September fun at Highgate

This month, the babies have enjoyed celebrating ‘International Read a Book’ day and ‘National Teddy Bear’ day. They incorporated the two celebrations by bringing in their favourite teddy bear and favourite story into nursery, which they enjoyed sharing with their friends throughout the day! For lunch, they enjoyed a picnic, alongside their teddy bears!

Rising 3’s celebrated ‘National Fitness Day’ by learning some new exercises! They all enjoyed joining in & burning off lots of energy!

 

Finally, Karrissa was our Employee of the Month for September (as voted for by her colleagues).  Well done Karrissa!

 

 

An Active August over at Riverview!

Check out what our Babies, Toddlers and Pre-School have been up to during this busy month at Riverview!

What has our local community got to offer us?

We had an extremely exciting and busy August here at Riverview! The month started off with our Babies and Toddlers taking a trip on the tram, into the local community, heading to Hillsborough Library. They had a great time exploring, and listening to the stories being read by our staff team who accompanied them. Once we got back, the children also enjoyed colouring pictures based around the books we had read. We love watching the children become more familiar with their local area; we will continue to visit the community and everything it has to offer.

                             

Makaton Awareness Week

August was home to Makaton Awareness Week, so we made sure we made the most of it throughout the nursery! Makaton is a language programme that uses symbols, signs and speech to support language development. All rooms joined in practicing their key signs, and continued to learn all about Makaton at group times. They practiced the Makaton song of the month which was ‘1,2,3,4,5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive!”

                            

Crazy Science!

In Pre-School we’ve been carrying out lots of science experiments; our focus was things that fizz! We explored with bath bombs, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, and lime/lemon juice. We heard lots of interesting sounds as we tested all the different materials out!

                         

A little bit of sunshine…

Although August was meant to be our last summer month, we didn’t really get our fair share of sunshine. However, on the odd days we did have some sun, our Babies enjoyed splashing about in the water play area to keep cool.

                       

Artists in the making!

Our Babies also spent lots of time this month exploring different textured paint, and different ways of mark-making. Our garden area got a new makeover thanks to our artistic Babies and their impressive painting skills!

                       

Architects of the future?

Toddlers also enjoyed exploring different aspects of the garden this month, and had their own means of contributing to it’s makeover; they used blocks and panels to build new stations and objects in the garden, including our very own car wash! They then used their new creations to help develop their balancing skills and range of movements. They too were also very creative with the painting when decorating these creations.

       

What did August teach us?

The main thing we discovered here at Riverview this month, was that you don’t need sun to have fun!

 

Summer Fun at The Little School House!

We had a jam-packed July here at The Little School House, with plenty of fun and exciting activities taking place!

Congratulations, The Little School House!

We started July off super-proud as we received our official Day Nurseries Award, placing us in the top 20 Nurseries in Yorkshire & The Humber! We were over the moon to get this award, as it is a great reflection of our hard-working staff and management. Thank you too all parents and carers that voted 🙂

Goodbye Pre-School!

Next, it was that time of the year for us to a say a very sad, but extremely heart-warming goodbye to our amazing Pre-Schoolers who are off to ‘big school’ in September. We had a red carpet and balloon wall set up in the garden, as well as personalised t-shirts and graduation caps for all our little stars to wear. It was an emotional day for us, and the parents (!), but we are all very proud to wave them off onto their next chapter – we know they’ll all do so well!

Before we said our final goodbyes, we thought it only right to treat them all to a bit more relaxed fun. First we took a trip to the farm; we saw lots of animals, including goats and alpacas – what a fun day out!

We had to throw in one more party before we could let our Pre-Schoolers go so, lastly, we hosted a leaving party at The Jungle Indoor Play Centre. They had lots of fun climbing and exploring the play equipment as well as enjoying a cooked lunch before getting the bus back to nursery.

Forever exploring in Baby Room!

In Baby Room, we love to explore! So, this month, our Babies explored new foods during a food tasting day. They tried a range of new things, including prawn crackers, onion bhajis, samosas, olives, and even lemons and limes! They really enjoyed trying different textures and flavours, the samosas in particular went down a treat!

And they didn’t stop there! Also in the Baby Room, they additionally took part in Rhythm Time! Our Babies got to sing songs, play instruments and have a good old boogie together! They also got to discover bubbles and different materials. It was so much fun!

How tall are our Toddlers, and how well can they bake???

Over in the Toddler Room, they’ve been measuring how tall they are, against our ‘How Tall Am I?’ wall. They found this to be super interesting; they compared heights with their friends, and checked to see how much they’d grown by the end of the month! Our staff are always keen to incorporate Maths wherever possible and this was another perfect opportunity. It provided the chance, not only for recognising numbers and counting, but also for comparison and discussion of ‘bigger than’ and ‘smaller than’, as well as differences.

Although July is supposed to be Summer, I think we can all agree that we haven’t had much of the weather we would expect! Although they’ve still spent plenty of time outside this month, Toddlers also decided to make the most of the time they spent indoors by baking! They helped measure out and mix all the ingredients together, before rolling out and cutting our cookies. Then they got to decorate them with icing and sprinkles – how tasty!

Learning something new every day…

It’s not just the children who have the opportunity to learn, we also like to continuously update our staff team’s knowledge too. July was the month where we hosted the fifth and final Company in-house training session of the term. This session was dedicated to reviewing updated Company policies, with a real focus on safeguarding. Carefully prepared interactive activities took place, with lots of opportunities for all our staff, of all different branches, to demonstrate their wealth of knowledge. A very pleasant, informative and successful evening of training!

We’re looking forward to seeing what August brings now…

June here at Kingswood!

Summer time fun!

We kicked off June here at Kingswood with our summer themed Toddler Room parent workshop! We were over the moon with the turnout of all those who attended the event that we held outdoors in the garden. During the workshop, Toddlers enjoyed taking part in lots of arts and crafts activities, such as painting pictures and getting messy! They also enjoyed some cutting and sticking with lots of different texture materials – how exciting!

Father’s Day at Kingswood…

June also consisted of lots of lovely Father’s Day celebrations. We carried out many Father’s Day themed activities, including making personalised cardboard plates!

Healthy eating at it’s finest!

Our Pre-Schoolers took control of Healthy Eating Week, holding their very own ‘Kingswood Council Meeting’ where they talked about what changes they could make to have a healthier diet! Some of the alterations they cleverly came up with included changing their lunch to a healthy stir fry – which went down a tasty treat! They also decided to add fruit to their water – we think this might have been their favourite invention of all, as they then discussed if this was something they’d like to do all the time! Toddlers also tried lots of new and exciting tropical fruits during snack time. To finish off Healthy Eating Week, Pre-School created their own pizzas, using their new wealth of knowledge to add plenty of healthy toppings!

 

Kingswood’s efforts to be more sustainable…

During June, we introduced new recycling bins outside, in an effort to be more sustainable and make a difference to the environment! We talked about why it is important to recycle, and how it can help our planet before our Toddlers helped pick up cardboard and other recyclable materials, and then carefully put them into to correct bins!

To finish off June…

We ended June by celebrating the second and final Eid of this year! We had a super fun day learning all about the festive celebration, as well of doing lots of different Eid related activities, such as dressing up in traditional clothing and designing our own henna tattoos!

May 2021 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.

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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.

November at Oak Valley

We started a busy month off at Oak Valley celebrating Bonfire night. The children were excited to make firework pictures, explore different colours and design their own rockets! The children then made their rockets using junk modelling equipment and flew them outside. Using the children’s interests Pre-school investigated colour further by enjoying lots of messy play in the cornflour and chalk while Baby room made hand and footprint pictures in the paint.

Messy play
Messy play
Poppy pictures

We raised a fantastic £90 for Children in Need by coming into nursery in fancy dress/pjs! The children took part in lots of fun activities such as making Pudsey bear hats and baking buns. We also had a bear hunt in the garden where we managed to find 10 different bears that were hiding from us! We also paid our respects on Remembrance day by making poppy pictures and having a 2 minutes silence.

Bear hunt

Road safety awareness week also took place this month. We made road signs and practiced how to cross the roads safely. Pre-school & Rising 3’s particularly enjoyed role playing scenarios with the cars and bikes outside taking it in turns to drive the cars and hold the signs. Toddler room read road safety stories and were excited to explore the ‘Ready, Steady, go’ tray while Baby unit got messy painting in traffic light colours.

Road safety Awareness week
Road Safety

As November drew to a close, the children wrote their letters to Father Christmas and made him lots of lovely pictures. We went on a walk to post the letters and make sure they safely arrive at the North pole.We are looking forward to lots of Christmas themed activities such as craft workshops, party days & festive baking. We also welcomed a little visitor to nursery,.I wonder what mischief he will cause in December…………………?

Buddy the Elf
Posting letters to the North Pole

October’s Activities at Kingswood

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!

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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!

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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.

Knife control chopping activity.Image may contain: 1 person, food

 

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.

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Pre-school children baking for charity eventBabies being creative with painting activity.

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!

Halloween potion making

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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.

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Autumn days leaf picking activity.

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.

Printing activity Fireworks painting activities

 

Excited about bubble time!

September at The Little School House

It has been an exciting start to Autumn. September at The Little School House started with a visit from the ever popular Mini Movez; they come into the setting to engage our Toddler and Pre-School children in fun physical activities. These sessions consist of some themed activities; this time it was ‘Safari’ which saw the children involved in creating their own unique variations of different animal sounds and movements, followed by some excellent cheer-leading involving pom poms and lots of energy and enthusiasm!

 

Our loose theme of ‘Space’ has seen all our age groups participating in numerous activities surrounding the planets; Pre-School learned about the different names and their climates, as well as learning about different methods of space travel and constructing the planets for a display. The children thought it was out of this world!! While our budding astronauts were busy upstairs, the Babies and Toddlers also had fun creating their own unique space designs such as stars, galaxies and their own interpretation of the planets. These messy activities were another great way for our early learners to explore different sensory experiences and learn through play.

 

We also took the time to host a Princess and Pirates day charity event in aid of  Cracker Jack Children’s trust which was a great success. The children came in their fancy dress and really got into their characters. They enjoyed making props for their costumes and demonstrated some fantastic role play.

 

So what’s next for The Little School House? The children and staff are all looking forward to our Pre-School Autumn workshop & activities for Road Safety Week, as well as lots of upcoming festive activities including our Christmas Concert, Christmas Party, Christmas Jumper Day for Save the Children, and Baby Room Christmas workshop.

February at Kingswood

Dress up days, police, hard hats,fun, experiementingexcellent costume, cat, dress up day, charity event

Throughout February Kingswood Day Nursery have been up to lots of fun and exciting activities. Utilising our loose-themed topic of ‘People Who Help Us’ we have invited visitors to the nursery and have been on an exciting trip out to the Old Police and Fire Museum. The children loved the coach journey to the museum and they particularly enjoyed exploring the inside of the ambulances and fire engines.  Our visitors have been DR Vicky Fletcher a local GP who brought all of her equipment for the children to explore and experiment with. They had great fun finding each other’s heartbeats and checking that their friends and carers didn’t have temperatures by using the thermometers!  We also had a visit from local PCSO’s – Adrian Thomson and Samantha Pacey. The Pre-School children particularly enjoyed dressing up in the police uniforms and trying out the hard hats! The PCSO’s shared lots of useful information about what to do if we need help and reminded us of the all important number to call – ‘999’.

We also hosted a charity event at Kingswood last month. ‘Crackerjacks’ is a local children’s charity who we have continually supported throughout the years. This year we raised money by inviting the children of Kingswood to dress up and have a fun princesses and hero’s day! All the children had an amazing day and dressed up as their favourite characters. The toddlers had a great time making masks by gluing and sticking, glittering and being very creative! As you can see from the pictures they did a great job and wore them with pride.

creativity, mask making, artwork, charity day activitiesmask making activity, charity day, creativitycreative, mask making, charity event, gluing and sticking

At our setting we like to promote diversity and culture and, with this in mind, the toddlers have really embraced learning about Chinese New Year.  The children all made their own lanterns which they decorated and took home, as well as all contributing to a group creative activity of making an enormous Chinese Dragon.

We have recently introduced our lending library where we are further promoting literacy. Children and parents/carers can select and borrow books from the nursery library to share together at home. There is opportunity for even more parental involvement as we always welcome additions to the lending library from books that are no longer favourites in your household. This lending library links in beautifully with the promotion of ‘World Book Day’ and we have been able to provide all parents with a token which entitles them to receive a discount on many books from lots of high street shops.

Our upcoming events in the near future will include a ‘Mother’s Day Workshop’ for our Pre-School children, it’s a great opportunity for parental involvement. We have invited mothers, grandmothers and aunties along with any other influential female role models to attend our workshop on Tuesday 6th March 2018, where we will be baking tiffin, threading love heart cards, making flowers, making and moulding salt dough models and much, much more.

We will all be celebrating and supporting ‘Sport’s Relief’ by taking part in running races and other physical games. The babies will be toddling around our soft surfaced play area, throwing, catching and rolling balls to each other. Whilst our toddlers and pre-school children will be taking part in running races, obstacle courses and trying out their throwing skills with target practice games.

We are expecting a visit from Zoolab on 19th April  with their exotic animals.  The children will have the opportunity to look at & hold snakes, spiders & lots of other creepy crawlies! The expected learning outcomes are that children will discover, explore, investigate and ask questions about the different characteristics of the mini beasts and other animals from all around the world.

We look forward to another exciting term of events and will be back to update you further with other exciting activities!

dress up day, princess, charity eventPretty girl, princess dress, dress up day, charity event