Our Blog

Our Blog

Hello Feburary,

‘‘Love is in the February air

It seems like every month there is more and more to celebrate! This month we started off with National Storytelling Week. Each day each of the nursery rooms set up activities based on our children’s favourite stories. We then celebrated the Lunar New Year. One of our families celebrates this at home and kindly brought in lucky red envelopes with chocolate money for our children. We had a dragon dance, tasted traditional food and learnt about the Lunar New Year legends.
We showed our support for children’s mental health week and shared activities that we do every day to help our children.

On Valentine’s Day we learnt about the tales of St Valentine and crafted cards to send home.

In February we also celebrated Claire who has now been with us for 15 years! It was quite overhwhelming for her to see how lovely she is and we had some lovely comments from the parents. Thank you Claire for your dedication.
Chloe also won our Employee of the Month! Chloe has a heart of gold and always strives to do her very best. Well done Chloe, well deserved.

Hello January,

‘‘And we start again

The year was started off with some surprising weather when we were welcomes to nursery with snow!
It was so lovely to see the children’s reactions and the investigated what they could do with it. Some pretty terrible weather warnings have been announced since, keeping us inside. We found lots of ways to keep the children as active as possible by bringing in the bikes, setting up a soft play and using their whole bodies to mark make.
This month our employee of the month is Lauren K. She is wonderful with the children, takes on advice from management and ensures that her children are provided with outstanding activities.

 

Hello December,

‘‘Santa Claus is coming to town

 

We are so lucky to work with children but especially at this time of year. We’ve been busy spreading Christmas cheer and making sure it’s a magical time for all of our children.

We have been crafting our gorgeous handmade keepsakes for our families, writing letters to Father Christmas and we performed our Pre-School Nativity.

We helped to raise money for Save the Children by taking part in Christmas Jumper Day too!

This year we decided to have a festive week at nursery with each day being themed around a Christmas treat. We had Frozen day, Elf day, Snowman day, Grinch day and Festive Day! We had so much fun celebrating.

We wish you all a nice relaxed time with your family over the holiday and wish you a very Merry Christmas x

 

 

 

 

Hello November,

‘‘Fallen leaves and November breeze

Well done to Aimee this month who passed her Level 2 course! We are very proud of you.

There has been lots of celebrate this month starting off with Bonfire Night and Diwali. We had a delicious traditional bonfire meal of pie, peas and parkin! We also created our own fireworks.
for Diwali we celebrated light using all of our light up resources. We also made our own rice and chalk rangoli pattern to present at parents evening.
Thank you to all those that came to parents evening this year, we had a great attendance!

We visited the church and learnt about real life superhero’s. We made own superhero costumes and lit a candle for those who had fallen during the war as we learnt about Remembrance Day.

We helped to raise more donations this month for Children in Need. We wore our pyjamas and took part in Pudsey themed activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello October,

‘‘Falling into October

Spooky season is here! We had lots of little ghosts and ghouls running around our nursery during our annual ‘Spooky Week.’ Each day the children took part in themed activities, like sticky tuff tray webs for Spider Day or making pumpkin soup for Pumpkin Day.

We visited Rev Viv and Carol at the church to learn more about Harvest. We looked around the church during the scarecrow hunt and learnt about how Jesus and his people shared and cared for one another.

This months Mini Mind calendar was ‘Uniqueasarus.’ They he,f a competition for their partners to make a unique dinosaur. Pre-School researched the unique features of dinosaurs and made their own ‘Curiousasaurus’ which won! Well done!

We wore it pink once again in support of the Breast Cancer charity. Thank you to our families for your generous donations.

As December is always an incredibly busy time for us we had our works do a little bit early. Our owner Joanne completely spoiled us once again with a ‘Daisy Girls’ weekend trip to Windermere. Thank you Joanne!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello September,

‘‘We weren’t expecting you so soon

It’s always a season full of changes each September. Not only is out outdoor environment changing with darker mornings, littered leaf gardens and autumn treasures there is also lots of change in nursery. We have welcomes lots of new families and most children have now moved to the next age and stage room. We’ve also said our final goodbyes to all our Pre-School leavers.

This month our babies have been exploring all Autumn has to offer as well as listening to the story ‘Owl Babies’. They’ve been rustling through the tuff tray filled with leaves and painting their hands and feet. Our oldest children have been baking bread as they read ‘The Little Red Hen’ to learn about Harvest.

We supported Jeans for Genes day once again by wearing our jeans and raising money for the charity. We created crafts of jeans to spread awareness and also learnt about how the charity support children who have a genetic disorder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello August,

‘‘Where is Summer?

The question we’ve been asked most the Summer is, where is it? Even the children have been expecting bright, sunny days. Although not to worry, we have still managed to find lots of time to play outside with our trusty wetsuits. They’ve been used more this year than any other but our children absolutely love water, wether it’s from the hosepipe or the sky!

We’ve been ticking over the weeks taking turns having holidays and time off listening to each other stories and seeing their wonderful photos. Pre-School have been busy preparing gifts and keep sakes for the children who will be leaving in Reception. This will be our last few weeks with some children who have been with us since being a tiny baby. It’s always an emotional time of year but it’s also a lovely moment to look back at old photos and reflect on some of the wonderful times we’ve had at nursery.

Quite a lot of our children have been visiting their new age nursery rooms and preparing for a transition in September. They’ve been getting to know their new Key Person and have spent some time in their rooms investigating and exploring. All the planning is ready for Autumn and we can’t wait to dust off the pumpkin decorations!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello July,

‘‘When Summer wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket

It has been a warm but wet July this year! We started the month off by inviting Adrian into nursery for a P.E taster session. The children absolutely loved using his equipment and meeting his friends Sharky and Croc. We are looking forward to our weekly P.E sessions from September!

We have had some new Baby Bunnies joining our Daisy Chains family this month too. Their siblings already attend nursery and this had been lovely to help them settle in.

Our Pre-School children performed their Graduation show of ‘The Colour Monster’ and we were absolutely blown away. They had a well deserved beach party, which they have looked forward to all year! It was a lovely way to celebrate their last few weeks with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello June,

‘‘June makes daytime last longer

We started off the month with dinosaur day! Our dinosaur resources are very popular and it was so fun to enhance them into a dinosaur swamp!

We have been noticing that some of our children are a bit reluctant to try new foods. So we invited them into the kitchen to help them prepare their own meals which went down a treat! We made pin wheels, fritters, vegetable pie and sausage rolls. They went down a treat.

The children in nursery love water play. We have wet suits, wellies and hose pipes available for large scale water play. This month we added some water butts and a bamboo water challenging system. The children had to work hard as a team to keep the water flowing.

Preppies and Pre-School had a lovely stay and play out in the garden, where they made some fruit kebabs and natural tie dye socks.

Our younger children have been busy bug hunting out in the gardens and climbing over the soft play set to develop their muscle strength.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello May,

‘‘Here is to the last month of Spring

What great fun we had from start to finish of the month!
We were all so excited to begin the month celebrating the King’s Coronation. We spent the week before dressing up, making finger sandwiches and crafting crowns and bunting.
Mix it Up made some amazing King’s Guards balloons for our front door.

We have all been helping to look after the hanging baskets. We used the house pipe to keep them healthy and growing nicely.

We have a water butt on the front garden now. We love being able to use the hose pipes and water butt to have access to water outside. The children love splashing around and mixing and pouring.

Pre-School have been learning about how things grow. They read Oliver’s Vegetables and went to the shop to buy their own. They had some much fun cooking and trying new foods that we have decided to do this weekly.

Hello April,

‘‘We;ve got some Spring in our step”

We get so excited during this time to see the Easter Bunny! We love seeing the reactions as it hops around the gardens hiding eggs for the children to find.
We’ve been learning all about Easter and new life. The older children read the Easter story and visited Rev Viv and her friends at the church. The were so impressed about what the children knew.
Our younger children have been investigating daffodils. We’ve also been spending a lot more time in the gardens. They’ve had a good spring clean and we’re looking at ideas to enhance them.

Celebrating St George’s Day was lots of fun. We made playdough dragons, created knight, dragons and castles in the construction and dressed up to re-enact the story!

Hello March,

‘‘The world is new in March”

We started the celebration of March with World Book Day.
We had some amazing activities based on some of our favourite books, ‘Owl Babies’, ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ and ‘The Snail and The Whale.’

We also celebrated Holi, the Hindu festival of colours!

There were so many special days to celebrate with the children this month with Red Nose Day and St Patrick’s Day landing on the same day!

Not to forget Mother’s Day! We each had a little flower pot to give to our families with a lovely crafted card.
Preppies and Pre-School also had their stay and play sessions, we made cakes, rainbows, flower arrangements and had the chance to show our families all of our favourite resources to play with!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello February,

‘‘The border between winter and spring”

Wow! We managed to pack such a lot into the shortest month of the year!
This month seemed to be the month of visitors. We loved watching the Owl Babies take flight at the end of National Story Telling Week.
One of our children even brought their pony into nursery this month too. It’s been great to give our children these real life experiences.

We also celebrated Valentine’s Day and Pancake Day!
We made love potions, crafted Valentine’s hearts and made Valentine’s cards.
For pancake day we made our own pancakes in the kitchen with our cook Joanne and tasted them. They were delicious!

We have also been inviting parents into nursery this month for their play and stay sessions.
It’s been so much fun!

Hello January,

‘‘Here we go again!”

We had such a lovely, fun return back to nursery!
It was wonderful hearing about the children’s Christmas’. They all seem to have had a wonderful time!

This month we have been celebrating the Lunar new year. We have been listening to ‘The Great Race” story to learn about the Chinese Zodiac. The pre-school children were really interested to learn the traits of the animals from the year they were born.
We have also been listening to the story of Niann and making red decorations to hang in our room to frighten him away for good luck!

The nursery enjoyed a special Chinese chicken dinner and we all tried spring rolls! It was so much fun to take part in the themed activities such as dragon dancing and red playdough.
We were lucky to find snow outside a few times this month too. It was great to make snow angels and snowmen!

The children have also been busy preparing their Valentines’ crafts! The pre-school children have been learning about St Valentine and pretending to get married!

One of the most exciting experiences we had was Chris from ZooLab visiting. He brought some of his friends along with us including a cockroach, spider, centipede, spider and snake for us to say hello to and even hold!

Hello December,

‘‘You’re the last one so be the best one”

We have had the most wonderful time preparing for Christmas with our wonderful children.

Nursery has been so busy as children created their homemade crafts and special keepsakes for their families.

We really enjoyed our festive week too with snowman day, elf day, Santa day, frozen day and our Christmas party!

Our trip to the Post Office was great fun as we all dressed up to send our letters to Father Christmas. We also visited the Church for a special Christmas story and Pre-School put on a fabulous performance in their Nativity!

Hello November,

‘‘Remember, Remember the fifth of November”

This month we have been kindasaurus’s! We have become a partner of mini minds matter and have been using the monthly calendar to practise kindness.
As a part of this we listened to the CBeebies Poppy video as we learnt about Remembrance Day. We made our own poppy biscuits and made our own poppies to wear proudly on our coats.
We also visited the Remembrance Day display at St James’ Church!

This month we also supported Children in Need by wearing our pyjamas to nursery. We all took part in making pudsey crafts and had a wonderful time raising money and awareness of the charity.
As it’s getting close to Christmas we have started putting up our decorations. It’s so lovely to see the children getting excited as we prepare for the festive season!

Hello October,

‘‘Autumn colours remind us, we are all one. Dancing in the wind”

We absolutely love October! There are so many hidden treasures to find. Children remind us to seek out the natural wonders of the world. They bring in chokers, leaves and acorns they collect, sparking our joy of the autumnal changes.
We love to explore this beautiful season and the children have joined us on local walks as we ran amongst the crunchy leaves.
We also raised awareness of Breast Cancer, wearing pink and taking part in pink themed activities.
Our spooky week was enjoyed by all! The children looked wonderful and it was great fun to see everyone joining in!

As if this month was busy enough we also decided to have a shuffle of the rooms within nursery. As Preppies and Pre-School is much busier they are now using the upstairs rooms and both Tiny Tigers and Bouncing Bears share the downstairs room, with direct access to the garden. The children have been thoroughly enjoying exploring their new rooms!

 

Hello September,

‘‘Every leaf speaks to me, underneath the Autumn tree”

Wow we have certainly noticed the chill in the air! The woolly hats have been dug out and we’ve been enjoying finding autumn treasures in the gardens.
This month we have been exploring Harvest and the wonderful sensory experiences of fruits and vegetables. Children have been potato printing, picking seeds from peppers with pincers and talking about where food comes from!

We have made scarecrows in our gardens to protect our herb patches and read stories such as ‘The Little Red Hen”. Some of our children also visitors Rev Viv at St James and took part in a wonderful activity, gathering pictures of crops to add to the alter for the Sunday service.

We also raised awareness of Genes for Jeans day by wearing our jeans and decorating our own pairs. The preschool children watched the thank you video clip to find out how and who we are helping.

 

Hello August,

‘‘August is all about endless ours of sunshine and beautiful sunsets”

It’s time to say goodbye! This is always a very emotional but exciting time at nursery. Most of our little ones have been here since being babies. We have built such close relations with the children and families who will be leaving us. It’s sad to say goodbye but we know all of our children are more than ready for the next chapter!

We have been using every opportunity to be out in the garden over this month. The children’s ideas have built each day and the gardens have been put to great use. We love seeing the amazing things the children can do when given space in the outdoors! Our texture kitchens have been full of mud pies, salads from the herb gardens and flower arrangements!
We are definitely going to miss this Summer but there’s so much to look forward to once Autumn arrives!

Hello July,

‘‘If you’re not barefoot you’re overdressed”

This month was a month of celebrating our wonderful pre school children!
We had a wonderful pool party in the garden! It was so much fun to get stuck in with the children, we even had a few tries on the ‘slip’n’slide’!
Our children did us proud in their end of nursery performance! They were absolutely outstanding. It was so emotional to sing along with them thinking about how much they have all grown over the years.
Elsewhere in nursery we have been keeping cool and hydrated during the heatwaves! Ice and water play has been a big favourite amongst the children and staff recently!

Hello June,

‘‘June is the gateway to Summer!”

We had so much fun celebrating the Jubilee! The children came dressed in their finest clothes and fancy dress. We really enjoyed admiring the decorations we made and playing with the jubilee themed activities. We also had a lovely afternoon party tea!

The children loved crafting their Father’s Day Cards this term. It was lovely to see their creations hanging proudly, waiting to be sent home to their loved ones.

This term we have been quite busy as we have hosted our very first parents first aid course! We had really good feedback from our parents. It’s really important to us that life saving skills are shared and we are blessed to have the opportunity to provide this for our families. We also had a fantastic parents evening. It was a really good turn out and we really enjoyed having the time to chat about our lovely children. It was also a fantastic opportunity to showcase what we have been up to inside our setting.

Hello May,

“May the force be with you”

We have been mesmerised watching out butterflies turn into chrysalis. This year we were really lucky and when they were set free they landed on us for a feed from the fruit!
The children have been so lovely and kind to the creatures. They all sat watching in awe and amazement as they fluttered around the garden.
The weather has been glorious recently and we have been spending more time than ever outside. It’s been a great opportunity to involve the children in a bit if spring cleaning ready to enhance our areas with some new resources. The water is out in abundance now thanks to our new outdoor tap and the children have loved having access to it.

Hello April,

‘‘Drip, drip, drip little April showers!”

Wow! We have never had so much fun! We had the most fantastic week leading up to Easter! The Easter bunny himself even came for a visit! Lots of our children and families took part in our egg and bonnet competition. Everything looked wonderful!

Our eldest children had a visit to our local Church St James’. The Reverend was so impressed with everything the children had learnt about the Easter story. We had a wonderful time chatting, reenacting the last supper and sequencing the story. We were incredibly lucky to each take home a palm cross AND an Easter egg!

Hello March,

‘‘March winds and April showers bring May flowers!”

Wow! What a lot of celebrations to fit into this month! Of courser we started off with Pancake Day to celebrate Shove Tuesday. Pancake rhymes, stories and tuff trays were shared with the children as we explored ingredients, textures and tastes and used this as a hook point to learn more about how and why we will be beginning to learn about Easter! *It’s not just about the chocolate eggs and bunnies!*

We also managed to find time to create the most beautiful Mother’s Day crafts to present to the people in our lives who look out for us each and everyday.
Red Nose Day was a very big hit as we love being silly! All the staff and children had the most wonderful time dancing to past Comic relief songs and playing games with red balloons!
Lots of new faces decided to join us for World Book Day! We had dragons, unicorns and gruffalos!  Pre-school even learnt a rap to showcase to their families ready to spend their book tokens!

We finished off the celebrations with a day dedicated to St Patrick! You had bro be in anything other than green to be seen as the nursery was covered with green themed activities! Treasure from the end of the rainbow filled tuff trays and water trays for children to dive deep and discover!

 

Hello May,

‘‘Here is to the last month of Spring

What great fun we had from start to finish of the month!
We were all so excited to begin the month celebrating the King’s Coronation. We spent the week before dressing up, making finger sandwiches and crafting crowns and bunting.
Mix it Up made some amazing King’s Guards balloons for our front door.

We have all been helping to look after the hanging baskets. We used the house pipe to keep them healthy and growing nicely.

We have a water butt on the front garden now. We love being able to use the hose pipes and water butt to have access to water outside. The children love splashing around and mixing and pouring.

Pre-School have been learning about how things grow. They read Oliver’s Vegetables and went to the shop to buy their own. They had some much fun cooking and trying new foods that we have decided to do this weekly.

Hello May,

‘‘Here is to the last month of Spring

What great fun we had from start to finish of the month!
We were all so excited to begin the month celebrating the King’s Coronation. We spent the week before dressing up, making finger sandwiches and crafting crowns and bunting.
Mix it Up made some amazing King’s Guards balloons for our front door.

We have all been helping to look after the hanging baskets. We used the house pipe to keep them healthy and growing nicely.

We have a water butt on the front garden now. We love being able to use the hose pipes and water butt to have access to water outside. The children love splashing around and mixing and pouring.

Pre-School have been learning about how things grow. They read Oliver’s Vegetables and went to the shop to buy their own. They had some much fun cooking and trying new foods that we have decided to do this weekly.

Hello April,

‘‘We;ve got some Spring in our step”

We get so excited during this time to see the Easter Bunny! We love seeing the reactions as it hops around the gardens hiding eggs for the children to find.
We’ve been learning all about Easter and new life. The older children read the Easter story and visited Rev Viv and her friends at the church. The were so impressed about what the children knew.
Our younger children have been investigating daffodils. We’ve also been spending a lot more time in the gardens. They’ve had a good spring clean and we’re looking at ideas to enhance them.

Celebrating St George’s Day was lots of fun. We made playdough dragons, created knight, dragons and castles in the construction and dressed up to re-enact the story!

Hello March,

‘‘The world is new in March”

We started the celebration of March with World Book Day.
We had some amazing activities based on some of our favourite books, ‘Owl Babies’, ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ and ‘The Snail and The Whale.’

We also celebrated Holi, the Hindu festival of colours!

There were so many special days to celebrate with the children this month with Red Nose Day and St Patrick’s Day landing on the same day!

Not to forget Mother’s Day! We each had a little flower pot to give to our families with a lovely crafted card.
Preppies and Pre-School also had their stay and play sessions, we made cakes, rainbows, flower arrangements and had the chance to show our families all of our favourite resources to play with!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello February,

‘‘The border between winter and spring”

Wow! We managed to pack such a lot into the shortest month of the year!
This month seemed to be the month of visitors. We loved watching the Owl Babies take flight at the end of National Story Telling Week.
One of our children even brought their pony into nursery this month too. It’s been great to give our children these real life experiences.

We also celebrated Valentine’s Day and Pancake Day!
We made love potions, crafted Valentine’s hearts and made Valentine’s cards.
For pancake day we made our own pancakes in the kitchen with our cook Joanne and tasted them. They were delicious!

We have also been inviting parents into nursery this month for their play and stay sessions.
It’s been so much fun!

Hello January,

‘‘Here we go again!”

We had such a lovely, fun return back to nursery!
It was wonderful hearing about the children’s Christmas’. They all seem to have had a wonderful time!

This month we have been celebrating the Lunar new year. We have been listening to ‘The Great Race” story to learn about the Chinese Zodiac. The pre-school children were really interested to learn the traits of the animals from the year they were born.
We have also been listening to the story of Niann and making red decorations to hang in our room to frighten him away for good luck!

The nursery enjoyed a special Chinese chicken dinner and we all tried spring rolls! It was so much fun to take part in the themed activities such as dragon dancing and red playdough.
We were lucky to find snow outside a few times this month too. It was great to make snow angels and snowmen!

The children have also been busy preparing their Valentines’ crafts! The pre-school children have been learning about St Valentine and pretending to get married!

One of the most exciting experiences we had was Chris from ZooLab visiting. He brought some of his friends along with us including a cockroach, spider, centipede, spider and snake for us to say hello to and even hold!

Hello December,

‘‘You’re the last one so be the best one”

We have had the most wonderful time preparing for Christmas with our wonderful children.

Nursery has been so busy as children created their homemade crafts and special keepsakes for their families.

We really enjoyed our festive week too with snowman day, elf day, Santa day, frozen day and our Christmas party!

Our trip to the Post Office was great fun as we all dressed up to send our letters to Father Christmas. We also visited the Church for a special Christmas story and Pre-School put on a fabulous performance in their Nativity!

Hello November,

‘‘Remember, Remember the fifth of November”

This month we have been kindasaurus’s! We have become a partner of mini minds matter and have been using the monthly calendar to practise kindness.
As a part of this we listened to the CBeebies Poppy video as we learnt about Remembrance Day. We made our own poppy biscuits and made our own poppies to wear proudly on our coats.
We also visited the Remembrance Day display at St James’ Church!

This month we also supported Children in Need by wearing our pyjamas to nursery. We all took part in making pudsey crafts and had a wonderful time raising money and awareness of the charity.
As it’s getting close to Christmas we have started putting up our decorations. It’s so lovely to see the children getting excited as we prepare for the festive season!

Hello October,

‘‘Autumn colours remind us, we are all one. Dancing in the wind”

We absolutely love October! There are so many hidden treasures to find. Children remind us to seek out the natural wonders of the world. They bring in chokers, leaves and acorns they collect, sparking our joy of the autumnal changes.
We love to explore this beautiful season and the children have joined us on local walks as we ran amongst the crunchy leaves.
We also raised awareness of Breast Cancer, wearing pink and taking part in pink themed activities.
Our spooky week was enjoyed by all! The children looked wonderful and it was great fun to see everyone joining in!

As if this month was busy enough we also decided to have a shuffle of the rooms within nursery. As Preppies and Pre-School is much busier they are now using the upstairs rooms and both Tiny Tigers and Bouncing Bears share the downstairs room, with direct access to the garden. The children have been thoroughly enjoying exploring their new rooms!

 

Hello September,

‘‘Every leaf speaks to me, underneath the Autumn tree”

Wow we have certainly noticed the chill in the air! The woolly hats have been dug out and we’ve been enjoying finding autumn treasures in the gardens.
This month we have been exploring Harvest and the wonderful sensory experiences of fruits and vegetables. Children have been potato printing, picking seeds from peppers with pincers and talking about where food comes from!

We have made scarecrows in our gardens to protect our herb patches and read stories such as ‘The Little Red Hen”. Some of our children also visitors Rev Viv at St James and took part in a wonderful activity, gathering pictures of crops to add to the alter for the Sunday service.

We also raised awareness of Genes for Jeans day by wearing our jeans and decorating our own pairs. The preschool children watched the thank you video clip to find out how and who we are helping.

 

Hello August,

‘‘August is all about endless ours of sunshine and beautiful sunsets”

It’s time to say goodbye! This is always a very emotional but exciting time at nursery. Most of our little ones have been here since being babies. We have built such close relations with the children and families who will be leaving us. It’s sad to say goodbye but we know all of our children are more than ready for the next chapter!

We have been using every opportunity to be out in the garden over this month. The children’s ideas have built each day and the gardens have been put to great use. We love seeing the amazing things the children can do when given space in the outdoors! Our texture kitchens have been full of mud pies, salads from the herb gardens and flower arrangements!
We are definitely going to miss this Summer but there’s so much to look forward to once Autumn arrives!

Hello July,

‘‘If you’re not barefoot you’re overdressed”

This month was a month of celebrating our wonderful pre school children!
We had a wonderful pool party in the garden! It was so much fun to get stuck in with the children, we even had a few tries on the ‘slip’n’slide’!
Our children did us proud in their end of nursery performance! They were absolutely outstanding. It was so emotional to sing along with them thinking about how much they have all grown over the years.
Elsewhere in nursery we have been keeping cool and hydrated during the heatwaves! Ice and water play has been a big favourite amongst the children and staff recently!

Hello June,

‘‘June is the gateway to Summer!”

We had so much fun celebrating the Jubilee! The children came dressed in their finest clothes and fancy dress. We really enjoyed admiring the decorations we made and playing with the jubilee themed activities. We also had a lovely afternoon party tea!

The children loved crafting their Father’s Day Cards this term. It was lovely to see their creations hanging proudly, waiting to be sent home to their loved ones.

This term we have been quite busy as we have hosted our very first parents first aid course! We had really good feedback from our parents. It’s really important to us that life saving skills are shared and we are blessed to have the opportunity to provide this for our families. We also had a fantastic parents evening. It was a really good turn out and we really enjoyed having the time to chat about our lovely children. It was also a fantastic opportunity to showcase what we have been up to inside our setting.

Hello May,

“May the force be with you”

We have been mesmerised watching out butterflies turn into chrysalis. This year we were really lucky and when they were set free they landed on us for a feed from the fruit!
The children have been so lovely and kind to the creatures. They all sat watching in awe and amazement as they fluttered around the garden.
The weather has been glorious recently and we have been spending more time than ever outside. It’s been a great opportunity to involve the children in a bit if spring cleaning ready to enhance our areas with some new resources. The water is out in abundance now thanks to our new outdoor tap and the children have loved having access to it.

Hello April,

‘‘Drip, drip, drip little April showers!”

Wow! We have never had so much fun! We had the most fantastic week leading up to Easter! The Easter bunny himself even came for a visit! Lots of our children and families took part in our egg and bonnet competition. Everything looked wonderful!

Our eldest children had a visit to our local Church St James’. The Reverend was so impressed with everything the children had learnt about the Easter story. We had a wonderful time chatting, reenacting the last supper and sequencing the story. We were incredibly lucky to each take home a palm cross AND an Easter egg!

Hello March,

‘‘March winds and April showers bring May flowers!”

Wow! What a lot of celebrations to fit into this month! Of courser we started off with Pancake Day to celebrate Shove Tuesday. Pancake rhymes, stories and tuff trays were shared with the children as we explored ingredients, textures and tastes and used this as a hook point to learn more about how and why we will be beginning to learn about Easter! *It’s not just about the chocolate eggs and bunnies!*

We also managed to find time to create the most beautiful Mother’s Day crafts to present to the people in our lives who look out for us each and everyday.
Red Nose Day was a very big hit as we love being silly! All the staff and children had the most wonderful time dancing to past Comic relief songs and playing games with red balloons!
Lots of new faces decided to join us for World Book Day! We had dragons, unicorns and gruffalos!  Pre-school even learnt a rap to showcase to their families ready to spend their book tokens!

We finished off the celebrations with a day dedicated to St Patrick! You had bro be in anything other than green to be seen as the nursery was covered with green themed activities! Treasure from the end of the rainbow filled tuff trays and water trays for children to dive deep and discover!

 

Hello April,

‘‘Drip, drip, drip little April showers!”

 

 

Hello April,

‘‘Drip, drip, drip little April showers!”

 

 

Hello March,

‘‘March winds and April showers bring May flowers!”

Wow! What a lot of celebrations to fit into this month! Of courser we started off with Pancake Day to celebrate Shove Tuesday. Pancake rhymes, stories and tuff trays were shared with the children as we explored ingredients, textures and tastes and used this as a hook point to learn more about how and why we will be beginning to learn about Easter! *It’s not just about the chocolate eggs and bunnies!*

We also managed to find time to create the most beautiful Mother’s Day crafts to present to the people in our lives who look out for us each and everyday.
Red Nose Day was a very big hit as we love being silly! All the staff and children had the most wonderful time dancing to past Comic relief songs and playing games with red balloons!
Lots of new faces decided to join us for World Book Day! We had dragons, unicorns and gruffalos!  Pre-school even learnt a rap to showcase to their families ready to spend their book tokens!

We finished off the celebrations with a day dedicated to St Patrick! You had bro be in anything other than green to be seen as the nursery was covered with green themed activities! Treasure from the end of the rainbow filled tuff trays and water trays for children to dive deep and discover!

 

Hello February,

‘‘It’s the year of the Tiger!”

The children have loved learning about the Lunar New Year! They were so excited to wear their tiger masks and we celebrated with a dragon dance!

Love has definitely been in the air at nursery. Each child decorated a card for their families to send home and we had a little Valentine’s party too.

Each of our nursery rooms have had some fantastic activities out for the children and it’s so lovely to see children building secure attachments with their key person. Especially as a few children have now began visits and transitions to their new rooms.

We have been spending a lot of time focusing in on what our children enjoy and are interested in. We have invested in lots of new materials and resources to help children further develop by enhancing their areas of play.

 

Hello January,

‘‘Happy New Year!”

Happy New Year to all our children and families! We hope you are well rested after our little break. We know we are!
We are so excited for this year and have lots of exciting ideas.
Quite a few of our chilren are showing strong topic interests. We have started to look into some new topics as well as planning around seasons and celebrations. Baby Bunnies are taking part in activities based on ‘Under the Sea’. Tiny Tigers and Bouncing Bears have become one larger group of two year olds and they are taking part in activities to help understand emotions. Preppies and Pre-Schoolars are investigating the solar system!
We will also be starting to learn about the Lunar New Year, ready to start the year of the tiger on 1st Feb!

 

 

Hello December,

‘‘Tis the season to be jolly!”

Just like that another year comes to a jolly end. We love this time of year as we reflect on our achievements and accomplishments.
The nursery looks more magical than ever and all of our time is spent trying to make it as special as we can for our children. This year Father Christmas and Elsa came to visit! We baked a gingerbread advent calendar and shared Christmas stories.
The Pre-School children once again showed what absolute stars they are in our fantastic Nativity.
We would like to thank all of our wonderful families for a lovely year and hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!
We are looking forward to seeing your in the new year!

Hello November,

November:  Chapter 11 of 12.

 

Within November our nursery rooms become filled with colour! There are so many celebrations during this time. The children often love exploring colour and how it changes with activities for Bonfire Night and Diwali. The traditions of British culture and the story of the Festival of Light are seen throughout our beautiful setting.
Through this busy month we also celebrate Wear it Pink and Children in Need. We love supporting these charities by raising awareness and money with our children and families. Not forgetting Remembrance Day. Our children and staff proudly wear the poppies and we sensitively answer children’s questions about their purpose. For us it is a time of showing how and why we need to look out for and care for one another.
Towards the end of the month we put up our Christmas trees ready to begin our Christmas festivities. This year the children have been fully involved in the decorating, helping to hang baubles and decorations.

Hello October,

October is about trees revealing the colours that they’ve hidden all year!

Pumpkins and harvest vegetables have already started to make their way into our nursery.
“Is it Halloween yet?” the children call out.
October seems to be the month of messy play. Pumpkin pulp, gloop, wet mulch and slime cover our tuff trays for children to explore. Our water trays find themselves filled with little delights as minibeasts lurk under the murky waters.
At the end of the month the children and staff celebrated with a spooky week and dressed up for themed days and activities  too.
Not forgetting Wear it Pink day as Halloween tries it’s best to overshadow. The children got crafty exploring shades of pink paints and also investigated pink exploration area too.

 

Hello September,

Make it a September to remember!

And once again we are back to our busy September. Autumn is coming and the nursery knows it!
Our entrance has had an autumnal makeover as children have begun to explore all the natural treasures that Autumn brings with it.

Lots of our children have now started their transition into their new play room and all seem to be settling well. We have also welcomed lots of new families and babies to our setting.
Our parents have been getting busy on their Autumn treasure hunts too and the children have enjoyed bringing in and showcasing what they have found.

This month we have raised funds for Jeans for Genes day and have also visited our local church to learn all about harvest!

 

Hello August,

Breathe in the sweetness that hovers in August.

This month always brings with it a little bit of sadness as we say farewell to our Pre-School leavers.
We would like to wish them all well in their transition to primary school, we are sure they will all enjoy it tremendously!

It’s a lovely time to reflect on the precious moments we are able to spend with our little ones. We nurture them in their earliest years so that they are ready to leave us with a wealth of knowledge of their world and high in confidence.

Daisy Chains Leavers 2021 you will be very missed! x

Hello July,

Dreaming, is after all, a form of planning!

We have been spending most of our time outside this month enjoying the lovely weather!
Our outdoor spaces have had a good spruce and the children have thoroughly enjoyed getting them messy again!
There has been lots of exploration, especially using the outdoor mark making materials!
The children have also been cooking up a storm in our texture kitchens and the large sand pit has been a big hit too!

Hello June,

Football’s Coming Home!

This month we have started to prepare for the Euro’s! Our flags and the flags of Europe are hanging proudly at the front of our nursery. The children have been coming in with their football kits and t-shirts singing along to ‘Football’s Coming Home’.
We also sent home our personalised gifts along with a sunflower for Father’s Day. We’re really looking forward to seeing where our families grow them.
Baby Bunnies have a new soft play set as we found they are exploring climbing at the moment. They have loved having a space to develop these new skills safely. Even the youngest of our babies having enjoyed experiencing the new materials.
We have also started looking at the life cycle of butterflies and have two sets in our nursery. They have began to turn into Chrysalis’s, we will keep you updated about what happens next!
There has been lots of outdoor play and messy sessions recently as we make the most of this glorious weather!

Bouncing Bears have been visiting Pre-School’s Forest school site. They managed to find the Bug Hotel and their secret den.

Hello May,

Wishing you a happy May Day that is bright with happy moments.

Our wetter than usual May provided lots of exciting activities for the children. Lots of our groups have been interested in mini beasts. We have been restoring our bug hotels, catching and releasing bugs using our bug catchers and looking closely to identify and observe them. Our Forest school sessions have started at the Church grounds for our Pre-School children this month too. They have also been keen to explore insects, digging in mud, climbing trees (with help of course) and building dens!
Supervised tooth brushing sessions have also restarted for Bouncing Bears, Preppies and Pre-School. We are beginning to look at people who help us and are hoping to receive visits from a nurse and a policeman!

Hello April,

Drip, drip, drip, little April showers.

This month started off full of Easter celebrations! The Easter bunny came to visit for our annual Easter egg hunt in our garden. The children had so much fun collecting chocolate eggs and taking part in Easter themed activities. The Baby Bunnies painted with their whole bodies using pastel yoghurt paint, the children in Tiny Tigers and Bouncing Bears all took part in Easter crafts and the Preppies and Pre-School children began to learn about the Easter story and made Easter gardens.
Our school leaver children had an extra special visit to St James’ Church to drop off an Easter garden to the vicar. The vicar and her volunteers set up a lovely Easter story activity for the children to learn about why we celebrate Easter.

There was an abundance of celebrations this month. As well as Easter the children and staff celebrated St George’s Day and Earth day! We made English flags using red and white media and created shields and swords to reenact the slaying of the dragon. Pre-School looked at how their actions contribute to the world. We talked about what recycling is and why we do it and also created our own earth pictures to take home.

Hello March,

Hello Spring, hello March,

Spring is in the air and daffodils all around us. Our children all took daffodils and handmade cards to give to special people in their lives as we celebrated Mother’s Day. It was a full month of celebrating as we dressed up for World Book Day, not forgetting the most important part, sharing stories! We also celebrated St Patrick’s day and explored the colour green throughout nursery as we made lucky clovers.
Daffodils also added to our expressive arts play. Children sniffed, smelled, snipped, glued and painted them as they worked with the staff learning about how they could be used.

Hello February,

The border between Winter and Spring,

Love was in the air for us all in February. Our hallways were adorned with hearts and roses and our boards were filled with handmade cards for our children to send out to the people they loved. We focused on feelings and read stories about love and what it might mean to love someone. ’King and King’ was a popular book of choice in Pre-School as well as ‘While we Can’t Hug’.

Hello January,

The beginning of new things to come,

 

This month we welcomed all of our children, families and staff back ready to start the new year. We shared tales of celebrations over this Christmas break and revelled in our children’s joy.
Our new shelter stands proudly above our entrance to shield us from the great british weather. This month we have been lucky to experience snowfall and our families have been sending in photos of their children playing and exploring in the outdoors. At nursery we have been keeping cosy and warm watching the snow fall through our large windows and playing out in our wetsuits and wellingtons.
Our play rooms now have new names Baby Bunnies, Tiny Tigers, Bouncing Bears, Preppies and Pre-School and children have begun transitions and visits. Children and staff have been building great relationships through bonding experiences. Cuddly story times, sharing family photos and talking about them and loving bottle feeds are all helping our children to settle and get to know their new Key People.
We have loved everything January has had to offer and we are looking forward to a busy month in February celebrating Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.

Hello December,

You’re the last one so be the best one!

All year round the nursery is full of magical moments. Something is always being celebrated as we move through the months, however there is nothing quite like the run up to Christmas whilst working with our young children. It’s always a favourite time of year as glitter fills the floor, keepsakes are made with love and care and children sing a long to Christmas songs with glee.

It has been business as usual despite the pandemic and the children have made all of our Christmases. We also managed to produce and film our nativity too and the Pre-School children did an absolutely fantastic job!
After the year we have had we wanted to add as much magic as we could for our children. Our staff groups planned specially themed days for all of our nursery. Children dressed for the events as we made hot chocolate stations, played in the snow and they even met Father Christmas!

To all of our families, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Lots of love from us all at Daisy Chains x

Hello November,

Remember, remember the fifth of November

The lights filled the sky and our children filled their imaginations. We also had traditional bonfire night food too!
Paint is a firm favourite in our nursery. Floor art, painting materials and exploration have been high on our children’s agenda this month. We printed, mixed and explored colour as we all celebrated bonfire night and Diwali.

We had lots to celebrate as we visited our friends at the residential home for Remembrance Day. We visited the memorial at St James’ Church and recreated the poppies we found to plant in our friends garden at our local residential home. We stood together and sang ‘We’ll meet again’ to lift up everyone’s spirits.
Children in Need was celebrated by us wearing pyjamas and creating Pudsey and Blush crafts.

Hello October,

Let the leaves reveal the colours they have been hiding all year

What a busy month we have had! The children have absolutely LOVED exploring all October has to offer. Unfortunately as the world stops and starts our children can’t always have the experiences we would like them too. This year we brought the Pumpkin Patch to the nursery! All sorts of pumpkins and squash were invited and children discovered the hidden secrets of each and every one. All children at nursery explored the pumpkin in different ways, through sensory trays, printing, cutting, squeezing pulp, carving and even creating bird feeders.
Lots of fun was to be had at our Halloween parties and the boom box was a welcome guest. Children really shon and grew in confidence as they danced to spooky music and sang into the microphones.

Hello September,

thank you for the reminder that change can be beautiful.

Quite a few of our children have transitioned to their new groups and have done so well settling in. Children and their key person/buddies have been sharing stories, exploring new materials and adapting to their new surroundings.
The garden has been a place full of exploration. Rain water has been collecting and the weather has become cooler. The children have delved into these changes, some of which they may have not experienced before.
Water has been splashed, wellies have been put on and children have shouted with glee as we puddle jumped and kicked through crunchy leaves, fallen from the trees above.
Jeans for Genes day was also celebrated by our children and staff with plenty denim themed activities and for our olden children an opportunity to talk about the differences between ourselves and others.