Welcome to our Summer newsletter, where we look back over the months of June and July.

The past couple of months have flown by for us at Keynsham and we have been super busy throughout! We have celebrated our Preschool Graduation, said goodbye to some of our school leavers and also had some lovely visits to the Care home too.

Baby Cottage

The cottage this month have been very smiley and have loved the cuddles! We have played lots of peek-a-boo, it has been a firm favourite this month, causing lots of giggles and smiles. We have spent lots of time getting messy again, with paints, gloop, playdoh, along side splashing in puddles in July, who would have thought!

Baby Barn

Babies have been enjoying the little sunshine we have had, playing garden games outside and doing obstacle courses. They have also enjoyed water painting to keep them nice and cool! Babies have enjoyed playing inside too where they have been getting messy, using their hands and different utensils to feel the textures of the several types of messy play!

Toddlers

Toddlers have been exploring mess free paint using different resources to mix the colours together! We have also been working on our physical development, using the slide in the garden and the soft play! Toddlers have been using the animal cards to match the animals heads and bodies together!

Toddlers have been exploring texture this month, using bubble wrap and popping it with different tools and painting with different materials! We have also been role playing with the animals and learning about their environments!

Rising Threes

The children have been very interested in treasure hunts and pirates, so we decided to make our very own treasure maps. We drew on them where we had to go to find the treasure and to make our maps look old, we used tea bags on the paper.
We were also interested in what animals live in the water so we made our very own marine pictures and talked about what we would find in the ocean.
We have also loved taking our messy play out into the garden creating potions in the mud kitchen.
We were experimenting with our lemons and limes, juicing them, adding bi carb and then pouring the juice back in to create volcanoes.

Preschool

Over the month of July we spent a lot of time in the lovely sunshine when we had chance, we had a paddle in the pool to keep warm and even made some yummy flavoured ice cubes with some lemons and limes to add to our water.

We have been looking after our snails in Pre school doing some observational drawings of them and ensuring their tanks are clean as well as feeding them foods they like. Some of us were even brave enough to hold them.

We have been doing some baking this month we have made some banana and raisin bars and some blackberry and apple crumble too.

Preschool Graduation

On Saturday 22nd July we held our Preschool Graduation for our School Leavers - Despite the weather not being on our side we were still able to have a lovely afternoon with games, a balloon man, a special visitor, a BBQ and finishing off with a graduation ceremony.

We wish all the children off to school in September the best of luck in their new adventure to school, we will miss them all.

Staffing Update

As we are approaching a new term I would like to make you aware of some changes and update you on the current teams in each room.

We have a few staff who are off to embark on new adventures, return to uni or fancy something new.

Sophie Reed (Baby Unit Coordinator) - will be working some extra sessions over the summer before she returns to University in September - Sophie will still be around the nursery during holidays, so it won’t be a final goodbye!
Shannan (Deputy Head of Preschool) - Will be leaving Snapdragons to take on a promotion at another local nursery.
Charlotte (Nursery Practitioner in Preschool) - Has also decided it’s time for a change for her too.
Bethany (Nursery Practitioner in Rising 3’s) - Has decided to take a new step and will be becoming a Swimming Teacher.
Maisie (Nursery Practitioner in Rising 3’s) - Will be leaving to see the other side of the world for the next 6 months. Maisie will be returning in January and I’m sure she will keep us posted with lots of photos.

As staff leave, we are lucky enough to welcome new faces to the team too -

Toni - Nursery Apprentice in Babies
Kaila - Nursery Apprentice in Babies
Shannon - Nursery Apprentice in Babies
Jodie - Nursery Apprentice in Toddlers
Kia - Nursery Apprentice in Toddlers
Olivia - Nursery Apprentice in Toddlers
Lily - Early Years Support Assistant in Babies
Agata - Nursery Apprentice in Babies

I would also like to make you aware that after a successful interview Ashaya will be taking on Deputy Head of Preschool in September too.

With all the changes that we have happening I am aware it may cause you to question who is who as well as ask who is now in each team. So I have attached the following team sheets to reflect September.

Please pop to the office if you would like a handout of these documents and we will happily print a copy for you to keep.

Meryton Place Carehome

We have been lucky enough to visit the local care home frequently. Which we have found to be so rewarding both the children and resisdents have loved to spend time together and sharing experiences. We have many more events booked in with the Carehome so hope for all children to have the opportunity to visit as frequently as possible.

We have been involved in a Retro Play day, The Kings Coronation, Celebrating India and also joined them for a music and movement afternoon.

We have a Heroes and Legends day planned next week as well Sports day at the end of the month too.

We can’t wait to see what the rest of the months bring, we are hoping for a little more sunshine and we can’t wait to share with you at the end of the month.

We hope our Term Time only families are enjoying their summer break and we look forward to welcoming you all back in September.

Lots of love The Keynsham Team x

Summer 2023