Welcome to our Spring 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.

Alexander

As you will all now be aware we returned after the Christmas break to the heart-breaking news that Alexander a little boy from Pre-School 3 had suddenly died on 26^th December 2021.

We would like to thank you for all the many messages of condolence and support we received from parents across the Pre-School Centre and beyond, your thoughtfulness was very much appreciated.

Following discussions with Alexander’s parents and marking the week of Alexanders 4^th birthday we came together as a Pre-School community on Wednesday 2^nd February and raised, through a cake bake, an exceptional amount of money for Matilda’s Mission, a charity that supports bereaved parents.

Monies raised will support the charity in delivering the following:

• 60 adult monthly meet ups 
• 60 sibling monthly soft play sessions 
• 60 dad monthly drop ins 
• 18 older sibling events 
• 5 years of pre-Mother’s Day activities for bereaved Mums 
• 5 years of pre-Father’s Day activities for bereaved Dads

We have offered to further support Matilda’s Mission in the future in honour of Alexander and ensure this vital charity remains available to support parents. 

Something in the water?

Our Pre-School team is expanding- literally!

Kathy, Senior Nursery Officer and her partner Eduardo welcomed Emmie to their family In January and Nursery Officer Christina and her partner Matthew also welcomed new daughter Daisy, our congratulations to you all. 

Vonnie has joined the Senior Management team to cover Kathy’s leave and has taken on the Senior Nursery Officer role covering the Baby room and Pre-School rooms.

4 other members of the Pre-School team will also be commencing periods of maternity leave during the Summer term and we are currently looking to recruit their replacements. We will keep you updated with regards to any staffing and keyperson changes that are necessary.

Decorating

Please be advised that during the period 26^th February until 12^th April and outside of opening hours the Pre-School is being redecorated. We do not anticipate this will cause any major disruption, but you may notice that some furniture etc. is out of place during the duration. Following the redecorating Creche 1, Creche 2 and the Baby room will have new carpets fitted.

World Book Day

Staff and children will be participating in World Book day on Thursday 3^rd March by dressing up as their favourite character. We would also like to invite parents to come and tell your favourite childhood story to the children, if you would like to volunteer please do contact your child’s keyperson.

Recycle your reads

Our book swap initiative is going amazingly well and we hope you are all enjoying sharing some new stories. Can we please remind you that to be successful we do need books to be returned or donated back to the Centre please.

Random act of kindness

Children from all rooms spread a little happiness across the campus on Thursday 17^th February as the Pre-School Centre participated in Random Acts of Kindness day. Bookmarks featuring small gifts were hidden and handed out to people who were then asked to participate in their own Random Act of Kindness by showing a kindness to another person. The children and staff had a great day, we hope we made your day. 

Baby Room

This term we welcome our new babies and families to the room.

As we settle into the room, we have enjoyed lots of new experiences and activities.

The babies have loved experiencing the Rainbow room and have demonstrated both awe and wonder at the sensory lights and other stimulating resources available to them.  We have also been making the most of exploring campus, taking lots of visits to see the ducks.

The babies have been busy inside too with lots of sensory and messy play and celebrating festivals such as the Lunar New Year and Valentine’s Day.

Creche 1

This month in Crèche 1 we have been focusing on Communication.  To encourage and support this further and to develop the children’s understanding and awareness of themselves, their families and their peers, we are introducing a ‘Talk to me about my Family’ board.

We would like to encourage parents to send in photographs of home experiences to promote conversations with the children about their recent experience at home and away from the Pre-School Centre.

This will enable us to further support individual interests and activities based on experiences children have enjoyed at home.

This month we have enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year, exploring new food, tastes and textures.  We have also learnt some new vocabulary, explored with chopsticks, listened to Chinese music and looked at some Chinese money and envelopes.

Nursery 1

This term the children have been enjoying technology and role-play experiences.

Some of the children have enjoyed story time, repeating words and phrases from familiar stories, and painting familiar objects.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day and Ellie brought some roses for the children to look at. The children were encouraged to create their own interpretation of the roses using green and red paint, which they enjoyed doing creating some wonderful artwork!

All of the children have visited the Rainbow Sensory Room and talked about the bubbles changing colour and asking questions such as ‘where have the bubbles gone?’ They have also enjoyed looking at and discussing the different animals that we can project onto the wall.

Nursery 2

Over the past few weeks, the children in Nursery 2 have been enjoying reading many different books, to extend their interest we have explored and enjoyed a variety of activities focusing on the different stories.

We created our own Super Worms out of playdough and went on a hunt in the forest to find the real thing.

Our imaginations have been in overdrive as we have been Mad about Minibeasts, visited cold snowy climates to find The Lost Penguin, hunted for The Gruffalo in the forest and been on a Dino Stomp! The children have had lots of fun Driving our Tractor down the bumpy roads and finding lots of farm animals on our way and this week’s focus has been all about George The Smartest Giant in Town as we have been learning all about being kind to people in preparation for Random acts of kindness day.

Pre-School 1

In Pre-School 1 we have covered most aspects of a healthy lifestyle, but we wanted to concentrate a little more on wellbeing and how feeling good on the inside is just as important as on the outside.

We created a caring corner for the children to access, which is a quiet space for the children to read, relax and become attuned to their feelings.

We also talked about why we are amazing and the children’s self-esteem was boosted as they described to their peers how special they were. They came up with some wonderful suggestions and ideas about how to feel better if they felt sad, lonely or upset.

The children have also enjoyed taking part in Random Acts of Kindness day, thinking of and writing down some positive words and sayings for others to help them feel good too, leaving some treats around campus to make people smile! 

Pre-School 2

This month in Pre-School 2 we have been learning about Space.  We have made a solar system and designed our very own planets.

We have explored lots of fun activities and learnt interesting information about planets, stars, astronauts and the moon.

We looked at and made the Star Constellation ‘Cassiopeia’, watched the moon landing and made our own rockets, cut out rocket trails and dressed up as astronauts.

Cassiopeia is easily recognizable for the prominent W asterism formed by its five brightest stars. Why not have a look and see what you can find.

We have read the story ‘Whatever Next’ and are planning to go to the moon for a picnic...

Pre-School 3

In Pre-School 3 we have been exploring emotions with the children.

The ability to begin to recognise, express and understand emotion is a cornerstone of the Early Years Foundation Stage and can be explored in a variety of ways.  After observations and discussions with the children we have decided to ramp up our current provision and focus more keenly on emotion-based learning.

We began by talking to the children in small groups about easily recognisable emotions such as happy, sad and angry, moving on to identifying our own emotions as well as those in our friends. This resulted in the creation of our board titled ‘Things that make us happy and sad at Pre-School’ (located near the signing in board).

The children often go to the board, referring back to the conversation when they require.  During circle time discussions, several children compared our topic of looking after our friends to the actions of superheroes saving and caring for others, as a result we created a superhero area, where these children could use the superheroes to explore the emotions of others, those in need and the hero’s that save them.  

We believe that following the children’s ideas has really help to share the importance and benefits of understanding empathy towards others, enabling the children to express their own emotions and most importantly, that sometimes our actions can affect the emotions of others.

To further enable the children to develop a greater understanding of how actions can influence emotion, in conjunction with Random act of kindness day, the children went in small groups onto campus to hand out gifts and hide treats in the library.

We spoke to the children asking them how they felt when receiving a gift, and that sometimes a Random act of kindness can really brighten someone’s day.

Our work and learning on emotions is an ongoing topic, however, we hope that over the past weeks we have strengthened their foundation of knowledge; and maybe made someone’s day with a Random act of Kindness.

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