News and Events
West End Wellies Nursery
17th April 2024
As you are aware, we have recently purchased a new nursery building in Mannofield, Aberdeen. This is right next door to both the Squash Club and Aberdeenshire Cricket Club. Work has commenced on our new building and we are hoping to fully open around August / September 2024. We are very excited for this new opportunity. Please contact us if you would like to know more about booking a space within West End Wellies. We will keep you updated with all progress. We have large floorbooks in both receptions showing “before” photos, plans and ideas for improvement to West End Wellies. Please give us your ideas, we want to be as creative as possible. We currently have spaces available for all ranges at KingsWellies, QueensWellies and West End Wellies. Please contact the office for additional information on 01224 741175 or admin@kingswelliesnursery.com
What will we be learning and thinking about in term 4?
17th April 2024
Over the next few weeks, we will be focusing on a variety of topics in our playrooms. These will include: • KINDNESS – Are you a bucket filler or a bucket dipper? We will be working on promoting Kindness • Writing our names and learning lots of rhyming words • Improving our outside environments • Improving our inside environments • Discussing our new nursery and what WE would like to see there • Developing our Enterprise in Education skills • Working with our amazing Extra-Curricular teachers – Gym Bunnies, Moo Music, Kids Rock, Chef Lisa, Flashdance, French, Yoga Kids, Rugby Totts. Please contact our Admin team if you would like your child to join Gym Bunnies, Flashdance, Yoga Kids or Rugby Totts. These are all AMAZING additional experiences for your children to enjoy within their nursery day • Child-led improvement groups – Our Eco Group, Kindness Group, Playground Improvement Group, Bucket Filler Group, Charities Group and Graduation Group will keep working hard to improve our nursery. • Allotment planting, wellie planting, planting our pots and hanging baskets – would any parents or grandparents be willing to come in to help us with this? • Life cycles • 2D and 3D shape – lots of junk modelling letting our imaginations run wild. Please give us your household junk! • Seasons, Summer and sun safety – please remember your sun cream! • The Scottish Daily Mile - we aim to jog, run or walk for up to 15 minutes every day! • LOTS of Reflection Time in our interest / colour groups; talking about our learning and what we would like to learn with our key workers then reflecting this is our floorbooks • Working on our floorbooks, talking tubs and thinking trees • Outdoor play – barbeques, pizza oven, mud kitchens, sensory walks, environmental print walks, visiting the nature reserves, water walls, minibeast hunts, dens, forest schools, Eco Schools, Mount Everest and lots more • Grow well choices – making healthy decisions • Makaton – we are getting good at using this sign language! Simone is an amazing teacher! • Transport and Road Safety • Reading and studying our books from our Book Bug Bags • Visits out and about in the community – using the bus • Visits from our new P1 teachers • Visits to some of our schools • Rules and routines • Getting ready for school • 3RD April – World Autism Month. We have an excellent Autism Toolbox that we will send out to all families • 10th April – National Siblings Day • 12th – Space Flight Day • 15th April – KingsWellies 9th Birthday Party! • 22nd April – Earth Day • 23rd April – St George’s day (England) • 25th April – World Penguin day • 27th April – Tell a story day • 29th April – International dance day • 30th April – International jazz day. • 30th April – National honesty day • 1st May – World Laughter day • 1st May – Mother Goose day • 7th May – Space day • 10th May – National vegetarian week • 14th May – World migratory bird day • 15th May– International day for families • 20th May – World Bee day • 21st May – KW Quality Assurance Visit from Aberdeen City Council • 23rd May – World turtle day • 24th May – Scavenger hunt day • 25th May – National tap dance day • 27th May – Stay and Play at KingsWellies, Babies and Totts, 2.30pm until 4pm • 28th May – Stay and Play at KingsWellies, Beans and Jellies, 2.30pm until 4pm • 29th May – National biscuit day • 30th May – Bike week • 31st May – No tobacco day • 1st June – World milk day • 1st June – Say something nice day • 4th June – Stay and Play at QueensWellies, Wellie Bumbles, 2.30pm until 4pm • 5th June – Stay and Play at QueensWellies, Wellies Bees, 2.30pm until 4pm • 5th June – National environment day • 6th June – QW quality assurance visit from Aberdeen City Council • 7th June – National food safety day • 8th June – Global day of parents • 8th June – World ocean day • 8th June – Graduation Photo day for our 2024 graduates • 13th June – Healthy eating week • 15th June – Nature photography day • 16th June – Father’s day • 19th June – National picnic week • 20th June – Longest day • 21st June – International day of yoga • 21st June – World giraffe day • 21st June – Make music day • 29th June – Children’s art week • 29th June – International mud day • 1st July – International joke day • 20th July – Class of 2024 Graduation party. Information has already been sent home • Literacy, Numeracy and Health and Wellbeing – LOTS of exciting learning opportunities.
Children as Active Learners: Books for bereavement, loss, grief, stress, worry and separation
17th April 2024
We have lots of different books available in nursery. Please just see a member of staff if you would like to borrow any of them. We also have child lending libraries, parent lending libraries, kindness bags, bucket filler bags, literacy bags, numeracy bags, health and wellbeing bags, hamster bags and Patsy / Tony bags which can all be borrowed and used at home to further develop your child’s learning and engagement. Please just ask a member of staff who will be more than happy to help. Vicki from the Wellie Jellies room, has also recently very kindly made up a new digital resource to support those children who are transitioning to P1. This information will be sent home soon to gauge the interest of these parents. THANK YOU Vicki!
Staffing
17th April 2024
Welcome to a number of new staff who have all recently joined us as support staff and practitioners within our rooms. Staff photos can be seen up in our reception areas. We are delighted to welcome such dedicated staff to our teams. Please also see our Facebook posts where we keep you abreast of staffing changes and all that is happening on a day-to-day basis across all rooms within Wellies Nurseries. We realise that there have been lots of staff changes recently. We have had to move some staff to new rooms in order to ensure that we have a good balance of old and new staff in each room. We have considered all room moves very carefully. However, our aim is to ensure consistency as much as possible for our children, in their everyday lives. Although some children may experience changes in their Key Workers, we will ensure that this is done very sensitively and over time. Staff will keep you abreast of all changes. We are also continuing to recruit for our new West End Wellies Nursery so you will see lots of new faces over the next few months, as we train all staff ready for opening.
KingsWellies 9h Birthday
17th April 2024
We are so proud to say that KingsWellies will be 9 years old on the 15th April 2024. We can hardly believe it! A LOT has happened in the past 9 years! A huge thank you to all of our amazing staff. We really cannot underestimate how hard they all work to ensure that our Wellies children are safe, happy, nurtured and learning. A very special thanks also goes to Laura, Marcia and Emma who have all been with us from day one when we opened on 15th April 2015. That level of commitment and loyalty is almost unheard of. Huge thanks to these very special ladies. Look out for our birthday celebrations on Facebook.
Scholastic Book Fair
17th April 2024
We raised a Whooping £173.30 towards new books for the nursery. Huge thank you to everyone who purchased a book from us. The children are all busy choosing and ordering their new books, as we speak.
Outdoor Education
17th April 2024
Our Outdoor Committee will be working hard with Scott and AJ to improve our outdoor education area. This is an ongoing project. Laura and all of the Managers have lots of exciting ideas for our outdoor areas so will be working hard to ensure that it is awash with lots of literacy, numeracy and health activities. Please give us your feedback on how we can continue to improve these very important areas. If any parents, grandparents or friends would like to support us with our Spring / Summer planting projects, please let us know. We will be planting up our old wellies, hanging baskets, pots and allotments. We are really excited to get going with this.
Health and Wellbeing
17th April 2024
For more ideas on what you can do with your child at home to promote health and happiness, you can download lots of activity guides from www.ndna.org.uk/healthy We LOVED having Megan in to work with us and to tell us all about National Down Syndrome Day. We had great fun sorting and matching odd socks, making sock puppets, designing our own trendy socks, counting socks and learning why it is good to be different! We have also loved meeting up with our Aberdeen Friday Friends Group and developing excellent partnership working across our communities. If any parents, grandparents or friends would like to come in to talk to us about their families, cultures or memories; we would LOVE to welcome you with open arms. Please just get in with our admin team. We have been also been learning all about road safety, kitchen safety, bus safety, stranger danger, how to brush our teeth properly, good hand hygiene, healthy food choices, what to do in a Fire Drill, how to phone 999 in an emergency, our families and friendships, respecting rules and routines, being GOOD bucket fillers and talked lots about our emotions and keeping ourselves safe. We have also LOVED our Grow Well Choices project with Lisa where we have been learning all about making healthy life choices.
What else have the Wellies Gang been up to?
17th April 2024
Chinese New Year, fun with our Therapets (Tony and Patsy), looking after our hamster, Bucket Fillers, Robbie Burns Day, national kindness day, Makaton training, pancake day, Valentine’s Day, random acts of kindness day, national anthem day, minibeast hunts, World Down Syndrome Day, meeting our Aberdeen Friday Friends Group, visits from ChildSmile, puddle-jumping, celebrating red nose day, collecting tadpoles, World Book Day, Scholastic book fair, enjoyed picnics, being Eco Warriors, visits to the park, supermarkets, QueensWellies, Dobbies and the library, Mother’s Day, working with our extra-curricular teachers and LOTS more………….
Easter Celebrations
17th April 2024
We have been very busy celebrating all aspects of Easter and have lots more planned for Spring. We have made Easter bonnets, painted daffodils, painted Spring flowers, pressed Spring flowers, made lots of chocolate treats, found out about the lifecycle of a chick, researched the life cycle of frogs, undertaken Easter scavenger hunts, found out about caterpillars, butterflies and bunny rabbits, released our own butterflies, made lots of beautiful arts and crafts, baked bread and made lovely Easter cards.