December 2023 at Atworth

We’ve made it.. the end of the year! And what a year it’s been!

What have we been up to in December?

Forest school

We have had the pleasure of having Nat, our forest school leader, with us throughout November and December! We have been super busy with trips, cooking and crafts. A few of us have hopped on the minibus and headed over to Whitehall Garden Centre where we discovered the festive lights, and got to see some reindeer, donkeys, sheep and goats.. although our favourite part is singing on the minibus!
We have learnt how to make flatbreads and cooked them over the fire. Some of us had a little nibble outdoors after they had cooled down, and we let the rest of our friends at nursery try them for our snack!
Nat has also been helping your little ones make some resources for the nursery. They have made a Christmas tree in the garden by balancing lots of different shaped logs, a mobile using natural resources such as leaves for the Toddler room, and a few reindeers to make our nursery look that little bit more festive!

Nat has written a blog on how you can encorporate forest school at home, click the link below to have a read!

It’s Christmas!

We have had an action packed December here at Atworth on the lead up to Christmas! We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to those of you who attended our Christmas party. We hope you enjoyed having a little insight in to nursery life and your little ones enjoyed their gift from our special guest, Santa!
The Pre-Schoolers worked really hard to put on a brilliant show for their Nativity this year! We are so so proud of them, and if you are a parent, we’re sure you are too! They did such a good job and remembered ALL the words! If you are a Pre-School parent and would like to purchase a digital copy of the performance, please bring £5 in to the nursery office.
Aside from our big events the team have been putting together lots of Christmas activities for the children to explore, and they have been crafting away on their Christmas bags to bring home. We even enjoyed a Christmas lunch complete with yorkshire puddings and pigs in blankets! Each room has decorated ornaments to place on our tree, and put their own unique twist on a little Christmas gift.

What else have we been up to?

This month the babies have been focusing on their ability to mark make. They explored this through all different kinds of media such as a sticking, drawing, and printing. They especially liked using cookie cutters to stamp Christmas shapes on to their paper bags.
Toddlers have been learning how to make shortbread! They listened really carefully to the instructions and made lots of different shaped shortbread biscuits for their friends all across the nursery to enjoy as a little treat after their Christmas dinner!
Pre-School have been sharing their favourite Christmas stories with their friends before settling down to read them together. They have also been really creative, turning boxes in to Santa’s sleigh and delivering presents to all of their friends. They also sculpted clay in to different shapes to make their very own reindeer!

A little look back at 2023!

We have had an INCREDIBLY busy year this year! We thought it would be nice to have a little look back at everything we have done!
In January we tried haggis for the first time whilst we celebrated Burns Night. We also cooked sausages over the fire to celebrate Australia day for one of our friends in Pre-School!
February brought love and pancakes with valentines day and pancake day! We got up to lots of crafts and made our very own pancakes which we topped with berries.
March was a particularly busy month at Atworth, we got all dressed up for World Book Day, cooked up a storm for Mothers Day, and hosted our very own wellbeing week all about the importance of exercise and connecting to our community!
April was all about Forest School. We painted with mud, toasted apples over the fire, and hopped on the minibus to Whitehall to choose which seeds we wanted to plant back at nursery!
In May we took some goodies we collected for wellbeing week to our local residents in one Atworth’s care homes. Whilst we were there we met a little cat! Back at nursery we planted all of our seeds in our vegetable patch and invited our mummies and daddies in to celebrate the Kings Coronation with games and a picnic in the front garden.
In June we prepared to say goodbye to some of our Pre-School friends. They enjoyed their leavers trip to Bath City Farm where they got to feed baby sheep!
We took a step back in July to enjoy the sunshine. We spent lots of time outdoors creating new activities and exploring our environments.
We harvested our crops in August! Everything had been really well looked after and we were able to enjoy our potatoes, cucumbers, strawberries and carrots in our meals and snacks! It was also time to say goodbye to our Pre-School leavers who headed off on their new adventure at school.
The weather began to change in September, so we hopped back on the minibus, this time to Westonbirt, to have a look at what was happening to the trees. We saw lots of pretty colours!
In October we hosted another wellbeing week, we enjoyed yoga outdoors. October also brought Halloween! We had a particularly spooky party in our best costumes.
In November we supported armistice day by making our own poppy wreaths and walking them up to the clock tower in Atworth where we left them for the community to see. We also had our delicious s’mores event, toasting marshmallows over the fire!
And here we are.. December! We have really enjoyed getting in to the festive spirit and sharing this with you back at home.

And so on to 2024!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support. We really hope you have enjoyed the year as much as we have - it’s been a busy one! We will re-open to our all year round children on Tuesday 2nd January, and we will welcome back our term time only children on Thursday 4th January. We kindly ask that you remember to return with a named water bottle, coat, waterproof, wellies and hat/gloves if you are able. If you want to send some last minute Christmas cheer to any of the staff here at Atworth, please do so by nominating them for a snappy superstar below. All that’s left for us now is to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!