At the beginning of March the children enjoyed dressing up as their favourite characters for World Book Day & helped raise money for new books through our sponsored listen event! A big thank you to everyone that got involved.
Our Baby Room have been busy doing lots of sensory activities this month, from playdough & painting to baking. They had so much fun exploring all their senses by touching, smelling & tasting.
The children in Rising 3’s have been learning all about Baby Bear’s travels to Italy! They helped to make pasta neapolitana, garlic bread & pizzas from scratch and then ate them for their dinner – yummy!
We’re now looking forward to celebrating Easter. We’ll be back soon to fill you in on more exciting Highgate activities :)
It has been a very busy month of celebrating! We started the month by supporting Mental Health Week; we practiced some yoga with the children to aid their physical development and to promote them being mindful of themselves. From this we have also purchased some books about being mindful and grateful towards others.
We then went onto celebrate the Chinese New Year by having a lovely Chinese cuisine for lunch. All the children really seemed to enjoy this meal!
Valentine’s Day was next; we shared the love by baking and engaging in many different activities, from using flavoured teabags to imprint different effects and colours onto the paper, to gluing and sticking heart pictures, exploring different shapes and textures.
Pancake Day – my personal favourite! We were very fortunate to have been given a donation of ingredients from Jacks Supermarket to help aid us in celebrating this yummy day. We enjoyed trying lots of different toppings, from a wide variety of fruits to support healthy eating, and also a choice of a yummy treat toppings of maple syrup, or chocolate or strawberry sauce.
Finally, this month we celebrated our 1 year anniversary of officially opening! And what a year it has been! We had fun marking the occasion with the children and enjoying the delicious cake that Rachel, our Deputy, kindly made for us. Here’s to many more years of Riverview success!
Firstly, may we wish you all a Happy New Year – what a year 2020 was! It provided us with many challenges that none of us could ever have imagined; two national lockdowns, closing our doors to many children and some of our staff being furloughed to name but a few! I think we can all agree we are more than happy to see the back end of 2020!
With that in mind, we have welcomed 2021 with open arms and look forward to the relaxing of restrictions in good time. During January, we spent a lot of our time outdoors exploring our local environment. We are extremely fortunate to have Graves Park on our doorstep and take full advantage when we can. Here are some pictures of our Baby Room & Toddler children walking though the park and into the woods. They used their senses to talk about the different noises they could hear and used the opportunity to practice their running skills, considering their speed while they were at it!
The month of January also brought us lots of lovely snow. It’s a fantastic learning opportunity for the children and we were lucky enough to have many occasions outside experiencing the temperature, texture and different experiences it brings. The children enjoyed making some fantastic structures; snowmen and snow fairies among others! But most of all, the amazing fun of sliding down the hill – such a simple process that brings such joy both to them doing it and to us observing them.
Our loose theme through January was ‘All About Me’ and our Pre-School children spent time drawing self-portraits. There was discussion about the facial features we all have and how, despite that, we are all different. Here are some of our self-portraits for you to see:
We’re looking forward to Valentine’s day and pancake day in February, and sharing more of our Little School House adventures with you all soon :)
Here at Kingswood Day Nursery, we have made the very best of a ‘different’ type of December. During the pandemic we have made every effort to ensure that the children accessing the nursery, are receiving the same level of high quality care, along with a variety of activities to not only extend learning and challenge the children’s creative and critical thinking, but to excite and offer enthusiasm and fun too!
During December Kingswood engaged in a range of festive events starting with a staff team ‘Bake Off’! Each week the staff members from a room within the setting would bake some goodies to share with the rest of the team and I can personally vouch, that the bakes I sampled were yummy!
The nursery also participated in Christmas Jumper Day and we all had so much fun comparing our jumpers, as well as raising some money for the very worthy cause ‘Save the Children’.
We celebrated our home family traditions by having our very own Christmas Dinner Day (vegetarian style), prepared and made by our lovely cook Alice. The dinner was so yummy and was enjoyed by all; Quorn roast with all the trimmings!
We know that lots of plans had to be put on hold in 2020, and that going to see Santa was not always possible, so we were super excited when we received the news that he would be making a visit to Kingswood whilst on his way back to the North Pole! It was only a flying visit as he still had lots to prepare for Christmas, but all the same we were so pleased to receive a socially distanced visit from the big man himself!
Finally, to try and spread some festive cheer and memories amongst the staff and families of Kingswood, we asked the staff to share with us any funny stories or favourite gifts they remember receiving as a child. There were some very interesting ones, and Nicola and Chloe were happy to share their memories of an Easy Bake Oven and Baby Annabelle!
We would like to take this opportunity to say we hope all our families had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, despite the challenges, and that you all enjoyed time spent with family and loved ones. Please continue to stay safe, here’s hoping that 2021 will bring health and happiness, and a step in the right direction to coming through this challenging time we have all faced in 2020.
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.
Messy play
Messy play
Poppy pictures
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.
Bear hunt
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.
Road safety Awareness week
Road Safety
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…………………?
We know it’s been a while since you’ve been inside nursery, so we thought you might like to hear about all the improvements that have been going on behind the scenes over the last few months! We have had new windows, new flooring, a new outdoor play area, lots of decorating & the staff have been busy getting creative & doing a bit of upcycling in the rooms! Our nursery looks fantastic and if you would like a sneaky peak – please see our 3D virtual tour!
We have had lots of fun celebrating Halloween this month! The children enjoyed making Halloween monster biscuits and have thought of new ideas about how else they could make monsters. They decided to make playdough monsters using the loose parts! The children were so proud of their creations and enjoyed achieving what they set out to do! On Halloween, the children took part in a pumpkin hunt in the garden as well as taking part in our fancy dress competition. We saw lots of fantastic fancy dress costumes and all the children looked amazing – well done to all the children who took part!
Firstly, I would like to say a big hello from us here at Riverview. We are the fifth branch to be added to the Early Years Care and Education family! We first opened our doors back in February, only to have to close them again in March when the dreaded coronavirus caused the national lockdown. We then re-opened our doors in June and have been welcoming new families through the door ever since, adding employees along the way also. We’re now a staff team of 10 and the number of children attending grows by the week! It’s a real pleasure seeing the setting grow. Both myself and the Deputy previously worked at our branch in Dore, so know what it’s like to have a bustling nursery, and now we’re lucky enough to be running our own!
So, what have we been up to at Riverview so far? Over the past couple of months, we have been exploring our environment, and looking closely at ‘the curiosity approach’ and loose parts. We have really enjoyed developing our outdoor areas and have been investigating den-building, doing our own growing, and focusing on our gross motor skills and physical development by improving our balancing skills for example.
We are even growing our own tomatoes. How exciting.
Inside the building, we have enhanced our loose parts theme and really focused on the interests of the children and extending their learning with what they have shown fascinated with.
We have really enjoyed role play activities and making our own pizzas.
Throughout the past few weeks, we have taken great pleasure in looking after our own caterpillars, who then spread their wings and flew off as beautiful butterflies
That’s all from us for now. We’re really happy to be here and look forward to filling you in more in due course.
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!
We started the month by celebrating Pancake Day on 5th March. The children enjoyed making & eating some yummy pancakes at snack time.
We then took part in a sponsored listen to celebrate World Book Day on 7th March & everybody came to nursery in dressed up as their favourite book characters. A massive well done & thank-you to all the families who took part in the sponsored listen & raised over £150 for us to buy new books for nursery!
Pre-School 1 went on a little trip to Weston Park Museum on 14th March. They had a great time, dressing up & playing in the role play areas. They even had time to feed the ducks, before returning back to nursery on the bus.
On 15th March the children & staff came to nursery wearing items of red clothing & made a donation towards Comic Relief.
The Babies hosted a ‘Stay & Play’ event. We invited their grown-ups to come along & join in the fun of morning play time. They enjoyed group time together; choosing song spoons & singing their favourite songs, whilst joining in with the actions! They then took part in a sponge painting activity & a sensory activity with squelchy, slippery, multi- coloured spaghetti! The children & their special guests had so much fun & we had some great feedback. Thank you to everyone who came along & took part.
The children in Toddler Room also had a wonderful ‘Tea Party’ with their Mummies & Nanans in celebration of Mother’s Day. They ate some delicious scones with jam & cream, they sang some of their favourite songs & then took part in some fun creative activities! They made flower bookmarks using lollipop sticks & buttons. They decorated plant pots & then planted some seeds in the soil to grow some beautiful flowers. Finally, they decorated mugs with beautiful hand drawn pictures for their accompanying adults.
After all that we’re now looking forward to April – Easter, the start of a new term & plenty more fun activities!
We have had a lovely month at Oak Valley. The mini heatwave has enabled us to make the most of the great outdoors starting with the ‘Big Garden Bird Watch!’ The children made their own bird feeders and binoculars and watched as the birds played on our garden! We spotted so many different types of wildlife!
Bird Watching
Making Bird Feeders
Bird Feeders Ready
Pre-School invited their parents to our maths-themed workshop this month. The children and their special guests took part in activities such as finding shapes hidden in shaving foam, mark making in the sand and weighing and measuring. The fabulous feedback we received tells us the parents had fun and found it really useful to see examples in practice of how their children can learn through play and how they can implement these things at home.
Making Different Shapes And Numbers
Shape Hunt
We enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year this month. Our School Council decided we should mark the occasion by making lanterns and having a food tasting session. We then voted on our favourite Chinese dish.
Chinese Food Tasting
We Enjoyed The Food Tasting
Food Tasting
We finished the month off with a visit to Excel Martial Arts and Dance Studio. The children enjoyed having a taster session; they played games, learnt many new moves and took part in lots of exercise while doing the obstacle courses. Thank you Excel for letting us visit – we had a lovely time!
