Play Talk and Read

Good afternoon everyone ,

Many of you will already be aware of the Scottish Executives current drive to encourage parents to spend time helping their children's early development. As well as an extensive media advertising campaign , they have recently launched a one stop website that gives tips and advice , an online community, books, videos, games and promotions which should all inspire you to play , talk and read to your children . Also available is  a DVD with interactive games and digital books that's worth a look . Please visit     http://www.playtalkread.org

Recently , we have had several incidents where children have been brought to nursery with temperatures, or given medication to reduce this . In most cases parents believed that the child was teething , but subsequently were found to be ill. We have once again taken advice on this matter from the Health Protection Unit. They have confirmed that our policy is correct - if  a child has a fever/is unwell they should not be at nursery . They have advised us to continue to follow our current policy and have suggested parents contact them directly if there are any issues . The contact is Fiona Browning , Health Protection Unit , tel: 01224 558520.(My thanks to Joanne Owen for contact details)
Please remember that the policy is in place to protect the health of all the children and staff at the nursery and your co-operation is needed to ensure this . Thank you. With a bit of luck , today's almost spring like weather will continue and the worst of the winter bugs will be behind us!

All the children have been very busy this week baking , cutting , sticking and creating all sorts of beautiful Valentine's gifts- yes that's right its Valentine's Day on Monday - please don't forget or there will be tears! They have also taken advantage of the milder weather to go on several walks around the village- the snowdrops/bluebells have been out almost every day and the buttercups enjoyed their visit to the library.
The schoolhouse children have been having a great time with some new play resources- new messy play tables and a lovely kitchen unit for role play, while the pre-school children have been making the most of our new storyphones system - individual MP3 players in a portable headphone set , so each child can choose music/stories to listen to - they love them!

More next week!

Marion

Chinese New Year

Hello everyone ,

All this week we have been celebrating the Chinese Year of the Rabbit which begins today . The children have been making beautiful lanterns , lucky money wallets(the money inside is not real tho!) and today have been enjoying jasmine tea and dumplings they made themselves. Our thanks to Maureen for her expert knowledge! I  hope that the year brings you all good fortune!

Its been a busy time for celebrating our cultural diversity as last week was Burn's Night . The children listened to some of the bards poems , made lovely tartan pictures and sampled haggis- with varying degrees of enthusiasm :-) as it was vegetarian haggis, I tried it too, can can assure you it was delicious! It was also Australia Day when we saw some great pictures of Australia, discussed the wildlife and made  boomerangs.

We have one more thing to celebrate this week .......Huge congratulations to Natalie(sunflowers) and her husband Tony , who are expecting their first child in August- it will be no surprise to anyone I'm sure , that we just love news like that :-)

Marion