Goldstone Crescent
Dunstable
Beds
LU5 4QU
Phone: 01582 662600
Email: office@willownursery.co.uk
Latest News
Nursery News 16th December 2024
NURSERY NEWS
16th December 2024 – Edition 356. Last Newsletter of 2024 (Next Newsletter Monday 13th January 2025)
Find out About
A. Christmas Parties
B. The Elf on the Shelf……
C. What the children are learning about this week?
D. Notes for the end of term /dates for beginning of Spring Term
A. Christmas Parties
Are Finally Here!
These parties are for all our children regardless of the days you attend.
Unfortunately parents will be unable to stay during the parties as we do not have enough room! Staffing ratio’s will be maintained.
Little Nursery Party.
Friday 20th December
9:00am to 10:00am
The Plan:
9:00 Doors Open
Children work in small groups for Christmas crafts.
9:20 Party Snacks.
9:30 Surprise visit from Father Christmas
Songs for Father Christmas
Father Christmas leaves gifts for all children.
9:35 Back to groups to make a decoration.
10:00 Parents arrive to collect all children.
Big Nursery Party
Friday 20th December
11:15am to 1:00pm
The Plan:
11:15 Doors Open
11:25am Party Food
11:45am Surprise visit from Father Christmas.
Songs for Father Christmas.
12:00 Christmas Magic Show
1:00pm Parents arrive to collect all children.
B. Elf on the Shelf…..
That cheeky Elf has been busy in Nursery again! Miss England has been taking photographs of him, so that I can share with you all the things he has been up to!
He spent one day hanging out, and eating pizza, with The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
He flew around the classrooms in his hot air balloon.
He spent the day as a Fashion Doll ‘Elfie’, looking out from his little pink box.
C. What the children are learning about this week?
The theme this week is Christmas and winter.
This week the children will be preparing themselves for Christmas. We will talk lots about having a break from school over the Christmas period and what the children might do with their families during this time. The children will see lots of familiar sights around the school such as our Christmas trees, festive decorations and our cheeky Elf. Staff will spend time discussing exciting upcoming events that the children might have planned; things such as visiting family, meeting Santa and sharing gifts with loved ones.
Throughout the week, the children will have the option to take part in lots of Christmas activities. There will be dressing up outfits available for them to role play as Santa or Mrs Claus and the bikes will be decorated to look like sleighs so that the everyone can take it in turns to deliver parcels to different destinations.
Everyone in little nursery will be offered the opportunity to have a ‘Christmas breakfast’ which they will prepare with an adult, it will consist of toast and fruit in a festive style. Baking will continue this week and children that haven’t yet made a mince pie will work with an adult to bake theirs. The children will not eat their mince pies in school, instead, they will bring them home to show their families what they have made.
D. Notes for the end of term /dates for beginning of Spring Term
On Friday 20th December the school will be open for the parties only. The school office will be closed on Friday 20th December.
The staff would like to say Happy Christmas!
to all our families that celebrate Christmas.
We wish all our families a safe and happy break during the school holidays and look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
Spring Term begins on Tuesday 7th January 2025
Nursery News 9th December
NURSERY NEWS
9th December 2024 – Edition 355
Find out About:
A. Christmas at Willow
B. Ensure all payments are up to date by Thursday 12th December.
C. School Office closed on Friday 20th December.
D. The Elf on the Shelf……
E. What are the children learning about this week?
F. Christmas Parties :A reminder
A. Christmas at Willow.
We put up our Christmas Trees last week. We have a variety of trees across the school. We have a small pink one with a fluffy pink star on the top. We have some great big tall ones with lots of ornaments on for looking at.
We also have two trees which the children can add decorations to themselves in the home corners.- We see ‘Decorations on, decorations off,’ all day long.
We start ‘Christmas activities’ today. We choose that we can sustain Christmas activities for two weeks, this makes the school feel busy, exciting and different.
So, the school looks Christmassy, and sounds Christmassy with Christmas songs playing in the background. We learn Christmas songs. We have lots of arts and crafts on offer using glitter and glue.
Traditionally, we always offer the opportunity to children to make Christmas cards and Calendars to bring home. (This did start a discussion amongst staff about: ‘Do children see as many Christmas cards in their homes now? Due to the cost of postage?’ Do adults actually write many cards now due to the technology available to us in our everyday lives? Do you still use a paper calendar in you home? Or do you use your diary in your phone?) So we have thought about it, but still decided to offer these activities.
We share lots of books and stories with a Christmas theme, because our current Willow children love stories!
We set up a Stable Role play area, with all the costumes and props required to tell the Nativity Story. We retell the story with the children over and over and over again, so everyone can have a chance to be Mary, a camel, and an angel all in one day! Everyone can get involved. After many days of practicing the staff support the children to ‘perform’ the story to an audience of their friends.
We do not have a Christmas show. We do not have the space here, and the children are not old enough to understand what a performance is. Many years ago we’d stage a Nativity but over half the children would cry and nobody but the staff would sing. It was not a happy event, so we stopped trying to do it.
So, as for most things at Willow, we try to work out what is appropriate to explore within the themes and traditions of Christmas, with 2, 3 and 4 year olds. So we end up with glitter and tinsel everywhere! And then of course we have our parties…..
B.Ensure all payments are up to date by Thursday 12th December.
Please ensure that all payments are made by 9:30am on Thursday 12th December for the remainder of this term and for the first week back.
C. School Office closed on Friday 20th
The 20th December is the school party day. The school is only open for the School parties. The office staff join in with the parties too. Staff will not be doing any administration tasks that day.
D. The Elf on the Shelf……
Miss England has invited a cheeky Christmas Elf to visit Big Nursery. The children have been really taken with him. When the children arrive each day, they find the Elf in a different place.
The Elf first arrived in his reindeer pulled sleigh.
On Day 2 he set about decorating the school with Paper Chains
On Day 3 he put up a very cheeky picture turning all the teachers into Father Christmas.
Day 4 saw the Elf dress for heavy rain, a good job as a big cloud appeared with huge raindrops!
Day 5, the cheeky Elf dressed up as Mario from a computer game!
Talk to your children about the Elf, they will be excited to tell you about what he has been doing. I will add further photo’s in next week’s newsletter
E. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week is Christmas and winter.
There will be lots of exciting Christmas activities this week throughout the nursery and staff will be talking to the children about the upcoming Christmas party. In preparation for our Christmas party, we will be singing lots of Christmas songs and really getting into the festive spirit. When your children come home, you can ask them what songs they have learnt and have a go at singing them together.
In Big Nursery, we retell ‘The Story of Christmas’ with the children. (We are always careful with religious stories to say that ‘This is a story that a lot of people believe to be true’). Our pupil community represents a wide spectrum of religious beliefs and cultures. We aim to create an inclusive environment which is accepting, considerate and mindful of everyone’s family life.
So, for the Christmas Story staff will set up a stable role play area. The children have heard the story of ‘The Nativity’ last week, and can revisit this as they act out the story. Children can choose to take it in turns to retell the story of Jesus being born and people coming from afar to visit the new baby. This is always a very popular activity for the children to join in, which often culminates in them acting out the story in front of an audience of their friends.
Mrs Griffith’s (volunteer helper) will be coming in on Tuesday to offer a cooking activity: making Mince Pies. As the children cook, they can talk to the adults about whether they like to leave any treats out for Santa on Christmas eve.
Nursery News 2nd December 2024
NURSERY NEWS
2nd December 2024 – Edition 354
Find out About:
A. School Photographer.
B. Information regarding the beginning of the Spring Term in January 2025.
C. Big Nursery Parents joining us for Music Time.
D. Christmas Cards
E. Fruit for Snacktime.
F. Labelling hats, scarves, gloves, coats.
G. Lost Property
H. What are the children learning about this week?
I. Christmas Parties
A School Photographer.
The School Photographer has delivered the school photographs. The office staff will hand them to families, to ensure everyone has the correct pack.
Some packs should contain passport size photos. These have not yet been delivered to the photographer. As soon as we receive them we will pass them on to families
Some parents ordered digital downloads. If you ordered digital images, they have already been emailed to you by the photographer. If you have not received your digital images, check your spam folder in the first instance, and then if you still do not have them, call the photographer directly:
Victoria Mitchell 07845 676258
B. Information regarding the beginning of the Spring Term in January 2025.
School reopens on Tuesday 7th January 2025
During the Autumn term, all children in Little Nursery have been classed as ‘Two Year Olds’. Little Nursery Children who have had their 3rd birthday between the 1st September 2024 and 31st December 2024 are now entitled to universal 15 hours funding, or for some families, 30 hours funding. These children will be based in Little Nursery, and their keyworker will be Miss Gaffney. They will now be known as ‘Blue Group’. In January, four more children will join ‘Blue Group’ from our waiting list.
Little Nursery welcomes our 2+ January intake. We have 13 new families joining us. These children will be known as ‘Little Green Group’ whilst in Little Nursery. Their Keyworker will be Miss Tyler.
Please be aware that each new term brings additional children. There will be more families waiting at dropping off and collecting times. If we all work together we can keep our routines running smoothly. These routines rely on families arriving on time, please try your best!
C. Big Nursery Parents joining us for Music Time.
We sent out invitations to all Big Nursery parents (by email on 19th November) to join us for ‘Music’ time. The invitation detailed the date and time of the Music session that your child takes part in. If you would like to join your child to participate in our Music Activity ‘Pigs on Holiday’ then please just turn up at the date and time specified and you will be made very welcome. There is no need to book. Sessions last 25 minutes.
D. Christmas Cards
We as a staff, would like to ask parents to consider sending just one Christmas card in to school, written ‘To all my friends at Willow’. These cards will then be displayed for all to see in the library corridor.
E. Fruit for snacktime.
Thank you for all your generous donations.
F. Labelling hats, scarves, gloves, coats.
The weather has now become very cold. Children are wearing more items of clothing to school. At the end of each day we end up with a huge pile of gloves, hats and scarves on the floor. We try very hard to match them to the correct child. Please ensure that all removable items are labelled. It does not have to be anything fancy, just your child’s initials written on the manufacturers label in biro would be very helpful. Unlabelled items will be placed in our Lost Property boxes, if staff do not know who the items belong to.
G. Lost Property
We have accumulated a number of items of clothing in our Lost Property box. These items are outside in the Library area. There are three drawers in the top of a cabinet labelled ‘Lost Property’. If your child has lost an item of clothing in the Autumn term: Please check to see if anything belongs to your child, and take it home. We will dispose of any unclaimed items at the end of term.
H. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week is Winnie the Witch
The children will be looking at, and listening to, the story of Winnie the Witch and learning all about Winnie and her cat, Wilbur. The story is all about Wilbur the black cat, living in Winnie’s completely black house. Winnie cannot see Wilbur and often trips over him and gets hurt. Winnie thinks the answer is to change the colour of Wilbur so he will become easily spotted in the home. Wilbur is not happy that his colour is changed again and again, until Winnie realises how sad it has made her friend. She changes him back to black and brightens up her home instead.
Staff will use this story as a teaching opportunity to introduce colour and colour mixing to the children. There will be lots of ways for the children to explore colour in the nursery, including drawing with chalks, mixing powder paints and creating spinner paintings.
As a school, we will be putting up our Christmas trees this week. This is always very exciting for the children and will link nicely with our weekly theme, as staff can talk to the children about all of the colourful lights that they can see. Our Christmas decorations are a conversation starter for the children as they often like to share their own experiences of putting decorations up at home.
I. Christmas Parties
These parties are for all our children regardless of the days you attend.
Unfortunately parents will be unable to stay during the parties as we do not have enough room! Staffing ratio’s will be maintained.
Little Nursery Party.
Friday 20th December
9:00am to 10:00am
The Plan:
9:00 Doors Open
Children work in small groups for Christmas crafts.
9:20 Party Snacks.
9:30 Surprise visit from Father Christmas
Songs for Father Christmas
Father Christmas leaves gifts for all children.
9:35 Back to groups to make a decoration.
10:00 Parents arrive to collect all children.
Big Nursery Party
Friday 20th December
11:15am to 1:00pm
The Plan:
11:15 Doors Open
11:25am Party Food
11:45am Surprise visit from Father Christmas.
Songs for Father Christmas.
12:00 Christmas Magic Show
1:00pm Parents arrive to collect all children.
Nursery News – 25th November 2024
NURSERY NEWS
25th November 2024 – Edition 353
Find out About:
A .Applying for a place at Primary school- A reminder.
B. School Photographer.
C. Donations of Fruit for Snacktime.
D. What are the children learning about this week?
A. Applying for a place at Primary School- A reminder
This applies to all children in Big Nursery
The deadline for on time applications is 15th January 2025.
We have heard from the admissions officer at Central Bedfordshire Council. She has told us that 15 of our families have yet to apply for a place at Primary School.
We are asked to remind all parents that they must apply before the deadline. We know everyone still has a few weeks left, but there is nearly always at least one Willow parent each year who fails to apply, and their child is left without a place when Primary School places are announced in April.
B School Photographer.
The School Photographer has collected all photo orders.
We will let parents know when photo packs are ready for collection.
C. Donations of Fruit for Snacktime.
The government provides milk for all children in nursery. We offer this during our mid-morning snacktime. We also like to offer a small portion of fruit to all children, partly to give them a boost to their energy to keep them going until lunchtime, but also to encourage them to sit for a few minutes to eat their fruit, drink their milk, practice their manners- using ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ appropriately, and chatting sociably to their friends.
Snacktime also gives a break within the child’s choice of activities. This is useful when we have extremes of temperature outside, either when the weather is extremely hot or very cold. At snacktime we encourage all children to go inside and have their snack. This means we can encourage a short rest time inside.
We need parents help to make this work. We ask parents to donate fruit that can be shared with all the children. We ask that all parents consider donating a small bag of fruit once every half term, and this will ensure that we have enough fruit for all children to have a snack.
We suggest donations of apples, pears, bananas or satsumas, as these are the easier fruits to share amongst a large group. (Generally we cut an apple into 4-8 pieces dependent upon its size, a banana provides 2-4 portions, and a satsuma is usually 2 portions.)
We happily accept other fruits and vegetables that can be shared, but please consider the preparation time required….. We prefer a bag of prepared carrot batons to a bag of uncut carrots!
We often receive lots of donations at the beginning of term, then donations begin to trail off. We are unable to offer a fruit snack if we do not have enough fruit to share with all the children. This was the case for three days last week.
I know the cost of food is increasing rapidly these days, but if all families donate a small bag we will have enough fruit. The children really look forward to their snacktime.
D. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week is shop role play.
It will be an exciting week in Nursery as the children will have shop role play spaces set up in different areas. The role play areas will be adapted to suit the children’s different stages of development and staff will tailor the teaching areas to suit the needs of the children.
Some children will have a greater knowledge of what happens when we go shopping, or when we order items online and get them delivered to our houses.
Other children may have a simpler perception of shopping, where they might go to a shop and put items in their basket. Staff will use these teaching opportunities to incorporate the children’s prior knowledge of what happens when we go shopping and add to them as they model different scenarios. They will give visual and verbal prompts to the children to expand their role play and communication skills. Children will learn how to build on their imagination, using real life experiences that they have had with their families.
Role pay opportunities such as this are perfect for supporting the children with learning good manners, children will be reminded that when we buy thing in shops, sometimes we have to queue and wait for our turn to pay. It is also a good time to remind our children that we should always try and remember our manners and say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ to all people that help us, including shop keepers.
There will be lots of opportunities for the children to expand their skills through play, as they write shopping lists, interact with other children and recall familiar experiences.
Nursery News 18th November 2024
NURSERY NEWS
18th November 2024 – Edition 352
Find out About:
A School Photographer.
B. Walk in the Dark event
C. BBC Children in Need.
D. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Green Group Parents: Basic Skills. A reminder
E. Open School Event: For Big Nursery Children ‘Music Time’. Week beginning 2nd December
F. What are the children learning about this week?
A School Photographer.
The School Photographer has returned ‘proof card photo packs’ of your child’s image to school.
We are distributing these to individual children (and their parents) when they attend school. Any Parent is welcome to come in and collect their child’s ‘proof card photo pack’ during school office hours (8:30am to 2:50pm) Instructions of how to order are included in the photo packs.
B. Walk in the Dark event.
Thank you to all the families who joined us for our Walk in the Dark event last week!
It was dark and chilly in the garden which made it all the more exciting.
The event was very well attended.- with 112 people signed in! It is one of the staff’s favourite events during the school year. We hope you enjoyed it too.
C. BBC Children in Need.
Friday 15th November was Children in Need day. Miss Gaffney shook her little red box with a picture of Pudsey Bear on the front, to make a collection for the Charity.
We raised £50:00
D. An Open School Event: For Big Nursery Green Group Parents: Basic Skills. A reminder.
Mrs Patterson’s Green Group parents have been invited in to observe a 30 minute reading/writing activity on Wednesday 20th November.
An invitation letter was sent out last week to Green Group parents advising the time of their child’s group. We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday.
E. Open School Event: For Big Nursery Children ‘Music Time’. Week beginning 2nd December
At the end of every morning session children in Big Nursery participate in a planned group time. Throughout the year children will participate in groups such as: Storytimes, Big Books, Oxford Reading Tree, Theraplay Sunshine Circles, Music Time, Phonics, Maths Stories, Dance, Number time. We plan for 5 different activities each week. We usually offer these activities in blocks of 10 or 20 weeks across the year.
For example children will have one 25 minute music session per week for 10 weeks. The sessions are carefully planned, to increase children’s skills and abilities with music, week on week, building upon what they had learned in previous weeks. For Music Time the staff received tuition from the DeCapo organisation, and we then worked together to plan music sessions around the resources they provided us with.
We would like parents to come in to school and see how we teach your children. Throughout the year we are going to invite parents in to school to join in/observe our grouptimes.
We would like to invite all Big Nursery parents to join us for ‘Music’ time. Each parent of a child in Big Nursery will receive an email tomorrow detailing the date and time of the Music session that you can choose to attend, during week beginning 2nd December. If you would like to join your child to participate in our Music Activity ‘Pigs on Holiday’ then please just turn up at the date and time specified and you will be made very welcome. There is no need to book. Sessions last 25 minutes.
F. What are the children learning about this week?
The theme this week in nursery is ‘Keeping Ourselves Safe’.
Staff will teach the children about staying safe as an overall theme but teaching will include road safety, using equipment safely, stranger danger and maintaining privacy when changing or using the toilets.
Throughout the nursery, the staff will be encouraging the children to be as independent as possible in all areas. They will be supported where needed, but encouraged to practice getting changed by themselves, put their hats, coats and gloves on to go outside and to be independent with toileting needs. These are important steps for the children to take to become independent and school ready. As the children learn to do these tasks for themselves, they will be reminded of the importance of keeping themselves safe.
When changing, we encourage the children to take off and replace underwear as swiftly as possible, so their genital areas are exposed for as short a time as possible. We encourage similar privacy when children are using the toilet, ensuring children know that there should be only one child in each toilet cubicle.
There will be lots of safety talk in the nursery as the children will learn the significance of staying safe while on the roads, in their homes and out in public. They will learn about the importance of wearing seat belts in cars, crossing roads with adults, holding our adult’s hands when walking and not talking to strangers.
