November - December 2022

Our Jolly Jingle

Thank you so much to our families who joined us for our 'Jolly Jingle'. It was so lovely seeing and talking to you all! The children were very excited to show all their families around the nursery and participate in a variety of Christmas crafts as well as singing many festive songs.

Our Christmas Party!

Our special visitor - Santa Claus!

Santa enjoyed listening to the children singing 'Jingle bells' and 'When Santa got stuck up the chimney'.

We wish all of our families

A Merry Christmas

and

A Happy New Year!

We look forward to welcoming our children back on Thursday 5th January 2023.

Christmas is here!

The children have been talking about putting up their Christmas trees at home. So we then got out our nursery trees and the children helped to decorate them. The children also made their own decorations using clay and decorated them using a variety of materials.

We made our own tinsel by threading pasta through string and decorated them with glitter. We also made tinsel using Christmas paper. This was quite tricky but we did our best with our fine motor, perseverance and concentration skills!

Christmas baubles of different colours and sizes were then added to the water tray and we did a colour matching learning experience!

"This one is a light blue and that one is a dark blue!"

We are using our hand eye co-ordination

"It is shiny and has glitter on it!"

"The pink one goes in this bowl!"

Pomander Christmas Balls

What does it smell like?

"Sour"

"Spicy"

"Citrus"

The children were talking about Christmas and one child said "My mum has a special Christmas candle and she loves the smell of it!"

The children then made their own Christmas decorations with the scent of Christmas . We used food such as oranges to recreate the Christmas spice smell. The children were focussed on the task and they listened to the instructions carefully. They used their fine motor skills to make holes in the oranges using tooth picks and they then added the spice (clove) to the oranges.

We then put them in the oven and when they were ready we took them out and the Christmas scent smell was even stronger!

The children were talking about Christmas jumpers and one child said "My mummy bought me and my sister a gingerbread Christmas jumper"

We then thought it would be a good idea to make the playdough look like and smell of ginger.

We added some cinnamon sticks to the playdough table so we can use it do mark making.

We added ginger to the playdough!

"I can smell something!"

We spoke about the different body parts of the gingerbread person and why we need our body parts.

"We need our arms to hold things and pick up things!"

"We need our legs to walk"

"We need our nose to smell!"

"We need our mouth to eat food and to talk"

"We need our ears to listen!"

Using descriptive language

"It is very flat!"

"It is very soft!"

"He is large!"

St Andrew's Day

For St Andrew's Day, the children had a Scottish themed lunch and the tables were decorated with tartan fabric.

At the arts and crafts area the children learned about the different Scottish tartans. They then decided they wanted to create their own tartan.

Creativity

Fine motor skills

Scottish Dancing!

"The bagpipes are from Scotland!"

"They are so loud!"

Making patterns

Counting

Musicality

Playing the musical instruments to the scottish songs/rhymes!

- Coulter's Candy.
- Ye cannae shove yer granny aff a'bus
- Ally Bally
- Three Craws
- Wee Willie Winkie

We formed our own Scottish band!

Taking the musical instruments and singing outdoors.

We had a variety of Scottish books out in the nursery.

What name shall we give the rollercoaster?

'The rollercoaster steam because it has a steamer. It's electric"

"These 2 blocks are going to be the cameras"

Shall they be low or high?

"High, you put the cameras on the edge to take photos"

A child made a comment that "the blocks look a little bit like a rollercoaster"

How can we make it look better?

"More blocks!"

Skills

Problem solving

Communication

Creativity

Perseverance

Concentration

New vocabulary (learning the block names)

Engineering

Numeracy

A learned that the blocks he is using for the tanks are called 'pillars'

"The tanks are not full of diesel yet!"

"The middle one is the fastest!"

The children decided that certain things are not allowed on the rollercoaster.

'No animals are allowed on the rollercoaster'

I wonder why?

"Because they are heavy, they will break it!"

The children used their mark making skills and drew diagrams to record their ideas and thoughts.

"No swords - They are dangerous"

"No tents - You don't know where you are going, you might be in Spain but you're not! You are on the rollercoaster"

"No babies - they will cry lots"

How can we make the rollercoaster safe?

"Seatbelts! It is stable. You need to hold on to the seatbelts"

We are learning that the blocks for the seatbelts are called an 'elliptical curve'

"This rollercoaster is so scary and fast. It's like a best nightmare!"

How are we going to stick the labels?

"We can maybe use glue or bluetack"

'The rollercoaster steam'

We used cylinders for "the 2 buttons - speed and slow"

For extended learning the children were shown building plans/designs of a variety of rollercoasters.

"Rollercoasters go very fast! I wonder what this one is made of?"

"They go up and down!"

"My mum screams when she goes on rollercoasters!"

Early Years: Let's Talk Scottish Education

The nursery children had a consultation with Ms White where they reviewed their education in nursery. This is because it is very important for children to have a say in their own education, play and learning.

They were asked the following questions:

Where are the best places to learn?
What do you think children should be learning?
How do you think children should be learning?
Who do you think children learn best with?

The children then designed their own drawings to represent their thoughts.

The children commented on

'Where are the best places to learn?'

"Outside because it is fun!"

"Sandpit is my favourite"

"Running down the hills at the gardens"

"On the bikes!"

"Out in the woods!"

The children commented on

'What do you think children should be learning?'

"Making good sandcastles"

"Play with friends and do some drawing"

"Read books"

"Blocks"

"How to spell my name, it has lots of letters"

"Behaviour - no hitting, don't scream or hurt each other"

"Building stunts for bikes"

"How to play outside with friends"

The children commented on

'How do you think children should be learning?'

"By playing"

"With friends"

"Outside"

"With teachers"

"Through dancing"

"If someone says what to do"

"I like learning with my friends"

The children commented on

'Who do you think children learn best with?'

"Learning with my brother"

"My granny teaches me to go on the bike without my stabalisers"

"Mum because I like it"

"My friends"

"Learning by myself"

"Teachers"

"My dad"

Celebrating Book Week Scotland 2022

We explored the big variety of vegetables that would go into the great soup pot.

The children were highly engaged in our oral storytelling experience today based on the traditional tale of Stone Soup.

There are many versions of Stone Soup online that you can access but Miss Cairnie wrote two original pieces of new material to celebrate 'Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022', 'Book Week Scotland 2022 and the Big Story Ripple #SISFStoryRipple

Link for mud soup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoAwGM0CGKI

Link for stone soup:

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

We listened intently to the story of the lady traveller who was looking for shelter and something warm to eat.

Everybody brought something to share with the soup pot.

"We put in a little bit of this and a little bit of that"

We got to explore all the different substances that would make up the most exciting mud soup experience.

Some of the things were smelly but we had to be brave and use our strong sense of smell to sniff things out.

We explored new textures and thought about our feelings.

"Its cold and gooey"

This one was super slushy and super sludgy. We love these words. They are great for describing our experiences.

We became a travelling band of storytellers.

Watch out! It's ready to plop and splodge!

Squeals of excitement kept everyone on their toes!

Miss Cairnie's favourite soup ingredient is zingy and tangy.

Can you guess what it is?

Our Wellbeing Wellness Walk

The start of our wellbeing wellness walk with some of our families. It is a beautiful morning! We are all so excited to be involved.

Observing our environment

What can we see?

'Patterns on roofs'

'Ivy growing'

'Drain pipe on house'

What sounds can we hear?

'Birds churping'

Lets carefully listen to the sounds of the birds and observe the shape of the birds.

Connecting to Nature

Connection to body to nature to each other

Lets make a circle

Starfish breathing

Mindfulness

Transient Art

Mindfulness eating - close your eyes, chew slowly and appreciate the different flavours.

Mindfulness exercise

Breath-hands-arms-breathe in-clasp up and out-hands down.

Thank you so much to our families who were able to join us. We hope to see you all and our other families again next time!

Benefits of wellbeing wellness walk

Becoming aware of your surroundings.

Becoming aware of how your body and mind feel while moving.

Being present in the moment

Improves mental well-being

Connecting with other people

Being physically active

Connecting with nature

Inspires creativity

Enhances balance

Baking Banana Cake

Step 1: We had to preheat the oven. We helped to turn it to the correct symbol and to the correct number (180 degrees). The children learned why it is important to preheat the oven.