Dear Parents,
Christmas has indeed arrived early in the Nursery! It is both joyous and a delight to see the rooms transformed into magical little wonderlands. I believe that there are a myriad of festive crafts being produced to embellish your child’s home this Christmas.
Foals 1
The babies had fun exploring our new art materials this week. We have been developing our fine motor skills by using the sponges, rollers and ‘egg crayons’. The babies are always keen to get messy and will enjoy using their hands to explore the paints.
We have also had fun practising our ‘unwrapping skills’ ready for Christmas. The babies were excited to see a large box arrive and used a pincer grip to tear the paper to open the box to reveal the hidden toys.
Foals 2
Foals 2 have had another busy month, with lots of celebrations! We decorated Pudsey Bears, did some spotty mark making, and wore our best spots for Children In Need. We made lanterns for Diwali and painted handprint turkeys for Thanksgiving. We also continued our sensory exploration with clingfilm painting!
Yearlings
We have been busy with lots of festive activities. We made some beautiful sparkly Christmas peppermint playdough, which the children made into Christmas cakes, rolling, squeezing and squashing.
We had a very generous donation of some amazing Christmas decorations from Scotsdales Garden Centre, thanks to Edo’s Mummy. The children have enjoyed decorating the room and tree over the course of the week.
We have a lot more festive activities and crafts planned that we know the children are going to love.
Ponies 1
Ponies 1 have been having lots of fun looking at the topic of ‘People Who Help Us’. We enjoyed making our own fire engine, being Police rescuers tackling an obstacle course, cleaning up the playground and looking after our friends in our lovely doctors’ surgery.
What a fun topic!
Ponies 2
Ponies 2 are continuing to enjoy playing and exploring our Dinosaur Dig, where they like to go camping and hunting for dinosaurs. As it’s now December, Christmas has come to Ponies 2! The children have been busy learning songs for our Christmas performance next week. We have also been making crafts, but we cannot tell you about them so that they are a nice surprise when they come home! The children have helped to decorate the tree, and are starting to explore some of the Christmas themed activities available to them. We have started our daily Advent calendar, where each day a child is chosen to add a new picture to our reindeer stables, and choose a special Christmas story to be shared at story time. Our first chosen book was ‘The Story of Christmas’, so we have been discussing why we have Christmas and presents, and in the words of Emily, “because everyone deserves to feel special at Christmas”!
Charities
Thanks to your kind generosity, the School and Nursery together raised a total of £407 for Children in Need on the 13th November. In addition to this, the Nursery staff, led by Miss Carlie Pinkowski (Room Leader of Foals 1), individually put together 12 shoeboxes of gifts for “Operation Christmas Child”. This project distributes the shoeboxes across the world to children who might not otherwise have received any gifts at Christmas. It’s not too late to get involved if you wish – see Operation Christmas Child (samaritans-purse.org.uk).
Christmas Events
As I’m sure you will be aware, we are disappointed to have to confirm that due to Covid-19 restrictions we are unable to perform our usual Christmas Nativity with you all in the audience. However, in their Music lessons with Mrs. Warburton, the children in Ponies 1 and 2 have been preparing a retelling the story of the first Christmas through an interactive musical experience. They will be going on this musical journey on Wednesday 9th December, and if your child is not normally in attendance, you will be invited to bring them in to join their class. You will receive further details shortly if you have not done so already. Although we will be unable to have any parents in to watch the performance, we will film it and provide the video on Tapestry. If you have any questions please ask a member of staff, and we will be happy to help.
Christmas Holidays
Just a reminder that the Nursery will close at 3.30pm on Christmas Eve and re-open on Monday 4th January 2021. Should your child normally be in Nursery on the week commencing Monday 21st December and you are hoping to be away, please let Lucie Melen or Chloe Franklin know. Thank you.
With my best wishes,
Lynda Brereton