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home page Term 4 newsletter....
Term 4 Newsletter – May 2019 Dear Parents/Carers Welcome to all our new families who have joined us over the previous term. Staffing Since our last newsletter, Alana has left us to join employment closer to home, after two years of traveling back and forth from Montrose. We would like to welcome Sarah and Leah. Sarah works in the 3-5 room, and Leah in the 2-3 room. We look forward to the girls becoming familiar members of the team, and having rewarding experiences at the nursery. Staff Training There have been many training opportunities for staff this term, mostly about loose parts play, including loose parts outdoors. Hopefully you can all see the impact this is having by looking at our fabulous garden. One of the trainers from star catchers came and advised of areas that can be developed. We have adopted these actions and the children are really benefitting from it. We have also attended:
Judith is continuing to study her Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ) level three in Social Services (Children and Young People). She is currently studying 'Promote Healthy Living for Children and Families', 'Promote the Health and Physical Development of Children', and Implement Positive Environments for Babies and Children'. Jodie has just begun studying her Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ) level three in Social Services (Children and Young People). She is currently completing her induction Erin and Emma are continuing to work through their BA in Childhood Practices. Both staff are still focusing on units that study our local community, Erin is doing 'Living, Learning and Teaching in the Community' and Emma is studying 'The Child in Society'. Charity This year, so far, we have raised some funds through Easter Egg decoration,' Dress Down' days, a breakfast roll morning, and also a pyjama day. We have raised £254 so far through the collected events. On June 1st we have planned a tipsy tea party at Holburn bar which is an adult only event. We are hoping for a great day out for all the parents and their friends. There will be games with prizes throughout, and any raffle prizes would be gratefully received. Tickets are available from staff for £25, which includes food. We will be holding our annual Sports day on the 29th of June at Westburn park at 10:30am. This is a sponsored event, and we will be raising money through face painting, tuck shop?, lucky dip and a tatoo stall. All the money raised at these charity events will go towards our Charity of the Year which is 'Friends of the Special Nursery', a charity of Aberdeen maternity hospital's neo-natal unit for sick and premature babies in the Grampian region, as well as the islands of Shetland and Orkney. You can find out more information at http://www.specialnursery.org/ Lets raise lots of money for this fantastic cause! Congratulations to everyone who entered the Easter Egg competition. We had the most eggcelant entries!! Well done to the winners and runners up. I hope you all enjoyed your eggs. Weather Here comes summer, or is it?……we just never know what the weather will do!. It does look as though the sun is going to be coming out more and more. It is important that your child is provided with a sun hat. We use Nivea factor 50 children's sun cream. If you have decided this is not the right cream for your child, then please provide an alternative. Creams can not contain nuts. It is essential that your child's sun hat has his/her name on it. Care Inspectorate Report We are really pleased to let you know the results of our recent Care Inspectorate report which was an unannounced inspection which took place at the nursery on the 10th and 11th of April 2019. We were inspected on Care and Support, and received a 5 (Very Good) for this area, as well as Staffing, which also received a 5 (Very Good). You can view the inspection report as follows:-
Development Plans Please see the progress of our three development plans displayed on the front notice board in the vestibule. Feel free to add to the plan. Plan 1– Mentoring – The whole team are now part of the mentoring scheme. Staff complete evaluations to ensure the scheme can have an impact on staff practice, which in hand will impact on the children's experience at nursery. Plan 2– We are continuing to study schemas which have encouraged staff and parents to have a greater understanding of learning. We have had a training session at our recent staff meeting, and staff have been identifying what schema is being displayed throughout observations in the Interactive Learning Diary (ILD). Plan 3 – We are continuing our lose parts play and the greatest impact of this plan is definitely evident in the garden. We have used some old reels to use for play, and we have made a little den for children to hide in, as well as lots of old pallets which children love to make in to a stage and preform on. There are old plastic bottles, tarpaulin, scrap material, old bits of wood, all of which is really encouraging creativity and imagination. Tax Free Childcare/Fees Summers Nurseries are now signed up to receive Tax Free Childcare Vouchers, so when looking, please select Summers Nursery at Victoria Street as provider, as we share an account. www.childcarechoices.gov.uk www.childcarevouchers.co.uk/Documents/CCV_whatshappening_2017.pdf Fees Please could I remind parents that the payment date changes monthly. The payment date is always stated on the bottom of the invoice. Please remember that vouchers may also take up to 5 working days to process through your voucher company and therefore payment should be made in time for these to clear. Policies of the term Our policies for Term 4 are:-
Policies are displayed at the front door for parents to view. Trips and Visits Angela from Abricabeats will be attending on a Monday morning this term. Currently, we have been continuing to use our wee green space weekly, which as always continues to encourage imagination, physical skills, team work, turn taking and much more. We now visit our local care home once a fortnight. The children have really enjoyed getting to know the residents, as have the staff. Children and residents are proving to be caring and considerate towards one another. We have enjoyed stories, games, and arts with the residents. This term we visited Codonas, enjoying some crazy golf and bowling. The children benefit greatly from these experiences which encourages team work, turn taking, physical skills, and of course lots and lots of fun, as well as a little competition. A pre-school trip is currently in the planning. Parents of all children involved will be informed nearer the time. The 2-3 room will be visiting play town, a role play establishment in Inverurie this term. All children who attend on a Thursday in the 2's room will attend on Thursday 16th May. Parents Evening We will be holding our annual parents evening on the 25th of June. This allows you the opportunity to meet with your child's key worker to see how they are developing, and what next steps have been identified. Reports will be issued before the event. Learning Experiences We have, as always had lots happening this term, with loads of learning opportunities for everyone. We have watched our environment change from winter as it progresses into spring and early summer. Children have identified changes, with the trees beginning to flower once again and the light mornings and nights coming back in. We know bed times can be slightly more challenging for you all, but it's great when children recognise the changes, developing their understanding of the world around them. Children have really enjoyed learning about Easter, and not just eating chocolate, but also focusing on the Easter story which encourages development in the religious and moral area of the Curriculum for Excellence. 0-2 room The babies have practising their colours, including matching colours with our colour box and balls. The children have been matching the coloured ball into the correct coloured hole. This has been an excellent challenge for the older children, and for the younger children, it has been an introduction to colours, learning the names and recognising that two colours are the same. As always, our food/role play area has been popular, preparing lots of pretend foods and drinks for the ladies and their friends. The role play has been extended. as children have enjoyed some exploratory play, using rice pudding, oats & fruit. The topic is being continued with the use of the book, 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', and children love watching the caterpillar evolve into a beautiful butterfly, and they particularly enjoy identifying the foods being eaten, counting out how many objects there are. We enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year, making flags which we painted red and finished off with white arts. This was followed by tasting some yummy Chinese foods! The babies have explored with fruit and glitter this term, filling and emptying little pots which develops fine motor skills and hand/eye co-ordination, and is also part of the emptying schema, where children explore repetitive emptying and filling. We have been on lots of walks, making the most of our local community and enjoying the nice weather. The children take great pleasure pointing out the dogs and buses etc To add to the depth of this learning, Clare made a multi-story car park with cardboard boxes which the children have really enjoyed, especially the ramp! The music wall outside has kept everyone intrigued, making individual rhythms with the pots, as well as lots of imagination being used with our up-cycled puppet show box, using the animal puppets, with the children making the noise of each animal. The babies have been having group music time, dancing and singing along to the sticky kids cd, following instructions, and also giving the children opportunities to exercise their bodies. At the moment we have been focused on "Bringing the Outdoors In" by providing children with twigs, sticks, cones and leaves to create lots of different play. We even made real stick men with sticks!! 2-3 room We have been learning all about weather, and to add to our wall display, the children all made some suns. They used some bright yellow paint and glitter to make the sun sparkle, and then they practised their cutting skills, snipping the paper plates. Using materials such as scissors encourages children to develop an understanding of their own safety, as well as helping with their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. We have worked with puzzles this term, with the children being encouraged to work in groups to developed their cooperation and sharing skills. It was nice to see them celebrate their achievements together, as they successfully completed the puzzles. This was also developed during the Easter project, where Emma made two halves of matching eggs and the children had to join them together to encourage matching skills and colour recognition. As part of our weather project we learnt about rain, and the depth of learning was extended by learning the rhyme 'Incy Wincy Spider'. Our 'Incy Wincy Spider' project led to a wide variety of arts and crafts, so we created a whole wall display on it. This can still be viewed in the room. I'm sure you will agree it looks wonderful, and shows a lot of skills throughout. We have celebrated Shrove Tuesday by having some yummy homemade pancakes. At our art and craft table, we have pictures of real pancakes, with some red paint for the strawberry jam, and some brown paint for chocolate spread, as well as pictures of real strawberries and bananas which look good enough to eat! In the Toddler room, the children have been very busy with playdough. This term, we added not just rollers and cutters, but other things, including feathers, pom-poms and sticks for the children to decorate their playdough. This developed the playdough play and many children created animals and faces with the materials, developing their imagination. We have, as always, enjoyed many different Scottish seasons over the term, with splashing in the puddles continuing to be a popular favourite! We had a project about flowers which had been continued by a parent at home, who brought in some beautiful flowers which the children were then able to investigate through their senses, mostly smelling and feeling them, which developed the use of adjectives, as children were able to describe the feel and smell. We also printed with the flowers and painted with them. Through investigation, we learnt what flowers need to grow, so we decided to plant our own sunflowers which are doing well with lots of sunshine and water. We are still all really enjoying the 'Share a Story' day. Children really enjoy sharing their books/items from home with their peers. Books encourage literacy, knowledge, and understanding of the world around us. This activity has developed language, posture and sharing skills. Thank you to all the parents who have participated so far. 3-5 room As always, we have had a really productive term. Children have enjoyed learning lots of letters of the week, including C, K and H. Its's amazing how many words the children know that start with these letters. They are all very competent in their knowledge of the alphabet. As the pre-school children are preparing to go off to school, we have introduced some simple reading with the use of word games and the Usborne books early reading collection. You may have been surprised how many of the children have developed their writing skills as well. We continuously have writing opportunities available to children in the room and these are always put to good use. Show and Tell topic, as always, has proven popular this term. Parents are responding well, now the list is being emailed. We loved sharing our favourite tunes, and all of the children sang along to the tunes, and many managed to put in a dance move or two. Children develop confidence whilst performing in front of others and they love to share a connection between home and nursery. Thanks to all the parents who have also taken part in the ILD Show and Tell. The Easter ones have been fantastic, and it looks like everyone had fun, with many consuming their body weight in chocolate. We have been enjoying learning about time, and many of the children are able to identify the o' clock times now. We have been using the Mr Men book called Grandfather Clock to help with this skill. The children loved having their parents for Stay and Play, and many were introduced to activities they have not seen before. Stay and Play is a great opportunity to see your children interacting with their peers, and in an environment out with their own home. This term, we grew our own dinosaur, which led to lots of learning about what things need to grow, but also learning about size. Children loved to see 'Morris the Stegosaurus" grow over the week. They measured him daily which encouraged number identification and general mathematical language. Children used a meter stick to measure themselves and the staff. Shrove Tuesday was fun and learning packed. Children made their own pancakes for snack, then at an art and craft activity, they created their own pancake pictures. The children have loved using a role play pancake area in our tough spot, where they practiced weighing, measuring, shape recognition and number recognition. We are learning about planets as the moment. The babies kindly went to the library to collect some books for us, so we have been loving the new stories. We have also had a space rocket game that has proved to be very popular. This game has encouraged mathematics, sharing, and new language, as we discussed the various space items. We made mini planets using paint, shaving foam and scissors. The children used their scissor skills to cut around the circular planet, and we dipped the card in the shaving foam and paint, creating a marbled planet effect. We learnt about "World Book Day", "St Patricks Day", "Children in Need" and "Mothering Sunday", which has contributed to lots of areas in religious and moral education, as children have considered the needs and feelings of others, whilst learning about different cultures. Finally, the children have been learning about spring, discussing various farm animals. Kind regards Claire Drennan Nursery Manager 01224 209966 stswithinstreet@summersnurseries.com Dates for your Diary
Sports Day – 29th June St Swithin St News Sports Day Date posted: 20 Jul 17 Preschool TripDate posted: 03 Apr 19 3-5 room Term 3 Newsletter Date posted: 02 Feb 16 Policies Term 4Date posted: 20 Jul 17 Term 3 newsletterDate posted: 22 Feb 19 Term 4 2-3 NewsDate posted: 24 May 16 CHARITY OF THE YEARDate posted: 14 Jun 16 Story Sharing 2-3 roomDate posted: 02 Aug 19 Wee Green Space and Care Home RotaDate posted: 20 Aug 19 Term 4 General NewsDate posted: 24 May 16 Photo Gallery  |
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