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.

 

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…

July at Oak Valley

What an amazing month we have had! July saw us reach the hottest temperatures on record, but we embraced the heat & managed to keep cool by taking part in lots of water play; we even brought our swimming costumes to splash around in the paddling pool!

We loved welcoming visitors back into the nursery & started this off with Sarah & Albert the hearing dog! The children asked lots of questions & enjoyed finding out how Albert & his friends help the community 😊 Thank you so much for coming in to talk to us!

This month saw an amazing series of treats & events to celebrate the 5yr anniversary of our Company. The staff celebrated with Golden Envelope bonuses, raffles & dress down days as well as finishing the week with a party! Thank you to The Sitwell Arms for hosting us, Tasha’s Little Bakery for the wonderful cakes, Elegance Castle Hire Bouncy Castle for the fab disco dome, Cream Castles – Bouncy Castle Hire for the garden games, Laura’s Little Crafts for the personalised champagne flutes, B360Hire for the photo booth & last, but by no means least, Moonlight Entertainments disco & karaoke for the grand selection of tunes that kept us singing & dancing all night! Thank you to our lovely families for their kind & complimentary words also.

We also said goodbye to our Pre-School children this month as they head off to big school! But not before giving them a big send off. We started by holding ‘Oakfest’ our annual school leavers festival. The children played games such as Hook a Duck & Tin Can Alley. We had facepaints, glitter tattoos & a picnic lunch, followed by a visit from the ice-cream van!

It was lovely to invite parents & carers back into nursery as the children then had their graduation ceremony. This was followed by a leavers workshop to make keepsakes of their time at Oak Valley.

A big thank you to Saul Isaac photography who came in to nursery to do a professional photoshoot of the children graduating to capture the special moments for the children & parents.

We will miss you all as you all go off to school, but we know you will all be amazing on your next adventure!

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!

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 :)

November 2021 @ The Little School House

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!

July 2021 at Riverview!

What makes us unique

The children in our Pre-School room started the month by discussing what makes them unique. They talked a lot about what they had in common, and also what differences they have. They made faces out of playdough and, at the mark-making table, they drew themselves.

It’s coming home

For the Euros, we had a special football party before the tournament final. The Pre-School children worked together to create a big England flag that we hung up in the garden. In Babies, they experimented with the colour red by playing in red spaghetti, and making lots of marks in the sensory tray with red paint.

Good luck school graduates

July saw us waving goodbye to our first ever Pre-School graduates, and what a lovely bunch they were! We’ll miss them all dearly. To celebrate them finishing at Riverview, we had a ceremony where each of them were presented with a certificate. We then had ice-cream in the garden and some party games to celebrate their achievements.

Sports day fun!

Pre-School also had their very own sports day. Simon from Super Star Sport came in to deliver a session for us and the children had a great time running around, playing with the footballs and participating in the physical challenges. Afterwards, we talked about why exercise is good for us and the effect it has on our bodies.

Tooth Brushing club

As we will soon be starting a tooth brushing club, we have introduced the children to the importance of oral health, and what they can do to look after their teeth.  In an activity to promote good oral health, the children used toothbrushes to clean dirty marks off the teeth model.

We’ve been growing!

As well as brushing teeth twice a day, eating a balanced diet can also help promote good oral health. In the garden, we have had our first harvest of green beans. The children have been enjoying eating these at lunchtimes. The children love watering the plants and learning what makes them grow. Toddlers and Pre-School have both done experiments to see what happened to bean/pea seeds under different conditions. We have found that the seeds that have water and sunlight grow, whereas the seeds without will not.

Our ant world

Toddlers have been looking after their own colony of ants in their ‘ant world’. They enjoy observing the ants in the nest, watching them dig and crawl around.  They watch them walk down the tube of the ant world in the viewing container, where there is food for the ants to eat. We have talked about the types of food ants like; we have found they like sugary fruit and vegetables as this gives them lots of energy.  

We are looking forward to more fun in the sun this summer, and to welcoming our families old and new back in the new term.

March at The Little School House

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!

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!