Dear Parents/Carers,
Welcome to our March Newsletter!
We will be updating our Covid-19 risk assessment with all the changes that come into effect from end of February will share this with you via Famly. We will also re-send out an overview of our main policies – please note that these are only a bitesize version of our policies which cover hundreds of pages and so if you would like to know anything in particular please let us know.
We are planning to hold a parents evening at the beginning of April, this will be an opportunity for you to come in and talk to your child’s key person about how they are getting on. We will share information about booking in slots over the next couple of weeks. The slots will be for short periods of time to allow all parents to get the opportunity to speak to their child’s key person and so if you would like a more in depth chat after this please let us know and we can arrange a second meeting at a later date.
Staff Update:
Firstly we have Kristie joining the Daisies team part time from March. Kristie is level 2 qualified and working towards her level 3 qualification and will be working Monday, Tuesday & Thursday. She will be handing over with Kayleigh during the next few months before Kayleigh goes off on maternity leave. Kristie has lots of experience in a nursery setting and has come over to us from another Monkey Puzzle nursery due to her own relocation.
We also have Andrea joining the Lilies team from mid-March full time. Andrea is level 3 qualified and also holds higher qualifications as a teaching assistant. Andrea has a wealth of experience from all areas of the sector and also as a parent and is looking forward to sharing her ideas and experiences with us.
Finally Stephanie is joining our over 2’s team as lunch cover Monday-Friday. Stephanie is level 3 qualified and will be supporting both Lilies & Bluebells over the coming months.
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 (Ages 3 – 5 years)
Throughout February Bluebells have enjoyed exploring emotions. We have looked at our feelings and how we can express them.
The colour monster was the key book used to assist our discussion about our different emotions and to give colours to the feelings. The children also read some other books about emotions during circle time and they tried to recognise which emotions their friends were acting out. In addition to this, they drew their own colour monster to show how they were feeling at different times. The children also quite enjoyed making different colour playdough to recreate their faces and describe how they were feeling.
Another activity the children showed a particular interest in was talking about how certain things make them feel and then writing down the word or describing it to an adult. For example, they explained how going in a new school might make them feel anxious.
Over the next month or so the children will start their journey around the word. They really enjoyed speaking about Chinese new year and trying Chinese food so we started talking about other countries and what they do so we decided to embark a journey around the word! We will start our adventure in South Africa where we will discover local cuisine, look at the different animals that live there and we will also read the story, Handa’s Surprise.
Next we will sail from Africa to Europe and we will discover France. We will look at the different food there and we will explore Paris using the story, The Dancing Man from France. We will than take a train ride to Italy were we will recreate some typical Italian food, look at some architecture and try to recreate it. The next stop will be Ireland and England, we will continue to look and compare at all the different food and landscapes of the countries.
If the children continue to show an interest in this we will continue around the world exploring more cultures in relation to the variety of families we have in our room.
Lilies (Ages 2 – 3 years)
Throughout February we have had an amazing month learning all about space. We started off by looking at space travel where we created our own space rockets out of cardboard boxes and participated in an activity to make space helmets. We enjoyed reading the story ‘Whatever Next’ and re-enacting parts of it in our rockets. The children also got the chance to watch a live feed of the astronauts in space and a rocked landing on the moon!
Next we moved onto exploring the different planets. The children loved helping to make Papier-mâché planets where we used sticky glue to place newspaper on balloons. Once they had dried the children helped to decorate them in various colours. We also made our own planets out of playdough, mixing the colours of the planets to create our own versions ie. blue and green for Earth.
We have also been learning all about the stars and the moon where we created moon and star hanging mobiles. The children have learnt about moon rocks and had the opportunity to create our own. Overall this month we have learned many new things about space through a variety of activities. We hope you have enjoyed some of the activities at home!
In March we are going to explore ‘transport’. Recently the children have loved plane spotting in the garden. When we go on our walks the children always ask about what they might see such as tractors and so we will be looking at the different types of transport we can see on the farm. We will then talk about different types of transport we see out and about including cars, planes, boats and emergency vehicles. If you do happen to work with an emergency vehicle and could come and show the children please let us know as we know they’d love it!
Daisies (Ages 15 – 24 months)
The Daisies have had lots of fun throughout February with our friends and family topic. A strong favourite was feeding the babies together with a mixture of props and food. We have also been practicing our turn taking skills, teamwork and identifying people who matter to us through photos and talking about them with our friends.
For March our topic will be ‘Growth’. We will be introducing new gardening experiences and watching our flowers/ fruit and vegetables grow. Alongside this we will be creating indoor experiences around other types of growth eg: how we grow, how animals grow and beginning to introduce Spring.
Throughout our room, the children really enjoy our role play areas. As the baby station has become a real favourite which is perfect with so many baby brothers and sisters on the way, we would love to be able to provide real life photos from the children’s home life. Please could you send in some new family photos for us so we can create new family books for all the children. These photos can include: any pets, close family members, their favourite room in the house, a picture of your house, garden and even their favourite toys at home.
Tulips (Ages 3 – 15 months)
Throughout February our topic was animals. Each week we have looked at different types of animals including farm animals, animals under the sea, insects and pets. We have been busy creating collages using animals, creating their foot prints and watching the marks we were making with the toy animals in the room.
We enjoyed playing with our farm, talking about the different animals and supported the children in learning the different sounds they make. It was fun copying some of the sounds.
We had an insects tuff tray to explore next, filled with flour and insects. Using our hand eye coordination we were looking for the hidden insects and explored the different textures using our senses. We have also enjoyed painting using stencils discovering different shapes.
Water play was great fun too, exploring the different creatures like whales, sharks and dolphins. We had a fake snow tuff tray to explore too, made of cornflour and conditioner. The texture was very interesting and it was fun to discover more animals like penguins, polar bears and seals. We also had pictures of our friend’s pets which we loved looking at. Finally we have been singing some animal songs and looking at our “that’s not my……” books, exploring different textures on each page and discovering which animal sounds we remember.
Next month our topic will be transport. We will be looking at various types of transport including emergency transport, farm vehicles, aircraft and boats. We will be exploring the different vehicles in their environments, reading stories, looking at pictures, watching videos and hopefully seeing some when out on walks on the farm. We will be busy painting vehicles and exploring the tracks we are making with them. Finally there will be loads of fun themed tuff trays to explore.
Outdoor Clothing
Please can you bring in a named puddle suit and wellies for your child to have at nursery when they go out to play in the garden and to make the most of the farm and get stuck in in all the mud and the puddles without ruining our shoes!
Can you please also bring in a winter hat and gloves as the temperate is still cold. Please note that we cannot have gloves that are on string due to the hazards they can present.
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 will be joining in celebrating and raising money for Comic Relief today by celebrating ‘you’.
We will be encouraging the children to put on their fancy dress or wear red and give a £1 contribution to charity.
The children will also be talking about the things that make them themselves and celebrating their achievements.
The nursery will also be hosting a bake sale to raise money.
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
