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!

 

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!

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

 

April at Highgate

During the month of April Highgate has been blessed with a multitude of visitors! We started with Donald and his community engagement ambulance. He talked to the toddlers and Pre-School children about his role and what it entails. They learnt about what an ambulance is for, what it does and how it helps people. The children got to actually sit inside the ambulance and even try out the siren! Possibly their favourite part of the visit was the opportunity to try on the uniform that Donald brought. We ended the session by colouring in some pictures that he’d also supplied.

Zoolab came to bring their exotic wildlife for the children to see. The children were able to handle creatures such as a snake, a giant snail, rats, mice and even a gecko. The Zoolab representative explained to the children where the animals come from, where they live and what they eat. We found the session really encouraged the children to ‘have a go’, even when they weren’t very keen at the beginning!

Last but not least we had our monthly enrichment of ‘Mini Movez’. One of the lovely ladies came to Highgate to lead a fun and expressive session themed around what the children were learning. The sessions are always lively and energetic and the Toddler and Pre-School groups take full advantage of this opportunity for active learning which really gets their hearts pumping!

Aside from visitors, there’s been plenty more exciting things happening within nursery. Our Pre-School children have been learning about life cycles this month and have focussed on frogs. We introduced a tank of real tadpoles & the children explored them using magnifying glasses to examine them. At each stage of development, they’ve made efforts to draw observational portraits.  They are very excited that the tadpoles are now developing legs and are eager to see when they will turn into a frog.

Monday 23rd April saw us celebrating St George’s Day. This date marks the anniversary of the English patron saint’s death. According to legend, he was a soldier in the Roman army who killed a dragon and saved a princess. Rather than re-enacting the legend (!) we decided to mark the day by holding an afternoon tea party. The children made flags using a variety of different art and craft methods such as colouring, sticking and painting. We then used the flags to decorate the table where they ate scones with clotted cream and jam – yummy!

Throughout April our babies have been experimenting with different sensory experiences. We took advantage of the warm weather, stripped the babies down to their nappies and let them explore ‘gloop’, shaving foam, water, cereals, sand and even ice! We focussed on several of the ‘characteristics of effective learning’ with each of these – ‘playing and exploring’, ‘active learning’ and ‘creating and thinking critically’. It was great to observe the different ways they investigated the different mediums and their textures.

Autumn Bonfire Workshop at Kingswood Day Nursery

A massive thank you to the mums and dads who came along to today’s Autumn/Bonfire workshop at Kingswood. The children had a great time as did you according the the excellent feedback given! Look out for your comments quoted on the blog later today.  I am sure children will enjoy eating the edible sparklers that they made for their afternoon snack.

As promised, here are some of the comments made by our parent helpers about today’s workshop…..

“Really enjoyable activities and very inclusive for all the children”.

“A wide range of different activities. All well prepared for and interesting for the children”.

“All staff clear on the activity steps and provided good guidance and control over the children”.

“Very relaxed and nice to just fall in with the session”.

“Good fun, nice to see how my child interacts with other children”.

“Staff as always were friendly and fun”.