Wellies at the ready...

Just a note to say all children are welcome along on our gardening party day. There will be plenty of planting and digging for them to do, however they do need to be supervised by parents or a responsible adult.

Remember you can come along at any point during the day; morning or afternoon, they'll be plenty to keep us going until at least 4pm.

Please bring in any 'loose parts' from the list on the newsletter at any time. We are collecting them in the large garden and then can see what we still need to get for Saturday the 15th.

P.S. If you like what you read, please click to follow the blog (top left hand corner) and leave us a comment....go on you know you want to...

You are invited to a garden party

We are holding a garden party 

on 

Saturday 15th October from 9am onwards

Now before you think...

it will be more like this...

okay, hopefully this...

We need as many hands, (big, small, young or old), as we can get to begin landscaping our outdoor space. 

If you are not sure what we are trying to achieve, please read all about it here.

However much or as little time you can dedicate would be fantastic. If you can't make it, don't worry you can still support us. Look out for the newsletter, coming out soon, with a list of bits and pieces you could have lying around that we need to enhance our garden. Subscribe to the newsletter

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible, just remember whatever we achieve will make an immediate impact to how your children learn outdoors so the more we get done the better. 

Mary, Mary, quite contrary...

...how does your garden grow? Now that we have found our feet in our new rooms, attention turns to our garden. In a setting such as ours surrounded by rolling fields and beautiful ancient trees, it seems such a shame to rely on plastic toys to play and learn with outside. Surely we can use nature to provide the fun? After all, when we go for a walk in the countryside, do our children wait patiently by our side until we find some brightly coloured park to start playing?

No they climb trees and logs. They jump in muddy puddles. They pick things up, look under them and ask how and why. They dig. So why, I keep asking myself, can't we have that?

I have spent some time on the internet looking at some truly inspirational nurseries and how they use natural resources to create exciting play opportunities. 

My particular favourites incorporate huge sand pits, running water features, places to hide and places to build. They use plants and rocks to make dinosaur lands and fairy gardens. Logs and stumps to balance and jump from, even places to build dens. 

This is a tiny oasis is in the middle of Edinburgh City centre and started off life as a slab of tarmac...lucky children...

All this and it is sustainable. The garden will only get better as time moves on and areas become established.

Still not convinced? Well would you rather have this.....

or this

  

Want to know more? Look here for some other ideas of what we want our garden to look like;

http://pinterest.com/lynds79/nursery-garden-inspiration/

All we need now is a little bit of help....

Highs and lows

What a roller-coaster couple of weeks we have had. The lows came just before we opened the new Ferns room last week as we received news that, due to the damp, we could not move in. Even worse we had to move as much of the new equipment out as possible so if anyone happened to pass the nursery a couple of Fridays ago, you would have noticed the lights on and several very tired ladies (some on their 12th hour at work) repositioning furniture late into the evening, you know know why. 

With the thought of around 20 or so children, eager to get into their new room, we ploughed on and were finally ready to open our doors on Monday. Thank you to all our parents who have waited patiently for this to happen and have been supportive when our plans have gone ary. With Ferns room now needing to be completely reconditioned and refurbished, we shall be sharing with Bluebells for a a while to come. Fingers crossed work gets under way sooner rather than later.

Along with the lows, came the highs. With Ferns and Bluebells moving out, Buttercups inherited their old room and quickly set about changing it into a messy room which now houses water, sand and creative areas. Now there is twice as much space to have lots of fun learning. 

Being new to the nursery I have enjoyed getting to know lots of excited, new faces and voices. It has been wonderful to see the room full of children exploring all our different workshops and learning to access their resources independently. We have also had fun making 'peg monsters' to help us identify where our bags and coats go.

Our focus now turns onto the garden and how to create a natural playscape for the children to learn in.

How amazing would that be?

Watch out for the new newsletter in the coming weeks updating you on our plans and asking for any 'loose parts' to support our outdoor learning.