Dear Parents/Carers,
Welcome to our February newsletter…
February is going to be a busy month with lots of fun events throughout the rooms covering all the events listed in the newsletter below. With this month having Children’s mental health day and Random act of kindness day, we will be working with the children on: Friendships, being kind, helping out our peers, cheering up a peer when they seem sad etc.
We also wanted to let you know that we will be undergoing a wonderful brand transformation! Our nursery will be rebranding it’s permanent external signage, website and logo to reflect the high quality, premium childcare we offer with a fresh modern look and feel. More information available below.
Staff Update
We have Kayleigh returning from maternity leave, she will be joining Bluebells and Daisies for cover. We also welcome Carrie to Daisies full time! Carrie is level 3 qualified and returning from Maternity. She is very excited to join team Astwick!
Nursery Fees
As we have so many new parents at the nursery, this is just a polite reminder that fees are due on 1st of each month. We are aware that tax free childcare payments can take a couple of days to get to us, we ask that you try and transfer these before the 1st to ensure they are in our bank on time but will give leeway by a couple of days due to this for these payments. Any payments not received by the 7th of each month will receive a reminder and may then incur a late payment charge.
As always, if you need to discuss anything, please do not hesitate to contact us via the Famly app or by contacting the office, and we will be happy to help.
Have a great month and please keep an eye on the Famly App for updates!
Bluebells (Ages 3 – 5 Years)
In the month of January the Bluebells have been focusing on the topic “all about me”. We have spent lots of time looking at ourselves, what are our similarities, differences and what makes us all unique.
We have looked at how big our feet are by measuring in squares and painted footprints. We have been measuring our bodies too by using a height chart and when out on walks, using sticks. We have been speaking a lot about who is in our homes and the type of houses we live in. The children have been really involved in telling us all about their homes where they then went on to make their own stick houses. Along all this, as it’s one of the children’s favourite things to do, we have been practising writing names of members of our families or drawing pictures of them!
Whilst on walks we have been practicing our gross motor skills when building bridges, making see saws, kite flying and big running games! Keeping ourselves warm in the cold winter weather. We have been speaking a lot about the change in weather during our walks and at circle time. How the puddles were once water and how they turned to ice, and then back to muddy puddles.
Some of the children have been able to participate in some forest school sessions with Harriet where we have been using the saw to cut tree coins and then using the hand drill to make holes to thread string through. We have been learning how to make dens and going on various bug hunts using our nets, magnifying glasses and binoculars.
The bluebells have started looking at letter and number of the week where during our morning circles times we speak about the letter or number and the sound it makes. Following this will be various activities throughout the week focusing on them. Februarys letters will be: C, D, E and F. Our numbers will be 3, 4, 5 and 6.
This month the children have spent so much time in the home corner and building areas. Spending time caring for babies and pretending they are builders. For the month of February our topic will be occupations, where we will be adding bits to our home corner, adapting other areas in the room, looking at various occupation including dentist, doctors and postal workers. Our book of the month will be “Real Superheroes”.
January has been a very exciting month for Lilies as we have discovered all sorts of cultural experiences. As we have explored ice play and discovering animals that live in Oceania and Antarctica. We have enjoyed learning about America too, through creating our own burger inspired play dough, making American flags and even did some baking too. Which we made apple pies and pancakes. Asia was also fun too as we encountered in an Asian cuisine, trying noodles, spring rolls and bean shoots. As this year was the year of the Rabbit we incorporated this by creating rabbit pictures and even painted with carrots too. We then went onto discover Europe, this entailed us exploring spaghetti play, tasting European foods during our stay and play and even making our own pizzas as well. Lastly we explored Africa, as we created pasta necklaces and made our own rice shakers too. The Lilies children have had so much fun this month.
During the month of February we decided to explore the topic of relationships. Throughout this month we will look at one of our main focuses which is friendships and how we treat our friends. As well as exploring families and our nearest and dearest, this includes our pets too! It is also coming up to Valentine’s day in which is a day of love and kindness as we are really excited to explore that and discover the value that this really means. Which will involve lots of hearts and discovering our feelings too.
Our book of the month last month was ‘it’s a wonderful world’, Lilies have really enjoyed reading this and mostly pointing out all the animals they could see through out. As well as one of the practitioners singing the song to them, which they really enjoyed. Throughout February our book of the month will be ‘Mr Big’ this book teaches and helps children gain the knowledge about how we shouldn’t judge others for the way they look. As it also talks about feeling as people are scared of him, but he is really a big softie. As we will explore the value of mutual respect and curtesy of others.
Over the course of January in Daisies we have closely explored our new topic of health and nutrition. Within this we have looked at a wide variety of healthy foods and have been using these to enhance many sensory play opportunities! Some of these which we have explored include vegetable paint stamping, frozen fruits, incorporating herbs and citrus fruits into our play dough and pretend play picnics. We have also been working on our communication skills to learn the names of foods along with the signs for these too. Many of the children were encouraged through this to speak about which foods are their favourites to eat!
We have also been practicing our physical skills through a range of movements in play such as jumping, turning around, rolling and kicking a ball, dancing and following some fun yoga moves too. We found that there are so many fun ways to be active! We have also enjoyed some parachute games where we worked together with our peers to move the parachute in different ways.
Along with this, we have been learning about people who help to keep our bodies healthy through the use of role play. We have explored both dentists and doctors role play, during which the children showed great interest in exploring a variety of tools used by these professionals. Through observing the Daisies staff modelling how to use these, many of the children thoroughly enjoyed taking on the role of a doctor/dentist through checking their peers hearts with a stethoscope, cleaning pretend teeth with brushes etc.
Following on from this, our new topic for February will be ‘People who help us’. During this topic we will be exploring many different professions including doctors, dentists, hairdressers, mechanics, builders and many more! We will be incorporating these roles into a variety of areas of learning and look forward to sharing these with you along the way. To support this topic, we would love to see some photos of family members in their own job roles! Please feel free to send us some pictures on Famly so that we can print and laminate to share with the children during our group times.
Tulips (Ages 3 – 15 months)
This month our topic has been role play. We have been exploring lots of different activities to the weekly themes such as Vets, Doctor, Dentist, Teacher and Chef.
We have been learning what the different professionals do in their work and recreating this through role play. We have been caring for the toy animals by washing them and putting bandages on the injured ones. We have enjoyed craft activities and created our own pets using dabbers. We loved learning the different animal noises too. We have enjoyed looking after the dolls, putting them to bed, feeding them, giving them cuddles and singing songs. During Doctor/Dentist week we have implemented Oral health and we have learned how to look after our teeth through different activities such as brushing cut out teeth using tooth brushes. We have been doing cooking activities and we have enjoyed a spaghetti tuff tray, pretending to cook our very own spaghetti with meatballs.
Next month our topic is going to be colours. We will be exploring different colours each week starting with
- Black and White
- Red and Pink
- Orange and Yellow
- Green and Blue
Outdoor Clothing
Please can all children be suitable dressed and prepared for outdoor action!
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.
Outdoor Clothing
Please can all children be suitable dressed and prepared for outdoor action!
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.
Parent Observations
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
It should then pop up as a parent observation on the screen and you can add your observation along with photos and videos by clicking the camera icon. It would also be great if you can share your input into our home activities by uploading photos of your child completing these at home.
