Dear Parents/Carers,
We can’t believe we are already a third of the way through the year but finally the weather is starting to get brighter and warmer.
Parents Evening:
Thank you to all our parents who attended our parents evening last week. This was the first time we held such an event and hope all parents who attended found the session valuable. If weren’t able to attend please let us know and we will schedule a session where you can discuss progress with your child’s keyworker.
Staff Update:
Mary has joined the team at Astwick in March, in a part-time role. Mary has worked at the nursery previously however took some time out to have her own daughter during the pandemic but was ready to get back into nursery life again. Mary is Level 3 qualified and has completed all her basic training. She will be supporting across all rooms but will most likely be found in the under 2’s!
Jodie has also joined our team in Lilies in March alongside Louisa, Holly, Navreet, Farrah, Andrea and Charlotte. Jodie works 4 days per week as a nursery apprentice and is in the process of completing her level 3 qualification. Sharon will also be joining the Lilies team in April as a part time nursery assistant. Sharon has lots of experiences looking after both her own children and also being a childminder in her previous role.
Lending Library
We are looking at updating the books in our lending library out the front of the nursery, if you have any old books you no longer want please feel free to donate these to the nursery to add to our library. If you do borrow a book from our lending library please can you make sure you return it so that other families can also enjoy a read.
Have a great month and please keep an eye on the Famly App for updates!
Bluebells this month enjoyed traveling around the world.
We started in South Africa where we had the opportunity to explore different foods and looked closely at different animals that live in the continent. We also looked at the South African flag colours, made play dough and recreated the flag using colour sand. Moreover, we used Handa surprise book to see which fruits grow in the continent and which animals we can meet.
Our next stop was France, again we had a taste of some traditional food, and we had the opportunity to explore some French books. Our book of the week was the Dancing Man from France. We also tried to build our own Eiffel Tower and we recreated the French flag using playdough and different materials.
After France we flew to Italy where we tasted ice cream and explored some Italian buildings. Bluebells then flew back to England where we explored London and we also spoke about Ireland. We finished the trip by exploring a few more countries such as Poland and New Zealand. We would like to say a huge thank you to parents who helped us with our journey around the world by providing us with food, books, clothing and objects from their home country.
Our book of the month was Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell, everyone really enjoyed listening to this story and doing different activities connecting to the story. We also named our new pet (our giant African snail), Speedy, who is the latest addition to the team!
Bluebells are really showing an interest in space and the solar system, so in April we will be exploring Space; we will look at what there is in Space, how we can get into Space, what a rocket looks like and everything about astronauts! We are all very excited to carry our travels into space next!
Throughout March we have been thoroughly enjoying our topic of ‘Transport’.
We have been rolling cars through different resources such as paint and discovering the effects it makes – rolling it onto the paper, back and forth to create lines. We also enjoyed rolling cars through different materials such as Rice Krispies, sand, cornflakes, flour and seeing what effects this also has. We used fruit such as apples and oranges for wheels and a pear for the frame, using them as stamps to create cars. Also we played lots of matching games, matching up the correct coloured car to the parking lot that corresponds with it. On our walks out on the farm we have been transport watching; searching for planes, gliders and helicopters within the skies, and also discovering the diggers, trucks, cars and tractors along our adventures too.
Since the weather has got warmer, we have been really enjoying our walks on the farm so we have decided our next topic throughout April will be ‘Spring’. We will watch all the changes happening to our environment, from the leaves starting to appear and flowers starting to blossom along with the arrival of the insects and bees! We’re also hoping that lots of baby lambs will be on the way very soon. We look forward to sharing all of our activities on our new topic along with all of our adventures on the farm too!
Our book of the month has been ‘The Gruffalo’ which everyone is really enjoying. Reciting the book word for word, learning the entire story back to front! We have enjoyed activities such as a Gruffalo hunt around the trees, creating Gruffalo crumble, mixing together flour, water, raisins, apricots and more. We also created our own version of the Gruffalo with play dough and different resources such as eyes, pipe cleaners, pom poms etc. Our new book of the month will be ‘The Grumpy Goat’ which is all about farm life and we thought this would tie-in nicely with our topic of ‘Spring’.
The Daisies have had lots of fun throughout March with our topic of growth.
The children have really enjoyed planting their own carrots and tomatoes using a variety of tools and approaches. We have also been exploring our own height and what happens as we grow, as well as how animals grow.
In April our topic will be Spring. We will be continuing to have our weekly gardening activities as well as learning all about Spring and the changes around us. Throughout April we will also be celebrating Easter with the children and creating lots of activities for them to explore together. We would love to see what Easter celebrations you get up to at home!
If you are able to share any photos with us of the adventures or celebrations you have throughout April, that would be great. Using the children’s own experiences provides more confidence when communicating with each other. We can use these photos in our activities and provide more opportunities for the children’s communication to develop.
Throughout March our topic has been transport.
Each week we learned about different themed transport including farm, sea, air and emergency vehicles. We had great fun painting using cars to create different marks, developing our hand-eye coordination. We loved water play, and exploring the boats. We loved the large scale painting of our very own submarine, and we used our hands and feet to explore the textures and marks. We enjoyed decorating paper aeroplanes and flying them; we used crazy foam to represent clouds and used our planes to fly. We loved copying the sounds of aeroplanes and we were also able to talk about different shapes.
We also created all sorts of tuff trays to explore, filled with different resources such as Rice Krispies to represent the mud on the farm and hay. We have also been able to explore farm animals, learning some of the sounds they make and we have also learned some of the animal signs. During science week we enjoyed exploring bath bombs, watching it spin and fizz in the water. We also enjoyed exploring the science tuff tray set up as the moon with flour, foil rocks and flash cards.
We had a great time celebrating Red Nose day, when we all dressed up in red. We created lovely heart pictures and created hearts using playdough developing our fine motor skills. St Patrick’s Day was great fun too; we enjoyed gloop play, finding hidden lucky charms underneath!
Next month our topic will be Spring; we are very excited about the nice weather and spending more time outside. We will be exploring different flowers and using them in play, painting, making marks etc and we will learn about all different colours and shapes. During the run up to Easter, we will be going for an exciting Easter walk, collecting treasures that remind us of Easter, lots of painting and creating our own Easter bonnets.
Outdoor Clothing
We are now providing nursery puddle suits at the nursery starting with our over 2’s rooms. The staff will start sending home your child’s puddle suit as our new suits arrive. Please can you make sure all clothing items are labelled with your child’s name or initials so we can make sure they are returned to the correct family.
We are starting to get into the time of year where sun cream is needed. We use Boots kids 50+ sun cream at the nursery and you will received a form to complete to sign to say you are happy with your child using this product. If you are bringing in your child’s own sun cream please make sure it is a new bottle and is labelled with your child’s name.
Parent/home observations are a great tool for us to be able to see your child’s interests at home and also things that they are achieving whilst with you! To add an observation for the key worker to see it is added as follows;
- Go to journey
- Go to new
- New observation
