January 2024 at Riverview!

All About Me

At the start of each term we spend two weeks learning ‘All About Me’; the children are given opportunities to explore their life story and how it may be similar or different to that of others. Pre-School have been learning all about each other’s families, and some of the children have shared photos of their trips over the last few months. We spent time talking about who lived in our houses, what our bedrooms look like, and we even talked about different foods we like to eat with our families. The children then took time to draw pictures of their families.

Rhythm Time

‘Rhythm Time’ is a great opportunity for the children to join in with songs and rhymes. During our session this month, the children in Toddler Room explored animal noises, and how they could move like animals. The children also enjoyed making music with a range of instruments. They explored the different sounds they could make, and explored different ways to use them. They really enjoyed using the scarves when dancing, and popping the bubbles. Their favourite part of the session was the stretchy Lycra. The children all held a part of the parachute and saw how high they could make the items bounce.

Babies and Maths

Babies have chosen to focus on improving the children’s mathematical development this half term. In the Baby Room we focus on numbers 1, 2 and 3, this is to create a foundation for future learning.  The Baby Room have really enjoyed making playdough, exploring quantities and using words like, ‘less’, ‘more’ and ‘lots’. The activities that have been set out to enhance the children’s learning, have promoted filling and emptying containers; this has encouraged the children to using their fine motor skills, and will aid in the development of their hand-eye co-ordination.

Nursery Council

The nursery council gathered towards the end of the month to discuss upcoming events, and how they might be able to celebrate. They decided that they would like to celebrate Shrove Tuesday (pancake day), Valentine’s Day and Kindness Day. Some suggested that they can make cards for their friends and families for Valentine’s, and taste pancakes with a variety of topping (such a strawberries, bananas and, maybe, a small helping of chocolate!) for pancake day. For Kindness Day, we talked about the Pre-School rules, and what more we can do to be kind to others.

The children are also aware that Ramadan and Mother’s Day are to follow in March.

Employee of the Month

Impressively, January was Georgia’s first month at Riverview, and the staff have been really impressed with her enthusiasm and ability to use her initiative; enough to vote her as Employee of the Month! Georgia has made an excellent first impression; we are very excited to see what more she has to offer. Keep up the hard work Georgia, and well done!

National Storytelling Week

The Baby Room have been all about storytelling in the last week of January to celebrate National Storytelling Week! There have been an array of different exciting activities, set up to ignite children imagination and curiosity. The Babies have enjoyed getting messy in the tuff trays, and building in the construction corner. The grown-ups have been telling stories, and narrating their play. They have used books that follow the children’s interests to spark the children love of books. They have chosen to read books containing repetition to encourage the children to join in the familiar phrases.

 

May at Riverview!

HEY!!!! Over the past few months we have been working hard to achieve the Health Early Years award!

The HEY award is a quality assurance scheme that aims to celebrate and share good practice within Early Years and school settings. We are very pleased to tell you that we passed with flying colours, and a special recognition goes to Ashleigh Casey (Deputy Manager) for being the lead throughout.

Eid-Ul-Fitr

We kicked off the month celebrating Eid-Ul-Fitr; we incorporated it into our Free Fruit Friday initiative that we run on the last Friday of every month, so for the April date we sent children home with little fruit baskets full of dates and other dried fruits to enjoy with their families.

‘Good to Grow’

We have made the most of our greenhouses courtesy of Morrisons’ ‘Good to Grow’ scheme. The children have done lots of planting and have enjoyed learning about the process, and all about where our food comes from.  In the gardens we now have lots of different plants growing, including strawberries, melons, tomatoes, courgettes, beans and peas. Hopefully later in the year we will be able to share with you our experience of tasting the crops we have grown!

Caterpillars!

We have had a delivery of caterpillars, the children have really enjoyed watching them grow and them turn into chrysalis.  They are eagerly awaiting for them to emerge as butterflies over the next couple of days.

‘Cash for Kids’

This month we supported the Hallam FM’s ‘Cash for Kids’ charity by doing a raffle and bake sale! Thank you to all who contributed and a big congratulations to the raffle winners!

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

The children have done lots of different craft and sensory activities to mark this wonderful occasion, including making crowns, building castles and exploring coloured sensory bins/baskets! We also had a day celebrating where we all wore red, white and blue!

Pets!

Finally, we have a couple of new additions to the Riverview team! We are very excited to announce the arrival of ‘Yoshi’ & ‘Birdo’ the Axolotl’s.  We are looking forward to watching them grow and to learn all about them!