A new Snapdragons for Keynsham

We are very excited to announce that we have recently exchanged contracts on a property near Keynsham and are beginning a refurbishment programme that will turn it into a new Snapdragons Nursery.

The property, Ellsbridge House, was previously the vetinerary teaching centre for Norton Radstock College and sits in 2.2 acres of grounds beside the A4 just outside Keynsham between Bristol and Bath. The nursery is due to open in September 2012.

As with all our other nurseries, Snapdragons Keynsham will provide fun and stimulating learning supported by qualified and caring staff. The gardens and additional buildings at the site also offer an exciting opportunity to expand our Forest School sessions and outdoor learning, including growing our own resources and caring for nursery pets.

The nursery will create around 40 jobs and we have already begun actively seeking the high calibre staff that will allow us to maintain our existing exemplary standards. The new team will be supported by a team of Snapdragons colleagues who will share the expertise we have built up over the past 14 years. Additionally an on-site training centre will be established where professional development and training courses will be run by outside professionals and qualified Snapdragons Teachers for the staff from all of our nurseries.

We have some truly exciting plans that we know will benefit all the children, families and staff in Snapdragons and we really want you to be a part of it. Take a look at the plans and watch this space for more news.

Manager Contact Times - W/C 13th February 2012

Sara Steinfeldt

Sara will be available Monday, Wednesday & Friday 07.30-16.30

Tuesday & Thursday 9.15-18.15

Kerrie Charlton

Kerrie will be available Monday, Wednesday  9.15-18.15

Tuesday & Thursday 07.30-16.30, Friday 12.45-18.15

James Collard

James will be available throughout the week on a flexible basis.

Please feel free to pop in to the office at any time!

Weekly Flashback - W/C 6th February 2012

It’s Friday February 10th and we’re here to take another look back at the week at Snapdragons Weston!

Starting our roundup as per usual with our under twos in the Baby Rooms, we follow the faint aroma of cooking and head into the kitchens to discover the babies hard at work on their fairy cakes and brownies. The end result was as delicious as always so well done to our ‘little chefs’.

Outside of the kitchen, you could also find the babies busy creating their new birthday balloons, painting and sticking, adding the final touches so that they could adorn the walls of their rooms, celebrating their birthdays. They also spent some time plunging their hands into shaving foam, mixing in glitter and pasta amongst other things and creating some wild concoctions!

Babies weren’t the only ones indulging in messy play this week though. For those of you who ventured down to the Koala room on Monday, you would have born witness to the toddlers enjoying sensory play with bubble wrap, tin foil, shaving foam and paint! If you survived the mess then you would have seen how much they enjoyed spreading it around and squidging it between their fingers and watching it rain down!

With Valentine’s Day approaching next week, Koalas have really enjoyed working on some special Valentine cards for their loved ones which we’re sure you will all be delighted to see next week! Pandas also prepared for this and designed some cards of their own but also chose to make some heart-shaped biscuits for their mummies and daddies to chew on.

The Koalas were lucky enough to get a reading of ‘Whatever Next’ from their Norland student, Simone, who was on a placement with them. After the story they created their own magic box, decorating it up in their own style. The group consensus was that this was now a helicopter and so they all boarded for a magical adventure to the seaside!

Panda Room were stomping about on a Gruffalo hunt this week. Our super investigators were able to successfully locate the owl, the mouse, the fox and the Gruffalo himself! Next Tuesday they are hosting a ‘Gruffalo day’ so would love the Panda children to come dressed as a Gruffalo and enjoy the fun!

Pre-School have been getting up to lots of fun things, exploring stripes and painting animals that have stripes on them. This was all linked into their learning about the artist Mark Rothko.

They have had a huge fascination looking after the baby dolls, enjoying washing them in the bubble-filled water tray and giving them a fun baby bath! The children then decided that they would love to visit the real babies upstairs and spend some time with them - albeit with a distinct lack of bathing this time.

Out in the garden the children have enjoyed exploring in the sand and making collages using natural materials. They also squirted some blue and red paint out of the bottles to use for some beautiful butterfly paintings on the big outdoor painting wall.

Finally, our children in the Parrot room have been having fun reading the children’s classic, ‘Elmer’, taking part in activities to run alongside this. They were really excited to get the opportunity to re-create Elmer with a selection of tissue paper squares and using a variety of watercolours to mix together in the theme of Mark Rothko. Overall, our Pre-Schoolers have all been very kind and caring towards each other recently, showing a real sense of family in the rooms which is lovely to see.

Thank you for reading this week - join us again next week for more!

Half-term notes - W/C 13th Feb

Just a reminder to all of our Parrot children that the Parrot room is closed next week for half-term and will re-open on  Monday 20th February at 09:00.

Also, Big Steps, which runs term-time only will also therefore be on holiday for a week and will be returning that same date.

Valentine Dress Up in Flamingos

We have some exciting plans for February 14th next week in our Flamingo room! In celebration of Valentine's Day, we would love to see our children dressed in clothes of pink or red. So dig out any clothes you can find in these colours and put them on to join in with our Valentine-y fun!