Fun at Highgate in November

We started November with our Parent’s Evenings; thank you to everyone who attended!

Rising 3’s celebrated Bonfire Night with lots of fun and bright crafts.

The children all celebrated Remembrance Day by decorating and painting poppies. The children in Pre-School made a poppy wreath and walked to the church to lay it.
The children really enjoyed taking part in a homelink activity. They were given a bag to collect Autumn ‘treasures’ and went on adventures with their families finding acorns, leaves and conkers. The children then used their ‘treasures’ at nursery to explore and investigate.

October at Riverview

Space Week

Toddlers started the month in space!! Taking part in lots of different space-themed activities. From ‘space jelly’ to ‘cloud dough’, they had lots of fun exploring the different textures.  During Space Week the Word of the Week was “move”; outside the Toddlers explored how they could move their bodies in different ways, they walked slow on the moon and ran fast like a rocket.

Leanimals

Mid-month we had a lovely visit from Leanimals.

Before their arrival we asked the Pre-School children what animals they might like to see.  We had lots of suggestions, such as snakes, spiders and rabbits. Some of the children were thinking on a much bigger scale and suggested there might be a tiger come visit! Our core book for this week was ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ so the children had been taking part in lots of tiger-related activities. Fortunately, there wasn’t a tiger in nursery, but the children were all very happy with the animals that did come to visit!

Babies and Toddlers also got to see and hold the animals, their favourite being the tiny mouse. They were all very brave and excited.

Practitioner Appreciation Day

On the 17th October we celebrated our wonderful staff team! We treated them to graze boxes for lunch and some sweet treats!  We have a fantastic staff team, that is evidently agreed with by our parents going by the lovely comments that were left. Thank you for your continued support!

Halloween

Babies’ Playdough Pumpkins

Babies have enjoyed making playdough, testing out the recipe and getting very messy! When they eventually got the measurements right, and made the dough, they shaped the dough in balls, added eyes and called them pumpkins! They added orange food colouring and pumpkin spice scent for a full sensory experience.

Toddlers Pumpkin Carving

Toddlers have helped carve pumpkins for Halloween. They used a pumpkin carving kit with extra caution.  First they took it in turns to scoop out the inside of the pumpkins, they then each had a turn to draw a shape on the pumpkin and help cut it out.

Pre-School Parent Workshop

Pre-School held a very successful parent workshop. We welcomed many of our families in to stay and play! The children and grown-ups all had the chance to engage in a number of Halloween themed activities, we got messy making playdough and creative decorating cupcakes!

We look forward to welcoming lots of our lovely families at parent’s evening this week. We also have our Baby Room bonfire-themed stay and play to finish a busy month at Riverview.

September 2022 at The Little School House

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.

February at Oak Valley

At Oak Valley, during February, we have been incorporating our loose theme of ‘Around the World’. We have been making flags from different cultures, making restaurants in our role-play area & food tasting from different cultures. The children have tried various recipes from Poland, France, Greece, India & Italy!

During National Storytelling Week our children in Rising 3’s & Pre-school enjoyed designing their own story books. The children worked really hard on them & enjoyed showing them to their friends at group time. The children also made a library in their role play area where they could check out books & take turns being the librarian! We had a vote for our favourite story & the winner was The Gruffalo – a classic! The children also spent time making some new story sacks for group time.

Baby Room enjoyed exploring the fabric baskets; looking & feeling the different textures & patterns. The children then used the fabrics & musical instruments at group time to sing their favourite nursery rhymes! The babies have enjoyed practicing their fine motor skills using plastic knives & crazy soap; they used lots of different vocabulary during the activity.

Rising 3’s loved making their very own ‘potion station’! The children chose different materials, scents & flavours to add to the playdough & experiment with their different senses. The children looked at the science books & we took part in lots of fun experiments!

Toddlers have taken a keen interest in animals recently. They have enjoyed reading the farmyard books, so we put together their own farm in the sensory area for the children to explore. Now that spring is here we are hoping to extend our interests by visiting the farm & hatching our own baby chicks using the nursery incubator!

We finished February off by celebrating Megan’s bi-annual keyworker award, & the safe arrival of both Stef & Nat’s baby boys – Ollie George & Teddy. Congratulations to them both; we can’t wait to meet them!

January fun at Highgate!

Toddler Room have enjoyed exploring their ‘All About Me’ loose topic this month. They have been learning about different hair colours, skin colours and facial features, and looked at some different multicultural pictures from around the world. They have used their creative skills and curiosity to create their own people on the craft table, all choosing their own resources independently. They worked as a team to make some playdough and decided to make it pink! They then used the playdough to create different facial features; they counted how many of each feature they needed to put on their face, and tried really hard to put them in the right places! They really enjoyed learning about differences between people – something to be celebrated!



Rising 3’s have been trying out different science experiments this month. They showed high levels of energy and fascination, and as a team they made a rainbow explode! They also blew a balloon up with different ingredients. The children all took part and contributed towards the activity, and predicted what was going to happen before they carried out the experiment!



Meanwhile, in Baby Room, they’ve had lots of fun baking. Once their biscuits were made they showed their concentration skills, as well as their creativity, by decorating them. No baking activity would be complete without a little ‘trying’ of the product of course!!


That’s it for January! We can’t believe it’s 2022 but we look forward to sharing more exciting news from Highgate again soon 🙂

December 2021 at Riverview!

Babies’ trip to the park

At the beginning of December, our babies had a little adventure to explore the local area. They found a nature trail that led up to the park. They had lots of fun on the swings, slide, and roundabout.

They enjoyed games of ‘pass the parcel’ at their Christmas party! They created lots of Christmas crafts, and have explored many different sensory opportunities; the favourite ones being snow and ice!

Toddlers’ sensory polar experience

Toddlers have been getting messy this month; their favourite was the polar themed tuff tray. They had lots of fun exploring the ice blocks and finding hidden treasures!  The children noticed the ice was cold and that, as the day went on, the ice blocks were getting smaller.  They talked about all the different animals that live on the snow and ice.

As a group, the Toddlers made a huge gingerbread man and candy cane that you may have seen displayed in our entrance foyer.

Pre-School Christmas dinner and party games

Pre-School loved their Christmas dinner; especially the brussels sprouts! After lunch they played party games and did lots of dancing to Christmas music.

The Pre-School children have been learning lots of Christmas songs this month, the Makaton song of the month is ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’ and the children have really enjoyed learning the signs!

Junk modelling Christmas tree

Instead of a traditional Christmas tree, this year we have worked together to make our special own junk model Christmas tree! This was a full team effort and the children all really enjoyed painting, sticking and constructing the Christmas tree!

Super Star Sports

Super Star Sports is always a hit with our Pre-School and Toddler children; they love the activities and noticing the effects of exercise on their bodies. The children enjoyed practicing their throwing and catching skills with the rugby balls in our session this month.


The Toddler children have continued, throughout the month, to run their own little exercise sessions, playing football and doing relay races in the garden.

Healthy Early Years Award

The children and staff members have loved discovering new ideas and ways to keep themselves and their families healthy. Ashleigh, our HEY (Healthy Early Years) lead, has been working hard alongside the staff members and HEY champions. The children have explored new activities to make sure they are getting their 180 minutes of exercise a week. The children shared ways in which they like to move and explained how they made them feel. One child said, “I feel lots of energy when I run really fast, like this” and encouraged his friends to run around the garden and copy him.

Staff members have said they have gained a greater understanding of how much they should be exercising, and have begun to try more healthier options when at home. Everyone has loved exploring new foods and celebrating foods from many different countries, some of our families even sent over recipes for us to all try! We are all super excited to continue exploring and developing our healthy early years!

From Riverview and all the EYCED team we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

September 2021 @ Oak Valley

September has been a great month for us all at Oak Valley. We welcomed back our term-time children & had many new starters joining us to begin their nursery journey! We have loved welcoming our parents back into the building to see our newly decorated rooms & the exciting activities that have been taking place!

Baby Room has been exploring words & sounds this month. We have been singing nursery rhymes in English & French, creating sensory music bottles to use at group time, & using our ‘Words of the Week’ to explore. The children particularly enjoyed fruit tasting & baking with lots of different textures & flavours.

Toddler Room has been making the most of the warm weather & spending as much time as possible outdoors. We have enjoyed an outing to the park to play games, & taken part in our monthly Super Star Sport session! This month we focussed on football; the children practiced their gross motor skills & hand -eye coordination, while running around getting lots of exercise & fresh air.

Rising 3’s have been especially interested in role-play this month. The children have created a post office area where they have been busy writing & sorting letters, serving customers & answering the phone. After working really hard, the children decided they need a break, & went on holiday on their aeroplane to lots of exotic destinations!

Rising 3’s have also enjoyed making sensory playdough, drawing shadow pictures of their favorite toys & exploring different countries, to name but a few activities sparked by the children’s interests (which never fail to interest us!)

To finish off the month, Pre-School have been for an adventure into the woods to collect leaves, conkers & sticks! We then made some lovely Autumn pictures to show what we had found.

Some of you may have seen our Early Years Care & Education bear on the Sheffield Bear Trail in aid of Sheffield Children’s Hospital. Keep your eyes peeled, as he’ll be on his way to spend some time with us at Oak Valley 🙂

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!

Sensory play activitiesImage may contain: 1 person, food

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.

August at Highgate

Here at Highgate we’ve had a busy August!  We celebrated Yorkshire Day by creating Yorkshire Rose flags, decorating pictures of a Yorkshire Rose & the children hosted their own mini tea party, enjoying scones with jam & cream.

 

We have revelled in lots of different sensory activities, exploring different textures, smells & tastes.  The babies loved getting messy in the beans & Pre-School relished tasting & exploring different hot & cold foods.

We held our first introductory session of ‘Rhythm Time’ with our Babies & Toddlers.  The children explored sound with a range of instruments & sang into a microphone, which helped with confidence building & self-esteem.

We made the most of the beautiful summer weather with the children partaking in many trips out to the park & surrounding areas.  They enjoyed playing on the swings & slides, & played group games on the grass. We also made frozen yogurt pops to enjoy.

 

We are now looking forward to the start of a new term & lots more exciting experiences during the Autumn & Winter!