January fun at Highgate!

21st February 2022 by Chloe Jones

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!

21st February 2022 by Rachel

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!

May 2021 at Kingswood!

25th June 2021 by Emma

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

17th December 2020 by Katie

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.

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.

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.

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…………………?

October’s Activities at Kingswood

5th December 201819th November 2018 by Emma

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.

September at The Little School House

5th December 201814th November 2018 by Dina Sarayreh

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.

July at Oak Valley- Outdoor play

5th December 20181st August 2018 by Katie

This month we’ve had a lovely time exploring in our new discovery garden. We found loads of bugs and minibeasts which we took back into the classroom to talk about. The children decided they wanted to feed their new friends, so gave them carrots and cucumber! After enjoying getting dirty, digging and playing in the mud kitchen, they transferred their learning experience indoors and took full advantage of our baking supplies and made mud pies!

baking litter picking

Toddler Room have been making the most of the gorgeous weather we had with a trip to Graves Park! The children enjoyed a tram ride to feed the animals, played on the equipment and finished with a tasty picnic. Our school leavers had their annual trip to Western Park Museum. The children loved all the interactive displays and dressing up in the fabulous costumes

Our Pre-School council have been helping the environment this month! With the help of our hi-visibility vests and litter pickers we have been making our surrounding areas cleaner and tidier. Well done everyone!

We have been supporting the England football team this month by making flags and learning songs! Even though we didn’t end up winning the World Cup, we had a fantastic time enjoying all our football activities! #teamEngland

Oak Valley are supporting England in the World Cup! #itscominghome ???????⚽️???????⚽️???????⚽️???????⚽️???????

Posted by Oak Valley Day Nursery on Tuesday, 10 July 2018

Sunday 15th July saw the EYCE staff team embark on a ‘seaside jolly’ to Scarborough for the day! The trip was a treat from the owner to thank them for an extremely successful year and to celebrate a year of the newly branded Company. It was a really lovely day with gorgeous sunshine, beautiful scenery and a relaxing boat trip, all perfectly topped off with an amazing fish and chip lunch!! ?☀????

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In addition to our regular ‘Mini Moverz’ session, this month we also welcomed in ‘Rhythm and Rhyme’. The children learnt lots of new songs and dance routines to help keep them active.

We finished a lovely month off with our school leavers Graduation Ceremony and workshop. Good luck to our class of 2018, you will be missed! We’re certain you’ll all have a great time at school – don’t forget us too soon!!

June adventures at Kingswood

5th December 201813th July 2018 by Emma

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!

March activities at Oak Valley

5th December 20184th April 2018 by Katie

We have had a busy month at Oak Valley Day Nursery. March has seen us raise money for charity on World Book Day – the children came to nursery dressed up in fancy dress and we had a picnic lunch whilst listening to our favourite stories! Our Baby Room also marked the occasion by visiting the local library for a story telling event.

The children have picked the theme of fire engines as one of their topics this month; their interest in a passing emergency vehicle led us into making our own fire engine and the children dressing up and using hoses to put the fire out! We are going to visit some fire engines in the upcoming weeks so the children can sit in and pretend to drive them!

Even the ‘Beast from the East’ failed to stop our fun as we enjoyed building snowmen and making snow angels. Parenta magazine even featured the Company in an article they ran on snow days as we manged to brave the weather conditions and open nursery every day.

Baby Room hosted a sensory ‘Stay and Play’ session for parents and carers to attend and get messy with them. They explored shaving foam, water, coloured pasta and feet painting. A fun time was had by all!

Toddler Room had their Easter workshop where we joined in with baking, crafts and even made bird feeders for the garden. Meanwhile Pre-school had a sports day to raise awareness for Sport Relief by taking part in the egg and spoon race along with an assault course and playing various other garden games.

Bertie our Pre-School Bear has also had a busy month – he has been having adventures at the children’s houses and has been on many day trips. He has recently returned from his holidays in France! We have loved reading about what he has been up to.

For Mother’s Day, the children have been pot painting, decorating mugs and coasters for their Mums. This is something the children enjoy doing throughout the year and often decorate keepsakes to bring home

The children showed an interested in the distance of things and how far objects could travel, so we spent one sunny morning making aeroplanes. The children then took them outside into the garden and flew them. We used markers in the grass to see how far our aeroplanes could travel and had races to see which could go the furthest.

To top off our busy month we had our routine environmental health inspection which saw us keep our 5* hygiene rating.

February at Kingswood

5th December 20182nd March 2018 by Emma

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 activities mask making activity, charity day, creativity creative, 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 event Pretty girl, princess dress, dress up day, charity event