Cairns Early Childhood Centre

3-5 room misplaced jumper

Could everyone please have a look at home to see if a nursery jumper has been picked up by accident from the ECC. It has the child's name on it.

Thank you 😊

A wee reminder that our Parent and Carer social group will start on Wednesday at 9:15am and will run every week on a Wednesday.

Maths Week in the 2-3’s 😊🔢

This week the children took an interest in the natural environment. They collected lots of leaves and sticks from the garden. Some of the children demonstrated excellent counting skills as they lined them up. Others were able to identify which sticks were bigger or smaller. Towards the end of the week we made a lovely collage picture for our autumn display within the room.

⭐️⭐️Maths Week 3-5 ⭐️⭐️

We have been exploring a variety of mathematical concepts through water play this week in the garden. This includes floating and sinking, volume, filling and pouring, and distance, size and many more.

We have explored patterns and learning to copy and continue these and create our own patterns.

We have been using lots of mathematical language such as light, heavy, biggest and smallest!

Maths week in The Farm (0-2)Room!

We are looking for donations for our Halloween Parties and Stay and Play events.

We would appreciate donations of Halloween decorations and themed arts and crafts such as sequins, glitter and stickers. We are also looking for party prizes such as bubbles.

Thank you.

Here are some photos of what we have been doing this week in The Ocean (2-3) room!

Here are some photos of what we have been doing in The Farm Room (0-2) this week!

Please see below photos from The Jungle room (3-5) this week.

A reminder the ECC will be closed on Friday 22nd and Monday 25th September for the September weekend. We will re-open on Tuesday 26th September.

Here are some photos from The Farm room this week!

The Ocean Room 🌊🌊

This week, we have had a focus on developing our senses through wet and dry materials. We have used cornflour as our dry resource, using it to investigate “what happens when” we mix various wet materials in with it.

Outdoors we have had lots of water play with the children enjoying the bubbles. Some of the children started popping the bubbles and singing “Tiny Tim”. This is one of our favourite nursery rhymes in the room.
Also in the garden, the children have been enjoying demonstrating their excellent gross motor skills as they chased one another.

We have all had a lovely week 🥰🥰

Here are some photos throughout the week of what the children in the 3-5 room have been busy doing!

We have been talking a lot about being safe and risk accessing.

Come along to our Parent and Carer Group meeting tomorrow (Wednesday 13th) at 9:15am in our Family room. Some of our staff will be there to get your ideas for our stay and play days, Halloween and Christmas events! Our Community Practitioner, Linda, will also be in to see if there are any groups or activities you'd like to see on offer.

Tea and coffee will be available too!

Our main entrance door is now fixed! Please use this door for dropping off and collecting from any of our playrooms. Thank you for your patience 😊

The 3-5 children have been so busy outdoors, exploring stories and mark-making in recognition of International Literacy Day.

Some of the children listened to Supertato and used the vegetable puppet props to bring the story to life. This inspired them to think about the different types of vegetables we could grow in our garden. How exciting! 🥕

Of course, you couldn't have a day at Cairns without a bit of messy play thrown in. Some of the children were developing their mark-making skills by using their fingers (or some sticks!) in the shaving foam. A few children were really interested in wanting to learn how to write the letters in their name and we know how important it is to develop those hand muscles, so the shaving foam was a really exciting way for the children to do this. They also appeared to really enjoy the feeling of the foam, talking about the smell and texture; developing their language and their senses.

In our 3-5 room, the Jungle, we celebrated International Literacy Day all over the playroom and outdoors.

Some of the children listened to the story of The Three Little Pigs, which appeared to stir up their creative juices in the outdoor area as they worked together to build their own houses. They used the tyres, and working as a team, they moved and stacked the tyres to make the walls of their houses. Some of the children were able to recall the story whilst they worked very hard.

Some children explored the story of What the Ladybird Heard. They were very engaged and inquisitive, asking lots of questions about the animals in the book. They felt inspired to make their own maps like the ones they saw in the book.

Today is International Literacy Day - not that we ever need a special day to enjoy exploring Literacy in a variety of ways!

Some of the children in the 0-2 room explored the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The children appeared to enjoy looking at the butterfly in the book. This gave us the idea to paint our own butterflies. Also, some of the children were able to repeat the word "butterfly" when staff said it first. 🦋

We also supported the children to develop their language and communication by using the song bag and singing some of our favourite nursery rhymes!

⭐How can you help a wee person who stammers?

There are lots of strategies you can use to support a child with their communication.

Action for stammering are another UK charity who support children and young people with a stammer. They have lots of advice on how you can help. ⭐

⭐ Check out our Top Tip for this month!

It’s a very simple strategy but one that is often forgotten. ⭐

Bookbug will be on every Tuesday at 2pm in the star room. Bookbug sessions are a great way to support your child's attention and listening and understanding of rhyme. This is done through stories and songs. We hope to see you there!

Here are some key dates for 2023/2024 and some important information from our August newsletter.

The sun has got its hat on and it's coming out to play!

We're expecting lots of sunshine over the next few days and, whilst we love to be outdoors in all weather, it's really important to keep ourselves safe in the sun by wearing suncream, a sunhat and loose fitting clothing.

Please apply suncream to your child before they come into the ECC and, where possible, provide suncream with their name on a label so we can top up their suncream throughout the session.

Thank you 😊

This week in the ocean room (2-3), the children are continuing to settle back into their daily routine through snack and song time. We have enjoyed spending time outdoors with a wide range of learning experiences. The children have been demonstrating fine motor skills through threading and water play!

⭐️⭐️3-5 Jungle Room ⭐️⭐️

This week in the cosy corner the children have been supported to transition through their new daily routine. The cosy corner has been accessed by many children as a safe space to support their emotional regulation throughout the day as a quieter area of the nursery. Throughout the week, the children have been independently selecting resources as they explore turn taking, sharing resources and developing friendships.

🔹️Important update🔹️
Our main door into reception is currently out of order. Please come to our Family Room door to enter and to exit the ECC. This is until further notice.
Please note, this door is not linked to our reception therefore will only be open for start and end of children's sessions. In-between you will require to ring the buzzer and wait until someone can answer. Thank you for your cooperation.

Here are some photos of the children in the 3-5 room learning some Makaton signs.

This week we have been settling back into our nursery routine. We have been learning to put on our outdoor suits, using an apron for messy play and developing our independence at snack and meals times.

Could we please ask everyone to complete the photo consent form that has been uploaded to each child’s learning journals.

Thank you.

⭐ Here are some top tips to support your child’s attention + listening skills! ⭐

Did you know? The 28th of August is chosen as Makaton International Awareness Day to commemorate the birthday of our incredible founder Margaret Walker 🎂 Celebrate with us next week! Visit: bit.ly/MakatonAwareness

Team Cairns would like to wish all of our children heading to P1 for their first day the best of luck! Your future is so bright because you're all superstars! 💛

We look forward to seeing you all on Monday 21st August from 8am.

Team Cairns have been working hard to get ready to welcome our children, both returning and new! We can't wait to see how the children take to exploring our new areas and resources in our playrooms.

This week we said Goodbye and Good Luck to Lisa, our Head of Centre, as she took up the post of Head of Centre at Darvel ECC, and to our Support Assistant Thomas, who is now based at Nether Robertland ECC. We wish you both all the best in your new ECCs 💛

Our Depute Manager, Laura, will be taking on the role of Acting Head of Centre until further notice.

We would also like to welcome 2 new Practitioners to the ECC; John and Lauren C have joined us from Onthank ECC and will be based in our 3-5 playroom. Welcome to Team Cairns 💛

Please see below the lunch and dinner menu for 2023/2024

For more information please visit the East Ayrshire Council website

We are running low on our stock of wipes and would greatly appreciate any donations to the ECC 😊 Thank you!

Family Fun day on today!

A reminder that the ECC will be closed for in-service days on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th of August.

The ECC will re-open at 8am on Monday 21st of August, when we look forward to seeing all our returning children and meeting our new children 😊

2 more sleeps until Cairns Fest 🎉🪩🎈