“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flown. How did it get so late so soon?” ― Dr. Seuss

Staffing News – Cindy and Hollie are leaving us at Christmas for pastures new. We wish them all the very best and hope that Hollie enjoys working at sea.

It is very apparent in early years settings there has been a huge rise in language and communication delay. If you have any concerns regarding your child’s speech development, please take a look at this.

This is a Kent strategy to triage children with any speech or communication delay. They provide walk in sessions all over Kent to take your child and talk to speech and language professionals and potentially get referred into the therapist service. Please feel free to come and find me if you have any concerns about your child’s development or progress. Sophia

Talking walk- in service

Kentcht.nhs.uk

Saplings:

This week, the Saplings have enjoyed a range of different activities.

They selected foam shapes and were quizzed by the practitioner about the shapes, sizes and colours before glueing them to card. To complete their artwork, they used crayons to draw around the shapes. Harvey and Marco focussed well throughout. To extend their creativity they used an array of cookie cutters to mark make using paint as the medium. The children displayed precision and dexterity.

The Saplings really adored singing lots of different nursery rhymes during our What’s in The Box sessions and have even started leading the activity themselves without support from a practitioner!

Whilst in the garden, sand has been very popular with them all – they’ve had a brilliant time digging and building castles. They have also enjoyed the slide, taking turns as they climb up the steps before counting down as their friends slid down.

Star Of the Week:

Axel – For always being kind to his friends and having a big smile on his face.

Seedlings and Acorns:

This week, the children have been starting to look at Christmas and the new season as we move to winter.

We began by making a sensory season board, using cotton wool as a representation of snow in winter, flowers for spring, colourful tissue paper for summer, and autumn leaves. As they got to work, the children learnt about cold and warm weather and enjoyed feeling the different textures presented to them.

We then hung up a Christmas tree onto the wall and tasked the youngsters with decorating it by attaching balls with Velcro fastenings. The children proved to have great hand/eye coordination when attempting to do this. Oscar and Georgia loved trying to make our tree as beautiful as possible.

We enjoyed numerous craft activities this week too. The children loved making snowflakes using their fingertips. The Seedlings and Acorns also set about crafting their own Christmas trees which they decorated with baubles and a star. Doing this proved to be a brilliant way of enhancing the children’s shape recognition skills.

During sensory play this week, we explored snowman bags filled with water and cotton wool. The children giggled as they wiggled the white balls around to try and make a snowman. Our wintry train Tuff Tray activity complete with flour to represent snow was hugely popular.

While outside in our garden, the Saplings and Acorns had so much fun fishing for cucumbers. Using various tools, the children were tasked with scooping the cucumber slices out of the water. Annabel particularly enjoyed this activity.

Stars Of the Week:

Seedlings:

Luca – For showing a lot of desire to communicate and starting to sign and say single words.

Acorns:

Oscar – For settling back into nursery life so well.

Oaks 1:

We’ve made the most of the weather this week in Oaks!

The children have shown lots of resilience as we have continued to enjoy all that nature has to offer during this chilly time.

We were all so excited to see the snow pouring down a few days ago – it was wonderful to hear the chorus of “It’s SNOWING!’. We of course rushed straight outside to enjoy it. The children caught snowflakes on their tongues, and we learnt about how snow is made up in the sky. We also took the youngsters to the forest area to have a cosy fire.

The children have continued to express a keen interest in Michael Rosen’s book Chocolate Cake. They have shown remarkable attention when listening to the story, hanging on every word of this dramatic tale. They have continued to make artwork based on the story, even finding dried butter beans and other loose parts to decorate elaborate cakes.

Announcement:

An important reminder to please have a discussion with your child about whether they’ve been feeling a bit chilly. If they have, please think about supplying additional layers. Thermals, snoods, welly boot liners or thick welly socks, hats and gloves too!  We’d be grateful if you could attach them inside their coats or snow suits even better.

December is calling and in Oaks 1 we are in festive mood!!

Inspired by the American celebration of Thanksgiving, we’ve been considering all of the wonderful things and people we are blessed to have in our lives. To mark the occasion we also cooked a turkey stew over the fire. As we tucked into it, we chatted about cultural celebrations in other places around the world including France, Spain and the Netherlands.

We’re sure you won’t be surprised to hear that the children are starting to get very excited for the festive season. We’ve been very busy making wreaths, crafting Christmas lists by cutting and sticking, and even made Santa models from red paper cups.

Star Of the Week:

James J – for his outstanding number work and helpful attitude.

Announcements:

Thank you so much to all the parents for your support in sourcing outfits for children who wanted to play less traditional parts in our nativity play. Please make sure their outfits are named!

We’ll be sending out an update regarding our festive plans next week so please keep an eye out for it.

We are so looking forward to seeing you on Saturday 6th December. There will be refreshments, singing and general merriment!

Forest School:

The milder weather was most welcomed this week. The children voted to explore further afield, and so we went trekking discovering a deer, horses and cows along the way, the deer was a rare sighting, and the children tried their best to stand as ‘still as statues’ to avoid frightening it but they saw it ‘shot off like a rocket’ despite their efforts. We happened upon a mound which was clearly deposited by a woodland animal or one passing through and announced it looked rather like pumpkin poo!!

Grating garlic and picking off thyme leaves (no mean feat) was the task set when we returned to basecamp and the children mixed these in together then proceeded to knead bread flour and yeast to form a beautifully smelling dough which they then rolled and stretched back at nursery and baked to perfection, well done bakers.

Oaks 2:

This week, we have extended our learning about space, really focusing on the space in which we live.

When asked, Ivan was able to tell us with great confidence where he lived. To extend on this, we also navigated our way around the world through books, looking at different types of houses in places such as Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.

The children loved the challenge of creating a town from junk modelling. We introduced lots of words including sky, clouds, grass, house and fence. Once complete, this artwork will be added to our display wall in our room.

We have also been looking at the habitats of different animals, with thanks to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) magazine.

Star Of the Week:

Ivan – For his use of language and knowing where he lives.