week which was our sweetcorn. We have all been amazed how well our sweetcorn has grown as it was a bit of an experiment.  We have been sharing information with others, discussing if we liked or disliked sweet corn, what it tastes like, where it grows and when it’s ready to harvest.

Myles H “It has seeds”

Grace “Sweet corn grows in the wild”

Blake “It grows in the field”

Kristina “The seeds are yellow”

Lizzie “It tastes like butter”

Evie-Mae “I have corn on the cob at home”

Rory “Sweet corn & broccoli”

Annabelle “You plant it in Summer and it’s ready in Winter”

Kodi “Sweet corn grows on the farm, I don’t really like it”

Gabriella “I like sweet corn when Mummy makes it”

Ailiah “You can grow sweet corn with seeds, you plant it in Summer time”

Maisie “They grow in the harvest”

Austin “Like it”

James “It tastes sweet”

Henry “I love sweet corn!”

Reuben “Sweet corn is healthy”

Hannah “I eat it for dinner”

Lily “Sweet corn grows underground”

Emily “I don’t like sweet corn”

Harris “Yellow sweet corn”

We decide to make some sweetcorn artwork. We had to use our scissor skills to cut around a template and count out a requested number of corn to stick on.

13.10.23

As part of our literacy focus this week we have discussing our favourite story books, drawing pictures of them and giving our reasons why. 

13.10.23

We have been 'chefs' in the home corner this week. We made some dough for us to 'cook' with and had lots of discussions around what foods we can make including pizzas, bread, cookies and pancakes. The children were learning lots of new skills such as weighing, measuring, rolling, cutting, sharing and turn taking. We were also using fantastic vocabulary throughout our play and listening to each others ideas and opinions.

05.10.23

As part of our literacy focus we have been reading the story of The Little Red Hen and learning about the process of wheat>flour>bread. This week in nursery we decided to try and make some of our own bread for snack. 

We had to read and follow the instructions on a recipe, weigh and measure out our ingredients and use our muscles to knead the dough.

The children were fantastic at using the balancing scales and weights to measure out the correct amount of ingredients and explain how they knew when it was the right amount.

Innes A - "When both sides are the same height they are equal"

Blair - "When they don't wobble anymore then we have enough"

We sat round the table together at snack time and shared our opinions about the bread we had made.

Murray - "I love the bread"

Mirryn - "Do you know something, the bread is so good"

Hugo -"It's yummy!"

Alec - "I like the crust because I like crunchy things"

Ailiah -"I like having it with the jam on top."

Henry - "I do like the crust but these are a little too crusty but I like the jam"

05.10.23

As part of our literacy focus this week we have been discussing the story of The Little Red Hen. We drew pictures of our favourite part of the story and gave our reasons why for an adult to scribe.

29.09.23

Following on from our responsive planning last week, the children wanted to make carrot soup. We found a recipe and bought some of the ingredients we would need. We used the carrots and potatoes from our nursery garden. 

We had to read and follow the instructions on the recipes. Wash, peel and chop our ingredients, using the tools very safely and add some stock cubes. It tasted delicious!!  

22.09.23

We have been using vegetables for lots of activities this week. Still life drawings at the drawing table, looking at colour and detail, writing, printing using vegetables and counting games.

22.09.23

This week in nursery we harvested the carrots from our vegetable patch, they were huge! 

We counted 13 carrots. The children had lots of great ideas of what we could do with our carrots from making carrot soup and crunchy carrots for snack to using the carrots for painting.

We set up a carrot painting area where the children could use carrots instead of paint brushes to create a masterpiece, exploring the textures and mark making.

14.09.23

We have been using potatoes for counting this week. Identifying and recognising numerals, sequencing numerals to 5, 10 or even 20 and counting forwards and backwards. Who knew potatoes could be so much fun!

14.09.23

We have been learning about where foods come from, how they are harvested and grown and simple food preparation skills.

Whilst harvesting our potatoes from our nursery vegetable patch last week, lots of the children had expressed interest in making mash potatoes with them for snack. The children helped to wash, peel, chop and mash the potatoes using the utensils and tools safely. 

Ivy - 'We need to wash them because they were under the ground'

Zack - 'We peel it'

Ruaridh - 'They're smooth inside and rough outside'

Lila ''You can peel carrots too'

Xander - 'We mash them'

Innes - 'They need to be boiled'

Mirryn - 'Milk will make it nice and creamy'

Amber - 'They will taste nice'

Blake - 'They're from the garden now they've grown'

Annabelle - 'It's raw, we need to cook them'

Jacob - 'It's good!'

Evie-Mae - 'My Mum adds milk and butter'

Lizzie - 'The combine has to dig them up'

14.09.23

At the painting area we have been painting pictures of tractors and combine harvesters using thin paint brushes to add more detail. We used books and toy tractors to look at the different parts of the tractors/combines, counting how many wheels etc. and find out facts about some farm machinery. 

Millie - 'You see tractors in the fields

Mirryn - 'Tractors can spray fields'

Ivy - Tractors go around the field planting seeds'

Fearne - 'I see a real tractor, it was a green one'

Summer - 'Tractors have a little light on the top'

Maisie - 'I've been at the farm before, tractors were at the farm'

Millie - 'Tractors have steps so the farmer can get in'

Grace - Some are big and some are small. They don't all look the same'

Alec - 'Tractors have big trailers because they carry wheat and hay bales'

Kristina - 'Once I was driving outside and saw a tractor in the field'

07.09.23

We've had a very busy and exciting time in the nursery garden this week, harvesting some of our potatoes and learning about where food comes from. We had to use the trowels to dig deep into the soil to find them.  

We predicted how many potatoes we thought we had found.

Lizzie - "I think there's 25"

Maisie -"10"

Millie - "A thousand and a hundred"

Aaron - "2"

Miss O'Neill and Mrs Govan helped us to count them, we found 58 potatoes!

We had some discussions with the children about what we could do with the potatoes.

Grace - "Wash them, peel them and eat them"

Annabelle - "Potatoes are vegetables. Our potatoes at nursery have had long to grow. We could make fries"

Charlotte - "I like creamy potatoes"

Kodi - "I like mash"

Kristina - "We need to pick them from the plants"

Alec - "I like baked potatoes"

Reuben - "Now we can wash them, peel them, cook them and eat them for breakfast"

Bjorn "We can make mash potatoes"

Grace "We can make chips"

07.09.23

We have been drawing pictures of our families this week and telling a story about it for an adult to scribe. We have been learning to draw simple details of a person, mark making and pencil control.

We have also explored mark making in others ways such as painting with paint, blotters or water outdoors and on the smart board

07.09.23

For our numeracy focus this week we have been learning forward and backward number word sequences within 10. We have been incorporating counting into lots of different activities such as hopscotch, 10 green bottles, number puzzles, interactive games and lots of counting songs.