The Scottish Government has proposed to increase the provision of free childcare to 1140 hours per year for children who are 3 or 4 years old, as well as for vulnerable 2 year olds who are eligible for the 600 hours free entitlement through the Children & Young People’s Act 2014.
With this in mind we are conducting a survey exploring how parents would wish to use this increase. The results of this survey will help guide policy on early years child care provision. In order for the survey to produce representative results it is important that we reach as many parents of 3 or 4 year old children from as wide a variety of back grounds as possible, this includes those who do not currently use free child-care provision.
We are lucky to be within walking distance of Cruikshank Botanic Gardens. For the rest of the term the children will be taking turns to walk down to the gardens to search for minibeasts, study the different plants, and to play in the beautiful arboretum.
This week’s group saw a lots of minibeasts, discovered the different shapes of the leaves, climbed on the trees, and enjoyed a picnic!
Have a look at some of our adventures in the gardens…
The visits to the botanic gardens can only take place with a minimum of 3 parent helpers. If you are able to help out in any ways, please let a member of the team know!
We have had some beautiful moments in Riverbank Nursery over the past few days with our butterflies emerging from their cocoons. The children have watched in fascination as our transformed little visitors have been fluttering around the nets, eating nectar from the oranges and flowers left in the nets, and spreading their wings.
We will be releasing them out into the garden on the next sunny day and we can’t wait to see our butterflies fly free!
Today was an exciting day for the children of Riverbank Nursery – Caris from ZooLab came to visit and she brought along some wonderful little friends too!
We got to meet a giant land snail, a stick insect, a tarantula, a millipede, and even a corn snake. We got to touch some of them and even hold some of them. We learned so much about them!
It was so exciting and a day we will remember for a long time!
In spite of the unseasonable weather, Riverbank Nursery have been getting into the swing of spring with lots of planting and gardening. We have started a vegetable patch and greenhouse with potatoes, herbs, beans, cabbage, tomatoes and onions!
The gardening is hard work, but we can’t wait to see how they grow…
We left the potatoes in Miss Logan’s cupboard to sprout….we think it worked!
The children of Riverbank Nursery got a big surprise today when they arrived at Nursery….
33 very hungry caterpillars!
Over the coming weeks the children are looking forward to watching them grow and change from caterpillars to cocoons and finally to beautiful butterflies!
The children have been working hard to dig up a big area of our nursery garden where we will start growing vegetables. We have seedlings in our little indoor greenhouse just now, staying cosy until the weather gets warmer and they are strong enough to go into the soil….
Keep your eyes peeled for more updates on our vegetables!!
Around half of the children in the afternoon nursery session do not have English as their first language and are currently learning through their every day experiences in the nursery.
Once a week they are supported by Barbara Szumanska, who is our EAL teacher. This week we decided to have story-time in both English and Polish (the most common second language in the class). Mrs England read the story in English, while Barbara repeated the story in Polish.
The children listened intently and were delighted to share the same story in the two different languages!
We have a variety of dual language books in the nursery in Polish, Russian, Lithuanian and many more.
What a lovely treat to share a story in our different languages!
