Month: April 2020

Evening Parents

I had such plans to bring to you for home learning this weekend and I will do. It seems the government and the local authority like to throw things as nurseries just as we are closing on a Friday evening. We have had a busy weekend sorting out their small print!!!

Firstly, I wanted to share an observation that was recorded at nursery over Easter. It is lovely to read, it also shows how simply an observation is to record, there is no need to set up an activity, observations about children just happen as they go about their days. Please do have a look at it and how this little snapshot was linked into to the areas of the child’s learning. You can do this at home for us, do, do read how to upload an observation onto the nursery app’ from home and to us. Instructions are on the info’ page of this website. Many thanks to those parents who have done so, I have approved them for your child/ren’s learning journals.

I am also attaching a little book to help in these times. Aimed at slightly older children, some of you have older ones and some of you can extract relevant pages to use. I like the book especially as Axel Scheffler was involved, what a talent.

This links to what I was thinking about doing, I wanted to talk with you all about Socks and Stuff! Hey, I will roll this out to you and if you can get ready for that, I would be pleased. Do look out for Fox in Socks by Dr Seuss and Fox’s Socks by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Two fun rhyming books that your children will thoroughly enjoy. And they will link to my Socks and Stuff to come.

I know audio is out there or share between yourselves if you can.

Lastly a shout out to our staff, glad nurseries came up early in the news conference today. We proudly open for another five days this coming week.

Take care won’t you and looking forward to hearing about your sock antics.  Ally

Evening Parents and children.

We have just closed nursery for the week, and it has been mighty fine weather for us to stay outside. A little respite from using our watering cans on everything that is turning green here today, a massive job every summer. Our landscape is changing truly here at Nutfield, everything is going from brown to green and it is lovely, we know you will all be missing this time of year with us. Children here have thrived and get up to as much mischief as they do with all their Nutfield chums around them. We are all well and hope that you are all too, we are managing to the maximum, it is funny how you can turn cons into pros. Such a lot is happening with you all, marriages, births, and celebrations, thank you for sending in your photographic evidence and congratulations to our little community. Signs of keeping on going. . .

Please let the children know that the Easter bunny has returned to Nutfield after some busy days over Easter with all the families. Do let them see the photos we managed to take when the bunny returned and these are attached.

Also attached is the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Guidance for parents about what to do if a child becomes unwell.

The parents’ website will be updated with news within the next 24 hours so do let us know if you are unable to login. We will contact our critical working parents presently using nursery separately, about our operations for the week ahead. 

Take care. Ally

Dear All

We’ve had the best week we could have imagined here.  I couldn’t praise the team enough, inspirational is my description just for now, I have too many words about them which I simply can’t express at one time.  Children have immensely enjoyed their time with us.

As the hard core and long-term families here will know, Nutfield comes into its absolute element when the sun shines in those summer months.  It is the pinnacle of pre-school time here before the children head off to school.  We are just feeling it with the sun hats and sun cream for our little handful of children.  A parent said to me this week about keeping on going, we are and will do.

I’m pleased you are all doing well as far as I know.  Some families will already know that we are here with our support and guidance.  You know how to contact us, and we will certainly help all families as we can as we appreciate each household has its own challenges.  We are here for you, so don’t hesitate to contact us. 

With or without permissions in place, I wouldn’t post any content on social media with any children we are caring for at this time.  I will update this blog as needed.  Relevant care and educational information will be on our parent’s website moving forwards.

I’ve attached the National Pet Months biscuit recipe for you to try, with the sugar or without!

We look forward to our four-day week next week and wish you all the best at Easter time.

Take care.  Ally

Here is a really nice activity with ice. Can be adapted for all nursery children. We use lots of ice at nursery with the children as you know.

I wondered whether before you have a go at this, if you could read our schemas document and our document about uploading observations to the nursery app’. Both documents are on the info page of this website. It would be fantastic if all families could get an observation of their child/children onto the app’ for us. Have a look at the observations we do at nursery on your app’ if you are unsure.

Hope you have the freezer space! Look forward to hearing and seeing how you got on.

Our quoits

You can make frisbees and quoits from anything growing in the garden.  You will need a pair of secateurs to cut lengths from live trees, this won’t work with dead wood sticks on the ground.  We generally use willow, hazel and silver birch, these are easy to handle and strong.  But, most plants, shrubs or even weeds seem to be just as good.  From the hedgerow we used dog wood, holly, rose and hawthorn with success.

The hawthorn is so young and tender right now, that you can just pick off the tiny thorns and the young leaves are super soft for tiny hands.  Holly was surprisingly good, just pick off the leaves.

Remember some plants are poisonous, so children should be supervised and hand wash after using.

Improvise to find or make your own pegs inside or outside.  This activity is for the whole family and making the quoits might take longer than the game!

Let the children take the lead to find out how they will shape the game.  Remember to repeat the game and extend on it if your child/children are interested.  This experience lends itself to all areas of learning.  Think about what your child could learn next. 

Have fun.  #NutfieldGames  #NurseryQuoitMaking  #StayHome

Hello Everyone

What nice bright weather we have for the weekend.  Do take a look at the attachment about well-being and the links, plus a document about apps’, just for interest.  There is a lot of information out there and we only want to share little snippets from reliable sources that you can dip into if of any use.

There is also a photo of a calendar we found in nursery, that is the April page.  The calendar doesn’t belong to nursery so it must have come in with one of the children at some point?!

Earlier today I posted an album on our Facebook page showing the children playing frisbee here mid-March.  They were heavily into this and some parents went out and sourced their own frisbees.  The children were getting quite good at launching the frisbees and covering some distances.  I was thinking about this for this fine weekend.  And we had an idea about how you might be able to do this at home with even the youngest children and where outdoor space is more limited.  Of course, it is the Nutfield way!

Look out for our next Facebook post to explain this further. . .

Lastly, we do intend to open nursery where necessary this coming week between Monday and Thursday.  Do note that we are prohibited from opening on Good Friday.

Hope you enjoy the sunshine.  Take care.  Ally