Pre school Archives | Early Years Care & Education

March at The Little School House

23rd April 202023rd April 2020 by Beth Softley

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!

October’s Activities at Kingswood

5th December 201819th November 2018 by Nicola

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

August at Highgate

5th December 20185th November 2018 by Jenni

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!

July at Oak Valley- Outdoor play

5th December 20181st August 2018 by Emma

This month we’ve had a lovely time exploring in our new discovery garden. We found loads of bugs and minibeasts which we took back into the classroom to talk about. The children decided they wanted to feed their new friends, so gave them carrots and cucumber! After enjoying getting dirty, digging and playing in the mud kitchen, they transferred their learning experience indoors and took full advantage of our baking supplies and made mud pies!

baking litter picking

Toddler Room have been making the most of the gorgeous weather we had with a trip to Graves Park! The children enjoyed a tram ride to feed the animals, played on the equipment and finished with a tasty picnic. Our school leavers had their annual trip to Western Park Museum. The children loved all the interactive displays and dressing up in the fabulous costumes

Our Pre-School council have been helping the environment this month! With the help of our hi-visibility vests and litter pickers we have been making our surrounding areas cleaner and tidier. Well done everyone!

We have been supporting the England football team this month by making flags and learning songs! Even though we didn’t end up winning the World Cup, we had a fantastic time enjoying all our football activities! #teamEngland

Oak Valley are supporting England in the World Cup! #itscominghome ???????⚽️???????⚽️???????⚽️???????⚽️???????

Posted by Oak Valley Day Nursery on Tuesday, 10 July 2018

Sunday 15th July saw the EYCE staff team embark on a ‘seaside jolly’ to Scarborough for the day! The trip was a treat from the owner to thank them for an extremely successful year and to celebrate a year of the newly branded Company. It was a really lovely day with gorgeous sunshine, beautiful scenery and a relaxing boat trip, all perfectly topped off with an amazing fish and chip lunch!! ?☀????

Image may contain: 23 people, people smiling, people standing

In addition to our regular ‘Mini Moverz’ session, this month we also welcomed in ‘Rhythm and Rhyme’. The children learnt lots of new songs and dance routines to help keep them active.

We finished a lovely month off with our school leavers Graduation Ceremony and workshop. Good luck to our class of 2018, you will be missed! We’re certain you’ll all have a great time at school – don’t forget us too soon!!

April at Highgate

5th December 201817th May 2018 by Jenni

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 23^rd 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.

January at Little School House

5th December 20189th February 2018 by Chloe Winter

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.