We would like to thank all the parents, staff and children who attended our Baby and Tweenie Social Evening recently. We hope you all enjoyed experiencing first-hand where your child grows and learns, exploring their planning and hopefully learning more about the ‘Pre-Birth to Three’ early years framework.The Babies have enjoyed a successful time bringing the outdoors inside. The slides and ride-on toys were brought indoors to develop and promote gross motor skills; all the children participated in this popular activity. The Babies are currently concentrating on gross and fine motor skill activities within the room, a varied range of experiences have been made available including; construction play, messy play using paint dabbers, glue sticks and crayons to create art and mark marking on paper.The Tweenies continue with their Transport topic. The group have been enjoying messy play activities using cars to make track marks and gluing materials together, such as boxes, lids and fabric to create imaginative cars. These are now displayed within the Tweenie Room. The children are very animated when spotting all modes of transport on our daily walks. This is allowing the children to have positive outdoor experiences, promoting confidence and improving their social interactions. The Tweenies are very much enjoying the factual and story books we got from the library and they are learning how to look after library and nursery books.

The Pre School rounded up their Viking topic by recalling the many things that they had learned. They enjoyed making Viking characters and shields with the plasticine and they skilfully used the hammer and nail sets to recreate stunning Viking boats. The children used maps and the iPads to look at the countries where the Vikings lived; they recreated striking flags leading to discussion of the colours and shapes involved in this topic. The children have worked with the magnetic letters to write the names of some Viking objects they paid particular attention to the sound at the start of the word. This has led onto having a look at our names and what sound they begin with and playing a game about saying objects that start with the first sound of our name. This game proved a bit tricky, but we worked as a group to help each other.Summerside Kindergarten & Pre School are delighted to welcome a new member to our team, Chloe, who will be working mainly in the Tweenie Room. Chloe is settling in well and is looking forward to achieving her Childcare qualifications.

Have a great week,

MichelleNursery Manager

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Hello!

Ingredients

• 1 mini pitta breads

• 1 tbsp soft cheese

• 1 tbsp grated cheddar

• Plus your favourite fillings or try - ham & tomato or sweetcorn & tuna etc.

Method

1 - Pop the pitta into the toaster for 30 secs- 1 min, until just puffed but not crisp.

2 - Meanwhile, mix together the cheeses.

3 - Slice an opening at one end of the pitta and use a teaspoon or a knife to spread the cheese mixture in.

4 - Push in the some of your favourite fillings, gently squash the pitta closed between your hands, then put back in the toaster - cut-side up.

5 - Toast for 1-2 mins until golden and crisp.

Made in under 5 minutes.

The children have great fun making

these.

Quick & Easy

Pitta Pockets

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At the AllotmentIt’s definitely starting to warm up and spring will be upon us by the middle of March.In the polytunnel we continue to sow seeds of Pea ‘Avola’ - a dwarf variety that doesn’t need support to grow as plants are low-growing and easily accessible to the children who can help themselves once the pods have ripened. We look forward to harvesting both parsnips and leeks next month. Our new packets of seeds have arrived and we can’t wait to start sowing in the coming months.Our broad bean seedlings have been potted-on into individual pots and will be planted out in the allotment in spring. The seedlings were started off in re-usable

‘Rootrainers’, but now the roots have spread they need their own individual pots. The children carefully handled the plants into their own pots and add in new compost. To maximise the growing season, we grow

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two types of raspberries - summer and autumn. An important job for this time of year (late winter) is cutting back the autumn fruiting raspberry canes down to ground to allow the new shoots to flourish as the new fruit will develop on this year’s (new) growth, unlike summer fruiting raspberries, which fruit on the previous (last) year’s growth and are not pruned just thinned out after fruiting. Most of the children (under close supervision) were keen to have a go cutting the canes. The cut canes once dried out will be used for plant supports around the allotment. After any hard pruning a good natural general fertiliser - blood, bone and fish meal - is applied around the base of the plants.Our tomatoes are started off in the heated propagator to aid germination towards the end of February to give them the best chance. The varieties we have chosen again are ‘Shirley’ a great all-rounder for salads and cooking, and cherry types super sweet ‘Sungold’ and new variety ‘Sweet Aperitif’. Small tomatoes are a great size to introduce the fruit to children and once they’re hooked they’re easy to munch on at the allotment. As it’s too wet and cold for the Babies at the allotment this month we enjoyed some plant-related fun at nursery creating some seed art and exploring the all the different shapes, textures and sizes of seeds, and importantly the noisiest ones!

Bye for now,

Nadia

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WHats on...

Edinbrick - A Lego Model Show

The first ever Edinbrick - a LEGO show is coming to Edinburgh! You can expect displays from builders from throughout Scotland

with building areas, activities and a very special LEGO ‘Pokemon’ hunt.

All ages welcome! All profits raised from this event will go to Fairy Bricks - a charity which brightens the lives of sick children through

Lego and will be kept in Scotland. Saturday Mar 11, 10.30am - 4pm. Tickets are £2.50 for ages 5 - 99

and under 5’s are FREE. The Counting House, 38 West Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9DB

For more information: edinbrick@gmail.com

Sunday Stories!

Every Sunday, resident storyteller Elspeth Chapman reads a picture book from the Children’s Room. Designed to encourage

a love of reading in children, Sunday Stories is informal and includes crafts or games. Grownups can enjoy a free tea or

coffee whilst browsing the books. Stories for children aged 3 - 7. Each session lasts 45 minutes and

features a book from the shop’s Children’s Room. 11am - 12pm. No need to book and this event is FREE.

The Golden Hare, 68 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh, EH3 5AQ For more information: www.goldenharebooks.com

New Babies

Come along to the park and see and learn about the cute newly born lambs, goat kids, chicks, piglets and lots more in a safe environment. Afterwards try out the many fun activities at

the park. On until April 1, 10am - 5pm. Adults £13, ages 2+ £6.50 and up to

24 months old FREE. East Links Family Park, Dunbar, EH42 1XF

For more information: 01368 863607 or www.eastlinks.co.uk

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Page 7 of 7Copyright 2017

1 Summerside Street • Edinburgh EH6 4NTw www.summersidekindergarten.org • t 0131 554 6560

e admin@summersidekindergarten.org

Getting it right for

every child

Getting it right for every child is designed to be threaded through all existing policy, practice, strategy and legislation affecting children, young people and their families, GIRFEC is founded on ten core components which can be applied in any setting and in any circumstance:• A focus on improving outcomes for children, young

people and their families based on a shared understanding of wellbeing

• A common approach to gaining consent and to sharing information where appropriate

• An integral role for children, young people and families in assessment, planning and intervention

• A co-ordinated and unified approach to identifying concerns, assessing needs, and agreeing actions and outcomes, based on the wellbeing Indicators

• Streamlined planning, assessment and decision-making processes that lead to the right help at the right time

• Consistent high standards of co-operation, joint working and communication where more than one agency needs to be involved, locally and across Scotland

• A Named Person for every child and young person, and a Lead Professional (where necessary) to co-ordinate and monitor multi-agency activity

• Maximising the skilled workforce within universal services to address needs and risks as early as possible

• A confident and competent workforce across all services for children, young people and their families

• The capacity to share demographic, assessment, and planning information - including electronically - within and across agency boundaries