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.
Charlie, our Head Chef has shared a recipe in this newsletter with you all for his Chicken Broccoli Pasta dish, which is a big hit with all our children, and which is on our Summer / Autumn dinner menu. As the children love it so much, we thought it would be nice for you to make it at home too for your little ones. We hope you all enjoy.
Best Wishes,
Preeta
Preeta Teepoo
Acting Crèche Managers
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram & our Links Childcare YouTube Channel
Extra safety measures have been put in place throughout the creche to help keep the spread of Covid 19 at bay.
Toys & all surfaces and items are cleaned regularly and we have hand
sanitisers and wash basins for children, at their height levels, that they can access easily. All our rooms are organised into Pods & our children are settling in nicely into them.
Baby Room News
This month in the baby room babies have developed their motor, cognitive, emotional, and social skills. Many of them have learned to applaud with the little hands, to stand up and trying to walk.
In the room we welcomed Maria Luisa, JJ, Emerie, Conor, Sadhbh & Ellie who are settling in very well and we said goodbye to Ailís who has moved into the Wobbler room.
Various painting, reading, dance and song activities have been prepared for babies.
Our babies loved making painting prints with their hands and feet.
There love their dancing and singing. It is a great way to encourage the movement of their bodies to the rhythm of the song. Using musical instruments such as maracas & drums gets them very excited, and they love to move to the beat of the music.
We also learnt different geometric shapes with balls and jigsaw puzzles, to try to familiarise them with colours and shapes.
For next month, our activities will be focused on improving their development (PILES). Activities that involve music, dance, colours, painting and reading will all be enjoyed.
By observing our children´s interests, we will carry out activities according to them too.
Wobbler Room News
After this long time apart, we wanted our wobblers to get to know each other again. So our first topic was all about “Me & My Family”. We made self portraits, and spoke about our family members and what fun things we did during lockdown.
Musical Fun Day was great to showcase our musical talent, as we created our own orchestra with musical instruments, singing and dancing too. We are great musicians!
Green Day & Rainbow Day saw a creche full of colourful dress ups and clothing and we made lots of lovely rainbow art for our walls.
Most of our activities this month were related to the Summer season. We have been talking about the clothes and complements you can wear in summer, and the things you need to have fun at the beach.
We also did some camping and picnics, and enjoyed a garden picnic eating yummy homemade pizza’s during Pizza Friday.
Our children loved playing with blocks and Legos a lot as we have been learning about construction and building things. They are also very good at team work too and working together, as they all made a lovely big city made of bricks.
Toddler Room News
The toddler room has been busy since everyone has returned. The children all said goodbye to Elisabet and created some art for her to remember them by.
The children also came up with a name for their Pod and decided on The Toddler Giraffe Pod. They worked together to colour a lovely giraffe for their door before doing some handprints for the sky and grass and giving the giraffe some fluffy spots.
Through the theme of flowers, the toddlers were busy looking for flowers in the garden – finding some pink and purple flowers growing through the fence. They also created a lovely flower from doing some handprint painting.
The children each separately chose their colour paint and once dry, their handprints were all cut out and stuck to form a flower. The children aided in the gluing process and when the flower was glued, they added some extra decorations by gluing some coloured paper all around the flower.
The children all really enjoyed the sensory experiences through painting and gluing and from this we can find new ways to create art or try new experiences with our senses.
The children have also shown a great interest in learning new songs with dance moves and singing them for each other so from this we may try and introduce more songs and encourage the children to teach each other the moves when their friends get stuck.
The toddlers are very good helpers for their friends when their friends fall down or are cleaning up so we will support the children with their kindness at all times.
Preschool Room News
July was such a joyful month. We are really happy to be back in creche with our teachers and friends.
We spent a long time in the garden enjoying the sunshine and great weather. Playing with water is one of our favourite things. Some of the activities of this month included “We are a family”, where we make beautiful pictures of our family in a colourful frame.
Mini Beast & Animal Planet Day had us learning all about animals from the ocean and we make lovely arts and crafts to take home.
We had lots of musical fun with a disco party day, where we danced and sang all day long, making a lot of music with our instruments in the room.
Rainbow Day was awash with colourful clothes and with chalk we made rainbows on the floor in the garden. We loved it!
We said bye-bye to our wonderful Educarer Rocio & Alberto. We are going to miss them so much and hopefully to see them soon. We are welcoming Eduardo to our team and to our preschool room.
We also celebrated Harry, Filip, Billy & Liam who turned 3 this month.
We are looking forward to more friends joining us next month for more fun times.
Afterschool Room News
We loved welcoming everyone back to crèche!
Some of our events this month included Mask Day, where we made animal masks.
We had a day full of music and dance where we made our own musical instruments.
We had a day to show our respect to the late Jack Charlton where we wore green and played soccer. We also had Rainbow Day, where we wore our most colourful clothes and did rainbow art.
This month we started off with the topic all about me and my family, looking at who is in our family and where our family comes from.
The next week talked about Animal Planets, focusing on a different group each day including farm animals, jungle animals, nocturnal animals, zoo animals, and endangered animals and how we can help them.
We did lots of dance and drama. We made puppets and put on shows for each other. We performed three plays for our Preschool 2 class out in the garden including The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks and The Three Bears.
The next week we were all about being creative and being young scientists. We looked at the planets, what would sink or float and why, how vinegar reacts to an egg, and lots more fun experiments.
Then we had a week full of being creative and focusing on our art the children made postcards that hopefully you have received at home, showing their love.
This month has been full of fun activities and we plan the same for next month where we are really going to get in to the summer spirit with a Hawaiian Hullabaloo, Links Got Talent, Disney week and Superhero week!
