Welcome to the October edition of our newsletter from Links Childcare Citywest.
We love this time of year. The children are all well settled into their new rooms and routines after the summer holidays and we are well under way with all our fun and active Autumnal curriculum learning each week.
There were lots of celebrations this month. At the start of October, we had a lovely party in crèche to mark 15 years of Links Childcare. It was a super fun day of celebrations, where we made our own fairy buns and got to meet our new preschool class bears. Mr Links, the big bear also arrived in style to visit us too. It was great to see him and most importantly, the children loved it!
We also learned lots about the importance of road safety during National Road Safety Week and we had some lovely activities to go with this theme.
Our Autumn theme was great for learning all about the changes in the weather and what various animals did during Autumn to prepare for the Winter.
Halloween was a (not so) spooky affair in Citywest, as we played lots of games, made some arts and crafts and a Bake Sale in aid of Temple Street children’s hospital for their Trick or Treat fundraising campaign. Many thanks for everyone’s support, and indeed, for all our events.
We hope you enjoy our newsletter and we look forward to lots more fun learning next month.
Kind regards,
Sonja
Sonja Quinn —Crèche Manager
Baby Room News
October was packed full of exciting and fun events, and our babies loved them all.
Our babies explored outside in the windy weather, where they collected leaves and made an autumn tree in the classroom. We also made handprint hedgehogs and lots of decorations for the Links 15th birthday party.
We spoke about farm animals and what type of farm animals there are, we took out our flash cards and showed them the pictures with the noise that they make. We played with the animals in shredded paper, and painted pigs and sheep.
As we had our farm week theme too, we went on to talk about tractors and different types of transport. We made tractor wheel marks on paper with paint, sang a new song about leaves falling down and also did arts and crafts, making our friends birthday cards. We went out to the garden for fresh air and to see nature and the leaves on the ground, mini bugs and creepy crawlies.
For Halloween, we decorated our door with ghost footprints and witches. We played sensorial games with oats, spaghetti, foam and slime. We hid little toys in these buckets to see if the children could find them and to end the month, we celebrated “Diwali” and painted pictures of candles.
Wobbler Room News
This month we prepared for Autumn with arts and crafts and exploring the leaves and new textures. It was lots of fun made autumn tree’s with leaves collected from outside, hedgehogs with sticks and brown paint. We painted our windows with the autumn colours, and made some hand printed acorns and leaf rubbing with crayons.
For our animal farm theme, we played with the animal from the farm and also threw in a few dinosaurs in the mix. We loved singing “Old Mac Donald” and we made big farm animals which was a lovely group activity to all do together. We made pigs, sheep and a ducks with shredded paper as our sensorial activity and we made different animal sounds and read an animal book.
Playing with our trucks was fun and loud. On the ground we drew a road and the children used this as imaginary play. We painted boats and car and explained to the children boats go in the water and float, cars go on the road and trains go onto tracks. We painted lots of different types of transport, from boats and cars, to planes and trains.
We created lots of Halloween arts and crafts this month like ghosts and spiders. We had lots of dress up too and made a pumpkin for our wall.
Toddler Room News
During all our Autumnal learning, we collected twigs and leaves to make a nature table. We used our leaves also to do leaf rubbing. We spoke about the colours of nature, why the leaf’s fall off the tree’s and animals that hibernate. We spoke about squirrel’s and acorns in the tree’s and we made a big autumn tree with our handprints and stuck on some real life twigs and leaves.
We made our own aeroplanes and helicopters and we went out to the garden and looked up at the sky to see if we could see anything in the sky. We made balloons and decorations for Links Birthday party. Making clouds from cotton wool was fun. We also made a sun for the sky. We used shredded paper as rain and a sensory activity.
The children made their own instruments with empty bottles and tissue boxes. We made our own band and had a little singing and dancing competition with musical statues and chairs. We also made lots of decorations for Halloween, ghosts, pumpkins, witches, Frankenstein’s.
We spoke to the children about different professions and the people who help us. We dressed up as doctors and nurses and played a hospital role play, using our doctor kits to make sure all the children were healthy. We spoke about farmers as they provide us with milk from the cow’s and eggs from the chickens, wheat from their fields. The children were so interested in the farm we then moved onto tractors and the children made their own. They drew their own farm and the animals. We also celebrated “Diwali” – the celebration of light celebrated by Hindus and some Buddhists.
Preschool Room News
Some events we enjoyed in Preschool included:
* Links Birthday Party, Numbers, Opposites, Emotions
* Autumn & Nature, The Farm
* Beep Beep Day
* Diwali Day
* Trick or Treat for Temple Street & Halloween
Pre School 1—
We introduced new songs into the class room one of which included, “walking in the jungle”. We sang this with actions and it is great for their gross motor skills and getting them up and moving around. We used our musical instruments we made during our dance classes and we also played games like musical statues/ chairs. We welcomed back our speech and drama teacher Robert and we were soooooo excited. We had lots of fun during the birthday party for Links, and we made lots of decorations and had an amazing party! The winner of the mini Mr links in this class was Erin Gildea. Erin called her class bear “Billy”.
We made counting games and number matching games. This was when the children picked a number and they matched the same amount of objects to the number. We sang the number son and we all made birthday cakes (arts and crafts) and stuck match sticks on to represent our ages. While talking about opposites we used our open ended questions by asking them which toy is bigger or small, which toy is heavy or light. During our beep beep decorations we made a police car and a zebra crossing, traffic lights and played the stop and go game. We spoke about crossing the road and the safe cross code (song).
Our children went on a nature walk and collected leaves, twigs and branches. We used the leaves for our leaf print rub, also to have some on our nature table. While on our walk we had a look for mini beasts and bugs. We found little creepy crawlies (wood lice/ spiders and daddy long legs). We used our magnifying glass to have a closer look. We spoke about the colours of nature and the animals that hibernate at winter, the food they collect and eat. For Halloween, we made Halloween decorations and a spooky house, pumpkin arts and crafts and spoke about our different Halloween experiences.
Pre School 2 —
There was so much fun learning in Pre School 2. Here is a round up on what we got up to.
NUMBERS:
We made arts and crafts by using our numbers, we drew the number and stuck different items for the number that was on the page, ie number 4 we stuck down 4 pom-pom’s. We also learned how to count up to 5 in Spanish, they loved this. We sang a new numbers song “10 in the bed and 5 Little Monkeys”.
EMOTIONS & BIRTHDAY PARTIES:
For our Emotions learning, we sat down and discussed our emotions, and used the emotions board and explained why we use this and how it can help explain the way we feel on different days. We made lots of decorations for the Hollywood theme for the birthday party and had an amazing time! The lucky winner from this room was Niamh Burke with the name “Flossy” for preschool 2’s bear. .
AUTUMN:
We sat at discussion time talking about Autumn, what happens, what do the animals do and the colours. We spoke about the leave’s falling from the tree’s and we collected some for our nature table to make arts and crafts. Talking about Autumn led us to talking about colours and how the leaves change colour. We spoke about oranges and brown and why they change from green! We played a colour game in Spanish and asked them in Spanish and English to find a toy of this colour ie. Red / Rojo. Green/ Verde.
TRANSPORT:
Beep Beep day is always great fun and this year was no exception. We decorated our own zebra crossing and lollipop lady, we made a police car and fire brigade. We went out to the garden and played traffic games. Stop and go!
FARM & CULTURES:
We made our own farm and used this in our “small world area”, where we used the animals from different backgrounds ie, dinosaur, zebra, lions. We made pigs and chickens for our art work wall and also had some fun role play. During this week we also spoke about culture and background and we asked all children to bring in something that represented their nationality or background. Some brought in food from their country, clothing and pictures. The children had fun tasting these foods and also enjoyed looking at pictures and trying on different clothing.
Pre School 3 —
Our children made traffic lights and played an indoor game of stop and go with our colours. We made our very own village by drawing a picture of roads and a town, and we then used this as role play.
We also used Lego and blocks to construct a play area. We also made lots of decorations for the birthday party for Links Childcare. This was exciting and we all made up names to pick from a hat. The lucky winner was Peter, with the name Mr Bump that he picked for preschool 3’s bear.
Autumn was a theme that the children really enjoyed. We made our own tree and filled it with twigs, leaves, acorn’s and lots of other items we found in the garden on our nature walk and hunt. We have placed all of these items on our nature table and the children can add to this every day. We added a pumpkin for Halloween and carved it at the end of the month. We talked about autumn and why the leaves change colour and what hibernation is all about.
Hibernation was very interesting for our children. We spoke about animals that hibernate and what animals eat during hibernation, what they do when they collect and store them. We made our own animal house during arts and crafts and we went on an animal hunt and adventure out in the garden to see if we could see any squirrels in the tree’s. We also made different animals for arts and crafts.
We just love Halloween in Citywest, and our children had so much fun dressing up and getting into the spooky sprite, with lots of arts and crafts and games. We also did lots of colouring activities for Diwali, and spoke about it why we do it and we would also like to say a big thank you to Sindy Sharma (Zayne’s mother) for coming in to speak to us about Diwali and sharing her experiences with it. It was a lovely visit and the children loved it and was fascinated by it all.
Afterschool Room News
The afterschool children love arts and crafts we did lots of window painting and making arts and crafts with pipe cleaners and paper (Origami).
The children made their own paper doll houses and added in a family with cat’s dogs and furniture. Butterflies with pipe cleaners, lots of arts and crafts for the 15th birthday party, Halloween and Diwali were also events and activities we enjoyed during the month of October.
We created a reward chart and talked about rights and responsibilities and how to treat our friends and help and be kind to them when they need it.
They love Harry Potter so we made magic wands with cooking sticks and silky cloths. We are an active bunch of children, and we enjoy lots of outdoor activities when the weather is kind. We enjoyed lots of rugby, football, basketball, chasing games and dancing this month.
Speech and drama is back and our children love this too. They are great at practising their listening skills. We made different origami paper designs and also made a salt dough candle light holder for Diwali.
