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Notes from the editor Thank you for all your support with Children in Need we had great fun dressing up and to raise money for a good cause.
Dates for your diary – Next events
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Tues 24th Nov – 6.30-8pm Caterpillars parents evening, please book your slot if you haven’t already done so.
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Wed 25th Nov – 6.30-8pm Butterflies and Ladybirds parents evening (Ladybirds starting at 6 to fit everyone in)
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Thurs 26th Nov 7.30 parent group meeting at local restaurant, all welcome to join us, please let me know if you would like to come.
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Sat 5th Dec Family Christmas event at Jesters 6.00-7.30pm Come and join us for lots of fun, singing, stories, festive snacks and a visit from Father Christmas. At Jesters www.jestersadventureplay.co.uk/ soft play, Redman Rd, Porte Marsh ind.estate, Calne, SN11 9PL Calne. Please let us know if you can come if you haven’t already done so. Dress code – anything Christmassy or PJ’s.
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Thurs 17th Dec Zoo lab are visiting New Road Nursery with their usual creepy crawlies and a special Christmas Elf. If you would like to join us and it’s not one of your days please give us a ring on 01249 652004.
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Please note we are closed on all bank holidays and this year we will also be closed on Thurs 24th Dec, (you will not be charged for these days) We are open on 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 29th, 30th, 31st Dec then Closed Fri 1stJan, back to normal Mon 4th Jan.
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Term time (pre school) only children finish on Fri 18th Dec and return the week of the 4th Jan.
The Parent Group, is open to everyone, and all are very welcome. Our next meeting is more of a social as we are having a meal at Revolutions on Thurs 26th Nov 7.30pm. Two courses £18, please let me know if you are planning to come as we need to book in advance, many thanks. Items to be discussed are the family Christmas event and a possible cook book.
Thank you for all the Sainsbury’s vouchers you’ve collected, we have been able to buy some fantastic new outdoor beanbags as well as some gardening equipment such as seeds and watering cans. This will help us grow lots more vegetables and plants next year.
Questionnaire results, thank you to everyone who took the time to fill out our questionnaire. We were very pleased that many of you choose the nursery for the atmosphere and location and that both you and your children considered the staff a strength of the nursery. In response to your feedback we will be considering the comments for next years action plan.
We have recently changed the invoice format to make it more user friendly which we have been trying to do for the last few years with our software management programme, so hopefully you will see some improvement there. Please also see DIY overleaf for details of the next project.
As the seasons change please could we ask that the children bring warm clothes and at the least a waterproof coat to wear each day as we do play outdoors in all weathers. If it is particularly cold you may wish to bring hats & gloves! Please could we also ask that clothes, especially shoes are named as many children have the same or similar shoes. It’s much appreciated and saves time too.
Nursery News
Digital Learning Journeys – We would love to make these more 2 way, we are loving them at nursery but are you too? Can we request more of you to send in photos and observations from home? It’s easy when you know how, but how many of you don’t know how to? If so please ask for one of our easy guides or speak to the room leaders or the office. Thank you
It is with great sadness that we announce that Julie will be retiring at the end of Dec. Julie has been at the nursery for many years and has been much loved by the children, families and staff. We shall miss her greatly but wish her all the best for her early retirement.
Ordered photos are back, Thank you for all your orders. The commission from these goes towards the Family Christmas event. This year we raised £218 from the photos!
DIY– next on the agenda is the Butterflies bathroom, which is looking a little sorry for its self. We have had a national company come to quote which we are comparing with a local builder to achieve best value for money but to also meet our needs of storage and durability. We will also be giving the staff room a much needed pick me up too.
Training– Since the last newsletter in the summer, staff have attended an array of study days from first aid and team leading days to supporting positive behaviour and outdoor play. After each training session staff are expected to evaluate their learning, share it with the team and introduce new practise that helps develop our practise.
Marks Killi trip – a huge thank you to everyone for supporting Mark on his climb up Kilimanjaro, from good luck messages to sponsorship, and patience with any invoice questions. It was lovely to welcome him back and hear all about the experience. Having also raised over £5000 for CLIC in the process. It was surprising how good the signal was too (£90 phone bill later!!! – be warned) I particularly liked the moment Millie asked him if he could sing “I ave got a brand new combine harvester†to her over the phone, it was the applause at the other end that made me laugh!
News from the groups
Caterpillars news A big welcome to our new children, they are all settling in really well with their new keyworkers and are enjoying all the activities. We would also like to take this opportunity to welcome Shanna to the team, Shanna is level 3 qualified and has been working in childcare for 3 years.
We have had lots going on over the last few months, going out for walks collecting lots of natural materials to create a lovely display board and use for the children’s craft activities. The children have loved going to the park exploring the sensory garden and collecting different leaves, conkers and twigs. We have also been to the pet shop the children loved watching the fish and all the other the pets, we bought some new fish for our tank which is in the upstairs playroom. The children get very excited and will often spend time watching them swim around. (Thank you to Shanna our new fish expert) We also recently took a small group to Homebase to look at all the Christmas decorations and lights (ok not quite on the scale of Whitehall but still good fun!)
Stephie has created 2 communication friendly spaces one upstairs and the other downstairs these spaces help to improve speaking and listening skills- we believe that children can’t be expected to read and write unless they can first speak and listen, developing speaking and listening skills is a key priority. As these spaces are warm, comfortable, and welcoming which in turn encourages the children to use the space- they have already been a great success.
We have been looking at the topics ‘All about me’ through to autumn the children have been doing lots of different crafts relating to these topics some are situated on display boards in the room so please feel free to pop in and take a look, others we will send home regularly. The children have made some great firework pictures experimenting with lots of glitter and different coloured paint getting messy is always great fun.
We would like to thank you all for your comments on Tapestry they are lovely to read and help us to get to know your child even better. Please remember you can add to Tapestry too, it is always nice to see what your child has been up to outside of Nursery. If you have any questions regarding Tapestry please speak with a member of staff.
Finally Christmas is approaching fast, during the month of December we will be wearing Christmas jumpers/tops please feel free to dress your child in anything to do with Christmas, through Dec if you would like to.
Kerrie and the Caterpillar team
Butterfly news- Welcome to all our new Butterflies children who have all settled in really well. We have had an exciting couple of weeks with our ‘all about me’ and Autumn topics. The children have had great fun doing hand and feet printing as well as using hand prints to create autumn trees, which we have proudly displayed around the rooms. As part of our Autumn theme we have been on an Autumn welly walk in the park giving the children the opportunity to explore the natural world around them. We were able to collect, leaves, sticks and conkers as well as observe the changing seasons, foliage and weather.
The children continue to enjoy playing outside in all weathers and have enjoyed splashing in puddles, painting with water and exploring the outside environment. Music bugs continues to a big hit with the children, who all thoroughly enjoy moving, dancing, singing and experimenting with sounds.
This term our topic is ‘celebrations’. We have already looked at Remembrance Day, making poppies and were lucky enough to have a visit from Sonal – Viraaj’s mum who helped us celebrate Diwali. We will soon be moving onto Christmas and have many exciting things planned for the festive period.
Ladybird news – We are very pleased to say that all the children appear to have made an easy transition into their respective ladybirds groups, making good relationships with their key people and have quickly become familiar with the new routines. We have had a busy couple of months exploring resources, discussing individual preferences and beginning to recognize their own and other’s feelings.
During the last term, our gardeners Trish and Julian have been a great hit with the children as we harvested the vegetables we have grown. We were proud of how well our pumpkins had grown, as this gave us the opportunity to explore textures, make pumpkin soup and ‘crazy face’ lanterns.
This term our topic is celebrations, we are looking at many different types of celebrations from birthdays and weddings to Diwali and Christmas. We would like to say a huge thank-you to Viraaj’s mum, Sonal, who came into nursery to help us celebrate Diwali. Sonal brought Diwali alive for the children with stories, pictures and special items such as the wonderful clothing and Diya lamps.
(If your child is going to school next year, don’t forget you need to apply for their place by noon on 15th Jan 2016. We have some paper copies of the form or you can go online to fill in your application. Many of the local schools are doing open sessions or ring to arrange for a viewing. Talking to other parents can also be very useful too.)
Foot note – Wilts council are doing a consultation on school admissions if you would like to take part please visit www.wiltshire.gov.uk/schooladmissions. On until 23rd Dec.
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