September 2021 @ Oak Valley

September has been a great month for us all at Oak Valley. We welcomed back our term-time children & had many new starters joining us to begin their nursery journey! We have loved welcoming our parents back into the building to see our newly decorated rooms & the exciting activities that have been taking place!

Baby Room has been exploring words & sounds this month. We have been singing nursery rhymes in English & French, creating sensory music bottles to use at group time, & using our ‘Words of the Week’ to explore. The children particularly enjoyed fruit tasting & baking with lots of different textures & flavours.

Toddler Room has been making the most of the warm weather & spending as much time as possible outdoors. We have enjoyed an outing to the park to play games, & taken part in our monthly Super Star Sport session! This month we focussed on football; the children practiced their gross motor skills & hand -eye coordination, while running around getting lots of exercise & fresh air.

Rising 3’s have been especially interested in role-play this month. The children have created a post office area where they have been busy writing & sorting letters, serving customers & answering the phone. After working really hard, the children decided they need a break, & went on holiday on their aeroplane to lots of exotic destinations!

Rising 3’s have also enjoyed making sensory playdough, drawing shadow pictures of their favorite toys & exploring different countries, to name but a few activities sparked by the children’s interests (which never fail to interest us!)

To finish off the month, Pre-School have been for an adventure into the woods to collect leaves, conkers & sticks! We then made some lovely Autumn pictures to show what we had found.

Some of you may have seen our Early Years Care & Education bear on the Sheffield Bear Trail in aid of Sheffield Children’s Hospital. Keep your eyes peeled, as he’ll be on his way to spend some time with us at Oak Valley :)

June adventures at Kingswood

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!