Last week, when we were in the woods, we noticed lots of tiny frogs hopping about. It was very exciting to see. One particular frog we named Dave, and we watched him hop away into the woodland.

This week we discovered that Dave and his pals were not, in fact, frogs at all. They were TOADS.

Of course, frogs and toads look a lot alike but they aren’t the same, and that is important.

It would be a bit like saying a rectangle looks quite like a square, so it’s fine to call it a square. Or that pink is a bit like red, so either name will do.

Adults don’t always get it right. The important bit is being curious enough to notice, check, and keep updating our knowledge banks.

And, knowing the names of the creatures and plants we share our world with is important — it helps us notice them, value them and care for them.

At CVN we make mistakes, but we’re happy to own up to them. We’re also comfortable saying when we don’t know something. After all, we can always try to find out.

So, thank you to Dave and his pals for teaching me something new this week.

Try this at home:
Look out for something in the natural world that you don’t know the name of… yet.

It has been lovely to see our children back at nursery this week. There has been great excitement as they shared stories of their summer adventures and enjoyed catching up with friends.

Of particular excitement was Wednesday’s partial solar eclipse. The children enthusiastically made and decorated cardboard viewers in the hope of watching it safely. This one activity led us into so many different areas of learning: light and shade, the movement of the Sun, Moon and Earth, how shadows are created. There was science, physics, geography, design and problem-solving—all arising naturally from one event in the sky.

Sadly, we saw very little of the eclipse itself because of cloud cover but there was learning in that disappointment too: nature does not always cooperate with our plans, but the preparation, anticipation and discoveries we made along the way were still worthwhile.

Back in the woodland, we spotted lots of teeny-tiny frogs hopping around. The children named one Peter and watched as he hopped away into the woods. The frogs were so well camouflaged that they were extremely difficult to see while sitting still—but, as soon as they hopped, we could spot their movement.

All in all, another magical week following nature’s path for learning.

See if you can find a long shadow cast by a tree or lamppost. Place a marker, such as a stick or stone, at the end of it. Come back a little while later—does the shadow still touch your marker?

We hope everyone enjoyed some down time during the summer break 🤞🏻

We are looking forward to welcoming our children back into nursery from today, Wednesday, as well as looking forward to meeting some new children joining us over the next session.

Today is also a very big day for our 2026 leavers as they head off to school. We will miss you all but know you will have a lot of fun there, meeting new friends and learning lots of new things 💕

Our Parent Summary Standards & Quality Report for 2025/2026 is now available.
It celebrates the progress we’ve made over the past year, highlights the impact of our outdoor nursery approach, shares the voices of our children and families, and explains the four improvement priorities that will guide our work during 2026/2027.

A huge thank you to our children, families, staff, volunteers and community partners. Everything we achieve is built on the relationships we share, and we look forward to continuing that journey together.

We are disappointed to share that following a recent visit from the Care Inspectorate, we have been advised that our application to register as a fully outdoor nursery is not being supported at this stage.

While we are still awaiting the formal written report, feedback provided yesterday was that our community centre garden is not considered a suitable environment for registration as a fully outdoor nursery. We were advised that fully outdoor settings are expected to operate from natural green spaces rather than from a paved garden space such as ours.

This comes as a surprise, as Care Inspectorate guidance simply defines an outdoor setting as “an early learning and childcare setting where the provision is outside requiring minimal infrastructure” and states that it will “support and encourage innovative models of outdoor experiences and opportunities for children.”

This means that, once again, it is time for us to regroup and decide on our next step in our journey towards outdoor registration. In the meantime, however, this decision does not affect children’s day-to-day experiences. We will continue to spend the majority of our time outdoors, both in the garden and in Gillies Hill Community Woodland, providing the same outdoor play and learning opportunities that we know our children and families value.

It’s probably fair to say that we’ve all been enjoying the beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures of the last week. Indeed for many it felt just too hot! And, if we ever needed a reason, it was another that makes us appreciate being able to visit the woodland.

One of the hidden benefits of spending time in the woods is that the trees create their own natural cooling system. While paved surfaces and buildings can quickly heat up in the sunshine, the woodland provides natural shade and cooler temperatures, creating a more comfortable environment for children to play, explore and learn. On colder days we often notice the opposite too, with the trees providing shelter from wind and frost. Nature has a remarkable way of helping to moderate the weather.

Although water is always a magnet for children and something they are keen to explore (often in depth 🤣), the warmer temperatures made splashing and guddling even more appealing.

These small crustacean beasties are an important part of the woodland ecosystem and sparked lots of discussion about what they eat and why they might choose the burn as their home.

Children also noticed unusual growths on some beech leaves. These are known as midge galls and are formed when tiny insects lay their eggs in developing leaves. They provided another opportunity to look closely at the natural world, share ideas and think about how we might learn more.

Perhaps most importantly, the children experienced something that cannot easily be recreated indoors: the cool shade of the trees on a hot day, the refreshing water of the burn around their feet, and the excitement of discovering living things in their natural habitat.

This week reminded us that nature is often the best teacher. The shade of the trees kept us cool, the burn invited exploration, and children’s curiosity did the rest.

Notice Something New

On your next walk, challenge your family to find one thing they’ve never noticed before.

The best discoveries often start with a simple question:

“What is that?”

P.S. We’d love to hear what you discover! Please share your nature finds with us whether it’s an interesting leaf, a tiny beastie, an unusual flower or something that simply made you stop and wonder.

Training opportunities last week gave our team the opportunity to reflect on the importance of play and all of the learning that can be found within everyday moments. In her role as CVN’s Play Champion, Katie has also been encouraging us to think more deeply about children’s right to play and how the importance of play within children’s learning and development is often overlooked.

One moment from last week that stayed with me was watching one of our wee ones exploring mud and water at the Fairy Tree. She moved back and forward between the mud and the burn, deliberately covering her wellies in mud before stepping back into the water to wash them “all clean”. Again and again, she repeated the process, giggling and laughing, completely absorbed in what she was doing.

To many people, it may have looked like a very simple game, yet she was exploring, experimenting, observing and noticing change. She was balancing on uneven ground, coordinating her movements and making decisions independently as she moved between the mud and the water. Most importantly, her laughter reflected just how much she was enjoying the experience.

Through simple experiences like these, children begin to notice patterns, changes and cause and effect — from discovering that bigger jumps create bigger splashes to observing how rainfall changes the burn from one day to the next.

It is often true that some of the richest learning happens during these child-led moments, where children have time and space to follow their own ideas, test things out and become fully involved in what they are doing. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises play as an important part of childhood, and moments like these remind us why.

Sometimes the smallest moments of play can hold some of the most significant learning.

As you may know, we’ve been working slowly but steadily towards moving to the woods and registering there as a fully outdoor nursery. As you may also know, that process is taking significantly longer than we had anticipated 😞

While we continue to wait for the appropriate permissions to be confirmed, we’ve decided to make progress in other directions.

As a result, we’ve submitted an application to the Care Inspectorate to register as a fully outdoor nursery operating from the Community Centre garden, reflecting the fact that we already spend almost all of our days learning and playing outside.

This won’t result in any significant changes for children and families — they will continue to benefit from our outdoor ethos as before — but it will bring some subtle changes to how we operate behind the scenes. We are looking at this positively as another stepping stone in our journey.

The Care Inspectorate estimate a minimum of 3 months for the registration process, so for now it’s very much business as usual.

Although this represents a detour from our original plan, we see it as an important and positive step forward — one that strengthens our outdoor approach and keeps us moving in the right direction.