To start the month off we explored lots of different colours in all the rooms, and talked about bonfire night and firework displays. The children all enjoyed painting their own displays.
Remembrance Day
Here the children explored different textures and paints to interpret their own poppies.
Children in Need
We had such huge support this year from the local community to help organise a raffle with some fantastic prizes.
We managed to raise nearly £400 for Children in Need, and we also all got to come to nursery in our pyjama for a whole week!
Here are some of the prizes we had on offer, and also some of the activities we did to help support such a fantastic charity.
Winter weather
To get us ready for the run up to December and Christmas, we even experienced a nice frosting of snow. The children loved to explore and make different marks in the snow. It was great to then come inside and make our own ice and snowflakes too.
Here are a few things that we have been getting up to at Kingswood this month…
In the run up to the New Year, the children took part in an inspiring firework tuff tray activity. They talked a lot about the New Year and how people may celebrate.
Here are a couple of the children playing in the tuff tray.
People who help us!
Pre-School have had some visitors in this month! Thanks to some wonderful parents that willingly gave up their time to answer our call for their assistance, the children were able to learn about what they do for a living and how they help within their role. Among others we were lucky enough to hear from a barrister and a doctor. The children got to try on different items relevant to the jobs and gain knowledge about the roles.
This then inspired great conversations around what they want to be when they grow up, and fabulous role play!
Chinese New Year!
Here we celebrated by having all the children try some delicious Chinese food! We had vegetable spring rolls, prawn crackers and Quorn and vegetable chow mein noodles. The children used their skills to make lanterns, we spoke about it being the Year of the Rabbit, and what everyone else’s birth years were.
Big Garden Bird Watch and Squirrel Appreciation Day!
As part of the Big Garden Bird Watch, and Squirrel Appreciation Day, the children went on a walk around the wooded area across from the setting. We also took a trip to the local park. The children all wanted to see what birds they could find and see if they could spot any squirrels. They looked into where the animals natural habitats were, and came back to make their own animals, and houses for them to live in.
National Storytelling Week!
As part of National Storytelling Week, the Pre-Schoolers took a trip to one of the local libraries. They enjoyed listening to stories and looking at the books while they were there.
Staff have been reminding parents about our own Lending Library, and many children have taken advantage by borrowing a book to take home and enjoy with their parents.
Reading stories at nursery with all the children is very important; afterwards, as a result, they engage in role play, tuff tray activities, and many more, relating to the books that we read. It also contributes greatly to their language development & increasing their vocabulary.
We are now looking forward to World Book Day in March!
This month at Kingswood, we have all really enjoyed incorporating pirate month into our activities. The children have dressed up, read books and learnt all about everything pirate! They have been making pirate ships, having treasure hunts, making treasure maps, hats and eye patches.
Here you can see them using the tea bags to make the paper look ‘old’
Commonwealth Games
The end of July and the beginning of August saw the excitement of the Commonwealth Games, held in Birmingham. We here, in our Pre-School room particularly, decided to hold our own Commonwealth Games activities. This really helped support the children’s physical development, as well as understanding the fun and importance of taking part in the different activities that we did. These included beanbag tossing, jumping and measuring how high, skipping, and hopping races, to name a few!
Yorkshire Day
To support Yorkshire Day the children engaged in a number of different activities. We had teabags in our sensory, we printed and used gluing and sticking to make our own roses, and also moulded the playdough into the shapes of roses. A highlight had to be enjoying our vegetable stew with Yorkshire puddings for lunch!
International Owl Awareness Day
This day also incorporated other nocturnal animals, including bats, and sparked plenty of interest and discussion about what animals are nocturnal, and why they are. It then extended into chat about day time and night time, light and dark, animal sounds, things you can hear and much more! Another extension was making masks of the different animals and role playing their own interpretation of the animals – highly entertaining!
Final Goodbyes :(
Finally, this was the month that we wished farewell to our last lot of school leavers heading off to ‘big school’. It has been so lovely to watch and see them progress throughout the years that they have been with us and we wish them all the best in the future.
We have been getting very busy this month here at Kingswood. Starting with Pancake Day and Ash Wednesday where the children got to experience yummy pancakes for snack and a vegetarian corn beef hash for lunch. We incorporated this into our healthy eating by adding fruit and talking about how the fruit and vegetables keep us healthy.
HEY AWARD – Here at Kingswood we have been working towards our Healthy Early Years Award, between the Deputy Manager Chloe (who is currently on maternity leave) and the Acting Deputy Amy, they have provided staff with the HEY Toolkit, making them more aware of the correct portion sizes, exercise goals, bottle feeding best practice, safe sleep best practice and many more that is included. The beginning of March saw us have our HEY inspection and we are now awaiting our result.
World Book Day came next. The staff and the children enjoyed dressing up as their favourite characters and raising money for the Crackerjacks Children’s Trust. We managed to raise a grand total of £120 – huge thanks to all of those who contributed. The children engaged in story making activities, read their favourite stories and set up book-themed tuff trays. We also promoted our lending library for children to take them home.
Science week stemmed some great exploration, the staff helped the children explored in many different experiments. From bubble wrap painting to volcano eruptions. We continued this on water day talking about the water cycle and conducting an experiment to help explain this cycle.
Comic relief saw the children come dressed in red! We talked to the older children about what comic relief represented and asked questions about how they think people could help. We focused some of our activities around the theme incorporating it into the children’s interests.
We have generally had lots of fun outside, especially the week running up to mothers day where the sun started coming out for Spring.
Mother’s Day the the children did some planting, we talked a lot about what plants need, the beginning of Spring and the cycle of plants. I hope all had a lovely Mother’s Day and we will see you next time our blog comes along.
Well, October has been a very busy month here at Kingswood with activities and events galore! We’ve had everything from our annual photo day to National Poetry Day, Halloween spookiness, scavenger hunts and charity days! Please keep scrolling to read and view more of what we have been up to.
Our Chosen Poem for National Poetry Day
This poem really sparked an interest with the children, encouraging them to discuss the time of year and the season of Autumn. National Poetry Day gave us lots of inspiration for future activities, and ways of how we can extend our knowledge of all things Autumn.
The Pre-School children enjoyed playing outside with the scarves, watching how they flowed in the wind. They made patterns by stretching their arms out wide and using their bodies to move in all different directions.
Halloween
Our spooky skeleton!
The children particularly enjoyed the Halloween party day, but they also learnt new skills by taking part in our baking activities. The babies extended their vocabulary by using new words such as ‘mix’, ‘stir’ and ‘whisk’. The older children developed physical skills by mixing the ingredients together and discussing how the ingredients felt, if they were ‘heavy or light’ and how the mixture changed as we added each new ingredient.
As well as baking, Halloween gave us opportunities to be creative in other ways, so the children took part in and enjoyed potion making, vegetable printing and spider making. Our ‘word of the week’ was also ‘spider’ so we really celebrated this word and incorporated it into many of our October activities and group times!
Wear it Pink
We took part in this event by wearing something pink!!! We all had great fun wearing our pink clothes and raising lots of awareness and money for such a great charity! We raised £200.00 so a big well done and thank you to all who contributed!
Scavenger Hunt!
With all things Autumn solidly in the the forefront of our minds, we went on a scavenger hunt to the field that we are lucky enough to be next door to. We used our autumnal findings for many different activities; we did some amazing leaf rubbing, and some counting and sorting. We found out how fun maths can be! We made piles of different objects we found, we counted them and decided what was heavy and light and what the textures of the objects we collected were like. We did lots of sorting and matching activities too.
Healthy Early Years
Chloe, our setting’s HEY lead (Health Early Years), has been hard at work sharing different recipes that the children love to eat at nursery with all of our families. We most recently shared our ingredients and method for the Rainbow Vegetable Risotto. Some of our parents have given great feedback and said their children ate this meal at home! Chloe has also added to our already healthy and balanced menu to give the children choices amongst the meals we serve. For example, most recently, the children have been offered a beetroot and feta salad as an accompaniment to their jacket potatoes, as well the children voting for if they would like fish fingers or veggie fingers for lunch. The children having the additional choice has been a success!
That’s it for October, but we’ll be back again soon to update you on the latest events at Kingswood :)
Wow, what a busy month May has been! We have been up to all sorts of things, including celebrating festivals and cultures as well as looking after living things and raising money for charity. Take a look below at some of the amazing activities our children have been engaged in. We have also had fantastic news that Claire, from the Baby Room, has been awarded the Termly Bonus for her dedication, hard work and commitment; well done Claire, enjoy your reward!
May Day
The children used flowers to create ‘May Day’ hats to celebrate the Summer. They had lots of fun discussing the colours they could see on the flowers. The children went outside to see what flowers they could see, and even learnt some flower names such as bluebell, pansy and daffodil.
Looking after living things
At Kingswood this month our children have shown a real interest in looking after living things, including our nursery fish Pedro and Guppy, as well as our chrysalis’/caterpillars/butterflies. The children also found a snail in the garden, who they were very interested in; they wanted to find the snail a new home in the nursery garden. As this was an interest led by the children, the adults extended the children’s learning through using story sacks/creative activities and providing new vocabulary to learn.
Ramadan and Eid
At nursery this month we have enjoyed learning about Ramadan and Eid. The children learnt that the traditional food that is used to break the Ramadan fast are dates. Using their senses the children enjoyed tasting some dates using describing words such as soft and sticky. The children have been busy creating moon pictures in celebration of the Muslim festival of Eid, as the new moon is important in determining when Eid will take place. The children enjoyed exploring the textures and using their fine motor skills to collect all of the different materials to make our moon pictures.
Charity Event for Crackerjacks – PJ Day!
What a cosy day we all had wearing our pyjamas! We enjoyed helping to raise money for Crackerjacks Children’s Charity and the Toddlers even pretended to have some ‘bedtime’ stories Well done everyone and thank you to all those who helped to raise our incredible total of £305.50 for such a worthy cause.
Here at Kingswood Day Nursery, we have made the very best of a ‘different’ type of December. During the pandemic we have made every effort to ensure that the children accessing the nursery, are receiving the same level of high quality care, along with a variety of activities to not only extend learning and challenge the children’s creative and critical thinking, but to excite and offer enthusiasm and fun too!
During December Kingswood engaged in a range of festive events starting with a staff team ‘Bake Off’! Each week the staff members from a room within the setting would bake some goodies to share with the rest of the team and I can personally vouch, that the bakes I sampled were yummy!
The nursery also participated in Christmas Jumper Day and we all had so much fun comparing our jumpers, as well as raising some money for the very worthy cause ‘Save the Children’.
We celebrated our home family traditions by having our very own Christmas Dinner Day (vegetarian style), prepared and made by our lovely cook Alice. The dinner was so yummy and was enjoyed by all; Quorn roast with all the trimmings!
We know that lots of plans had to be put on hold in 2020, and that going to see Santa was not always possible, so we were super excited when we received the news that he would be making a visit to Kingswood whilst on his way back to the North Pole! It was only a flying visit as he still had lots to prepare for Christmas, but all the same we were so pleased to receive a socially distanced visit from the big man himself!
Finally, to try and spread some festive cheer and memories amongst the staff and families of Kingswood, we asked the staff to share with us any funny stories or favourite gifts they remember receiving as a child. There were some very interesting ones, and Nicola and Chloe were happy to share their memories of an Easy Bake Oven and Baby Annabelle!
We would like to take this opportunity to say we hope all our families had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, despite the challenges, and that you all enjoyed time spent with family and loved ones. Please continue to stay safe, here’s hoping that 2021 will bring health and happiness, and a step in the right direction to coming through this challenging time we have all faced in 2020.
Happy New Year to you all – I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas!
We have welcomed 2019 into Kingswood with a few changes to our paperwork systems, some exciting activities and some sensory exploration.
“eyLog” is our new software system (that has actually been running in the background for approximately a term now) and we went live for parents to have access to this new and exciting system this month. So far we have had some really positive feedback and parents are really enjoying receiving their weekly updates, pictures and videos on what their children have been getting up to!
During the colder days we had in January the Babies showed a real curiosity about the frost and ice so we followed their interests and created some fun activities where they could explore and experience ice and what happens when it melts.
Digital Camera
Our Toddler Room has shown a real interest in kites recently so we embraced the International Kite Festival as a way to expand on this.The festival marks the end of Winter and the beginning of Summer months. The Toddlers had so much fun designing and making their own kites and, of course, on the field running after them!
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Finally this month, it has been a real celebration of all things sensory! The Babies really enjoyed exploring a whole range of sensory activities on offer. They investigated the smell, touch and taste of the resources provided. I think a few of the favourites on this occasion were custard powder, cocoa powder and Angel Delight powder!
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We have had a great month here at Kingswood Day Nursery and Pre-School and we are now looking forward to seeing what February brings – we will be exploring the topic ‘People Who Help Us’.
October has been a busy month for us here at Kingswood Day Nursery and Pre-School. We would like to share all of our fun, exciting, engaging and thought provoking activities with you.
First of all, please join us in sending massive congratulations to Laura Standering and her husband Mark on the birth of their baby boy! Rowan Christopher Daniel Standering was born on Sunday 21st October 2018 at 1.25am, weighing 7lb 13oz. We all wish them all well and can’t wait to meet baby Rowan!
Baby Room have been exploring different textures during our sensory play sessions, they particularly enjoyed the cooked spaghetti and custard!
The Pre-School children have had lots of fun outside exploring the tyres, making obstacle courses, balancing and concentrating on stepping from tyre to tyre. They also worked well as a team and showed fantastic imagination by creating our train and deciding that they were off to the seaside!
The Toddlers have spent lots of time and effort growing their own tomatoes. They have taken good care of the plants by making sure that they provided them with plenty of water to help them to grow. They looked after them so well that the tomatoes grew well and turned a lovely ripe red. The group were so pleased when they could actually taste the tomatoes that they had worked so hard to grow together.
Wear It Pink was a fun-filled day with lots of activities. Favourites were definitely the baking and the painting. The Pre-School children did a great job of weighing out all the ingredients using the scales and getting the measurements just right for some tasty buns. The staff helped the children to develop their technology skills and take some risks by using the electric whisk to mix all the ingredients together. The children were all very proud of their achievements. The Babies really enjoyed the painting; exploring the texture of the cold paint on their hands. Thank you to all the children, staff and parents for baking and bringing there produce to our bake sale. Thanks to everyone’s hard work and contributions on the day, I am pleased to inform you that we raised a brilliant £60.00 – well done everyone! If you missed our fundraiser you can still donate by going to the Wear It Pink website.
Halloween at Kingswood was a hocus pocus time! We had some super spooky activities throughout the week which included making potions, baking monster buns, creepy crawly play dough, pumpkin exploration, wriggling rice pictures and loads more. Here are a few photographs of our Halloween themed week. I think the children enjoyed the Halloween party and the dressing up the most!
The Babies had an exploratory afternoon over on the local field to discover different Autumn materials. We found some lovely conkers, leaves and twigs which we are going to be using for our Autumn Day Workshop. The children especially enjoyed the crinkle and rustling of the leaves.
Finally for this month, we wanted to share our Babies’ incredible artwork. They are getting prepared for bonfire night by creating this master piece together as a group. The babies loved the bright colours and showed particular interest in the patterns that their cardboard fireworks made on the black paper. I am sure they will enjoy watching the real fireworks on Monday 5th November.
Well to start with this month we are delighted to have welcomed back to the team some long standing staff members ……Emma Wilks has returned from her maternity leave, she will be back at nursery Tuesday’s – Fridays’s and will return to her post as Deputy Manager. We would like to thank Laura Standering for doing a great job in her role as Acting Deputy Manager. Leanne Cully has returned to Kingswood after her third child and a small break in childcare, we are really happy that they are both back on board!
The Pre-School children have embarked on our yearly train, tram and bus trip this month, this linked in brilliantly with both topics we have been following – transport and child safety week. The Pre-School children had an excellent and educational journey from nursery to Sheffield city centre and back again. The children went in small groups and travelled on a bus to Dore train station, then they caught the train into Sheffield, jumped on a tram from the station to a nearby bus stop and then caught a bus back to Kingswood. The children had a great time paying the transport drivers, collecting their tickets and learning about the different ways vehicles move across the city.
Pre-School has also held a workshop to celebrate Father’s Day. The children really engaged well and embraced the activities which were kebab making, vehicle junk modelling and den building. All feedback received was really positive and some lovely comments were made about our dedicated team and all the effort they went to in order to encourage parental involvement in their children’s nursery day.
Our Baby Room really enjoyed promoting healthy eating week by tasting lots of different fruits – watermelon, raspberries, strawberries, mango and many more. The Toddlers really got involved with healthy eating week too by growing, picking, chopping and eating their own radishes! They were very proud of their achievement, as you can see from the pictures.
The toddlers have recently had 3 new members join their group; we would like to introduce Guppy, Steve and Pedro, our goldfish. The toddlers are finding the experience of looking after them both rewarding and exciting. We gave the children the opportunity to ‘have their say’ when it came to naming the 3 newcomers . We displayed a ballot box outside toddler room and the children put their suggestions in, we then picked 3 names at random to confirm their new identities.
Parent’s Evening and School leavers Transition Evening were both a great success. They provided a lovely opportunity for all our parents to talk in a little more detail to the staff about their child’s development and next steps. We had a great turn out as usual and all our parents were happy with their child’s progress.
All in all, June has been an exciting, fun-filled month with plenty of learning, laughter and life experiences. We look forward to updating you next term with many more fun and educational adventure!
The children have been busy creating moon pictures in celebration of the Muslim festival of Eid, as the new moon is important in determining when Eid will take place. The children enjoyed exploring the textures and using their fine motor skills to collect all of the different materials to make our moon pictures. 
Well done everyone and thank you to all those who helped to raise our incredible total of £305.50 for such a worthy cause.
