Newsletter – Autumn term 2024 (second half term).
Welcome back from half term.
Below is the topic each room is exploring this half term and the exciting activities your child/ren may be involved in. If you feel you can help in any way towards the topic/activities please see Linda, Lindsey, Louise or Debbie.
Field mice room: Pre-school children
The topic is –Special times:
Week 1 –Light up the sky , week 2 – Diwali, week 3 – Special days, week 4 – Hanukkah, week 5 – Christmas advent, week 6 – Christmas story week 7 & 8– Christmas.
Personal, Social & Emotional Development: Feelings will be discussed – our feelings for our friends and how we look after our friends. The children will talk about how to stay safe on Bonfire night and what does our family do on this night. The week beginning 13th November the children will be asked to bring in a photo of themselves at a special time such as a wedding, birthday, christening…During Hanukkah they will look at coloured and scented candles and talk about other special times when candles are used. During the Christmas weeks the children will explore the feelings of anticipation, wonder and families as well as thinking of others and the joy of giving and receiving presents. Turn taking games will be played to help the children understand the concept of losing out and not always winning.
Communication & Language: After bonfire night the noises the fireworks make will be described and descriptions given of what they look like. The story of Meg and Mog will be read, the spells chanted, and the story of Rama and Sita will be retold using puppets. Invitations for special times will be written by the children and menus for the Christmas Party. The sounds of the weeks will be C K E H R M D
Physical Development: Whilst listening to Indian music the children will concentrate on motion and stillness. Whilst using the trikes they will navigate obstacles travel in different ways from one place to another as well as joining in with ‘sticky kids’. To hone their fine motor skills the children will use the tongs to move small items such as pom poms from one container to another and manipulate clay when making their diva lamps.
Literacy: Stories such as Meg and Mog, Rama and Sita and the Christmas story will be read. The children will look at the books seeing where the text is on the page, how English print is read left to right and top to bottom. The children will be shown how sentences start with a capital letter and finish with a full stop. The idea of a word will be explained and it will be pointed out how some words are longer than others and how there is always a space before and after a word.
Maths: Rangoli patterns will be looked at for their symmetry, colours and shapes. Advent calendars will be available with a door opened daily by the children. Shorter/longer, thinner/thicker will be discussed when sorting the candles during Hanukkah. Whilst playing games the children will be asked to count the spots on the dice and begin to recognise the patterns.
UTW: Through different media the children will explore the changes of materials such as what happens to clay as it is manipulated and then left in the air, what happens to candles when lit and then what occurs when the hot wax is put into cold water. Discussions will be held around how candles at one time were the only source of lighting in a home and what would it have been like to live then. Animal habitats will be looked at and how animals keep warm in the winter – especially if they live in the snow.
Expressive arts and design: Using different materials and media firework pictures will be created recreating the fireworks the children may have seen. Diva lamps will be made as well as birthday cards and collages using different media. Nativity rehearsals will begin.
Free play: Within the water tray there will be glitter, clear bowls, bottles and coloured water. Ice cubes and balloons will be added as well as whisks, spoons and bubbles. The sand tray will have dry sand with containers of all sizes and shapes, scales and compare containers. The wet sand will be for mark making, and then shells, pebbles…will be added.
Rising threes:
The topic is Winter/kindness with a focus book of Percy the park keeper:
Events:
November:
1st – Diwali, 5th – bonfire night, 4-8th – number confidence week, 10th – Remembrance Sunday, 11th-15th Anti-bullying week, 12th odd socks day, 13th World kindness day, 15th Children in Need, 17th – 23rd Road safety week, 21st World hello day, 23rd – 1st national tree week
December:
12th Christmas jumper day 21st National Robin day/winter solstice
Week One 4th – 8th
PSED: The children will start their Dance with Bluey Challenge.
C+L: The children will discuss Diwali and Guy Fawkes.
Physical: A new ‘Wake and shake’ will be introduced.
Literacy: The book of the term will be introduced.
Mathematics: To celebrate number confidence week, focus will be on numbers and spotting them in our environment.
Understanding the world: The children will celebrate Diwali and understanding the festival of light.
Expressive Art and Design: Diva lamps will be made as well as firework pictures.
Week Two
PSED: A kindness challenge will be started both within the setting and the community.
C+L:
Physical: The Bluey dance challenge will be continued and finished.
Literacy: Hand writing will be practised when making Thank You cards for the community.
Mathematics: continuing with recognising shapes in the environment and learning about the number 1.
Understanding the World: Remembrance Sunday will be discussed as well as anti-bullying. On the 12th the children will be encouraged to wear odd socks. .
Expressive Art and Design: the children will create different coloured poppies.
Week Three
PSED: Kindness challenge to continue.
C+L: The children will learn to say ‘hello’ in several different languages.
Physical: Road safety will be discussed, roads made for the children to navigate as they learn to stop, look and listen.
Literacy: road safety pencil control activities will be shared.
Mathematics: Focus will be given to the number 2
Understanding the world: Percy the park keeper winter checklist to be taken home to experience on walks with families.
Expressive art and design: Heart garlands will be created to share with the community.
Week Four
PSED:
C+L: a new Christmas song will be introduced.
Physical: with the lead up to Christmas and the indulgence of sweet treats oral health will be discussed and brushing of teeth demonstrated.
Literacy: gift tags will be made and signed by the children.
Mathematics:
Understanding the world: animals will be frozen in water and cold habitats and weather explored.
Expressive Art and Design:
Week Five
PSED: The children will be encouraged to go for a walk with their parents.
C+L: The importance of trees to our planet will be discussed and how do trees make us feel?
Physical: using their cutting and gluing skills the children will make cut wrapping paper to wrap up ‘gifts’.
Literacy: to promote fine motor skills leaf shapes will be drawn and cut out.
Mathematics: during the decoration of the tree the children will count and match the baubles.
Understanding the World: celebrating national tree week the children will discuss the importance of trees.
Expressive Art and Design: leaves and sticks will be collected to create a sun catcher.
Week Six
PSED: the children will be invited to wear their Christmas jumpers.
C+L: looking at the wrapped presents – what do you think is inside?.
Physical: using their fine motor and scissor skills the children will cut out and decorate snowmen.
Literacy: pencil control activities will be explored to embed their skills.
Mathematics: different shapes will be used to create their snowmen.
Understanding the World: how other countries celebrate Christmas will be explored.
Expressive Art and Design: Christmas decorations from salt dough will be made.
Week Seven and eight
PSED: the emotions the children are experiencing in the run up to Christmas will be explored.
C+L: different items will be wrapped and the children will guess as to what is inside.
Physical:
Literacy: reindeer footprint Christmas cards will be made and the children will sign their names.
Mathematics: by weighing out the ingredients and following a recipe, ginger bread will be made.
Understanding the World: to celebrate National Robin day the children will create robins using their hands.
Expressive Art and Design:
Dormouse room:
We will be covering the 7 areas of learning within our topic of ‘Winter’.
Personal, Social & Emotional Development: Our main focus will be to continue to settle the children into the settings routines. Many of the children have settled really well but one or two are still adjusting to being at nursery. The relationships between staff, parents and children are developing well and we look forward to hearing your thoughts and feelings on these relationships at our parents evening .
Communication & Language: We will be creating winter treasure baskets with lots of natural treasures for the children to explore and vocabulary to be introduced, playing peek-a-boo with winter animals and encouraging the children to wave, babble or say ‘hello’ and ‘bye’.
Physical Development: We will be waving coloured scarves/ribbons and watching them move and float around. We will be encouraging the children to use their fine motor skills as they use the white pom poms, passing them from one hand to another or using their feet to move them. We will be playing lots of Christmas music for us to move around making a variety of movements.
Literacy: We’ll be singing lots of songs and looking at the ‘That’s not my books’ including that’s not my badger, fox and snowman. Celebrating fireworks – we will be creating our own pictures by using our hands, feet or chunky paintbrushes. Together we will sing twinkle twinkle little star under the fairy lights.
Mathematics: There will be a variety of different sized pinecones, bells and scarves in a treasure basket for them to explore, feel and hold. We will hide a selection of winter soft toys under toys for the children to find the hidden objects and then re-hide them.
Understanding the World: We will be have a small tray filled with black sand and silver glitter for the children to use utensils in for mark making. Underneath will be iridescent paper so the children ca see the marks/trails they are creating.
Expressive art & design: We will be getting messy and exploring a variety of media such as edible snow, ice nshaving foam to feel their different textures. We’ll be dancing with music and instruments celebrating the sparkles and glitter of bonfire night and Christmas along with making lots of crafts for the children to bring home.
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News:
Our next trustees meeting is being held on Monday 11th November @ 1.30pm. This will be @ Brambles. If any parent is interested in joining the trustees, please see Debbie.
If any parents have changed their address or phone number can you please let the staff know so they can change the admission form to reflect this. If there are, any changes to pickups these will also need to be altered on the forms.
Brambles has a closed Face Book page – please send a friend request if you are not already a member. If your FB name is unusual please let Debbie know (some parents do not put their name on their account due to the nature of their jobs). Updates for the nursery are posted and may include; upcoming events, requests, photos of trips out, photos of children eating produce from the garden, lunch menus…
We would like to welcome Emily Harry into the Dormouse room. Emily will be working until Christmas whilst we advertise for a full time practitioner to fill the space on the team. We know she will quickly settle in to the routines of the room and form great attachments with the children as well as parents.
Lindsey leaves us on the 19th November and we would like to wish Lindsey all the best in her new role at Newlyn nursery. Lindsey has run the rising 3 room for 18 months now and the children have loved the ideas and projects she has involved them in. Jess will take on the role as room leader and Sanne Rietveld will be joining the team on the 20th November and we all look forward to working with her.
Christmas raffle:
Hanri has put together a Christmas hamper – which is on display in the foyer. This will be raffled the same as the summer raffle with squares 1-100 available for the price of £2 per square.
We would like to put together a similar Christmas hamper to raffle at the nativity. We would like to ask pre-school parents for a donation towards this. If you are able to donate a Christmas themed present, we would be very grateful. Donations need to be in by Friday 6th December.
Funding:
The government has introduced new funding from September 2024 for all working parents whose children are aged 9 months +. If your child is, 9 months before the 1st December 2024 and you and your partner both work a minimum of 16 hours/wk you may be eligible for funding.
Please visit https://cornwall.cloud.servelec-syngery.com/SynergyWeb/ , search for working families funding and complete the forms to see if you are eligible. You should then be given an 11 digit number beginning 500/501 which Debbie will need to validate on the funding portal. Once you have a code you will receive an email every 3 months where you will need to go back to the .gov website and re-validate your details. Please be aware this email can go into your junk mail! If the code is not re-validated it stops and will only reactivate when you reapply. If you have any questions please see Debbie. This needs to be completed as soon as possible to avoid being charged for hours you may have been able to have funded.
Funding for all 2 year olds (if eligible) began in April 2024 and parents need to visit the following website; https://cornwall.cloud.servelec-syngery.com/SynergyWeb/ to check if they are eligible. If your child turns two by the 31.08.2024 you may be eligible for the new 15 hours of funding being introduced by the Government. If you are eligible, please see Debbie who will have the necessary forms to fill out.
Children who turned 3 by the 31.08.2024 may be eligible for 30 hours of funding per week. If you and your partner both work 16+ hours/wk, you may be eligible. Please visit www.cornwall.gov.uk to check your eligibility.
Many parents will also be eligible for ‘Child-free Tax Care’ with the government scheme – for children aged up to 11 years. Again, this can be found on the government website and could help towards your childcare costs and it can be used for fees/lunches/snacks….Please look to see if you are eligible – the nursery is registered with the scheme already and you just need to add our name to your account. The government will put 25% of the amount you put in into your account, which you then transfer to Brambles. Please see Debbie or Hanri if you need help with this system. You could receive over £2,000 from the government towards your childcare fees using this method.
Unfunded week:
The Government funding covers 38 weeks of the year and there are 39 weeks within the 3 school terms which leaves 1 week unfunded. This academic year the unfunded week will be the week beginning 16th December. If you bank hours from the term weeks these can be used for this week and/or during the holiday weeks.
If you do not bank hours and use all of your 15/30 hours during the 38 weeks of the term you will be charged for the hours of attendance during this week at £5.75/hour. If there are any funded children who will not be in attendance due to not having any banked hours or wanting to be charged please let Debbie know.
Medication:
The Brambles has an emergency bottle of Calpol for children who may suddenly develop a temperature, whose parents cannot collect them quickly and we feel it is required. If your child is teething or you feel requires a dose of Calpol during the day a bottle must be supplied for them. We are finding when we require ours it is empty due to parents not supplying their own. If the children require Calpol for anything other than teething, it may be they are too poorly for nursery and need to stay home. Brambles will now be charging if the settings Calpol is used.
Lunches: We discourage juice at lunchtime unless there is a reason – please see Debbie if this is the case. We have a water cooler, which the preschool children are able to freely access and water/milk is provided during snacks and lunch times.
Please cut grapes into QUARTERS – these are one of the biggest choking hazards for children and many parents are not cutting them small enough or at all. There is not always the time for practitioners to cut them for the children and therefore they may not be given during the lunch hour.
Due to a nut allergy within the setting there are to be NO NUTS in packed lunches. We will be changing our policy to reflect this.
We promote healthy eating and would like parents to support us with this when providing packed lunches. A healthy packed lunch should contain; a sandwich/crackers/wrap, yogurt, packet of crisps, fruit and maybe one biscuit or piece of cake. We are able to reheat food from yesterdays ‘tea’ or make beans/spaghetti on toast if you would like to provide this in a packed lunch.
Clothing:
Now the weather is cooler please ensure the children’s rucksacks contain suitable clothing and that children have a fleece/jacket or coat on their peg. We are still utilising the outside areas and the wind can be chilly here at Brambles. Many children prefer their own clothes and are reluctant to wear Brambles items.
Wet wipes:
Can ALL children who are not in nappies please bring in a named packet of wet wipes to leave in the bathroom. There are times an accident occurs or the children need to clean their faces after lunch and we do not always have wipes available. If we do use Brambles wipes these will be added to your account.
Late collections:
A reminder to ALL parents that a late collection will result in £50 being billed to your account. If you are going to be late please phone Brambles and let a practitioner know. Late collections impact on practitioners leaving to collect after school club children from school, meeting appointments, collecting their own children and having the correct ratio of staff in the building.
Family support:
Jessica Legrys is the Family Support Worker for our area and she is keen to meet with our families to see if there is anything, she can help with. This may be eating, sleeping, behaviour, finances, support…..Please let me know if you would like to speak to her. Drop in sessions are due to be arranged. Her number is 01736 759058 if you would like to speak to her directly.
INFORMATION FOR THE TERM:
Tempest photographers:
will be attending on Friday 15th November from 1pm. The children who normally attend on a Friday will automatically have their photos taken. Slots are available from 3pm onwards for families and children who would like to book a session – please see Debbie. If you would like to send in a change of clothing especially for the photo we can change the children before they have their picture taken.
Children in Need:
Friday the 15th November is Children in Need day and we are encouraging the children to wear spots for the day!! Any donations received from the children will be forwarded to the Children in Need charity.
There are some Pudsey or Blush pens, teddies, ears, wristbands and pin badges for sale in the foyer.
Consumables:
We are sorry but we are going to start charging for Sudocrem, wet wipes, nappies and Calpol due to the amount we have had to supply in the last year. We will only add to your invoice the price Brambles paid for the above mentioned items and the Calpol will be charged per 5ml dose.
Parents evening:
Parents evening will be either Tuesday the 26th or Wednesday 27th of November from 4.30pm onwards. Please see your child’s key worker to book a time. Lindsey’s key children will be allocated between Jess and Issy and Louise’s children have been reallocated between the baby room team. Parents will be informed which staff member has taken on their child’s KP role.
Christmas:
Lunch:
Our Christmas lunch will be Wednesday 11th December. If your child normally has a packed lunch but would like to join us for a roast please let Debbie know. The price will be £2.50.
Party:
Friday 20th December is our last day and we will hold a party for the children. Santa will hopefully be visiting @ 2pm and the children who are not in attendance are welcome to join us to say hello to Santa and collect their present.
PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN:
The pre-schoolers had a wonderful time at the Minack and were amazing!! They were engaged, acted their parts as narrated by Betty Blue and Ryan Red and were watched by an audience of international visitors. We hope you enjoyed the videos on our FB page and there is a display of photos of the performance in our cloakroom.
On Monday 9th December at 10.30 am the children will be visiting Benoni to participate in some Christmas crafts with the residents and to sing their nativity songs in preparation for their nativity the following week.
The NATIVITY will be held on Tuesday 17th December at the Town Hall @ 10.30 am. If your child attends nursery that morning we will take them over to the TH and dress them there ready for the performance. If you are bringing them please ensure they are in costume and at the hall for 10.25 am.
The dress rehearsal will be on Monday 16th December @ 10.00 am. We will take over the children who attend on Mondays and change them for the rehearsal. Please ensure all children who do not attend on a Monday are in costume and dropped to the TH for 9.45 and collected at 11.00 am. We expect the reception class to attend to watch our performance to prepare the children for their audience on the 17th.
As soon as we start rehearsals, we will know which part your child will play in the nativity and they may have some words to learn. We will send these out as quickly as we can for you to be able to help them learn their words and arrange their costumes. Please be aware we have many costumes here from past nativities which the children are able to borrow – please see Debbie if you would like to use one of these.
Tickets for the nativity will be available from the office from the 6th December at a cost of £1/ticket.
There will be a raffle, refreshments and the children’s Christmas bags to buy.
DVD’s of the rehearsal and nativity will be available – please see Debbie if you would like to purchase any.
School places:
The deadline for applying for a school place for September 2025 is the 15th January 2025.
Please visit www.cornwall.gov.uk/admissions to access the application system or scan the bar code on the poster which you will find on the main door.
Dormouse room:
Thank you for labelling pots, boxes, cups, bottles, lunch bags…..this has been a great help.
Please ensure changing bags/rucksacks have plenty of spare clothes as little ones can require 2/3 sets of clothes per day.
Now the weather is moving towards winter and becoming colder please ensure your child has layers on to keep them warm as well as a coat and hat at brambles. The garden door within the room may be open during the day and the children can become cold quite quickly.
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Term dates:
AUTUMN TERM DATES: 02.09.2024 – 20.12.2024
05.11.2024 – 20.12.2024 Second half of the autumn term
UNFUNDED WEEK – 16TH – 20TH December.
Spring term 2025:
06.013.2025 – 04.04.2025.
Thank you.