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Hedgehogs News February 2018

Hedgehogs News February 2018

We would like to welcome Henry who has started with the Hedgehogs this month and to wish Happy Birthday to Iggy and Eva who turned 2 years old this month.

Animal Room

FullSizeRenderThe children have enjoyed a range of messy play activities relating to transport and transporting this month. The children had fun making tracks on paper with paint and cars. We also had some Transport stencils such as Cars, Bikes, Boats, Planes, Buses and Trains which the children used to paint and make their own transport.  We have also been transporting water into the sand tray and exploring different textures and learning about wet and dry sand.

Tree Room

IMG_0161In the Tree room we have had lots of different puzzles to explore such as Transport puzzles, shape puzzles and the Very Hungry Caterpillar which is the children’s favourite at the moment. Our story corner has been most popular this month with lots of new songs the children have been learning to sing along to and join in with some of the actions.

Garden/Trips

In the garden this month we have had lots of fun using the bikes and making a car track with Tyres and crates.

IMG_0156The children have been racing on the bikes and saying “Ready steady Go”! We have also enjoyed using the wheel barrows and buggies around the garden, collecting objects and transporting these objects to another area of the garden.  Some of our older Hedgehogs have enjoyed a trip to Sciennes, a lovely walk around the woodland area where the children explored and collected some sticks and branches and brought these back to nursery.  The children used the sticks and branches they collected to make some lovely pictures in the messy room.

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Rabbits & Foxes News February 2018

Rabbits and Foxes News February 2018

Happy birthday to Lara who turned 4 this month and to Misha and Otto who turned 3!

IMG_4582In February we were in full swing with our topic of Scotland. We learned a lot in this time and really especially enjoyed practicing our Scottish dancing and learning about Scottish foods, as well as foods from other cultures.

Some of the children made Valentines cards for their families; we also had a few activities relating to Chinese New Year as well as some brilliant activities for World Book Day!

We are now moving on to learning about Space. The Rabbits have been incredibly interested in Space for quite a while so it is really great that we have the opportunity to go more in depth with this subject. We consulted with the children about what they already know and what they would like to learn and from this we worked out how we are going to go forward with the topic. We are all so excited about it!

IMG_4563We have wrapped up this block of Forest Schools and it will be the older Rabbits turn to go next – hopefully we will get better weather this time around!

It was great to have some snow in the city and the children enjoyed learning about snow, icicles etc. Unfortunately we had to cancel some of our extra activities due to the snow but we are pleased that they have started again this week!

 

 

 

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Nursery News January 2018 Millerfield Place

Nursery News January 2018

Parent Breakfast

The children were thrilled to have their parents join them for breakfast in the nursery this month. Children, parents and staff sat down to a hearty spread of porridge, yoghurt, fruit and croissants with jam. Parents enjoyed the opportunity to have a chat and to get to know each other a bit better.

Buggy Storage

As you may know, we have very limited storage space for buggies, bikes and scooters, and we would therefore please ask all parents to only use the storage facilities if you need to. We would also like to ask all parents to please use buggies that fold up easily and take up little room rather than large bulky buggies so that more buggies can fit in the buggy hut.

Please do not leave buggies in the front garden outwith the buggy hut as the Rabbits & Foxes will be using the front garden throughout the day.

Finally, could we please ask that, when using the hanging rack in the front hall, you ensure that the rack is not overloaded and that buggies are not left insecure ( eg hanging by one handle) as this can result in buggies falling off the rack.

Nativity & Christmas Parties

The Rabbits & Foxes did really well performing their Nativity at the church. The children had all worked really hard learning the songs and their parts, so very well done guys! We all had a great time at the party with Tricky Ricky and Santa! The Hedgehogs also had lots of fun at their Christmas Party with Santa. Thank you to all parents who attended our Christmas Parties.

We would like to say a big thank you to Pete (Pearl’s Dad) for playing the guitar while we rehearsed our show and for playing the piano for us during our Christmas Party. We would also like to thank Pete for being Santa at the church!

Activities

Our current block of Tatty Bumpkins is on Thursday mornings for a six week period. All Rabbits and Foxes in the nursery on Thursdays will have the opportunity to take part in the classes. Enjoy-a-ball is now held at the Meadows on Tuesday afternoons for a six week block. We change the days of both classes every few months to ensure that all children can take part.

Care Home visits and Forest Schools have also resumed, please see the notice in the front hall for children attending the first block.

Staff

We would like to welcome Marta and Munira to Meadows! Marta will be working mainly on the middle floor with the Hedgehogs and Munira will work on both floors on break cover hours 9:30-3:30 until she returns to University in July.

Staff CPD

This month all staff have taken part in child protection and child development training, gaining knowledge of the most up to date procedures for child protection situations.

Diary Dates

Please note our 2018 diary dates.

25th January Scottish Breakfast (8am – 9.30am)
22nd March Parents Evening (6.30- 8.30pm)
12th April Continental Breakfast (8 – 9.30am)
24th May Spring Trip (3’s & over)
29th May School Leavers Treat
1st June Primary 1 / Nursery Party ( 3- 5pm)
7th June Sports Day 10.30am
22nd June Graduation & Summer Show 2pm
12th July Parent Summer Social 7 – 9pm
21st August Tea Party ( 3 – 5pm)
13th September Bring a Parent to Nursery Day
25th October Parents Evening
31st October Halloween Party
7th December Christmas Theatre
14th December Nativity & Christmas Party
21st December Nursery closes at 6pm
3rd January 2019 Nursery reopens at 8am
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Rabbits & Foxes News January 2018

Rabbits and Foxes News January 2018

Happy birthday to Sophia and Dasha who have turned 4 this month as well as Ruby, Ben and Hector who have now turned 3!

A big welcome goes to Barbara who has joined us on the ground floor as a full time staff member. Barbara will mainly be working with our Foxes group, however will also have some time with the Rabbits. We have also welcomed Munira who is doing break cover hours throughout the nursery and will be helping on all floors.

IMG_4607This month has seen the Rabbits and Foxes learning all about Scotland. We celebrated Robert Burns with a Scottish breakfast where the children had porridge and tattie scones to eat. We have all been learning various different Scottish dances and have enjoyed practicing these out in the garden most mornings.

We have been learning a little bit about Scottish foods, whilst discussing what is healthy and unhealthy, and are hoping to try some different foods before the end of the month. Within this we also hope try some foods from other countries too.

The Rabbits have also been looking a little bit at Tartan and had a go at making some themselves using strips of paper – they look amazing displayed on our wall. Both the Rabbits and the Foxes have been making Scottish Flags using a whole range of different materials, including paint, tissue paper and pens.  Some of the children also looked at the Polish flag and had a go at making this with Barbara.

The children have enjoyed having a couple of their favourite books in Scots being the focus for story times. This has included The Gruffalo in Scots as well as The Gruffalo’s Wean.

IMG_4667All of our activities have now started up again and the children are enjoying being able to get out and about at Forest Schools and the Care Home as well as their Enjoy-A-Ball sessions at the Meadows. We also have Tatty Bumpkins which all of the Foxes and Rabbits enjoy. Unfortunately because of all the bad weather, we have not yet been able to get out to Blackford pond; however the Rabbits have enjoyed half day sessions at Sciennes Woods and hope to be back to their normal routine at Blackford Pond this week.

Everyone would like to say a huge thank you to Myles’ dad who came in wearing a kilt and did some Scottish dancing with the children. He also explained all of the different parts of the traditional Scottish outfit as well as telling the Rabbits a little of the history behind the kilt. Also a big thanks to all the parents who have sent in their pictures of Scotland as well as providing us with some Scottish type materials that we have been able to use for collages and junk modelling.

We are now looking forward to finishing off our Scotland topic and consulting with the children to see what they would like to learn about next!

 

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Hedgehogs News January 2018

Hedgehogs News January 2018

IMG_9231We would like to welcome Sandy who has started with the Hedgehogs this month and to wish Happy Birthday to Solo who has now turned one and to Rengim, Angus, Theia and Emma who turned 2.

This month, the Hedgehogs have been very busy helping to make our flying saucer display. We all made our own flying saucer with a paper plate, paint and different crafts to glue on. Some of us helped to paint and stick foil on the big flying saucer for the centre of the display, which was great fun.

The Hedgehogs have enjoyed doing our new puzzles and spending time in the home corner doing lots of role play with the aprons, clothes and role play food. This is great for the Hegdehogs to develop their imagination and relationships.

IMG_5857This month in our garden we have had lots of great fun transporting the sand with all our different buckets, spades, plates, and kitchen tools in our sand tray and sand kitchen. We have recently been focusing on Hula Hoops and balls which is great for us to develop relationship with friends and teachers.

The Hedgehogs parents joined us for a Scottish breakfast to celebrate Burns Day. The children really enjoyed having their parents spend some time in the playrooms so a bog thanks to all who attended.

 

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Hedgehogs News December 2017

Hedgehogs News December 2017

A big welcome to Finn and Izabella who started with the Hedgehogs this month and a Happy 2nd Birthday to Nathan, Salman, Bo and Finn

IMG_5229We have been busy during November getting started with our Christmas crafts. We all made our own Christmas card, tree decorations, calendar and bag and food for the reindeers. We made Rudolph cards and glued shiny red pom-poms for his nose and stick eyes. We also made a very glittery decoration for our tree. Some of us have been exploring the sand and water tray, others have preferred to spend lots of time at our play dough table rolling lots of different patterns with our patterned rollers.

Our teachers made sensory bags with coffee beans, sponges, lavender, vanilla and lots more to help to develop our sense of smell. We also had lots of song time throughout the day, learning to take turns with the musical instruments and other toys with all our friends. We have lots of activities and areas to explore such as an activity table which has lots of puzzles, sorting elephants to encourage us to learn our colours, drawing paper, crayons and stickle bricks. We have a home corner unit and dressing up box so we can role play, little sofas so we can have quiet time to read a story, an area for construction.

IMG_5044We continue to go to the care home every second Monday with 2 Hedgehogs and 4 children from downstairs where we do lots of activities with the residents. We have also had trips to the park with our older Foxes and Rabbits.

For Children in Need we did some baking with our teachers, we made little biscuits and the older children downstairs made scones and cupcakes and we had a bake sale at the end of the day. We also dressed up in our pyjamas and brought in our little teddies for a tea party in the afternoon!

 

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Rabbits & Foxes News December 2017

Rabbits and Foxes News December 2017

A big welcome to Max, Emily, Julek, Sebestian and Saul who have now joined the Foes and Rabbits downstairs! All of the Foxes and Rabbits have helped to settle these guys and we are so happy to have them!

This month we are now organising and practicing for our Christmas Nativity. We had discussions with the children and all staff members and made up our cast from there to make sure that everyone was comfortable with the parts they have.

IMG_4420We are very lucky to have Lizzie who comes twice a week to do music time. She has started playing the piano and helping us teach the children our nativity songs in preparation for the performance on December 14th! The children all seem to know the words for the songs, it’s just now practicing singing in time with the music and all together, however, this is all going really well. Everyone is doing an amazing job learning their lines as well as starting to learn some stage direction.

We have also started our Christmas crafts – we are making a little goodie bag to go home for our families as a little bundle of presents. The children are making some fantastic pieces of work!

IMG_4418At the start of the month, we had Zoolab who visit the nursery a couple times a year to bring some reptiles and creepy crawlies! This time they brought us a snake, African snails, a tortoise, a giant millipede and some cockroaches! All of the children either touched or held some of the animals which was fantastic. They had the opportunity to learn a bit about where the animals come from and how they live.

We have now come to the end of our Forest Schools and Tatty Bumpkins blocks. It has been so much fun doing these sessions and we can’t wait for them to start again next year!

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Nursery News December 2017 Millerfield Place

Nursery News December 2017

Children in Need

Thank you to all parents and children who donated to Children in Need. We raised a total of £108 through our bake sale, PJ party and teddy bear picnic.

Forest Schools

We have now completed our last week of Forest Schools for 2017. The children have had great fun going on the 41 bus and spending time exploring up at Blackford pond – especially on the muddy hill! We will be resuming Forest schools next year and plan to continue taking the Foxes and younger Rabbits to the woodland at Sciennes for shorter Forest Schools sessions and the older Rabbits to Blackford Pond.

Parent Participation

We would like to thank Gesine (Alex’s Mum) for coming in and spending time with the Rabbits and Foxes to discuss her experiences at nursery as a child. The children enjoyed listening to Gesine’s stories and songs as well looking at her photographs. We compared how Gesine’s nursery was different to our nursery and discussed any changes the children may want to make to our nursery.

Staff

We would like to welcome Stela and Barbara to Meadows Nursery. Both Stela & Barbara will spend time on both floors during their induction.

Reverse Advent Calendar

Our reverse advent calendar is now in the front hall. We will be collecting throughout December and the items will be donated to a local foodbank.

Diary Dates

Thursday 14th December – Nativity & Christmas Party (Rabbits & Foxes at Barclay Viewforth Church)

Friday 15th December – Hedgehog Christmas Party

Friday 22nd December – Nursery closes (at 6pm)

Thursday 4th January – Nursery reopens

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Hedgehogs News November 2017

Hedgehogs News November 2017

A big welcome to Bo, Arran, Fin and Leon our new Hedgehogs who joined us in October.

IMG_8447This month we had lots of texture and sensory play. We had a tray full of crazy foam, shaving foam, pasta, spaghetti, oats, rice, feathers and straws which we explored with our hands and feet. The sand tray also had lots of different coloured foam in it, which encourages us to explore textures and to use our fine motor skills. Our teachers made sensory bottles which the babies especially liked. We made some cards for our new Hedgehog friends and did lots of gluing and painting with our junk modelling.

IMG_8566We have had fun with the tunnels and building blocks which encourage us to develop our gross motor skills. The Hedgehogs have also been busy doing puzzles, role playing in our home corner, reading stories with our teachers, and enjoying music time.

We continue to go to the Care Home every second Wednesday with two hedgehogs and four children from the ground floor. We have also had trips to the park with our older Foxes and rabbits as well.

IMG_8664For Halloween we had a tea party, where we all dressed up in different costumes. We did some baking with our teachers and made biscuits and crispy cakes. Some parents came along and we had great fun dancing and colouring in Halloween pictures.

 

 

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Rabbits & Foxes News November 2017

Rabbits and Foxes News November 2017

Welcome to Juniper, Frida, Anna and Ben who have all started in Nursery this month!

Happy birthday to Charlie, Reuben, Chunyi, Anna and Pearl who all turned 3 this month too.

IMG_3864This month our topic has been Our Nursery. The children have been discussing at length the aspects of the Nursery that they really enjoy and also telling us what they would like to do more of. They have been learning more about the routines for each day and the activities that we do.

We have been in full swing with all of our extra activities such as Forest Schools, the Care Home trips and lovely nature walks to the Sciennes Woodland.

The Foxes have also been learning about Autumn. This involved the children making lots of pictures with different natural objects that we had found out on our Woodland Walks. They explored these objects in a range of messy situations, where the children were able to practice their Autumn colours too.

FullSizeRenderThe Foxes were also talking about the Golden Rules and reading a book called ‘Hands Are Not For Hitting’. The children did a few different activities where they discussed what they like to use their hands for – we got some amazing pictures and hand prints!

At the end of the month we had a fantastic Halloween Tea Party – it was so nice to see all of the children’s costumes, as well as the staff costumes! It was also great to have some of the parents along to join in with all of the activities.

Over the next month we are going to be starting a new topic, as well as starting to practice for our Christmas Nativity and doing some Christmas crafts.