Beth Softley

Festive fun during December at LSH

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Firstly, congratulations to Loretta who was our December Employee of the Month. Loretta won the award for making sure that she checked in on her colleagues, cheered them up if they were feeling a little low and supported her team when the Rom Co-ordinator was off on holiday. Thank you, and well done!

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Olivia gained her Level 3 Qualification in style passing her End Point Assessment with a distinction grade. Olivia worked hard to achieve this and we’re all very proud of her. Well done Liv!

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On Friday 15th December, we held our Pre-School Christmas Concert at St. Chad’s Church. The children did a fantastic job singing Christmas Carols, using props that they had made, and Makaton that they had spent time learning. Afterwards, they were rewarded with a lovely treat hot chocolate station – yum!

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Toddlers held a Christmas workshop in December that parents, children, and staff all thoroughly enjoyed. We had a range of different activities; children enjoyed creating their own baubles for their Christmas trees at home, decorating their own biscuits (which most of them ate before the icing had set!), making some reindeer food to sprinkle outside on Christmas Eve, and even making reindeer hats and paper plate wreaths to take home.

It was Christmas Party Day in December too, and we had lots of fun playing Pass the Parcel with our friends. We did some dancing and played musical chairs. We didn’t have a ‘normal’ nursery lunch on this day, instead we enjoyed lots of yummy party food! Once we were ready to go home, we got a special present to take home and put under our tree.

 

On Monday 18th December, our Baby Room enjoyed having their very own Elf Day where the staff and babies all dressed up in their elf clothing and had lots of fun taking part in different elf activities.

 

All the children enjoyed a Christmas lunch cooked by the lovely Abi in the kitchen. The children enjoyed eating their lunch while listening to Christmas songs, and having different conversations about what we would like Santa to bring us for Christmas.

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We also held our termly staff training sessions. We spent time refreshing our knowledge on the Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning, before spending time on Loose Parts. As always, a great opportunity for quality practice sharing and bonding across the branches.

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We loved wearing our Christmas jumpers for Christmas Jumper Day, supporting the charity Save the Children. We designed our own Christmas jumpers on paper and decorated them with different creative resources.

We enjoyed our session of Superstar Sports, where we played different games with the balls. One of these games was rugby, where we balanced the rugby ball and kicked the ball so we could see if it was different from kicking a football. We then played a game of What Time Is It Mr Wolf? to end the session.

That’s the end of our December, and the end of 2023! We can’t wait to see what 2024 brings for us!

February at LSH

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Valentine’s Day

This month at The Little School House we have had lots of fun creating our own Valentine’s Day crafts to send to the special people in our lives. The children had different ideas about the cards they would like to create in each of our rooms, in Pre-School we loved trying to write our own names. On the different hearts of our cards, we wrote different reasons why we love our special people.

Mark Making in Sensory

The Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers have loved making different marks in the shaving foam this month, we used paint brushes, glue spreaders and our fingers to make the different marks. We also used different cards to try and copy the patterns we could see.

National Apprenticeship Week

In February we celebrated National Apprenticeship Week – an opportunity to raise awareness of such a great scheme & also, more importantly we think, to celebrate the hard work & achievements of all the wonderful staff we have training towards their Early Years qualifications. We hope you agree with our view that they all deserve a treat which we’ve been happy to provide! 👏👏👏

Rhythm Time for Babies & Toddlers

We loved our sessions with Rhythm Time this month, we enjoyed banging the drums that are shaped like lollipops, shaking the ribbon, and feeling the different textures. We met a rabbit this time! He was white and he sang with us.

Pre-School School Readiness

In Pre-School we have done lots of different activities, getting us ready for going to big school in September. We practiced putting on our own coats and zipping them up, washing and drying our own hands – making sure that we used soap to clean off all the germs and continuing to blow our own noses, putting the tissues into the bin and then re-washing our hands.

Babies Winter Walk

Our Babies loved the Winter season so much that they went on one last walk to look at the conkers, crunchy leaves and acorns that were left over before the seasons changed and Spring began.  We also kept our eyes peeled for some squirrels but unfortunately we didn’t see any.

September 2022 at The Little School House

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Now the weather is getting cooler again, we have really been focusing on our activities linking into the new season of Autumn; take a look at some of them – this includes crafts, as well as the children putting on their outdoor clothing themselves – well done to our Toddlers for learning to put the puddle suits on!

Super Star Sports

In September, we had the lovely Simon from Super Star Sports come to show us some football activities. Our Toddler Room & Pre-School children spent lots of time learning to balance the ball with their feet, legs, hands & on their heads!

Rhythm Time

Our Babies enjoyed a Rhythm Time session; they danced with fabric, banged on drums & shook tambourines to the music. They also learnt some new nursery rhymes with actions. We showed the teacher our Makaton songs too.

Toddler Parent Workshop

Our Toddler Room held their first parent workshop since Covid. It was so lovely to have parents back inside nursery. The children & their parents experienced messy sensory activities, leaf printing, & making playdough. Lesley also demonstrated our group time; they enjoyed a story that linked to our Word of the Week. Parents gave us some lovely feedback; they really enjoyed seeing examples of what their children get up to at nursery. Thank you to all of the parents who attended.

April at The Little School House

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During April, we learnt about the life cycles of plants. The Toddlers had lots of fun planting runner beans & flowers for our growing garden. They enjoyed using the spade to fill up the little plant pots with soil, adding some seeds & then watering our flowers and runner beans to help them grow. Our Baby Room planted sunflowers & gave them to their families to enjoy at home.

We had more fun visits from Superstar Sports & Rhythm Time.

Simon from Superstar Sports came to help us participate in physical sport activities. We ran to different colour cones, practiced our kicking skills & he encouraged us to run while avoiding obstacles.

Rhythm Time came to deliver us a music & singing session, we learnt how to play instruments at different speeds & volume levels. We also learnt our different emotions through songs.

Now the weather is getting warmer, all the rooms have been spending a lot of time in Graves Park, we are very lucky to have it on our doorstep. Here are some pictures of the Toddler Room. They really enjoyed throwing pebbles & splashing their feet in the stream. They then had fun on the roundabout & the slide.

Another of the loose themes that ran throughout April was ‘Minibeasts’. The children spent lots of time in the garden searching for insects; we used the magnifying glasses to search high & low. We talked about what we found & created our own pictures of it. We spent time talking about how the weather can effect when we see different insects too.

Last, but by no means least, we gave congratulations to PAIGE CAUDWELL & GRACE SOUTHGATE (Toddler Room) for being picked out for their efforts during the Spring Term by our Quality Practice Manager. WELL DONE, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!

November 2021 @ The Little School House

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Rhythm Time & Super Star Sports

During November at The Little School House, we have had lots of fun with outside companies. Simon from Super Star Sports came to see us to host a variety of sporting activities to build our physical & fine motor movements, hand-eye co-ordination & self-confidence. The children really enjoyed all the ball games & are looking forward to the next session.

Rhythm Time also came to do some activities with our Babies & Toddlers. They had lots of fun singing, dancing, playing instruments, waving ribbons, & playing games with a parachute. The children really loved lifting the parachute up & then quickly running underneath it to hide. They also enjoyed running around with the ribbons waving them in different directions to look at the pretty colours.

Fun in the Snow

In November, we were blessed with lots of thick white snow, which meant we were able to explore it outside on lots of occasions. We got wrapped up warmly in our outdoor suits, hats & scarves & we ran out into the garden. The children made 1 big, & 2 little, snowmen with some help from our grown-ups. We enjoyed rolling the snow into smaller balls & then throwing them around the garden, being careful that we didn’t hit our friends. The best bit was sliding down the snowy hill!

Remembrance Day

In Pre-School we have been talking about Remembrance Day, we have also been doing activities to remember all the brave soldiers. The children have been using their fine motor skills to make pictures, paintings, & play dough poppies. The children & teachers also took part in the minute silence at 11 o’clock.

Parent’s Evening

In November we saw the return of our in-house parent’s evening. It was great to hold this as a face to face event again. We will continue to hold parent’s evening twice a year, but do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to speak to your child keyworker in between.

Children in Need

We had lots of fun raising money for the Children in Need charity. The children & teachers wore their pyjamas to nursery & enjoyed some yummy cakes which the children made. We also got very messy in our themed sensory trays & craft activities. Thank you to everyone who donated & bought a bun from our cake sale, we raised £98 for Children in Need!

June @ The Little School House

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We enjoyed another busy month at The Little School House in June.

One of our favourite activities across the board was our planned England-themed day to support the England football team in the Euros Tournament. We dressed up in our football kits, or red & white, & held our very own football match in the nursery garden. Not only did the children make the most of the physical aspect of this day, they also had fun with the creative side; they made England flags with a range of craft materials & continued the theme into their sensory trays with a England flag made from coloured spaghetti & flour, & a football pitch made from rice with miniature goals!!

The Pre-School group took the opportunity for a lovely trip to Graves Park Farm. They enjoyed seeing the pigs, guinea pigs, chickens, goats & ducks. Our favourites were the ducks because they were very noisy, although we gave them a good run for the money!! We enhanced our trip by talking about the places the animals live, the noises they make & the different names when they are baby animals.

We were lucky enough to have had a fun visit from Super Star Sport. Simon, the instructor, came along & hosted a range of sporting activities with the children. These different challenges help to build our physical skills; gross & fine motor movements, hand-eye coordination & self confidence. Simon taught us lots of ball games which included throwing, catching, kicking & dribbling. Well done to Ruben who received the Super Star Sport Certificate for all his hard work :)

We’re now looking forward to the rest of the Summer & beyond!

January 2021 at The Little School House

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Firstly, may we wish you all a Happy New Year – what a year 2020 was! It provided us with many challenges that none of us could ever have imagined; two national lockdowns, closing our doors to many children and some of our staff being furloughed to name but a few! I think we can all agree we are more than happy to see the back end of 2020!

With that in mind, we have welcomed 2021 with open arms and look forward to the relaxing of restrictions in good time. During January, we spent a lot of our time outdoors exploring our local environment. We are extremely fortunate to have Graves Park on our doorstep and take full advantage when we can. Here are some pictures of our Baby Room & Toddler children walking though the park and into the woods. They used their senses to talk about the different noises they could hear and used the opportunity to practice their running skills, considering their speed while they were at it!

The month of January also brought us lots of lovely snow. It’s a fantastic learning opportunity for the children and we were lucky enough to have many occasions outside experiencing the temperature, texture and different experiences it brings. The children enjoyed making some fantastic structures; snowmen and snow fairies among others! But most of all, the amazing fun of sliding down the hill – such a simple process that brings such joy both to them doing it and to us observing them.

Our loose theme through January was ‘All About Me’ and our Pre-School children spent time drawing self-portraits. There was discussion about the facial features we all have and how, despite that, we are all different. Here are some of our self-portraits for you to see:

We’re looking forward to Valentine’s day and pancake day in February, and sharing more of our Little School House adventures with you all soon :)

March at The Little School House

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Before the world went crazy over the corona virus we managed to pack in lots of fun activities in & out of the setting…

Each of our branches had a charity takeover week to raise money for Sheffield Children’s Hospital. The plan was to theme as many of the activities around bears, as the hospital is tying it in with the Bear Hunt that’s planned around the city over the Summer. During our chosen week we held a raffle (with some amazing donation prizes – thanks to all who contributed), guessing games to wind a prize and even took the children on a sponsored bear walk, as well as completing lots of bear-themed activities in their rooms with their friends. We want to thank all of the staff, children and parents for their support and donations for this fantastic cause. The week was very successful week and we raised over £800!!

We don’t think our annual celebration of World Book Day would be complete without giving the staff and children the opportunity to dress up as their favourite characters. We saw the likes of The Gingerbread Man, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan and many more! The children loved taking part in reading their favourite stories and making up their own book character, although perhaps their favourite part was enjoying some of the yummy cakes and buns from our bake sale!

Our termly staff training session was held early in the month. Lisa and Anna (Area Manager and Quality Practice Manager) decided to base the first part of the session around a recommendation from our Ofsted inspection (January 2020); the report suggested that we should ‘build on the good planning for adult-led activities to ensure that all participating children are fully challenged.’ So we spent a portion re-looking at what the activities we’re planning to meet the next steps of the children, how to extend them for the more advanced children, what we provide in our areas of continuous provision and how to support the children in order for them to access and achieve things more independently.

We spent the latter half being introduced to a relatively new teaching strategy called ‘Word Aware’. This tool is designed to support practitioners in the provision of effective vocabulary development and it’s aim is to shorten the ‘word gap’ between children from different backgrounds. We discussed how we can implement the strands into our daily practice and how it will work best for the different age groups. We’re looking forward to putting all this into action once things are back to normal!

Our Pre-School Room went on a trip to Weston Park Museum and they used public transport to get to and from. This was a big experience for some of our children, who had not been on a bus before! They enjoyed learning about the different parts of Sheffield’s history and playing in their role play areas.  The children loved looking at the animals after enjoying a yummy picnic for lunch.

Now the weather is starting to get warmer, we’ve been enjoying more sensory activities and activities in the garden. The Baby Room have really enjoyed splashing and playing in the sensory tray with all of the water and bubbles – they had lots of fun splashing the staff too! It’s been great having picnic snacks and lunch in the garden with our friends, and made us very excited for the Summer weather!


That’s all from us for now; we look forward to resuming normal nursery life as soon as possible, but in the meantime, wish you all well – stay safe!