Dear Parents,
Firstly, we hope you are all keeping very well and your children too. We miss them all very much and we miss seeing their lovely smiley faces in crèche each day. We hope you and your little ones are adjusting somewhat to this time at home and that you and all your extended family members are safe and well.
Secondly, we would like to welcome you to the April edition of the Links Childcare newsletter.
This month’s newsletter is different to our previous ones as, unfortunately due to the ongoing Covid 19 situation, our day to day lives have had to change for the time being. With these changes in mind, we have put together a list of activities and ideas, compiled from various and useful websites, and for you and your children to do at home. We have also included photos from some creches activities that our children and their Educarers have enjoyed together. All of which can be adapted within a home environment.
These are all simply suggestions, and we hope you can find some nuggets of information useful and fun for you and your children.
As we have had no activities in crèche since the middle of March, unfortunately we have no photos to share with you for April, but we hope that you have been enjoying all the videos that our Educarers and staff from Team Links have put together for you and your children so far?
These have been posted daily on the Links Childcare Facebook and Instagram pages. We hope you have been enjoying them. All our Educarers and staff miss our children very much and this is a way for them to be able to engage with them through a simple hello, a song, a story or an experiment.
If you have yet to see our videos, please click on the social media icons below to get full access.
For the moment, the most important thing at this time is for everyone to stay safe, maintain social distancing and to ensure the children are having as much fun as they can during these very difficult times.
And for our mums & dads to look after yourselves too.
Best Wishes for now and we hope to see you all very soon in crèche.
From all our Creche Managers & Educarers in Links Childcare
PPE Donation
Links Childcare Management teams gathered all our gloves, aprons and shoe covers that we had in all our creches, and delivered them to St Francis Hospice, AnovoCare Nursing Home and Simpsons Hospital Nursing Home.
In times like these, it is nice to be able to help out in some way for the people who need it the most.
Arts & Crafts Ideas:
No Cook Play Dough
Makes 1 coloured ball. Prep 10 minutes. You will need:
8 tbsp plain flour, 2 tbsp table salt. 60ml warm water, food colouring. 1 tbsp vegetable oil.
Method
- Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the water, a few drops of food colouring and the oil.
- Pour the coloured water into the flour mix and bring together with a spoon.
- Dust a work surface with a little flour and turn out the dough. Knead together for a few minutes to form a smooth, pliable dough. If you want a more intense colour you can work in a few extra drops of food colouring.
Made by Eliane, our Leopardstown Manager & her two daughters Eirinn & Eabha.
Homemade Edible Finger Paint
Mix food coloring in with a bit of natural yogurt and let your child explore the colours on a page.
Here are pictures from Leyre, our Clonee Manager and her baby Olivia enjoying some lovely safe art.
Easter Egg Potato Stamper
Cut a design into a soft potato (mums and dads, please help with this part) , and paint with paint, turmeric and yogurt. Stamp on a page to create some lovely Easter artwork.
By Yanuri, Toddler Educarer in Links Clontarf.
Finger Painting Rainbows
An activity enjoyed by all our children in crèche. This pic was taken of one of our preschool children in St Olaves.
Make a Bird Feeder
These bird feeders were made by our children in Abington. Simply paint a clean milk carton / bottle, decorate and add some bird feed.
Hang in your garden and watch your bird friends come and say hello.
Making “Pizzas”
Cut out your colour paper and use as “ingredients”. The children love to add their own “toppings”, as you can see from our Naiscoil children in Seabrook Manor.
Tie Dye T-Shirts
Our children in Citywest loved making these. Use an old bottle with a squeeze cap and mix with water and food colouring to create a lovely tie dye effect on a white t-shirt.
Some ideas for Senior Pre-schoolers & Afterschool Children:
Hand &Foot print Superhero’s & Princesses, & hand print ABCs
Source—Smartschoolhouse.com –
Imagine Nation Play Book
The Imagine Nation playbook, in partnership with Ah Post and Kids Books Ireland brings together leading Irish children’s authors and illustrators and is jam-packed with activities for children to enjoy.
The playbook is filled with activities for children to do, including drawing, writing and mindfulness exercises made by leading creatives including Oliver Jeffers, Chris Haughton, Sarah Crossan, Don Conroy, Niall Breslin, Niamh Sharkey and many more.
It will be delivered to thousands of houses all over the country by An Post.You can also Download it here.
My 2020 Covid 19 Time Capsule
This is a nice activity for your children to capture their current moments and situation. It includes things like drawing your family, your feelings and things you like to do with your family.
We are in fact, living through a moment of history right now, and it would be nice to look back at something like this work book in a few months time and talk about it with your children.
This workbook was brought to you by Long Creations and can be downloaded here.
Arts & Crafts Ideas & Activities by some members from Team Links & their Families
Activities to improve hand eye coordination & promote sensory play
Mystery Sensory
Cut out the tops of a package of baby wipes, stick them onto cardboard. Fill them with colourful items, like feathers, soft sensory cotton balls, rice, and let your child discuss the textures. This is great for baby sensory.
Peek a Book
Stick animal pictures on the wall and put coloured paper on top of them. Allow your child to hide the hidden animal. Here are our babies in Balbriggan, who loved this!
Sensorial Book
These gorgeous sensory books were created by our brilliant Educarers in Clontarf to help our toddlers explore various textures. They loved the fact that it was a book and they were able to turn the pages and find different things on each page.
All you will need is:
– coloured paper
– paper puncher
– treasury tags
– glue (for mums & dads to use)
– sensory items such as Wool, pasta shells, pieces of colour paper
Try it out – it’s fun!
Role Play Ideas & Dramatic Play Areas
Our children adore role play in creche, and when it comes to making props, our Educarers and the children have made some amazing props to make their role play come alive.
The Dramatic Play Centre in our Pre-School rooms is usually set up as a ‘Home Corner’. The children reinvent this area themselves! Take a step back and watch your children, you will see them turn the kitchen into a shop or a hairdresser. This area is one of the most exciting areas within the room. They will get so much learning out of it.
Here is a small selection of some to share with you, all of which have been made and played with in our Links Childcare creches by our Educarers and children.
Pizza Restaurant
Supermarket
Doctors & Nurses
Ice Cream Parlour
Fire Station
Recording Studio
Fun Science Experiments
Sink and Float Experiment:
(from www.sciencebob.com)
Children can pick all sorts of different objects for this. Water play helps them learn maths concepts, for example, full/half full/quarter, fractions, more/less, prepositions like on/under, above/below, in/out, up/down, float/sink etc. It is also helping the children learn about buoyancy and boats floating can be an extension of this. They will also have great fun as they make their own boat using an array of materials.
Walking Water
Get 3 jars, fill with water. Add food colouring to the left and right jars and put some paper towels in between all jars and watch as the water walks. Image from Sciencebob.com.
Rainbow Skittles
Sonia, our Educarer in Citywest shared a video with us on the Rainbow Skittles experiment. You can use any sweets, such as skittles or M&M;s. Line them up into a circle and gently pour some water into the middle and watch it make a rainbow. Parents supervision is required, as small sweets can be dangerous for smaller children.
Mindfulness for Children & Parents
Shared from childhood101.com
Source: Twitter—BelievePHQ
Source: Blessingmanifesting.com
