Today a small group of children from the nursery went a short walk to the Local Forest and had a great time exploring in the natural environment. They gathered lots of twigs and branches to make pretend camp fires, played hide and seek and climbed up onto tree stumps and jumped off. We even managed to meet a few horses in a nearby field along the way that were very pleased to see us!

The staff and pupils at Carnwath Primary School Nursery Class would like to say a huge thank you to Mr Angus Knox and the Loaningdale School Company for the fantastic amount of funding they gave us. The funding was combined with the money raised from our sponsored Welly Walk and used to purchase balance bikes, balance scooters and helmets for the children to take part in Balanceability and Scootability to promote their physical development outdoors. Balanceability is a ‘learn to cycle’ programme for young children. The children will learn to hold the handle bars steady and the lower part of the body is able to move freely and evenly. With an emphasis on balance and postural control, the children will be able to develop the basic skills required to enable them to ride a bike independently in a controlled manner. Balanceability is fun and greatly builds children’s confidence, focusing on gross motor skills, spatial awareness and balance skills, enabling them to cycle. Scootability is also fantastic and helps to promote physical activity from an early age, while also helping to develop skills which are crucial to a child’s development, such as balance, co-ordination and agility. It also assists with skills required when cycling, such as steering, stopping and balancing.

The children helped to build the bikes and scooters when the huge delivery arrived and have been enjoying using them so far!

In response to parental request we were delighted to offer our parents and carers the opportunity to come along to the nursery to take part in an Easter themed Arts and Crafts session with their child. Together, they were able to explore a wide range of  resources and created lots of amazing art work.

Parents and Carers were invited to give feedback on this session. Here are some of their responses:

• This session was brilliant. Really laid back. Gave my son a good opportunity to experiment with things like glitter and glue. Would definitely attend again.
• Loved it loads of variety of things to make.
• There was a great variety of art and craft products. My child loved designing an egg basket.
• Again had a lovely time making Easter crafts lots of fun, both myself and my son had a ball! Thank you!
• I was very impressed with the choice of materials the kids had to use and it was a great thing to do with our children.
• Lots of fun, plenty of great materials, thanks for having us!
• Really enjoyed today, good opportunity to have fun with the kids.

Thank you to all who attended.