We have had such fun over the past two months, as we enjoyed the rest of the summer and the nice sunshine in August.
We took advantage of the nice weather outdoors and played lots of games and had fun with our friends in the fresh air.
In September, we welcomed lots of new children to our rooms and we have formed some lovely new friendships together.
Keep an eye out on our Social Media Channels for photos of our daily activities.
In this newsletter, we have shared some insight into the activities from each of our rooms that has taken place during the month of
September. We have also shared some photos with you from our August activities. We hope you enjoying browsing through them.
Antoinette Hannigan – Crèche Manager
August Activities
Activities from our Baby Room
What a lovely and happy September month for our babies. We created many activities based on the topics sensory play+ messy play, Family, Universe and Children’s stories. These topics been choosing to fulfil babies’ needs and developments such as curiosity, imagination, hands on, and exploration.
Messy play and sensory play help the babies to play independently and develop their foundational skills also stimulate their body senses such as through touch, taste, smell, sight and hear. We planned art and craft also messy play to develop these babies’ development skills. To stimulate these babies’ foundational skills, we used lemons to let the children taste and feel the texture to gain real experiences. Also, we made lemon art printing with the lemons that been used in the messy play.
We used quick instant oat to do messy play and the babies use their hand to tap and squeeze the oat. We used sound toys and shake bottles to do shaking for exploring with different sounds.
We used peach jelly to let the children feel the soft texture and taste it. We used baby’s handprint to create a peach.
We provide water play by washing the toys with water. Then, we paint on the paper with brush and getting messy with their hands. We used puppets to do puppets play in the garden.
We used cooked pasta to let the children try and taste the texture of pasta. We sing bubble song with blowing bubble in the garden.
Starting a new term, we have new children and new members coming in the room. This is the best time to teach the children about family. Children love their family, and they enjoy pointing and looking at their family photos also name them. Learning about family, we did many activities that related to family through songs, messy play and art and craft. We sang about finger family songs and the babies interact in the song very well, they dance and response to the music. We had a finger family art and family tree craft painted by handprint and fingerprint.
Based on baby’s development milestone, physical and language development were the most important developments to be develop in their age group. We planned variety of activities related to their developments.
Stories from our Wonderful Wobbler Room
What an interesting September month for our wobblers. We learned about our emotions, we learned happy, sad, angry, sleepy, and surprised, this allowed the wobblers to understand and identify different emotions and how to deal with the different emotions that they feel.
When we were learning about our emotions, we were learning to emotions song and the children were making the emotion face to go with the song. We made a monster happy face and stuck coloured paper on their face to make a smiley monster, the children seemed to enjoy putting glue on their hands more. The children made clouds and used cotton balls to stick onto the cloud to make a sleepy face, some of the children have started to point at the cloud when they are getting tired, showing the educarer’s they have the knowledge to start identifying the emotion. We painted paper plates red and used some black paper to stick their angry face onto the plate, this showed the children that when they are angry their face will go red and feel hot. The educarer showed the children how to make an angry face and then the children were making angry face themselves.
The educarer showed the children that when they are surprised that they have an open mouth and wide eyes, the children used crayons to make eyes and nose, the children then made circles from paper and stuck the circles onto the face to make their surprised faces. The children now make this face when someone drops something.
The children heard a baby crying and they said, ‘oh no’ and started the pretend to cry. The educarer’s told the children that this is a sad face, and this happens if we miss our mummies and daddies, the educarer’s explained to the children that if weare sad, we give each other hugs to make them feel better. The children now give each other hugs when they hear somebody upset
We enjoyed working on our fine and gross motor skills this month, we used rice, cotton balls, pasta, couscous, and shredded paper along with our kitchen equipment; bowls, spoons, cups, jugs, and plates to encourage the children to scoop and pour the ingredients into the equipment.
Tales from our Toddler Room
What a fun and excited month for our toddlers. We have done many groups work and individual activities mainly to help these toddlers to stimulate their holistic developments and affective development. We created plenty of activities based on the few topics which are What am I eating? and My Body, Universe also The Five Senses.
For learning about the body, we introduced the body parts to the children with using pictures, poster, and song. To teach these children recognize the parts of the body, we sang ‘Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes’ song with action to let the children identify the parts of their body and at the same time to gain their attention span.
We did play dough making with flour, water, salt, and paint. We used these play doughs to create body parts such as face, eyes, mouth, and nose. Also, we made a body poster, a child will be lying down on the paper and the educarer will draw the outline out then the children will paint it. The children engaged with the activity very well, paste the body parts label at the right place and such as say, ‘this is my nose’.
For universe, we introduced children about planet, moon, and star. We made a moon with cardboard boxes and paint it with black paint then the children will stick the moon template on the box. We made a star with plain paper and children use colour pencil to colour the star.
Also, we made a rocket and telescope with boxes and stickers then the children paint it with blue and black paint. We created a pretend play with using the rocket and telescope. The children showed interest about the things up the sky. We created a real experience for the children using a telescope to look up the sky and what they can see.
Pre-School Room News
What an amazing start we’ve had to our preschool year.
A big welcome to all the new families and children who have joined us this month. To welcome the children and support their settling we introduced the children to ‘The Kissing Hand’ a story about Chester the racoon heading of to preschool for the first time.
The children really engaged well with this story, asking questions such as ‘where are daddy and mommy gone?’ We talked about our own families, what made up a family and drew pictures or our families. We started to put our family wall display together and together we created a family page in the children’s scrapbooks. Some of the children also made photo frames for their photos.
For ‘All About me’ the children created beautiful books all about themselves. They painted self-portraits, we talked about eye colour, hair colour and what makes a face. We also included a foot and a hand-print to measure how they grow from the start of the year to the end.
Starting in preschool can be a particularly emotional time for children and their families. We always help and support the children in identifying and naming their emotions. We introduced the story of the Colour Monster to the children. Its a story all about a Monster who is feeling a little confused and his colours have become all mixed up and he needs the children to help him separate his emotions. It’s a wonderful story and one we will keep coming back to time and time again throughout our preschool journey.
One of our emerging interest at the start of the month was all about rainbows. In our science area we captured a rainbow indoors by passing light through a glass of water, creating a prism, dividing the white light into all the colours of a rainbow. The children made rainbow finger paintings and rainbow wands. We listened to rain music and created a rain dance in the garden when the rain music stopped the children waved their rainbow wands over their head in an arc shape. The children enjoyed this immensely particularly when the wind caught their wands causing the paper ribbons to flutter in the breeze. We also baked rainbow muffins to complete our exploration of colour.
Weather is always a popular topic anytime of year as it is something the children experience on their way to creche or when we are in the garden. Some of the children explored the different types of weather we are familiar with creating beautiful pieces ofart which included sunny days, rainy days and rainbows too.
Some of our preschool children are expecting new arrivals to their families towards the end of the year. Congratulations to these families. We introduced a baby bathing station and baby feeding area. Several of the children really enjoyed participating in this activity. We read a fantastic story called ‘Baby on Board’ which had the children enthralled and asking to read it again and again! Children who already have little ones at home enjoyed sharing their experiences and home truths about having babies around!
As we reached the end of our month and autumn fills the air, we introduced a nature table to the room. The children love contributing to this area. One of the children shared their experience of growing sunflowers and tomatoes at home and we used this as inspiration to introduce the coming of autumn to the children. We studied sunflower heads and seeds, blackberries, apples and various seed pods from poppies and nasturtiums. We divided an apple and discovered seeds and baked oat and seed cookies.
To complete our settling into preschool theme this month we celebrated Grandparents day with some memorable videos to share with all the children.
