Dear Parents & Guardians ,
We would like to give a warm welcome to you all, as we returned back to crèche this month.
It has been so wonderful seeing all our Links children again, and it has been great to see that they have settled back so well after being apart from us for the past few months.
We understand that it must be difficult for you as parents to now be restricted when it comes to entering the crèches during drop off and collections, due to the current HSE Covid 19 guidelines. But we hope that, through the photos we share here in our monthly newsletter, the weekly updates and through our social media pages, that you can see what fun the children are all having together in their Pods. They are very engaged in the daily activities we set out for them, and equally we are guided by them when it comes to interests and learning.
Our Educarers listen to the children and with any emerging interests, we will build on a theme based on the children’s interests. For example, during our Summer theme this month, we spoke about summer holidays, beach days and various items of clothing that one might wear on a hot sunny day. One child then told us that he went camping during his time at home with his family in his back garden. Within an hour, a tent was created, a pretend fire pit “lit”, and camping songs were sung, as we enjoyed a lovely role play all about going camping.
We continue to practice all our safety measures to help keep viruses at bay. Regular hand washing is done, with our children singing their hand washing song whilst doing it. We have included our Hand Washing Song here too, if you wish to practice it at home to with your child.
All our chefs are so happy to see our children back too and they are delighted to be back cooking healthy, homemade and super tasty food for all our children.
Best Wishes,
Ciara
Ciara Wilkins
Deputy Crèche Manager
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram & our Links Childcare YouTube Channel
Baby / Wobbler Room News
We’re together again! This month we started with the topic “The little mermaid”. We talked about what we have been doing during lockdown and then we enjoy playing together. We did messy plays like painting with chalks in the floor. We made fish with our hands, mermaids and crabs. We also did role plays like if we were animals.
The second week, we worked the topic “Constructions” because the kids were so interested in the builders. We played with the big and small blocks and build towers, houses, trains…We made tractors with the foot print and builders with finger print. We also celebrated Senan’s first birthday with a party and a beautiful art work.
On the third week, we started with a very special day “Christmas Monday”. We put Christmas carols and sang them all together. We choose the topic “Monsters and Trees” and we did lots of art work with our hand and finger prints. We made a tree with apples, colorful monsters with hand print and messy paint with a monster covered with cello tape and monsters S.A. We also celebrated Dylan and Julia’s birthdays, we made them a surprise card.
We also were working on the children’s vocabulary with flashcards and songs during circle time.
In the Last week of the month we worked “Pirates”. We started doing parrots with feathers that they could be tied in the arm. We did pirates boats with plates and black paper and pirates with our hands. We enjoyed the good weather playing with water in the garden.
We had lots of fun together!
Toddler / Pre-school Room News
The first week of July the children were interested in summer, the beach, and aquatic animals. They did a lot of activities on this subject. They did an animal yoga classes and made a train and a house with a table pretending they were on holidays. They played with water, fish, and boats. They really enjoyed it. In addition, the children made some boats, painted a sailboat with their footprint, made aquatic animals with their hands and painted a river using stick and glue. Then they painted bubbles with glitter.
The second week the children were playing a lot with the real-life salon materials we have in our room. So, they made role-playing hairdressers and enjoyed “putting their makeup on”. In addition, they painted barbers and hairdressers and they had a lot of fun doing a nail salon activity in which they coloured a silhouette of their hand on a piece of paper and then coloured their nails on it.
The following week they were extremely interested in the story of “3 little pigs”, in dragons and princesses/princes. They love to hear the story of the “3 little pigs”. In addition, one of the children built a house of the 3 little pigs with Lego. They made crafts about fairy tales like “the house of the 3 little pigs” with glue and stick, decorated a crown and a shield and made a necklace painting macaroni in different colours. They loved this activity and some of the children wanted to make two necklaces, one for their fathers and one for their mothers. They also heard the story “Jack and the beanstalk”. Then they made their own beanstalk with their handprint, glue, and sticks.
The following week the builders caught their attention. They like to see how the extension of the creche is being built through the window. They loved to saw how they work and how they use their tools. They build castles and houses with the big bricks, as well as with the Lego. They also painted a builder and made their own builder tools with some tools that they painted. This week they also did P.E. class in the garden and had a lot of fun doing animal racing.
The last week of July we talked about babies, how to care babies, feed them and bath them. They had the opportunity to bathe the plastic babies we have in the classroom using water and sponges. They also painted baby things (a feeding bottle and a pacifier) and built a cot with cardboard and paint. The children also enjoyed doing an experiment about what items can sink and float and we discussed why this happens to different objects.
