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Mrs Anstruther will leave nursery on Friday 19th December to start her maternity leave. We wish her well and can't wait to meet her little bundle when its born. Mrs Anstruther will return late next year and we are currently advertising her position so will let you know when we employ a successful candidate.

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From the Nursery team we would like to thank you for all the lovely cards and gifts you have kindly given us. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your kindness and support this year and wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy 2026.

We look forward to seeing you all when we return on 6th January 2026.

The Nursery Team

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Mazin and Ethan have made some chocolate wreaths for everyone to enjoy at snack time as a Christmas treat.

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Today we made some yummy shortbread biscuits that went down very well at snack.

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The boys and girls have been busy making reindeer food to put out on Christmas Eve. They have added in some bird food, Cheerios, oats and chose some sprinkles to put in too. The reindeers will have a yummy treat on Christmas Eve. 🦌🎄🎅

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Due to the school holding Christmas carols in the playground at 11.30am on Friday, the time for the nursery sing along will be moved to 11.10am. This will enable parents of children with siblings to attend both. Please arrive promptly to be seated and ready to start.

Can we also advise that you do not bring a water bottle in for your child on this day.

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Some of the nursery children enjoyed making bird feeders. We got some lard and bird seed and rolled them into balls, we added some string then used our fine motor skills to thread some Cheerios onto the string them.

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Financial support for parents and families

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What’s on for families during the holidays

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Tax-Free Childcare is a government scheme that helps with childcare costs up to a maximum of £2,000 for each eligible child each year (£4,000 if your child is disabled). Tax-Free Childcare is a UK-wide scheme, including Scotland. You can use it to pay for approved childcare. Your childcare provider must be signed up to the scheme before you can pay them and benefit from Tax-Free Childcare.

To be eligible for the Tax-free Childcare Scheme, you must be working (and if you have a partner they must work too).

The scheme is open to all parents of children under 12 (or under 17 if disabled). Please the link below for further information:

Tax-Free Childcare - GOV.UK

To apply online for tax free Childcare:

Apply online for Tax-Free Childcare.

Childcare element of Universal Credit:

The childcare element of Universal Credit can support you with childcarecosts while you are working. This includes nursery, holiday clubs, after- school clubs and breakfast clubs. If you live with a partner, you both need to be working, unless your partner cannot look after your children.

The childcare must be registered or approved and you must be in paid work to get help with childcare costs. There is no minimum number of hours you need to work to get help with childcare costs.

The maximum award is 85% of what you pay or 85% of the maximum childcare costs, whichever is lower. However, you may get less than this because UC is reduced by your income.

Please see the link below to more information on the childcare element of Universal Credit:

Help paying for childcare: Universal Credit and childcare - GOV.UK

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Today the children explored loose parts to create their own gingerbread men.

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Sophie and Sam gave our pesto pasta sauce a thumbs up. 👍 Ronnie ,Cooper and Emmie said it was good 😊

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We decided to make some pesto this morning with our basil we have been growing on the windowsill .

We are going to have pesto pasta for snack today 😋

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this morning we had lots of fun attending the panto. The children enjoyed taking part with lots of dancing and shouting “ he’s behind you “ and booing the cruel stepmother 👠

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Thank you to everyone who came to our Christmas wreath making sessions or bought a make you own wreath we raised a fantastic £207.

Our bake sale made £257.70!! Thank you to everyone who donated and bought cakes.

This is a fantastic amount raised and we will put this towards some resources in the nursery.

THANK YOU!

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Thank you to everyone who came long to our Christmas crafts last week workshops. We raised a grand total of £207 for the nursery 🎉

Same time next year ! 🎄

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Even though we’ve not had any snow we still had fun today throwing snowballs into different numbered baskets. The children were all keen to have a turn and they were cheering with their friends when they managed to throw one into the basket.

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We are ready for our bake sale! Starting at 2:30 and tomorrow morning, remember your pennies! Happy Christmas! 🎄☺️

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We decided to make our own wrapping paper to add to our wrapping station. We used natural foliage and Christmassy colours. The children loved exploring the shapes and mixing the colours .

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We are selling our take home wreath kits tomorrow 3 pm and Wednesday at 9 am , alongside our bake sale.

They will be £2 each .

Inside you will find everything you need to make your own sustainable wreath with your child at home.

🎄

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As a reminder, the nursery children will be holding a bake sale next week on Tuesday afternoon (9th December) at pick up and on Wednesday morning (10th December) at drop off.

If you are able to contribute home baking for the sale we would greatly appreciate the support. Please drop off home baking on Monday or Tuesday next week to support the sale on both dates.

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Can we kindly remind all families to please not send your child to nursery if they are unwell. If they are experiencing vomiting/diarrhoea, please keep them off nursery for 48 hours after their last episode. We also ask that you please do not send your child to nursery if they have been given paracetamol/ibuprofen that morning due to feeling unwell. This will help to prevent the spread of illness to other children and staff in the nursery.

One of our pupils at nursery is currently receiving medical treatment and their immune system is low, which puts their health at risk. Please let us know immediately if your child is suspected of having measles, chicken pox or shingles. We will then be able to determine whether there has been significant contact with the pupil in question and can inform their family. This will allow their medical team to arrange for the child to receive any relevant medication they may require.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

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Some of the children have been enjoying making sand castles today and chatting about doing this at the beach in summer.

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Some children chose to go up to the p1 playroom. They all played together in the house corner and enjoyed all the different toys.

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Well done everyone who contributed to our poppy appeal fundraiser. We made a massive £114.30.

We were very excited when we were presented with the big cheque and gold stickers for raising so much money. Well done and thank you all.

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We were all very excited to find our

elf today. He has been making snow angels in our snack area.

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Today some children came over to the block area to decorate the mini block Christmas Tree. They enjoyed choosing all the different loose parts and placing them onto tree.

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We wanted to inform you that there have been confirmed cases of head lice in the nursery. We would ask that you please check your children's hair and continue to monitor this regularly. Please follow the NHS guidance at the following link on how to check and treat head lice.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/head-lice-and-nits/

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December sign of the month is ‘Happy Christmas’ and ‘Father Christmas’

We will be incorporating these into our Christmas singing.

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Snowflake was hiding in the cups today, waiting for the children to find him.

I wonder where he is?

❄️

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the children had great fun today at the Christmas wrapping station. The chose a box and wrapped it, tied it and tagged it. They also decorated their own Christmas bags.

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Today at keys group we talked about our emotions, played buckaroo, picked the correct numbers and played sleeping bunnies. The children did great listening, talking and following instructions.

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Elf on the shelf

Meet ‘snowflake’ our Elf on the shelf. The children thought of different names for the elf with ‘snowflake having the most votes.

The children are excited to see what he is getting up to.❄️

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Our Christmas crafts and experiences are underway, with a loose parts Christmas tree. Lots of fun creating the tree in nursery.🎄

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Wrapping station

We are wanting to create a wrapping station for the children to wrap boxes as presents. If you have any spare, tags, ribbon, wrapping paper and boxes. It would be great to have.

Thankyou!

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The children have enjoyed creating their own gingerbread men today at the play dough table

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The Nursery elf is back! He’s been up to nonsense as usual and decorated our nursery with toilet paper. The children will choose a name for him and we will update you on the Padlet.

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Thank you to the families who came to make a wreath and tree decorations today. We had a fabulous festive time and made some beautiful creations. We are looking forward to the other sessions across the week. Please remember to bring your cash donation.

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From Monday 1st December children are welcome to come to nursery in Christmas jumpers, leggings, dresses etc. We're getting into the festive spirit!!

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The nursery gate is still broken. The normal entry gate on the street will be open on Monday. Please make sure the gate in the nursery playground is always closed and the lever down.

Thank you!

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Today we were invited to join The Health and Well-being group and make a kindness adventure calendar for nursery . We cut our paper tree , decorated it , stuck on the kindness baubles and wrote the numbers on top.

We will start our kindness calendar next week. 🎅

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this week we had great chat about our emotions, played the tumbling monkey game, talked about our favourite food with Terry and drew a big picture together of things that make us happy.

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Some children had an exciting visit to the p1 playroom on Thursday. They enjoyed playing with all the toys, drawing and exploring.

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Our nursery buzzer is not unlocking. Please use the nursery main gate. Thank you

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Today lots of children were excited to go to the gym hall to play games. We played cat and mouse game where a child would turn away from the cats and the cats had to catch the mouse. We also played red red river. The children all enjoyed themselves and had lots of exercise.

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A massive thank you to the families who attended our 6 week PEEP learning together programme. It was so great having you in the nursery to play, sing and learn with your child. We look forward to the next block.

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Lots of the children today have been working together to finish jigsaws.

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We have been busy today doing lots of threading and counting each colour on our string and the total number of beads.

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A little reminder to bring a soft toy for tomorrow’s final PEEP session. We will be having a teddy bears picnic and eating delicious banana bread that the children have made.

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The children have been busy making delicious banana bread for our PEEP group tomorrow. We enjoyed developing out number skills when measuring the ingredients.

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The nursery children are delighted to share that they will be holding a bake sale week beginning 8th December on Tuesday afternoon at pick up and on Wednesday morning at drop off. The children will be working hard in nursery to create their own baked goods and can't wait to share their creations with you.

If you are able to contribute home baking for the sale we would greatly appreciate the support. Please drop off home baking on Monday 8th or Tuesday 9th December to support the sale on both dates.

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We recently applied to CBDRT for some funding to make a sensory garden at nursery.

We were lucky enough to be awarded £400 for this🎉

We are looking forward to getting started on this project once it gets a wee bit warmer 😊

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This morning some of the children helped measure the area in the Polytunnel. We worked out the size for our potting table and what our new bed will look like. There were lots of ideas of what we could grow in the poly next spring🍓

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The children have been loving exploring the ice found in our garden from the cold weather. Some children created pictures using leaves from the garden which froze overnight. They look wonderful!

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The children have been enjoying building houses out of straw, sticks and bricks for the three little pigs this week. Unfortunately the big bad wolf has been blowing lots of them down!

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We need some battery operated fairy lights for our Book Nook. 

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We need some battery operated fairy lights for our Book Nook. 

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If anyone has fairy lights that are battery operated we would love them for our Book Nook to make it look wintery and inviting. Thank you in advance

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The children have been working hard this week outside in the garden making our Book Nook fresh and inviting for winter. They were busy cleaning, sweeping, pulled down old paper, swapped old books for new winter stories. They helped hang fresh blue wallpaper which looks fab. Children made Pom poms and snowflakes which we have hung inside. We are also hoping to put some fairy lights up to for a magical winter feel. Well done to all the children for there hard work.

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Finn and Emmie wanted to get the sand pit open .They worked out that it was frozen shut and wanted warm water to defrost it .

It still didn’t open so they hoped it would melt in the sunshine . Great problem solving !

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On the lead up to Christmas we have some exciting things going on in nursery🎄

We would like to invite you along to a wreath and Christmas bobble making session with your child the week beginning the 1st December 🎁

These will take place:
Monday and Wednesday - 9.30am - 10.30am
Tuesday and Thursday - 1.45pm - 2.45pm
There will be sign up sheets available in the cloak room area if you wish to attend.

The cost to buy your child's wreath will be £5 and there will be mince pies and cookies for yourself and child🍀

We will also be holding a bake sale on the 9th and 10th of December. The children will be making some baked goods in the nursery, but we will also be looking for baking donations from anyone who is able to.

The Christmas Party for all nursery children will be held on Friday 19th December, where all parents are invited along for a sing along and a visit from Santa. Party invites have been emailed out.

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The Bookbug session on Friday 28th November has been cancelled.

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Bookbug is cancelled for Friday 28th of November.

Hopefully see you all at Decembers session.

Mrs McGurk

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We made some Scotland flags after the great result at the football last night. The children then made some more flags with lots of colours.

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We are heading out in the garden tomorrow for an assault course. Please wrap up warm. We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

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The owl group did good number work today. They flipped the number over, matched the counters and built a tower. Great number recognition.

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We did great talking about the foods that we like and dislike. We played the dragon game, did some hopping and jumping and finished off with Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. The children all enjoyed the group activities today.

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We opened up the woodwork to table again today and we have had some amazing things made by the children. Someone made a lovely Dog with the wood using some of the resources we have available. She then add some declarations to it and painted it too.

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The children enjoyed exploring the ice in the trays outside this morning, lots of hammering and breaking the ice .

Jessie asked for some water and the children noticed that the ice melted in it and the water became colder .

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We have a large amount of unnamed lost property. Please take what belongs to your child before the end of November, we will recycle what's left. Thank you!

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Friday 14th November is Children in Need, children are welcome to come to nursery dressed in pyjamas. If you would like to make a donation you can do this via your child's Parentpay account. Thanks.

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Today some children took a trio to our local shop to collect the ingredients needed to make pizza. The children enjoyed measuring and mixing the ingredient to creat a pizza base. They then topped it with tomato sauce and cheese. They then tried some for snack.

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The children enjoyed another visit this morning from our P5 buddies. They worked together to build a big train track and enjoyed their time in the hairdressers.

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Today we are so lucky to have our polytunnel finished ! 🎉

Quinn’s dad has been working so hard over the last few weeks building it , with the help of Robin’s dad today.

We can’t wait to get growing next year!

Thank you !!

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This week one of the children had a birthday he is now 4 years old.

The children were asking each other about their age. We then made a recording chart and the children cut out a number 3 and 4. The children took turns asking their friends “how old are you” and managed to record the information by ticking the correct box. This was a great activity for communicating with each other, collecting and recording information.

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We are making stronger connections with the school and the preschool children have been invited to spend some time in the Playbased learning room in Primary 1. We hope to continue to visit regularly and give every child the opportunity to experience Primary 1 life. The children who have visited this week so far have really enjoyed this experience.

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Due to the weather, the nursery team need to cancel all fire pit stay & play sessions over the next few weeks. We will let you know when these are rescheduled.

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Please read the information at the following link regarding deferred entry to Primary 1.

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/nurseries-childcare/defer-entry-p1

If this is something you would like to discuss further, please email nicky.macnamara@currie-pri.edin.sch.uk to arrange a suitable time to discuss your child's deferral with Miss Sloan and Mrs Macnamara.

If you do not wish to meet but would like to defer your child, please the Senior team know.

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This morning we made some new yellow, autumny play dough . Some of the children collected different coloured leaves from the garden to use in our play dough. They enjoyed exploring the leaves , using them for printing and cutting. 🍂

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We built a run in the water and watched the water pour down.

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Thank you to everyone who bought our homemade poppies.

We have raised a grand total of £108.40 .

We will transfer this money over to the Poppy Appeal Charity . 🌺

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Today some of the children made poppy seeded bagels . We measured all the ingredients , mixed and kneaded the dough , boiled for a few minutes then baked. 😋

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Last chance to grab our seeded paper poppies. Today 2.30 onwards. £2 suggested donation . All money going to The Poppy Appeal 🌺

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Postpone your child starting primary school and check if you can get an extra funded year at nursery.

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Interest in zoo animals came from the responsive planning, where children were keen to use the animals in role play.

Children talking about animals, and their babies- and what they might do in the zoo.

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Tempest proofs will be coming home today/tomorrow. The order deadline for delivery to school is Friday 21st November. There is no obligation to order.

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We are busy finishing off packing our seeded paper poppies. They will be for sale this afternoon and tomorrow at 2.30 pm onwards for £2 as a suggested donation. 😊

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The children were keen to make a puppet theatre at nursery as we have been learning about light and dark. The children made a whole in the back of the box for the torch, cut out a big rectangle shape at the front and were very excited to see how it looked with our puppets.

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We would like to offer an exciting opportunity to come and join your child at the nursery fire pit.

We are offering 2 dates next week: Tuesday 11th at 10am and Thursday 13th at 2pm lasting approximately 45 mins.  These sessions will be limited to 6 spaces on a first come first served basis.  You can sign up for these in the cloakroom.  Due to safety we can only accommodate one adult to accompany each child.

If you have any questions, please speak to Mrs Buchan or Miss Walshe.

Thank you
The Nursery Team

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Thank you all so much for coming along to Bookbug last Friday. It was super busy and I hope everyone had a good time at our Halloween Bookbug. See you all at the end of November.

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Today’s PEEP topic was ‘thinking about how you can provide opportunities for your child to start making marks, and how this will help their early writing.

We talked about how important it is to develop their strength and control they will need for writing, using language, share ideas and encouraging any mark making both indoors and out.

Both parents and children made some lovely models from coloured modelling clay. We had some really lovely models, lots of chatting and great ideas too.

Thanks to everyone for coming along again today, it was lovely seeing you all again.

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This morning the children enjoyed stories from their Primary 5 buddies 📚

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Tomorrow is the last day we are collecting Harvest donations for Community for Food, if anyone would like to send in food donations we ask that it’s sent in tomorrow.

Thank you very much for your support.

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The children have been very excited today about going to the firework display tonight in Currie. We decided to make our own fireworks pictures at the easel today with bright glittery paint and black paper.