Newsletter February 2016 Dates for your diary Chinese New Year: Monday 8th February Valentines Day: Sunday 14th February Shrove Tuesday: Tuesday 9th February
General information This month, all rooms will be celebrating Chinese New Year, Pancake Day and Valentines Day. More details about this can be found on all the individual room pages. We are collecting Sainsbury's active kids vouchers. The collection box for these is in the main nursery entrance. In previous years we have been able to get some lovely outdoor equipment, so the more vouchers we can get, the better! We are adding a suggestion/comments box in our entrance area. This is so that parents can feedback thoughts and ideas to us for the nursery. Slips will be provided next to the box for parents to fill out. Training Well done to Denise who has now completed her level 3 in food hygiene. This level is not mandatory for nursery cooks but Denise wanted to have the higher level. Sarah, Donna, Ann and Chelsea have all completed their paediatric first aid this month. All our staff within the nursery team are trained in paediatric first aid and our forest school leaders are also trained in outdoor first aid. Rea, Kirsty and Eloise all attended lock down training for the college as well as prevent training for warning signs of child exploitation. The full nursery team attended a training event in January. The training covered handling accidents and sustained shared thinking with the children. Monthly website focus As a new feature of our newsletter we will add a link to a different website of interest each month. These websites will cover a range of topics such as children’s learning and development, nutrition, family support and creativity. This month’s website is ‘what to expect, when?’ This is guidance for children’s learning and development in the early year’s foundation stage. We also have a hard copy of this in the entrance area.
Early Year’s foundation stage
Tel: 01903 275750 Email: nursery@worthing.ac.uk Sanditon Way, Worthing, West Sussex, BN14 9FD www.worthing.ac.uk
Baby One This month We would like to welcome Lucas, Harry, Ralph and Dylan. We are really enjoying getting to know you and your families. We also welcome Chelsea, our new apprentice. The babies are already rather fond of her! This month we will be celebrating Valentines Day by exploring the colours red and pink, playing with heart shapes and making pictures/cards for our loved ones. We will be tasting new foods and textures as part of Chinese New Year and Pancake Day. If you have any queries about the foods the babies will be eating do not hesitate to contact Raina for more information. We will also be providing tailored activities for all the children based on the outcomes of their termly overviews which will be coming home this month. Keep a look out in their drawers!
Other bits and bobs Please can you label/mark your child’s dummy. Also please remember to update us regularly about any changes in your child’s routines. You are welcome to write in their books at any time. Alternatively, you can just let us know about any changes for us to then write in their books.
Ideas for home Take a look at the “what happens when” booklet in the nursery hallway for lots of great ideas for what you can do in order to support your child’s learning.
Baby Two This month We would like to welcome Amelia and Seraphim who are new to the nursery. We also welcome Mason, Keianna, Marcie and William who have all joined us from Baby 1. This month we will be celebrating Chinese new year in various ways, such as tasting Chinese foods and noodle play. We will also be celebrating shrove Tuesday the following day with some pancake tasting. These celebrations are shortly followed by Valentines day. Mummies and Daddies will cherish a little something made with love!
Other bits and bobs A very sad farewell to Esmee and Ben! Good luck! Please can you email us a recent family photograph for our display. The children love seeing their families faces whilst they are at nursery and telling us all about them!
Ideas for home Melt chocolate and put it in a heart shape mould to celebrate Valentines day! You could also make heart shaped cookies to enjoy together!
Toddlers This month This month we welcome Oliver, Harry, Max, Eben, Julia, Rhys, Isabella, James, Rowan, Lalita and Jacob. We will be looking at Chinese New Year and doing activities around that. We will also be trying some new Chinese foods! For Pancake Day we shall be making pancakes and trying different flavours and toppings! For Valentines Day we will be making pretty cards and pictures and talking about love!
Other bits and bobs We will be learning about flowers and which plants grow at this time of year– and using art to create our own!
Pre-School This month We welcome Edith who has brought a caring and bubbly spark to pre-school! We also welcome Isaac who has joined us from Toddlers. We also welcome Laura, our lovely new student who has started with us on a Monday and Wednesday. This month we will be celebrating Chinese new year by cooking yummy Chinese food! We will be celebrating Valentines Day by making cards for our loved ones. Pancake Day is on the 9th February so the frying pans will be out and we’ll be making some sweet pancakes! We will be visiting Forest School lots and the nature trail to bring our exciting camping role play area to life with logs and seats!
Acknowledgements Well done to Michael, Edith and Sophie who are all doing well settling into our room.
Other bits and bobs Please remember to bring in book bags for your child as they do love doing them! Also, a reminder that no toys are allowed to be brought in. Thank you.
Ideas for home Peeling sticks! This develops fine master skills and also hand eye co-ordination. We call this whittling! We will be doing lots of this in Forest School to extend our theme of camping.
Forest School This month In January, we had been focusing on the stick man story. We had a look around forest school for where he may live, we practiced our peeling skills on potatoes and then made our very own stick men. We had also been reading the story in our forest school sessions. This month we will be continuing with our stick men stories and making him a house. New forest school groups will be released after February half term.
Ideas for home We have all been practising our peeling skills so make use of these and have your very own kitchen assistants at home when preparing your vegetables!