2021's first newsletter for Day Nursery - January

Harvard Park Day Nursery LTD.

Notes from the management team: Welcome to 2021 and although this may not have been the start that we were all hoping for, we are here

for the time being and we are open for your children. During this time, it may be hard for you to keep a routine at home, come up with continuous amounts of things to keep your children engaged whilst trying to deal with a range of emotions yourself but it is important to remember that you are doing an amazing job and other people’s opinions do not matter - whatever your choices maybe, it is what is right for you and your family and that is what is important.

We would like to say goodbye to Amy from Small Steps who has now begun her maternity leave. We wish her and her partner the best of luck and can’t wait to meet the new baby! Gurpreet will be covering Amy’s maternity leave and we are welcoming Katie to our team who is going to help us out in the new year. The rooms will be remaining in their bubbles within their rooms to avoid cross contamination. All staff will remain where they have been for the last month or so.

If you are off sick from day nursery, isolating at home or simply choosing to stay at home, it is important that you keep your children engaged throughout the day. Pinterest, YouTube and the internet are full of ideas with simple activities which you can replicate at home. We will continue to provide ideas for you via the EyLog and Facebook but if there is anything specific you would like us to help with, email us and we will see what we can do. For our older children in Freedom Zone and Pre-School, if there are areas of learning that you would like help or support with email us and your keyworker will be able to respond.

Please beware of bring food from home:

Reminder about agreements which were emailed to you in October:

We have VERY severe allergies which require life saving medication -

Agreements (which were emailed to you in October) MUST be sent in and is a requirement from Early Years. They are coming in slowly but please send your agreement back if you have yet to do so. We will be sending them out again in December so please return them, this is a requirement.

DO NOT bring in any snacks in children’s bags! If children are eating on the go, please inform a practitioner what they are eating and we will handle the situation accordingly.

We are a strictly NO NUTS setting which means children can not be eating nuts or bring nut products into the setting under any circumstances.

Clothing and the weather: Please bring hats and gloves! We don’t have spares on site so please make sure you write your child’s name inside the hat and each glove to prevent them from being misplaced! We also need you to be sending children in THICK winter coats or if in waterproofs, provide an extra layer for them. We are keeping the doors open to keep a constant flow of clean air through the room to reduce the level of germs within the building.

Dates for you diary and reminders: Reminder for those children who will be going to reception in September 2021: The closing date for applications is Friday 15th January. Please make sure that if your child was born between 01/09/2016 and 31/08/2017, you have filled in and sent off your reception application form online. If you are having trouble, contact us and we will try to help you where possible.

Please make sure you are informing us if you will be away from the nursery for any reason!

Staff in the rooms:

Birthdays for the month of January:

Baby Studio: Simran (room leader), Mary, Amanda (group leader), Sherry and Martina.

Small Steps: Happy 2nd birthday to Kayla and Carter!

Small Steps: Qani (room leader), Paulina (group leader), Gurpreet, Elvia and Katie.

Freedom Zone: Happy 3rd birthday to Akram, Happy 4th birthday to Aadvi and Thanishka!

Freedom Zone: Viviana (room leader), Charlotte (group leader), Ellie, Sam, Sonia, Saptatiand Nabila.

Baby Studio: Happy 1st birthday to Idris!

Staff: Happy birthday to Mary on the 1st, Amanda on the 10th and Justyna on the 30th! We hope you all have a lovely birthday celebrating!

Harvard Park Day Nursery LTD.

Notes from Baby Studio: Ducklings - Simran, Mary, Amanda, Sherry and Martina Focus: Personal, Social and Emotional development Welcome back and welcome to 2021! We hope you had a lovely little festive break and we are glad to have you back. Our first area of focus for this month is Personal, Social and emotional development. We will plan a range of activities which help develop social skills such as small focus groups using knock knock boxes and song bags, settling in new children and forming bonds and continuing to introduce language through the use of songs which identify such as head, shoulders, knees and toes.

If you are off sick from nursery or isolating at home, it is important that you keep your baby engaged throughout the day. Pinterest, YouTube and the internet are full of ideas with simple activities which you can replicate at home.

We would like more of you to use the EyLog to upload pictures of what your child has been up to during the weekend! It all helps work towards your child’s development here. If you need help with this or are unsure, Amy is putting together a picture step by step guide which will be sent to you in the month of January! Make sure you have the App downloaded which is free!

Mission: Choose 1 book and 1 song to use and sing for a week with your child. Repetition is a great way to support your child with new language and is a key skill we use here. Share your progress on the EyLog with us!

Notes from Small Steps: Bunnies - Qani, Paulina, Gurpreet, Elvia and Katie Focus: Communication and Language - Our topic will be Animals and Habitats Welcome back and Happy new year to you all! We would like to welcome Alexandra, Sarai, Gurpreet and Katie to our Small Steps room! Gurpreet will be covering Amy’s maternity leave and Katie is a new addition to our room. We would like to say goodbye to Amy who has now started her maternity leave. Best of luck and we can’t wait to meet the baby!

Each week through the month of January we will focus on different animals for example, farm, sea, pets and wild. Using our tuff tray, we will plan messy and water play, we will re-create habitats and explore texture, create our own animals using junk modelling, explore animal sounds and learn how to move like different creatures! A small reminder to provide hats and gloves for your child. We have no spares on site so please make sure you are providing these as it is getting very very cold now!

If you are off sick from nursery or isolating at home, it is important that you keep your child engaged throughout the day. Pinterest, Youtube and the internet are full of ideas with simple activities which you can replicate at home.

We would like more of you to use the EyLog to upload pictures of what your child has been up to during the weekend! It all helps work towards your child’s development here. If you need help with this or are unsure, Amy is putting together a picture step by step guide which will be sent to you in the month of January! Make sure you have the App downloaded which is free!

Mission: If you have a pet at home, send us a picture so we can share it with the Small Steps room!

Dates for you diary and reminders: We have VERY severe allergies which require life saving medication - DO NOT bring in any snacks in children’s bags! If children are eating on the go, please inform a practitioner what they are eating and we will handle the situation accordingly. We are a strictly NO NUTS setting which means children can not be eating nuts or bring nut products into the setting under any circumstances.

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Please make sure you are informing us if you will be away from the nursery for any reason!

Harvard Park Day Nursery LTD.

Notes from Freedom Zone: Cool Cats - Viviana, Charlotte, Sam, Sonia, Ellie, Nabila, Saptati and Danielle Topic: Traditional Stories Welcome back to all staff and children! Happy New Year to you all! We hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are ready for a new and exciting year ahead of us. Here is to hoping this year will be a little more normal but and we are all very excited to what this year will bring!! We would like to welcome Saptati to our room who will be joining us in February!

Traditional tales are also referred to as fairy stories or fairy tales. Stories such as Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Jack and the Beanstalk are all traditional stories. This month we are going to be integrating a lot of different stories over a period of a month to support all area’s of learning. As you see the stories appear through observations on the Eylog re-introduce them to your children at home or use them as their bedtime stories. We will be planning a range of activities throughout the month such as creating our own stories to support mark marking and imagination, mathematical language including size and positional, role play using stories and as always using stories to develop new language and introducing new words.

Target to work on - We would like you to set yourselves the task of completing a an activity together as a family, one that you might not have done before. Whether it be cooking dinner for the family, creating a family portrait, baking a cake, going to a different park or scenic location. It can be anything, but take the opportunity to make the most out of this year creating memories together and trying something new and going outside of your comfort zone. New experiences give children the best opportunities their are in life and thrive on new learning outcomes.

Reminders:

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EyLog: We are always intrigued to know what our children do at home on the weekends or the sessions they don’t attend nursery, so please make sure you are posting images on their Eylog as it’s important to the children’s development as they may be able to do certain things at home that we might not know about. But also it goes towards their end Learning Journal when they leave the nursery. We love sharing these images with the children within the setting and use them as a talking point to create their home to school connection.

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Clothing and the weather: Please remember the weather is only going to get colder so please ensure you are providing layers that are appropriate as well as hat, gloves and scarves for when going into the garden. Also with the weather changes please be vigilant when sending your children to nursery. Ensure you are checking their temperature as well as ensuring the children have a full bill of health before attending the setting. Not only do we need to safe guard ourselves but we need to ensure we are caring and look after the staff and other children who attend.

We are going to be using the Eylog this year to set homework and home targets for both you and your children to work on at home. This could be related tot our topics but also developmental wise also.

If you are off sick from nursery or isolating at home, it is important that you keep your children engaged throughout the day. Pinterest, Youtube and the internet are full of ideas with simple activities which you can replicate at home.

Mission: Where we are going to focus on stories, it will be good to encourage Storytime before bed as part of a routine or quite time. Post your favourite story on your EyLog!

Dates for you diary and reminders: Reminder for those children who will be going to reception in September 2021: The closing date for applications in 15th January. Please make sure that if you child was born between 01/09/2016 and 31/08/2017 you have filled in and sent off your reception application form online. If you are having trouble, contact us and we will try to help you where possible.

We have VERY severe allergies which require life saving medication - DO NOT bring in any snacks in children’s bags!

If children are eating on the go, please inform a practitioner what they are eating and we will handle the situation accordingly. We are a strictly NO NUTS setting which means children can not be eating nuts or bring nut products into the setting under any circumstances.