Harvard Park Day Nursery LTD.
Notes from the management team: Nicki, Tracey and our deputy manager Carol We would like to start by addressing the weather. It is still very chilly in the early morning so you must provide all children with a warm coat. Our garden remains cold until 2:00pm in the afternoon. It is too early for summer dresses with no coats! ALL children in ALL rooms must have the appropriate clothing for the weather. •
Our Photographer, Karen will be back in at the end of May. Please see the bottom of the set for the dates. If neither of these are you scheduled sessions - please drop us a message to book in a time which suits us all. Karen takes lovely portraits of the children which are ideal for gifts or special memories. We will send out reminders closer to the time.
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We would like to remind you that we will be Closed on Monday 2nd May for the early Bank Holiday and also Closed on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd June for the Queen’s Jubilee.
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Happy Eid for the 2nd / 3rd of May - we hope you have wonderful celebrations!
Health and Safety Notices and reminders: Birthday Celebrations and Cakes It is lovely that you want to celebrate your child’s birthday with their friends at the nursery. A simple character cake from a local supermarket such as Tesco or Aldi is more than enough. Please avoid cakes with large amounts of fresh cream, that are chocolate flavoured and serve more than 25 people - keep it small and simple! There is less waste and the children apricate any type of cake.
Clothing and the weather Please check the weather before you leave the house and dress your child accordingly. Our garden remains in the shade until around 3:00pm and remains quite chilly for most of the day. Unless the sun is blazing and is going to be all day - please do not put your children in shorts and summer dresses just yet. Warm, thick coats are still advised as the warm weather has not yet arrived. Thank you to all the older children leaving push-chairs at home and using scooters! Baby Studio please make sure you are folding your buggies down.
Dates for you diary and reminders: Monday 2nd May we are closed for the bank holiday! Wednesday 25th May - Baby Studio and Small Steps Photo day! Friday 27th May - Freedom Zone Photo Day! Wednesday 1st June - Our Platinum Jubilee Party - Wear Red, white and blue to celebrate with us - at present we have no availability to swap sessions. Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd June we are closed for the bank holiday and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee! If you are struggling with what is going on in today’s world: If you have been affected by anything that is going on in today’s world and need some support or just a listening ear, then please know we are here to help. You don’t need to suffer in silence - we are here to support both you and your child.
Birthdays for the month of May: Small Steps: Happy 2nd birthday to Daphne! Freedom Zone: Happy 3rd Birthday to Alice, Oliver, Ahana, Freja and Zara! Staff: Happy birthday to our wonderful managing director Tracey, Gemma and Pauline from Tiger Club - we hope everyone has a lovely day celebrating with friends and family!
Harvard Park Day Nursery LTD.
Notes from Baby Studio: Ducklings - Amanda, Mary, Afsha and Gurpreet: Focus: Physical Development (PD) We would like to start by welcoming Nina, Emma and Victoria into our room—we are so lucky you have chosen us to help start your educational journey’s. This month we will be focusing on physical development and hopefully making the most of the improving weather. Activities will include walking practice with those who are yet to walk and using our climbing equipment such as the soft play, tunnels and balls to help develop gross motor skills for others. We will also work on the babies fine motor skills with lots of mark making and posting objects with our home made post boxes! Reminders:
Please keep your babies nails as short as possible . If you struggle to clip them, try when they are fresh out of the bath or while they are sleeping. If you are leaving your buggy / push-chair at nursery, please make sure you fold / collapse it as the entrance gets very crowded when they are left up—this then becomes a health and safety issue in an emergency evacuation.
Please make sure that your child’s outfit is weather appropriate (including coats) and that their spare changes of clothes in their bags also reflect the weather.
Target @ home : Video or take pictures of your baby exploring the outdoor environment, practising their walking / crawling skills and upload them onto the EyLog! If you are unsure of how the app works or are not sure how to upload things, PLEASE come and see us—we will walk you through it :)
Notes from Small Steps: Bunnies - Qani, Martina, Amy, Harriet, Elvia and Sonia: Focus: Physical Development. Our theme will be health and self-help skills and growing! Firstly we would like to say goodbye to Jack and Isaiah who will be moving up to Freedom Zone this month. In Small Steps we will focus on how the children can support themselves and develop their self help skills. It is important that they learn of their abilities early so they gain a sense of self and well-being. We will focus daily on feeding themselves using cutlery, dressing themselves to go outside as well as at nappy changing times and for some children, potty training using reward charts. We would like to encourage you to do the same at home - especially when it comes to feeding themselves! Alongside this, we will be spending a lot of time outside exploring growing by doing some planting and making sure the plants are watered. Reminders:
Sun Cream and Sun Hats: Where possible, please apply sun cream before coming to the nursery if you are part time. If you are full time, please provide us with a bottle of sun-cream so we can top it up when the weather gets nice. We will label it with your child’s name so there is no confusion as to whose bottle is whose.
Please provide enough spare clothes and please dress your child in clothes that you do not mind getting messy: We cannot stress enough that children will get messy while at nursery and if they do not wish to wear aprons we cannot force them and exclude them from messy activities, we can only encourage. Please do not dress your child in their most expensive and prettiest outfits!
Please make sure you clean and sterilise your child’s water bottle when you take it home. Bottles will build up mould in the teat's and straws so please clean them.
Please keep your child’s nails as short as possible . If you struggle to clip them, try when they are fresh out of the bath or while they are sleeping. This is to prevent accidents to themselves as well as others.
Sadly we are not seeing enough of you interacting and sharing things on our EyLog app. If you do not know how to do this please let us know and we can support you - but you need to let us know! Dates for you diary and reminders: Monday 2nd May we are closed for the bank holiday! Wednesday 25th May - Baby Studio and Small Steps Photo day! Wednesday 1st June - Our Platinum Jubilee Party - Wear Red, white and blue to celebrate with us - at present we have no availability to swap sessions. Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd June we are closed for the bank holiday and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee!
Harvard Park Day Nursery LTD.
Notes from Freedom Zone: Cool Cats - Viviana, Charlotte, Sam, Sherry, Ellie, Nabila, Saptati , Katie, Hannah, Natasha and Danielle: Focus: Growing and Mini-beasts! As we welcome in the month of May, we would like to start by welcoming Isaiah and Jack to our room. We would also like to say a big thank you to all of those who joined in with our Easter project - your submissions were so creative, well done! We would also like to thank you for the EyLog Observations and homework observations that have been coming through from some parents. It has been a great help to see what your child does outside of the setting as well as being able to link off extra parts of their development. Our topic for this month will focus on growing and mini-beasts. As the weather is improving, it will be good to get outside in the fresh air and develop our outside area by planting new flowers outside and learning about the life cycle of a plant. It ties in nicely as we all know mini-beasts love plants! We will be doing lots of activities such as bug hunts, trips to our local green areas to see what we can find and starting to look out how we are growing and will be getting ready to go to big school soon! We will be using The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to support the children’s learning of the butterfly life cycle. Please explore this story at home with your child for the first 2 weeks of May to support their learning at nursery. Remember if you don’t have the book at home, there are audio books available or pop to your local library to see if they have a copy! Please also check the EyLog where there will be set homework to support your child with the 2 targets set by their keyworker - remember to post evidence to show us how well they are getting on! Reminders:
Please pick up on time or 10 minutes before the end of their session: we are having lots of parents arriving later than 1:00pm and 6:00pm. You will be charged after these pick up times - £1 a minute. If you want feedback please be here before 12:50 pm or 5:50pm as we need to be in the room to support other children and finish our duties. If you are running late - please call us!
Water bottles: Please feel free to provide a water bottle for your child to encourage them to drink water throughout the day. We do have times where they have water such as meal times and small water breaks but water bottles may encourage them to freely drink more.
Sun-cream: Where possible, please apply sun cream before coming to the nursery if you are part time. If you are full time, please provide us with a bottle of sun-cream so we can top it up when the weather gets nice. We will label it with your child’s name so there is no confusion as to whose bottle is whose. Please be aware of the ingredients in sun-cream and avoid any with almond oil in - we have children and staff with air-born nut allergies!
Please do not send in ANY toys from home as we are not responsible for looking after them. Children should be encouraged to give it back to you when they arrive at nursery as they will go missing at the setting and we are not responsible for this. If you have applied for School Nursery - please let us know so we can begin our School Transition talks with the children as well as get ready for graduation!
Sadly we are not seeing enough of you interacting and sharing things on our EyLog app. If you do not know how to do this please let us know and we can support you - but you need to let us know!
Dates for you diary and reminders: Monday 2nd May we are closed for the bank holiday! Friday 27th May - Freedom Zone Photo Day - please only provide one change of clothes and do their hair before they come to nursery - we do not have time to conduct multiple clothing changes and hair styles! Wednesday 1st June - Our Platinum Jubilee Party - Wear Red, white and blue to celebrate with us - at present we have no availability to swap sessions. Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd June we are closed for the bank holiday and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee!