Welcome to our April Newsletter

We would like to welcome all our new parents and children who have recently joined us.
We hope that you enjoy your time with us and would request that if you have any queries, questions or suggestions that you please speak to a member of staff.

Hello and goodbye

As you may recall from the last newsletter the team is expanding and as the Easter break approaches we say goodbye to Leah and Hannan as they commence their maternity leave. We wish them both well and look forward to meeting the new additions to their families soon.

We also extend a very warm welcome Liz and Ben who will be joining the team after Easter. Liz will be based in Creche 1 and Ben in Nursery 1.

Christopher will also be moving from Pre-School 3 into Pre-School 1 to support the team prior to Charlotte also beginning her maternity leave towards the end of May 22.

And finally, we say goodbye and thank you to Claire B. who is leaving us on the 11^th May 2022. Good Luck Claire. 

Children Survey

Over the last couple of weeks Senior Nursery Officers Emma and Vonnie, have been introducing children in the Nursery and Pre-School rooms to Digby.

Digby has proven very useful to us in the past at helping identify and listen to the child’s voice about what it is like for them at Pre-School. Their answers help inform our day-to-day practice and identify future learning and resources, which would be beneficial to their early year’s education.

Digby will be sending a survey out through the post on Monday 21^st March 2022. The children know to expect a letter and we would really appreciate your help in supporting the children in understanding the questions and recording their answers, if necessary.

Digby will have his own post-box in the foyer where all completed surveys can be returned to.

Once we have looked at and discussed the children’s responses with the staff team we will advise on actions to be taken.

Bookings September 2022 – August 2023

If you would like to request an amendment to your booking for the above period please complete the form accessible via the link below and return. 

For parents currently participating in Flexible Benefits for childcare fees we will be in touch within the next few weeks to confirm your booking and ascertain if you wish to continue your participation in Flexible Benefits during the 22/23 year. This form will be shared with you via a SharePoint link.

Spring Customer Survey 

We will be undertaking our Customer Survey during the period 28^th March until 8^th April 2022. Please look out for the email link and share with us your thoughts and ideas.

Baby Room

This month the Baby room has welcomed spring. The room has been freshly painted and we have put up some new woodland stickers, it all looks wonderful and welcoming.

The Theta corner has been changed to spring, with our woodland backdrop, pink blossom tree lights and our spring filled treasury blocks!  The babies have loved looking at the real-life pictures, blocks and the textured spring themed “That’s not my books”.

Our babies have also been busy challenging their gross motor physical skills with the addition of extra soft play for the older babies to pull up to, cruise and transfer. For our younger babies we have also revamped the sensory hula-hoop, which has encouraged lots of fun tummy time!

Creche 1

Over the past month, Crèche 1 have been promoting physical development through a range of activities. The children have participated in an outdoor obstacle course, which involved climbing, crawling, and problem solving as they gained new navigation skills.

We have continued the focus of physical development by using paint and sticks to make marks.  The children were able to express their feelings, investigate new concepts and represent their thoughts and ideas, but most importantly develop their physical skills as they handled the mark making equipment.

Nursery 1

Over the last month, we have been looking at real flowers with beautiful roses for Valentine’s Day and cheerful yellow Daffodil’s for spring.

We looked carefully at the real flowers using our senses, to feel, smell and look. We introduced new vocabulary to describe the flowers.

Using paintbrushes, we painted our own interpretations of the flowers. This allowed us to experiment with colour and texture.

Out in the garden, we looked for signs of spring and spotted some flowers coming up, poking through the grass.  When you are out walking or in the garden you could look for signs of spring, it would be great if you could take photos and send them to us to display on the wall. The children really value the opportunity to discuss and share their experiences and it’s often a photograph from home that will encourage and initiate a conversation.

We have also used the flower petals to add scent our water, introduce texture to the playdough and make food for the hungry dinosaurs. 

Nursery 2

As always we have had a busy few weeks in Nursery 2, we have been following the interests of the children and taking their lead in creating different play base activities.

One of the favourites has been making our own Pizzeria, the children helped to build and paint a special pizza oven and then created their own pizzas using playdough bases on pizza boards and adding real vegetable toppings before they cooked them in the oven. As a follow up from this we made our own real pizzas, using wraps as bases, choosing individual toppings which they thoroughly enjoyed eating at snack time.

To further extend the children’s interest and play outdoors we have enhanced the mud kitchen by adding a variety different resources and utensils.

Pre-School 1

In Pre-School 1 we have been promoting maths, the children have been enjoying a simple but effective mathematical game, not only does this promote taking turns it develops counting, number recognition, matching an amount to a number and cardinality. 

Cardinal numbers are numbers that tell how many of something there are, such as one, two, three, four, or five. They answer the question, How many? 

It suits different stages of development and makes learning fun. Why not have a go making some games with everyday household items.

Pre-School 2

In Pre-School 2 we have been doing lots of cooking activities. We have set up the home corner and malleable areas with real ingredients and utensils to encourage exploration and provoke interesting conversations. The children have enjoyed making their own playdough and goupe at the malleable table. Mixing the materials to create their own recipes and problem solving as they worked out the amounts required to create the end product.

We have made fairy cakes, rock cakes and pizzas. Each child was encouraged to use the tools independently and safely. We have been encouraging independence with washing hands, choosing our own toppings and talking about our likes and dislikes. We spoke about the ingredients and measurements during the activities. 

Over the next few weeks, we are going to be looking at spring, growing and life cycles. 

Pre-School 3

We have supported the children in Pre-School 3 by encouraging their interaction with a variety of ICT equipment and can see how this has impacted on their development. For some it has increased self-esteem and independence as they persevered to learn a new skill. Others benefitted from learning to work with their friends to achieve a task.  

The children in Pre-school 3 have been exploring a variety of ICT equipment such as the:

• Code-a-pillar……  which gives them the opportunity to use coding to program where the caterpillar will be travelling to. 
• Remote control toys….. which gives the children the chance to instruct the toy to move in different directions using a controller with directional arrows.
• Tonie box….. which gives the children the opportunity to choose and listen to fiction or non-fiction without visual aids. 
• QR Codes….. the children are able to access stories and information by scanning the code which directs them to the stories, this month the stories are by Julie Donaldson. 
• Accessing educational games…… the children are able to navigate through different levels of a game by touching the screen on an iPad. 

Internet safety is important and you are never to young to learn, here is some useful advice for parents.

Reminders

Can we please remind parents to use their door entry card/fob to enter the Centre.   

Parents who are staff/students at Lancaster University can have the door access activated onto their Library card. If you haven’t already done this, just call into the main office and this can be done for you. 

Pre-School Website and Newsfeed 

We would like to remind parents that you can access regularly updated information from our website www.lancaster.ac.uk/pre-school and our twitter feed https://twitter.com/LUPSCentre