March at Riverview

World Book Day

On Thursday 2nd March the children enjoyed coming to nursery dressed as their favourite character. The Pre-School particularly celebrated Julia Donaldson classics, including ‘Room on a Broom’, with all the staff dressing as a different character. Toddlers took the opportunity to share their favourite book ‘Dear Zoo’, whilst Baby Room had a ‘Wizard of Oz’ theme.

Snow day

There was a little bit of disruption to our usual schedule in March, caused by the weather!  Snow is a wonderful experience for the children and we hope that all of our families that didn’t make it to nursery had a good time exploring at home. For the few children that made it to nursery during the snow days we had a very fun time. We built a snowman outside and then came inside to warm up with some hot chocolate. We took the opportunity to say hello to our guinea pig friends Neddy and Noddy; we got them out of the cage to have a closer look and a cuddle.

Science Week

Pre-School have been exploring non-fiction books, finding out different facts about the world we live in.  Did you know that most of the Earth’s surface is covered in water? Around 71% of it! And the biggest ocean on Earth is called the Pacific Ocean! Or did you know that the Milky Way is the name of the galaxy we live in?

We have also started planting this month and, with this, we have a little ongoing experiment on how seeds grow. The children have placed two bags on the window, each of which contains a bean seed. One is in the bag alone, whereas the children think some soil and water in the other bag will help the seed to grow! The children are excited to see if their hypothesis is correct.

Red Nose Day

On Friday 17th March we celebrated Comic Relief. This year there was a ‘Mr Men and Little Miss’ theme which we made the most of by dressing up as the characters, and setting up messy play opportunities in the tuff trays.

St. Patricks Day

Toddlers hunted for the gold at the end of the rainbow in the sensory tray. Babies experimented making playdough with different lucky charms to hide and seek.

Spring walk to the park

Pre-School had a walk up to the local park. On the way there they looked for signs of Spring around them. The children noticed new plants growing such as daffodils and tulips. We also talked about the sun up in the sky. On the way back we did a listening walk to see what sounds we could hear; we heard birds tweeting and lots of different vehicles on the road. We took this opportunity to talk about safe ways to cross the road.

Ramadan – Free Fruit Friday and wish tree

Ramadan is a time that we reflect on our self, to be thankful and to help others.  We know lots of our families are fasting at the moment so, for Free Fruit Friday, we provided different traditional fruits to break fast with in the evening. We also created a wish tree outside the nursery for our children to reflect on things they are grateful for.

January at Little School House

During January The Little School House have been up to lots of fun and exciting activities. We kick started the New Year with our loose theme topic ‘All About Me’. The Pre-School children started by talking about themselves, what they look like and how they are different from each other. They continued their learning by looking at their reflections in a mirror and drawing themselves, highlighting key features such as eye and hair colour, and then drew each other. The Baby and Toddler rooms used families as a theme and created displays of children’s family photographs, looking and talking about who the children live with and what they do as a family outside of the nursery setting. Parents enjoyed getting involved and provided us with lots of happy family memories that the children could share with each other at nursery.

Since our conception as Early Years Care and Education we have been striving to raise awareness of healthy lifestyles, diet of course being a big part of this area. As well as overhauling our menus, considering ingredients and portion sizes, we have also now introduced a new strategy – ‘Free Fruit Friday’ which runs the last Friday of each month. We are doing this as an opportunity to invite children, parents and carers to have a piece of fresh fruit on us! Although the children attending nursery receive lots of fresh fruit on a daily basis, we thought it would be another fantastic role modelling opportunity. Our first attempt at the end of January was a great success and I know that lots of parents and children alike are looking forward to having it again in February and beyond.

At our setting we like to promote diversity and culture and, with this in mind, the Pre-School children have been learning about Chinese New Year. They talked in group time about the different animals each year represents and how this year is the year of the dog. The children then made their own red ‘lucky envelopes’ and put chocolate coins inside which they took home to parents. The children discussed while doing this, how the colour red in Chinese culture is a lucky colour.

Our next exciting project will be our lending library where we will further promote literacy. Children and parents/carers will be able to select and borrow books from the nursery library to read together at home.