Some of our flowers have bloomed and the others are still coming up so by spring we should have lots of blooming flowers.

We have also been updating our training and have done planning, trackers and learning journals and child development.

New resources we have made include sensory gloves, displaying numbers and days of the week in different languages as well as relabeling our areas in multiple languages spoken by the staff and children.

Constructing with magnets

Our Chinese dragon

Self registration

Parent feedback photo board

Upcoming events

Parents evening 31/03/11 7-9pm

World book day 03/03/11

Welcome to Karolina who has joined our staff team in baby room and we know she will have lots of fun with us.

We have fun watering our flowers we planted in the garden and they are now blooming so the garden is a mixture of pink, yellow, purple, white, and some orange.

Our parents evening went well as Jackie Underwood our Early Years Adviser spoke to parents on the learning opportunities that happen when the children play and how they can support the staff and their children in tracking and noting this down.

Festivals

We made fathers day cards and celebrated milestones for some of friends who had birthdays as well as taking their first steps.

Upcoming events

Toddle for Banardos – date to be confirmed

School leavers trip – TBC

Dad’s day – August 10^th

This term we have welcomed 2 new children to play with us -one in both rooms. We continue to do lots of messy activities, stories, building, and modelling. We planted some daffodils which have now bloomed. We are going to do some more planting over the coming months and have yet to decide what we will plant. We have changed our morning snack time in pre-school to having it with our breakfast. 

Festivals

We celebrated Easter by doing lots of activities; we also made Mother’s day card and pancakes. Some of our friends also celebrated birthdays and we made cakes for them.

May is National Smile month so we will be encouraging you to smile more often.

Up coming events

Parent’s guest speaker evening 22^nd June 7-9pm

Some of the exciting things we have planned include looking at our senses, finding out about mini-beasts, getting ready for the winter, and sharing in the adventures of Goldilocks and the Three Bears as well as Jack and the Beanstalk. We want to make a few trips to Kew Gardens, the library, the park and the science museum.

In baby room we would also like to say welcome to a few friends who have joined us. We too have been looking at our senses, and next week we will be investigating different types of sounds. Next we will be looking at wild animals so hopefully we will be able to visit the Aquarium and Pets at Home to look at some of these animals.

We will still be doing all the painting, sticking, corn flour play, sand and water, jelly, shaving foam, pasta, cutting and drawing. As you can see we are going to be very busy so we may come home a bit more tired, and messy.

Some dates for your diary!!!!

Fancy dress party Friday 30^th October 3-5pm cost £2 – all proceeds will go to a children’s charity.

Parent’s social evening (not to be missed) Tuesday 1^st December

Children’s Christmas party Friday 18^th December 1:45-4:30

Children’s Christmas lunch Monday 21^st December

Nursery closes Tuesday 22^nd December @ 6:15

Nursery re-opens Monday 4^th January @ 8am

For our activities we have been looking at transport and have been to the train station to see the driver and maybe Thomas and Percy. We have made models of cars, buses, trucks, looked at books, sang songs and rhymes that talk about the different types of transport.

Next we are going to be looking at rhymes with the numbers 1-5 e.g. 5 currant buns, 5 little monkeys, 5 little ducks to name a few. Trips we have been on were going to Snakes and Ladders, walk to Pets at home, Fun day in the park and going to the docks to feed the ducks.

We have said goodbye to one of our friends who will be going to school and over the next month we will say goodbye to some more. We hope that they will have lots of new experiences, make lots of new friends, but that they will come back and visit us when they get the chance.

We have been looking people who help us e.g. the baker and dentist and have changed round our home corner to look like a bakery and dentist office. We visited Greggs our local bakery and was able to see how they made sandwiches, saw the oven where they bake the pasties, cakes, doughnuts, and biscuits and then we bought some gingerbread men to take back with us. We also looked at foods that are healthy and unhealthy and what they do for our bodies and our teeth. We used clay to make models of food. We have also been concentrating on numbers and letters.

Up coming events

Parent’s assessment evening Wednesday 23^rd September  7-9 pm

Open morning Wednesday  16^th September 16^th 9-12:00

As well as lots of our current children we were delighted to have had some past children and parents attend and it was great to catch up with them to find out how they all were and how the children had adapted to their new schools.

We had lots of duck themed games, hook the duck, balloon modelling, face painting, quacking ducks, a bouncy castle and lucky dip.

We also videoed the parents to find out their views on the care and services we offer and about the experiences they have had at bringing up baby. Expressions to name a few were “thumbs up”, “brilliant”, “the best”, “we love it”, “fantastic”.

Jackie, our Operations Manager, unveiled our 20th anniversary plaque. She stated that after twenty years “we still hold to the ethos of home away from home”.

We had a fantastic ‘family of ducks’ cake as represents our company logo. This was baked by “Jolly Bakers” and was cut by Katya Thomas, our first child at Brentford and also Dylan, our most recent child to start at the nursery. We shouted three cheers of hip hip hooray and held up a glass of champagne and grape wine to toast the occasion.  It was an extremely great party and enjoyed by all.

You can see pictures of the party at Brentford by downloading this PDF.

We are still looking at our stories and rhymes in baby room but will also be looking at spring and Easter. We have said goodbye to some of our friends who graduated to pre-school. I’m sure they are having lots of fun and so will we when we get there but for now we’re happy right where we are.

In pre-school we had lots of fun changing our home corner into Tescos. We made shopping lists, bought food products, counted money, tasted different fruits, went to Somerfield and shopped for our baking activity.

We will also be looking at spring and Easter activities over the next few weeks.

On Friday May 8^th 2009 we will be celebrating Bringing up Baby’s 20th Birthday at nursery with a grand party in the afternoon. You are welcome to come and join us also but don’t be surprised if we ask you to quack like a duck.

Please remember that we close April 8^th and re-open April 20^th. Our quiz night will be Wednesday April 8^th so come with your thinking caps on and who knows what prize you may win.

The nursery curriculum planning for this month will include the topic of learning the various colours of the rainbow. We would also like to introduce WEDNESDAY COLOUR DAY.

On this day the children and staff will wear particular colour to enable the children to learn new colours. Please check the Parents Notice Board for the colour of the week.

During January both nursery and pre-school will be celebrating Chinese New Year, learning animals of the Chinese New Year calendar, counting, and making animals, dragon lanterns ect.

If parents have any Chinese items for our show and tell or interest table we would be grateful if you can bring them in as this would help develop the children’s knowledge and understanding of the world.

Pre-school will also be very busy in January. Our planned topics will include “What I did during my holiday”, my family, letters shapes, numbers, colours, Chinese New Year hot and cold and weather climate in different countries.

Any pictures from holidays, family abroad and postcards would be helpful for this subject.

Can we please remind parents to bring in a set of hat, gloves and scarf for the children to keep in the nursery for outdoor playtimes.

DATES FOR DIARY 

OPEN MORNING WED 21^st JANUARY 2009 at 9AM – 12 NOON