February reflection

February was a very busy month. Aren't they all? But busier than our nursery has seen for some time with all rooms completely full and even our quiet little Fridays have become a humming day of lots of children and activities- it is really fun.

The closure of our East Sheen nursery saw many new children join us in the Dolphins group particularly, and at the end of a month of settling in for new children and the establish children getting used to new faces, it is really easy to say that the nursery is busy, has loads of activities going on, lots of children but is settled and a really special place to be.

Seahorses, our youngest group has had a lot of emerging talking going on from the babies. 'Hello!' and 'Hiya' are words that can be heard flying round the room regularly and loads of humming along to songs being sung and humming along to the tune they've remembered while they are playing. Favourites are The 'Hello Song', 'Row- Row- Row Your Boat' and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’.

A bit of feet painting has been going on too. All the babies loved having their feet painted and stamping the prints on paper, but not all of them enjoyed having their feet wiped clean!


Pancake day was loved, who doesn't love a pancake? Hearts were painted for Valentine’s Day and yellow paintings were made to represent spring and encourage a bit of sun, light and spring spirits into the world around us.

Physical achievements have been enjoyed by families, the team and the children themselves as children who couldn't do so before, have learned to pull themselves up to standing, sit up, taking baby steps and a few of the clever babies have started to feed themselves as well.

With more children able to pull themselves up and stand, more activities have been put on the tables to encourage exploring upright. Many of those Seahorses are about to move through to the Starfish room and are getting ready by spending time in the starfish group to build confidence and feel happy in their future room. We wish them farewell, even though we'll still see them...just in the next room.

The starfish room has seen a rustle of paper, a splashing of paint and burst of colour over February.

Chinese New Year was a very big part of the month and all the children worked together to contribute to the making of a great big lion for the Chinese Year of the Lion. They also decorated tiger masks and participated in tiger activities including random roaring round the room! A lot of talk about orange, black and yellow also took place, helping the children to start to think about differentiating things through colour.

Red was also a big part of Chinese New Year too and the red splashed through into Valentine’s day as well; making cards, red painting and collaging in red too

Starfish also made a black and white display from children’s art contributions and talked about dark, night, cows and sheep too. We also did some Old MacDonald pictures while singing ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’. Singing while creating is perfect fun.

The warmer weather is slow to welcome us, but there has been some nice sunny days and we have been getting back into the routine of lots of outings into the garden every day. We have even had afternoon tea outside in the garden on a picnic blanket which was great fun and a sign that the winter is (hopefully) behind us.

In Dolphins, Chinese New Year was also explored and the children had a lot of fun talking about it and what it means. One of our teachers is from Vietnam where Chinese New Year is also celebrated so she helped us learn more about it and also gave us some great experiences to enjoy. We all ate noodles with chopsticks. Some of the children were really very clever and were able to eat their noodles all by themselves using chopsticks and no, they do not eat with them at home! We also all made little red envelopes for good luck and inside them was a little chocolate. Children who didn’t want to decorate a red envelope were not forgotten, the children who enjoyed making them made extra to give to their friends who didn’t make them.

Pancake Day was also celebrated and some of the children made their own pancakes and also extras so that everyone could have some. Pancake day fell on one of the days that the children make their own tea so was perfect timing to allow the children to cater pancakes for the whole group.

All of dolphins have had some time making and contributing to collages and creations to do with space. The interest started from the preschool group and spread across the wider group as these things do. Children made rockets and a moon, talked about space, read about space and with the help of Jenny made a space rocket too. The preschool group have been going on moon walks as well (Walking like the they are on the moon) which is pretty fun and funny.

February

What are we doing in Seahorses this month?
For February, as well as supporting the children’s individual goals and interests, we will we be having a big focus on talking and learning the words for requests and items. We have many babblers and some of them are really making a big effort at saying some words so there will be a lot of group emphasis on talking and communicating needs as we prepare them for more independence in the next age group.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
Lots of using books to point at objects, animals and people and naming them.
Encouraging children’s use of words to request more or enough, hello and good bye, etc.
Naming equipment that is being used and ensuring the children know the names of what they are playing with even if they are not able to attempt to say the names.
Using basic Makaton sign language to help children request more, say yes, no, enough, etc. (Makaton is used a lot in the toddler room to express needs and support communication where vocabulary develops slower than understanding).
Focusing on using words clearly to explain what the children are doing, where they are going, who their friends are, etc.
Give loads of praise when we hear words being used to encourage the good feeling that success brings.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Use the appropriate words for actions and items as you are playing, getting ready, out and about. Even, really focussing on naming what they are eating so they learn the names of foods and can later related them to preferences.
Keep the words you use for things consistent within your house. i.e. all family members need to call a sofa a sofa, rather than sometimes a couch, sometimes a sofa or sometimes a settee, to avoid confusion.
Remember that everything you say is being stored in their minds even if it is not being used. Understanding words comes well before using words.
Give loads of praise when you hear words being used to encourage the good feeling that success brings.

What are we doing in Starfish this month?
During February, in addition to our individual plans for children, we will be focussing on Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day and Pancake Day. We will also be doing a lot of physical activities inside to burn our energy and increase our confidence in our bodies.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
Making cards for family members for Valentine’s Day and talking about the people in our lives who are special to us.
Using lots of red to represent love and good luck in Chinese New year.
Making spring rolls to try some food from another culture.
Making pancakes and eating them for Pancake Day.
Lots of sticking and contributing to a Tiger for Chinese New Year.
Making tiger masks.
Using lots of indoor climbing equipment and encouraging confidence and movement, even of the day they don’t get outside.

What you could do to support your children at home:

Go out for dinner as a family to a Chinese restaurant and give them some new things to try. They will probably surprise you on what they will eat.
Take them to China Town in London to see the festivities and decorations.
Take them to an indoor soft play place like ‘Cafe Au Play’ to let them run, climb, jump for a quality amount of time to burn off some winter stored energy.
Make some pancakes with them at home and eat them. Let them contribute by sprinkling on sugar or pouring on some syrup.

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?
February will see a number of focuses going on in the nursery in addition to the individual focuses. We have an interest that has emerged with some of the children on space and rockets and will be extending this by providing a number of supporting activities.
Other events that will influence our activities this month will be activities around Chinese New Year and Shrove Tuesday (pancake day).

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support these interests and festivals will be:
Making pancakes with the children and eating them!
Talking about what pancake day is all about.
Making Li-xi (red envelopes for good luck) for Chinese New Year.
Making other decorations for Chinese New Year.
Eating noodles with chopsticks.
Reading books and having discussions about Chinese New Year; what it means and what happens.
Making rockets and other features of space.
Going on moon walks- pretending we are in outer space.
Reading books about space and stories that involve space concepts.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Make pancakes with them if it is not a nursery day.
Talk with them about why we have Pancake Day.
Take your child to China Town in London or the Chinese New Year parade if you are able.
Take your child to a Chinese restaurant and give them something new to eat and a new experience to try.
Share some fortune cookies with them.
Make some red envelopes at home, pop some chocolate in them and give them to families members for good luck.
While it is still dark early, take your child out at night and look at the stars and the moon and talk about how they are far away.
Go to the library and get some books out about space and maybe make some rocket cubby house at home.

January at Working Mums

Our unexpected start to a new year!

Wow, January was a really unexpected month. Not the month itself, but the events. We ended December with plans of building wood planter boxes with the children to put soil and bulbs in, planting bulbs in our hanging baskets and window boxes in determination to welcome spring with bursts of colour and a softer border for our for the outdoor areas. We still have these plans, but January threw us some curve balls delaying things.

For starters there was the snow and frozen ground, so we couldn't plant a thing in the soil and convincing the children that going outside for extended periods to build planter boxes was anything but possible. Even our hardy soldiers who are committed to their outdoor area smiled at us on some days like we were having a laugh by suggesting it was a good idea to go outside and play. So, we scrapped that idea and focused on enjoying and appreciating the snow while it lasted.

The only really cold days that successfully had children wanting to go outside were the snowy ones. We had some fantastic moments with the children throwing snow, making snow castles with sand buckets, dying the snow with food colouring and making snow mounds and shapes.

We thought the snow would lead off into discussions and special interests of snow sports as interests tend to get triggered by these things, but the children never really got into that either. As the snow melted away, the children returned their interest to the indoors and the different activities that we have added into the curriculum there. I guess the inside warmth is welcoming.

January also saw the very unexpected and sad closure of our nursery in East Sheen. This brought even more challenges to us as we had a sharp increase in numbers in the nursery and some new staff join us too. This focused the team intensely on settling in new children and team members and for the children, meant getting to know new faces and showing our new friends new ropes, such as where to clean their plates after dinner and how to stack them, where to help themselves to a drink of water, how to ask to go outside in winter, etc.

Dolphins

The dolphins group have been very busy in the arts and crafts department. This is always a strong area in the nursery and January saw lots of sticking and creating. The children had the opportunity to look at some pictures of mosaics and then create some of their own. Originally, the mosaics were just made as a mosaic making exercise, but then we started to see little mosaics creeping into some of the other art work children were doing and some lovely creative blends of craft started to take place as you can see in the photo of one of the nursery displays here.

We also did a lot of baking as usual for our Tuesday and Friday afternoon teas and making play dough, mixing paints, listening to and participating in our new stories from our story sacks, that include books and props so the children can all have a turn at taking part in the story.

Starfish

Starfish continued the planting idea with the children and since they couldn't get started on the bulbs, they started planting some cress in little egg and biscuit containers. They also made some clay pots to put their plants in, but sadly not all plans work out and they weren't ideal for planting so they became candle light holders instead!

Starfish have been doing a lot of toddler energy burning inside since the weather has not been as enticing outside, so the team brought in a lot of soft climbing equipment to allow the children to burn off some of their boundless energy. This is always really enjoyed and very much needed in the winter months.

Baking recently has included making; scones and jam, pizza, cherry shortbread, banana muffins, tomato and parmesan twists, spicy bread, potato wedges and beans and jam tarts. Most of the children offer to take part and enjoy making it. All of the children enjoy eating it.

Seahorses

The seahorses have had a few new children join them in January and so the focus has really been on settling them in through providing lots of interesting activities for them to explore and for the team to see what sparks their interest and continue to have available for them.

Favourite activities for the new children and established children have been playing with the bangles we have in all shapes and sizes to go over a wooden post. The babies love the bangles and the staff love having a play with them too!

Wooden treasure basket, which is a huge basket full of all sorts of familiar wooden items has also been well used this month by the babies gathering favourite items or searching through for something that grabs their attention.

Even though the weather has been tough, babies have still had some good times in the garden climbing on the slides and see-saw and playing with the balls, especially. The latter part of the month since the new matting has gone down, has made an even better environment to play in. It is not quite finished, but already it has made a big difference in appearance and providing a smooth surface for the children to play on.