March Newsletter, 2025

We would like to welcome the new families to our nurseries!

Chatham

As the season is changing the children will start learning about growing, at Chatham we are planning on growing some vegetables, fruits and some flowers from seeds. Last year it was very popular, the children had lots of fun experimenting. Let’s hope this time around we can save some sunflowers plants and we can see them flower. Last year the sunflowers were eaten by the snails. It was a good learning opportunity for the children.

We are just about to start a new sessions for our ‘Forest school’. I am planning on taking the same Preschool children for about 6 sessions, so they can learn about using different tools confidently, get familiar with the setting. So far, it has been a great success. We have been having lots of fun.

We have toasted marshmallows, learned about fire safety, explored the mud kitchen. We made mud pies using playdough as a base and some mud for the filling. We then added different natural resources, eg winter flowers, stones and bark as decorations.

The children made hedgehogs, by hammering small nails into a wooden disk.

The children have also been doing lots of digging looking for bugs and worms. We have learnt to be very gentle with them and we placed them in a safe area, where no one was digging.

The children have also explored the new obstacle course and our new climbing frame. Their confidence grew as they kept trying, cheered on each other and they worked as a team by helping one and another.

Baby room

The theme in our baby room is baby animals. The children will be learning their names and the sounds they make, and also will listen to a new song , two little dickie birds. During this month, they will be making animal masks, using a paper plate and making some daffodils using pipe cleaners and some tissue paper. For Red Nose day, 21^st March, staff will be wearing red and will be making their own funny noses. The children are invited to also wear red. For St Patrick’s Day, the babies will making their own pot of gold and rainbows. To celebrate Holi, 14^th March, the children will be having a colourful day with different activities. Please dress your child in lots of colourful clothes.

Toddler room

In March, the topic will be people who help us and transport. The children will be practising riding bikes in the garden, making boats to see them if they float or sink.

The room is planning to go out for a walk to look at the buses and will also have a visit from one of our lovely parents, who is a nurse. She will tell us all about her job and how can we be healthy.

For St David’s day, the children decorated some flowers, by painting them.

On pancake day, the children were pretending to making a pancake using flour and some water in the messy tray.

The room will be making some cards for Mother’s day and will be doing some activities for Red nose day, too.

Preschool

In preschool, the topic will be Spring and growing. The children will talk about the weather changes and will be going for a walk to look at the spring flowers.

In the room they will be doing the following activities:

• Vegetable measuring, look at the similarities and differences
• Flower painting, by dipping them to paint and see what marks they make.
• Talking about baby animals and what are they called.

It was lovely to see the children dressed up for World Book Day and for Pancake day, we have had delicious pancakes.

We would like to take the opportunity to ask if anyone wouldn’t mind donating some soil to get our garden started again. We would really appreciate it.

We would like to ask our parents if it is possible to bring in small foldable pushchairs, as we are running out of space storing them and we don’t want them becoming a fire hazard.

Holborough 

Babies are doing a treasure hunt to look for gold coins in the sand. They will be getting involved with science week and will be putting bath bombs in the water tray. They will be doing leaf rubbings after their spring walk. They are supporting the older babies for their transition to toddlers by sitting them on the big chairs, encouraging them to use their cutlery correctly, drinking from an open cup. They are doing lots of bubble play in the garden and chalking too. Babies are looking at going on a bear hunt. This includes sensory play exploring grass, mud etc, in the garden now the weather is getting warmer. They are singing nursery rhythms and songs. They will also be going on spring walks.

Toddlers are setting up messy activities with the different foods that the hungry caterpillar eats and they are making cocoons with wool. They are junk modelling for global recycling day. They are playing with water for world water day and playing with sea animals in the water for world seal day too. The toddlers are going to decorate hats for wear a hat day. The children are getting messy with shaving foam and being encouraged to practise their writing skills in the shaving foam. Toddlers are also focusing on the bear hunt story and setting up bear hunt tuff trays. They are also looking at the hungry caterpillar story and other messy play activities.

Preschool children will be tracing over numbers and practising writing freehand. They will be matching the bears to the numbers on the cards and will be measuring in the water tray, using lots of different measuring techniques e.g. using cups, jugs, spoons, scoops. The children will be learning phonics and focusing on the letters in their names. They will be looking for numbers in the sand tray and trying to name what number they have found. Staff will begin talking to the children about school because parents will soon be finding out what school their child is going to. They will be doing puppet play for world theatre day and making their own shows for each other. Preschool are focusing on phonics, number formation and measuring.

Polite reminders

We would like to ask all parents to make sure the children have spare clothes in their bags and if they happen to use nursery clothes please return them, as we are running very low on nursery spare clothes. We do accept donations of clean clothes.

If you are thinking of applying for the 30 hours funding, you will need to make sure you book the sessions as soon as possible, to make sure we can accommodate it as spaces are filling up quickly.

If your child is potty trained, but for some reason they are coming to nursery in a nappy, please let a member of staff know.

Invoices need to be paid by the 7^th of each month, any enquiries regarding these need to be made via email.

Thank you