January and February Newsletter 2022
Welcome to…
We want to wish a big warm welcome to Amanda, Ebony, Rebecca, Lisa, Fay, and Kelsey who have all embarked on their new journeys with us here at Snapdragons Shirehampton.
Amanda is our new advanced practitioner in preschool, she has years of experience in a local school working as a teaching assistant with a concentration on 1:1 interventions and speech and language. We are so excited to welcome Amanda into our team and her role will consist of providing all the preschool children with age appropriate support with speech and phonics.
Ebony is our new SEN 1:1 practitioner in preschool. She will be working alongside the team in preschool to further support a smaller group of children.
Rebecca and Lisa are our new lunch covers. Rebecca will be based in our preschool room and Lisa will be supporting our baby team. Both ladies are super excited to spend time getting to know your children!
Our new preschool room head, Fay, is starting this week and we are so excited for her to join our team permanently! Fay has years of experience leading a room at another nursery, we cannot wait to introduce you to her and see all the wonderful things she can bring to our preschool room.
Now some of you may remember Kelsey, she worked with us last year and has decided to return to us, we are so glad Kelsey is coming back and we know you’ve all missed her deeply!
As you can see we have lots of new faces and they have already started forming some amazing attachments with all your children. You will get a chance to meet all of these new faces over the next few week and we hope you love them all as much as we do!
If you have any questions please feel free to email me on sophie.binks@snapdragonsnursery.com.
UNICEF - Rights Respecting
The article of the week this week is Article 3 (best interests of the child). This article explains that children’s best interests should be top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children. As adults and duty bearers all of us make decisions that affect children on a daily basis, as part of a reflection activity we would love if you could think about these questions, and if possible have a short discussion with your children about the following questions:
What things matter to you most in life?
Who are the people who make decisions that affect you?
How do you make your voice heard when decisions are made that may affect you?
If this is a struggle sometimes, who could you go to for help?
At nursery we allow the children to make decisions themselves, this is why we adopt a child led approach. We want children to feel happy and confident to explore their environments freely and safely. Our staff undergo an extensive induction process with a concentration on children being independent and being empowered to make choices themselves.
Dates for the diary:
14th February: Valentines Day
17th February: Random Act of Kindness Day
1st March: Isra and Mi’raj, Shrove Tuesday and St David’s Day - To celebrate all three of these events we will be spending the day embarking on a journey around the world in honour of the journey Prophet Muhammad made during the night. Each room will be doing some food tasting of different cuisines, taking part in activities that have originated from different places around the world, it will be a day dedicated to discussing differences and similarities in culture and religion.
3rd March: World Book Day - By far our favourite day of the year, World Book Day! We are encouraging you to dress your child up as their favourite book characters whilst your child joins in some activities based on popular stories we read at nursery. We cant wait to see all the inventive costumes!
17th March: Purim and St Patrick’s Day - In honour of the Jewish holiday the children will be making the famous Hamantashchen cookies. We also invite you to get in the mood for St Patrick’s day by dressing your child in a green outfit!
18th March: Holi and Red Nose Day - Also known as the festival of love and colour the children of Snapdragons Shirehampton will be joining in a range of fun and colourful activities to celebrate this Hindu festival. For Red Nose Day you can dress your child in a red outfit, we will also be carrying out a bake sale during pick up times to raise money for Comic Relief.
27th March: Mothers Day.
What have we been up to this month?
Babies:
Babies have enjoyed exploring soft play throughout the month. They have worked on their gross motor skills, walking, climbing and crawling over obstacles. They have also explored our new sensory lights in their sensory den. We were also treated to some homemade pizza’s this month. The babies worked together to make the dough and then spread the sauce on and added some yummy toppings. We have also had a new rabbit run made for us, babies have loved watching the rabbits explore their new environment.
Toddlers:
Toddlers have been getting super messy this month! They have enjoyed painting with different resources including cars which proved to be very popular. They have explored some interesting materials and medias with cornflour slime being a favourite. Toddlers have also enjoyed getting their bake on this month too! I’m convinced we have some budding chefs on our hands, maybe we even have a future Great British Bake Off winner among us.
Preschool:
Preschool have been busy this month! They have been welcoming their new pets Stick and Man. Our Indian stick insects are settling in well and preschool are thoroughly enjoying this. Preschool have done some planting this month too, they discussed what plants need to grow in preparation for the allotment we are creating in our garden. They have practiced their letter formation in the sand this month too as well as matching quantities to numerals.
