Welcome to our latest newsletter for Links Childcare St Olaves, where we will be sharing our news and photos from February and March. In February, we celebrated St Valentines Day, Recycling Day, our learning all about frogs and butterflies too. World Book Day at the start of March was lovely and we had such fun dressing up and reading with all our friends and Educarers.
Unfortunately, with March being cut short for us all in crèche, we didn’t get the chance to finish up our activities that we had planned for the rest of the month.
We hope our children have been able to do a bit of the curriculum with the children at home through the information we have shared with parents recently?
We have also been working on lots of videos from all of our crèches, put together by our Educarers, Managers and Chefs, and shared with you all via our Links Childcare Facebook and Instagram social pages. If you and your children have been following them, we hope you have enjoyed them all. And if you are trying any of the activities, experiments or recipes out, and would like to share them with us, we would love to see them also. Please tag us using the hashtag #LinksLearningThroughPlay on your posts, or email them to me, and I will share them with the team.
Our social links are below for Facebook and Instagram, if you would like to take a look.
For now, on behalf of the team in St Olaves, we wish you well and we would like to say a big hello to all our children. We cannot wait to see all our children again very soon in crèche.
Please keep safe, wash your hands and enjoy this home time with your children as best as we all can.
Best Wishes,
Elaine
Elaine Dunne—Creche Manager
Baby Room News
February saw an active start to the month for our babies, where we did lots of moving around our room.
We put the walking frame blocks in a row to encourage our babies to crawl or walk through it with help. At the end our babies were able to explore through the tunnel themselves and loved touching the different textures.
They also did massages using different textures of balls – rolling them around their backs, arms and legs, which was very relaxing indeed.
For St Valentine’s Day, they made sensory bags with water and small hearts and made a lovely card for mum and dad using their feet to make a heart shape on it.
At the start of March, we welcomed the season of Spring and experimented with flowers and messy painting. Our display board of flowers and spring time items was made for our room wall.
In our classroom we got some new baby books. The babies love to sit with Marta and Virgina and have story time and they are really enjoying their new books.
Wobbler Room News
In February, we did lots of spring time art and read some new books about spring lambs and flowers. We did some St Valentines Day art too for our mums and dads and brought it home.
In March, we said goodbye to Bobby and Ada as they both moved up to toddlers but we welcomed Rain, Cillian and Quinn from the baby room.
In our wobbler room we celebrated Andalucia’s Day, the children had a great time making flags and fans. In our room we also done physically exercises and learn dancing. Our children love to sing songs and dance together. Their favourite song is still ‘baby shark’.
The children love to play dress up and they just love to dress up the baby dolls and roll play. This is a great way for us to help the children bring on their vocabulary.
We did start to get ready for St. Patricks’s Day but with the current situation we did not get to finish.
All the staff here in the Wobbler room hope all our wobblers and parents are keeping safe and we hope to see you all again soon.
Toddler Room News
In February, we loved getting our class room ready for spring. We took down our winter artwork and made room for our spring collages. Bright yellows and greens were painted onto big pieces of paper to make flowers in a garden.
We enjoyed lots of role play too and dressed up in colourful costumes and played with our friends.
In March we wished Leah a BIG happy birthday who turned two.
We welcomed our new friends Ada and Bobby into our class and said goodbye to Jessica who made her way to the preschool class. We wish you all the best Jessica—all our Toddlers will miss you.
In our room we were getting ready for St. Patrick’s Day, we made shamrocks and harps. In our circle time the children talked about what they were most excited about to see at the parade. We also role played out own parade in the classroom. The children had so much fun, we used our dress up clothes and even had a band with our musical instruments.
We also talked and looked at different spring baby animals (which the children really enjoyed) and had great time reading all our new books we had gotten.
All our Educarers I would like to say we miss you all, we hope you and your parents are keeping safe and we will see you all very soon.
Preschool Room 1 News
Carnival fun was had by all in February, as we dressed up and celebrated this festival. We did lots of singing and dancing and baked yummy goodies too.
We learned how to soil lentils with Aisling and Estela and we took turns in giving them a drink of water.
For St Valentines Day, we made love heart shapes and decorated them for our parents.
In March we welcomed a new friend Jessica.
We also had a visitor for World Book Day Rachel. She was a lovely lady who came into our class and read us a lovely story. The story was all about the shoe box appeal and were they end up and who gets them and real pictures of the children who receive them. The story was really inspiring. Preschool one and two would like to thank Rachel again for coming in and reading us such a great story.
The children brought their own books in and some even dressed up as a character from their favourite book. The children talked about their books to their friends and they even drew pictures.
The second week the children were getting ready to celebrate St. Partick’s Day. The children learnt about the colour of the Irish flag and we also made our own flags. The children were practising their cutting skills by cutting out shamrocks and learning about the Irish lucky charm.
Estela, Rosa, Aisling and Maria hope all the preschool children and parents are keeping safe and healthy, we miss you and hope to see you all very soon.
Preschool Room 2 & Afterschool Room News
Spring flowers, learning all about planting, sowing and what grows well during the spring time was all enjoyed in February, as we started to welcome the new season. We loved learning all about the life cycle of the butterfly and the frog.
In our Small World corner, we got to dig up soil and plant some herbs and other a different day, Helen and our Educarers set up an area where we “went on a picnic” in the woods with our teddy bears.
Our children love dinosaurs, so we decided to set up a excavation area for them and they went digging for dinosaur bones and fossils. They loved this activity.
For St Valentines Day, we made cards and art works for our friends and family.
In March, we welcomed Conal to our class. We also welcome Isla who moved up from PS1.
The first week in PS2 the children were learning about flowers since we came into spring. An activity the children done was they painted their hands then placed it onto a blank page making the petal of the flower then using pompoms placed that into the middle and there you have a lovely flower.
The second week the children learnt about insects. An activity they done was each child picked a geometric figure and copied it onto a blank page. After each child done this the children drew on the eyes and mouth and decorated it as they liked to create their own insect.
Also in March, we celebrated World Book Day, we had a lovely lady who came in and read our children a lovely story.
The children also brought their own books in and even dressed as their favourite character from their book.
Helen, Fernando and Maria hope that all our children and their families are keeping well and safe. We miss you all and hope to see you all very soon.
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