The motto of my nursery class:
"Sunshine is delicious, 
rain is refreshing, 
wind braces us up, 
and snow is exhilarating; 
there is no such thing as bad weather, 
only different kinds of good weather." 
John Ruskin 1819-1900


I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to work in our partner kindergarten in Norway over the Easter break, it was the perfect chance to spend time in the kindergarten without having to get cover for my own class while I was away. 4 of us in total took part in this job shadowing experience, 2 of us from N. Ireland and 2 from Croatia and as we all lived together for the 2 weeks it allowed for…
The original wooden building has had a beautiful new build added to it. *In December 2020 the U.K government withdrew from the EU funded Erasmus programme, despite assurances during and after the whole Brexit campaign and vote that this would not affect the U.K's participation. (After all many non EU countries already participate) It came as a complete shock to all involved and it proved to be yet…
"Early Childhood is important in its own righting not merely a preparation for later learning. Learning begins at birth and continues throughout life" Tovey H. (2017) Bringing the Froebel Approach to your Early Years Practice p125 I am now 3 sessions in to my Froebel in childhood practice certificate and each online session just strengthens my desire to describe my own practice as Froebelian. It…
I have now been lighting a fire with my nursery class for over 10 years and at this point it feels very much part of the routine of the class. Before we ever light an actual fire we spend time teaching the children how to move safely around the fire, so as a class we sit round the fire pit and practise how to move seats by walking around the back of the seating area and not moving across the are…
"Play is the highest level of child development. It is the spontaneous expression of thought and feeling.....This is the meaning of the word 'play'..." Froebel (1826)in Lilley (1967), p.83-4 For those who are new to my blog or don't know my story, here is a short synopsis. I went back in 1999 to do my PGCE in Primary Education after years of resisting the pull of teaching. You can read more about…
The Numberland Numbers from Haba. In November 2020 I was fortunate to watch an episode of Early Years TV where Kathy Brodie interviewed Barbara Schindelhauer from Numberland. I just loved Barbara's enthusiasm for maths and the concept of Numberland really appealed to me as it encouraged deeper thinking about numbers and attributes of number than just by colour, shape or size. You can visit…
So here in N. Ireland we are back to online learning as schools are closed to the majority of pupils. Moving online this Lockdown should been more manageable for most as schools have spent the last few months upskilling staff and pupils for this very situation - even though we would all prefer to teach face to face any day. Play with water outdoors to explore match and science. In preschool a lot…
We made it - my class survived the first term in nursery during a worldwide pandemic and man do I feel like I have dodged a huge moving juggernaut. I am fortunate to have lots of fellow educators around the world to connect with and share ideas, compare notes and tease out solutions to problems. I would have been lost without the friendship and support of these people the last few months as we…
Early Years people are great at finding solutions, we generally don't wait around for others to tell us what to do, we go off and find ways to make things happen for ourselves. This became very apparent to me recently during the months before we returned to school after lockdown. I attended lots of on line seminars and workshops and realised that I enjoyed the ones attended by fellow early years…
The 27 children have all settled into nursery over the past few weeks. This week has been their first in the big class after spending almost 4 weeks in smaller groups of 15 and 12 for just 2 hours a day. This week and next they will be staying for 3 hours before starting full time from the 12th October (all going well!) We are normally outside every morning for at least an hour and have 2 outdoor…
My class have been following the caterpillars journey on line but is is not the same as seeing it in person. Since March 12th my life as nursery teacher has been turned upside down. That is the last day I taught my class, I was at a conference the next day and we had 2 days off the following week for St Patrick's Day but on that Thursday at home time, I never imagined that that would be the last…
The little holes allow a child to say goodbye to parents. Since 2008 when I had the opportunity to spend a week working in the outdoor class at a Norwegian Barnehage (Kindergarten), you can read about that here: https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2011/01/stumbling-into-embracing-outdoor-play.html I have been an advocate for spending as much time as possible outdoors with my nursery…
Ok, so some of you will be surprised to read that I have just discovered that I love being outdoors, after all my blog is mostly about getting outdoors with my nursery class in all weathers etc. However, anyone who has ever done any training with me will know that I always emphasise that outside of school I am to be found on my sofa reading or watching TV. Well, that has changed when I was…
Whilst nursery is closed I have been recording stories to read to my class. Normally we have a 30 minute story time every day & can read up to 4 books during this time, I am missing doing this & am sure the children are too. So each week I give them a choice of 3 books & then vote through our class app to decide the order they are read in. I had been keeping them just for my class but then I saw…
More ideas for when the children are at home from school during this pandemic from Creative Star's 50 Maths Outdoors cards. While we can still go out for a walk with children see what numbers they can find on their walk, where are they, do they recognise them or can they just point them out as numbers? It all depends on the age of the child, a preschool child might recognise 'their' number (3 or…
Gathering some stones and painting them during this time will provide endless resources. Here is another idea for those stuck at home with young children during this time of Covid-19. I don't want parents to stress about 'teaching' their young children, rather just enjoy this time with them and watching how they interact with their environment. One activity I saw when visiting a kindergarten in…
We are living in very strange times as the Covid 19 pandemic sweeps across the world. My year as a nursery teacher has been cut short and my little class have begun new chapter in their lives, learning at home with their families. I have faith that their families will get through this and have fun during the next few trying weeks and months. My friend Juliet over at Creative Star Learning Company…
Like most people I have had a love/hate relationship with maths my whole life, I loved it at primary because of particular teachers but quickly I came to hate it at secondary school and in fact was so bad at it, I only passed my 'O' level after being coached outside school. I actually developed a fear of maths and would break out in a cold sweat when asked to do mental maths etc. and my P.G.C.E…
I love how small the world has become since social media came along, it is now so much easier to connect with people around the world and find like-minded individuals to connect with to share ideas etc. I have 'met' so many preschool teachers around the world on Facebook and Twitter and have enjoying learning from them as we discuss our practice and curriculums. However, nothing beats meeting up…
Our school is involved in a two year Erasmus Plus KA2 Project 'European New Generation' with preschools from Denmark, Turkey, Croatia, Finland and Greece. You can read some more about the project in this post: http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/03/maths-everywhere.html So far we have all met up in Turkey and N.Ireland and then this past week we had our third meeting in Finland. Our…
Climbing up the slope using a rope is always a popular activity. We are very fortunate to have two wooded areas within school grounds that were planted by pupils, parents and staff over 5 years ago. The nursery has the sole use of one of them, called Bear Woods and it is just above the nursery accessible by a path that runs around the front of the building. This week we decided to introduce our…
* Whilst not deliberately a political post, it is impossible to talk about funding opportunities without mentioning Brexit and the loss of such opportunities for future pupils and teachers* Since 2004 my school has taken part in many opportunities to travel and engage with colleagues and partners in projects and training across Europe through EU funding from the British Council and the Erasmus…
This year our school is involved in a 2 year Erasmus Plus KA2 Project called 'European New Generation' with school sin Greece, Turkey, Finland, Denmark and Croatia. The theme of our project is maths, science and the arts: the STEAM subjects as it is know referred to. Izmir, Turkey. We started the project off with a teaching event in Izmir, Turkey in December when 3 of our staff travelled there to…
The path was glistening with lovely light 'snow'. This morning as the children arrived for class it began to snow, very light snow like icing sugar but snow nonetheless. The children were so excited and rushed to get on their wet gear, or as they called it today 'snow gear' and had so much fun exploring the playground with this new dusting of snow on it. There was much celebration of there being…
So, I have finished my 4 week study travels as a Churchill Fellow. I actually can't believe how quickly the time went by, as initially I thought 4 weeks away from home would seem like a long time. It has been amazing to actually live in another country for an extended period and to get the opportunity to live like a local as opposed to being a tourist. After this time spent talking to various…