Holy Corner Community Playgroup

03/09/2026

Settling in

September is always a wonderful time of year at Playgroup as we welcome new families and help them to find their feet. Although children start at Playgroup throughout the year, we often have a number starting after the long summer break, filling the spaces of those who have moved up to school.

Every child settles into a new environment at a different rate, and at Playgroup we work closely with the child and their families to settle at the speed that is right for the child.

Parents and carers play an active role in this process, and we welcome them into the learning environment while their child familiarises themself with the space and builds a trusting and secure attachment with their practitioner.

One of our favourite aspects of meeting new families is finding out more about the child's interests, then digging around in our cupboards to find something related that will help them to feel comfortable in their new environment. Whether it's marble runs, dinosaurs, trains, painting, crafting, splashing or reading - our cavernous cupboards have not failed us yet!

24/08/2026

Welcome to the new term 🌞🌙

We are delighted to be back together again with many returning children after the summer break. We will be welcoming many new families too in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, we have been enjoying making 'sun and moon pictures' after learning about the solar eclipse. Children loved hiding the sun with the moon, and sensory trays to explore space and the surface of the moon.

10/08/2026

Family playdate - thank you for coming! 🙏🌿🌞

We had a wonderful time on Saturday at our Family Playdate, thank you to everyone who made it and shared in the fun. Current Playgroup families met up with families who are about to start, those on the waiting list, as well as families whose children are now too old but wanted to catch up with their old friends! It was a great opportunity for the children to play before term starts properly, and give confidence to those starting this term.

We are now even more excited for term to start and for our community to be reunited again. We cannot wait to see what this term has in store.

07/08/2026

Family playdate

Some of our new and existing families will be meeting on Saturday morning to mark the end of the summer break and spend time together before term starts. Please join us for a natter and a play - our parents will be more than happy to chat about our community playgroup. We would love to see you there!

Saturday 8 August
1000-1200
Bruntsfield Links, little train toddler park (by Black Ivy)

26/06/2026

Another fantastic year

The children have just said goodbye to each other for the summer break, and had one last play on the climbing frame - a favourite place to eat lunch and continue the play after our morning play sessions have finished. There will no doubt be many play dates over the holidays, and i'm sure the next few weeks will fly by, but for now, everyone is looking forward to a break and a time to spend time with family and friends.

Thank you to everyone who has made our community playgroup such a fantastic and thriving place for children. We are so proud of the children and wish those moving up to P1 and other pre-school settings many wonderful adventures and every happiness.

And we cannot wait to see our returning families back in August and welcome our new families! August always brings great excitement, and we are very much looking forward to another fantastic year of play!

15/06/2026

Sports Day 2026

Last week the children were joined by their parents and carers to celebrate our annual Sports Day. Over the last month, the children chose different activities that they wanted to be part of the day, and we had a wonderful mix of old classics and new twists including a few inclusive races and a huge obstacle course.

We spent the full morning play session in the garden, and were grateful to the weather for being kind to us. We were able to celebrate all that our community at Holy Corner has achieved during the year, and be together to share the joy of play with the children.

Thank you to our fantastic practitioners for creating such a fun day, and to everyone who came, baked, formed part of the obstacle course, and supported our wonderful setting.

11/06/2026

Today the children did what they do best - play! This short video from the International Play Association (IPA) reminds us why play is so vital to children, and we celebrated International Day of Play by squeezing in all the play we possibly could in our morning session today.

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04/06/2026

Story telling in other languages 📚

We are so lucky at Holy Corner to have a wonderful variety of languages among the parents and practitioners, and even luckier that they are happy to share these with the children through stories and song. Every term the children hear familiar and new stories in unfamiliar languages, and their concentration and joy hearing these new sounds is testament to the power of language and expression. Recently, the children have heard stories in Polish, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and many many more, and we are so grateful to everyone who has shared these stories with us.

Earlier this week, one parent shared a much-loved tale, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, in Russian. She showed the children the different letters used in Russian, and gave everyone a name tag with their name written with these letters. As one child said enthusiastically "my name has different shapes" ☺ The children also looked at a book of trains, which showed the trans-Siberian express, and talked about the different animals that you could see along the way, and played with some Russian dolls.

28/05/2026

Taking our painting outside 🌞🌿🎨🖌

Painting at our outdoor easels under the open sky of our cosy and peaceful garden is an enriching sensory experience for the children. Our easels are up all year round, but there have been a few more takers this last week with the warm weather returning at last. The dappled shade of our garden, with the backdrop of willow fencing, is the perfect space for exploring light, colour and mark making.

As one of our 3 year olds said when they were painting a big, expressive picture of green, yellow and white, pointing to different parts: 'This bit is light. And this is darker'.

Our outdoor easels are ready to use, any time, where children can act on the impulse to create and investigate, as the fleeting light and weather conditions evoke constant wonder and curiosity.

21/05/2026

Outdoor Bookbug Magic 📚🌿🌻

We celebrated Bookbug week and Outdoor Classroom Day today by taking the Explorer bags outdoors with us into the garden, where we could enjoy this year's stories under the cloudy sky and the lights showers of rain, try out the postcards and activities with mark-making, while also enjoying a hook a duck game.

Indoors, our story corner was a fun and cosy space with puppets to bring the stories alive and open up the imagination through role play and storytelling. Children spent time looking at the Bookbug stories reflectively, as well as in a large group on our gathering rug. Together we heard the entertaining 'Runaway Cone', a counting story 'Hen in the Bed' and the richly rhyming 'Dick the Delightful Duck'.

The children were excited to receive their Bookbug Bags today - thank you to the Scottish Book Trust!