Nursery News February 2016
February has been a very fun and busy month for Meadows Nursery with visits to the library, park, days out for Forest Schools and our popular care home visits continuing.
Outdoor Learning and Trips
Library: A small group of Foxes and Rabbits has been making a weekly trip to the George IV Bridge Children’s Library for the last few months. This has proven to be a popular outing and the children enjoy bringing back their library books for their quiet time. This trip starts around 10.30 every Thursday and parents are very welcome to meet us there.
Forest Schools: The children have been taking their learning goals outside with this current Forest Schools block and we are looking at how we can link Numeracy, Literacy and Health and Wellbeing to the outdoors. We have looked at patterns outside, collected sticks to put them into order and written our names in the ground. We also get lots of fantastic exercise and become more aware of the word around us.
Care home visits: We have had a great time with our Care home visits for this block. On pancake Tuesday, the residents and children got to decorate their own pancakes to eat for their snack. They have also been making friendship bracelets and necklaces and enjoying some puzzles too!
Other outings: We have also recently been managing to take a small group out on a Wednesday and Friday of each week too, usually consists of 4 babies and 2 older children. We have managed to have an outing a day for February!
CPD
The month of February has brought staff training from Edinburgh Council, with our language boost workshop focusing on comprehension and expression of spoken language in meaningful contexts. Nursery staff target key vocabulary and age-appropriate language within everyday nursery activities and use 4 simple strategies to acknowledge and extend children’s communication attempts and to support their comprehension and social interaction.
Claire has attended Up, up and away training during February and Samantha attended the Council’s pre-birth to three conference.
Diary Dates
Diary dates for 2016 have been emailed to parents and carers and are displayed in the main foyer. We hope that you can make the various events noted, in particular can you please note that the Christmas party has been changed to Thursday 15 December 2016 so that we could book Tricky Ricky.
Our Rabbits children will head to Edinburgh Zoo on Thursday 24 March for their annual Spring trip. Parents have been emailed the details of this exciting outing. Please let us know if you are available to be a parent helper on this day.
Children and parents
A big welcome to Leo, Sophia, Joachim and Matilda all joining the Meadows team this month! Everyone has all settled in really well and have been making some great bonds with their keyworkers and other children.
Sadly, we say goodbye to Loueï and his family in early March. Loueï has been with the nursery since he was a very small baby and we have watched him grow and develop into a confident and caring little boy, who loves to help and play with his best friend Alex. He will be missed by us all and we wish you all the best in your new life abroad.
March will see the start of our Children’s Committee. We will feedback the minutes of our meeting to you once this has taken place.
Activities
The preschool children are learning ‘ALL ABOUT ME’ for their current topic – thanks to all who have emailed/brought in pictures to help us with this topic. We will be focusing on our daily routines, with the children learning about themselves and their families and how, even though we are different, we are all the same and equal.
The middle floor children have been enjoying lots of role play and also welcoming their new friends into the nursery. The children have also enjoyed lots of trips to the Meadows and the parks. March will focus on transition into the nursery and supporting the babies’ individual next steps.
Staffing
Rebecca Blakey will join our staffing team in April. Rebecca has many years of experience and will also be bringing her daughter to join our team of little helpers.