Goodbye Beth

Beth, our Deputy Head of Toddlers has decided to leave us to start her new exciting journey somewhere else, as much as we are all going to miss her, we wish her the best! We hope to welcome Beth back one day.

Karolina, one of our qualified level three members of staff will be joining Ellie, Anais and Ellie in Elm over the upcoming weeks until we appoint a new Deputy Head of Toddlers. If you have any questions before then please feel free to email myself on sophie.binks@snapdragonsnursery.com or Suzanne (Toddler Room Head) on suzanne.atkinson@snapdragonsnursery.com.

UNICEF - Rights Respecting:

It is International Women’s Day on 8th March. This year the focus is imagining a gender equal world where difference is valued and celebrated. With a predominantly female workforce this is something we encourage everyday. The articles International Women’s Day promotes are: Article 2 - non discrimination, Article 12 - respect for the views of the child and Article 13 - freedom of expression.

What would we like you to do?

A short activity we would like you to carry out with your child (age-dependent) is to ask your child to collect 4 items they believe a girl would like. If your child picks up stereotypical items such as a pink doll, or princess story we would like you to challenge this by picking four items that are not stereotypical and having a short discussion about girls and boys all having different toys that they find fun to play with.

If you have time you can watch a short video called: “A Class That Turned Around Kids' Assumptions of Gender Roles!” Its about how gender stereotypes are formed in early childhood and how we should challenge these early on.

Dates for the diary:

Thursday 17th March - Purim and St Patrick’s Day: For these two special festivals we are asking that all children wear green in celebration of St Patrick’s day. The children will also be enjoying activities linked to both festivities.

Friday 18th March - Holi and Red Nose Day: Its going to be a busy day for us here at Snapdragons Shirehampton! To celebrate the Hindu festival ‘Holi’ the children will be taking part in activities linked to colour, love and spring, the three things the Holi festival is known for. For Red Nose Day the staff are all eager for a pyjama day so to keep them all happy we are inviting you to bring your child in in there most colourful pyjamas. We will be holding a bake sale outside the front door with an honesty box, please feel free to donate some change and help yourself to a cake (or two).

Friday 25th March - Our special Mothers Day picnic! We are inviting all you mummy’s to come and join your child for a picnic tea. The front preschool room will be set up for a buffet styled tea and you and your child can have tea together whilst creating some keepsakes!

Sunday 27th March - Mothering Sunday.

Special things we have done this month:

World Book Day:

Arguably some of the staff members favourite day of the year has just passed! The whole nursery dressed up as their favourite characters from different books and took part in some amazing inventive activities throughout the day. Babies embarked on a journey through three classic stories trying all the different foods. They had porridge from “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” fruit salad from “Handa’s surprise” and gingerbread from “The Gingerbread Man.” Toddlers went on a hunt in the garden to try and relocate the butterflies from “The Hungry Caterpillar.” Preschool listened to a selection of their favourite stories and then used the home corner to try and recreate them. We also sent one of our dalmatians to the local Children’s Centre to donate some brand new books!

Isra and Mi’Raj

To honour the journey Prophet Muhhamed made this night we recreated our own journey around the world trying foods we might not have tried before. The children tried sushi, samosas, spring rolls, naan bread, pomegranate, lychee and lots more.

Trips:

Lots of children got to explore our local community in more depth last month. Babies took a long stroll to the local farm, the babies then got to explore the farm, seeing all the animals and even playing in the soft play. Babies also went to a local park. Toddlers and Preschool went to the park together and spent the afternoon playing in the winter sun.

What have we been up to this month?

Babies:

Babies have been busy as usual! They have been exploring their environments in depth and looking at the shape of different everyday items. Babies have concentrated on boosting their independence this month too. They have all tried using cups to drink from instead of bottles as well as trying to wash their own hands before carrying out some baking.

Toddlers:

Toddlers have been expressing their creative sides this month with some large scale art work. They have also been developing their gross and fine motor skills by using spray bottles to make marks on their paper. Puzzles seem popular in toddlers too, they have been working as teams to complete them. There have been lots of discussions around weather this month too. They have made their own sensory bottles as well representing the most common weather types.

Preschool:

Preschool have been looking at numbers, quantities and numerals this month trying to match up items. They have been further exploring colour in a number of different ways including using pipettes and food colouring to colour in some shaving foam and creating their own rainbow pictures. Preschool also showed their baking skills by having ago at flipping their own pancakes on pancake day.

March Newsletter