Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas!

Did anyone look at the Santa website?

Just a reminder of the fantastic Santa website if you haven't had chance to look (see link below).  It really is worth taking a look.  The message is great if you include photos :-)

Calendars

The children had fun making calendars today.  I think tomorrow we'll take down the displays and the children can bring home their Christmas creations.  Get ready to make room in your houses!

Sam leaving at the end of this week.

Just to let you all know, it is Sam's last day on Friday.  He is off to pastures new at the start of next year and we wish him well.  Chris and I will miss him, as I'm sure all the children will too.  xx

Week beginning December 13th is week 1

Number 7

We were going through numbers yesterday and found that the number 7 is one which some of the children aren't familiar with.  We now have a number 7 on our wall, on which the children have drawn 7 dots, which we use to remind the children of the number.  If you spot any number 7s whilst at home or out and about, it might be a good idea to bring them to your child's attention. 

Fantastic website for a message from Santa

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/home

You can make a personal video, including photos of your child.  Its lovely :-).

Mmmmm, chocolate!

We made some special treats for mummies and daddies today.  I won't go into detail, but YUM!!!

More Christmas creations

We made some more pictures today.

Here are some photos of our Christmas displays.  Don't they look great?  The children have done really well.

I've got my phone back!

No mobile at the moment

Just to let you all know, I lost my phone in Preston on Saturday.  It has been found, but I won't get it back until Monday or Tuesday.  If you need to contact us, please call either Chris' mobile or our house phone.  Thanks.

Week beginning December 6th is week 3

Snow!

We had great fun in the snow this morning!  The children picked it up, threw it in the air and just generally had a good time. 

Norad tracks Santa

There is a fantastic website that the children might enjoy (adults will definitely!!). 

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

Have a look and see what you think!

Fireman Sam

Joel's mummy told us today that Fireman Sam will be at the Grand Theatre on January 15th if anyone is interested :-)

Christmas creations

Yesterday, the children did lots of painting.  They painted some lolly sticks to be used in todays activity, a large piece of paper, covering it in lots of shades of green (now a Christmas tree!) and they each made a beautiful snowy picture, using white paint and glitter. 

Today, the children made Christmas cards, using the painted lolly sticks from yesterday, and some lovely decorations for the Christmas tree at home. 

Childrens' colds

We know children get colds all the time, but if your child has a temperature, is coughing badly, complains of a headache, sore throat and is generally ill, i.e. not just an everyday cold, they are better off cared for by mums or dads.  We are legally bound to try and prevent the risk of infection in our setting so would appreciate you keeping your child at home if they have more than just a 'cold'. 

Your understanding and support are appreciated.

Duck pond in the frost

We had a walk to the duck pond this afternoon.  It was lovely and frosty.  The children fed the ducks, who were very glad of the bread!

Menu week beginning 29th December - WEEK 2

A Bug's Life

We've not had a good week this week I'm afraid.  There had been a horrible sickness bug here and nearly all of the children have caught it, although we aren't really sure where it originated.  We hope you all feel better soon.  Big hugs and kisses to you all xxxxx

Next week will be a much better week, as we're going to start creating for Christmas!!!  As you all know, we already have our Christmas trees up, so we're really getting into the festive season from next week. 

The weather looks set to be frosty, cold and sunny, which is great.  The children love to play out when its like this - please remember to send hats and gloves, along with a thick, warm coat.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and that all the children feel much better very soon.  Hope no parents catch it! 

Evaluation sheets

If you've had chance to complete our evaluation sheet please would you send it back.  If not, would you be able to fill it in sometime this week.  Thank you, your comments are very much appreciated. 

Week beginning November 22nd is WEEK 1 of our 3-week menu

Menu

I've put our 3-week menu on a page on our blog site.  This saves me creating a new post each week with the menu, which unfortunatley, I sometimes don't get round to doing ~ sorry. 

This week we're on week 3, and will start week 1 next week. 

More cooking

The children are really enjoying baking and cooking at the moment. 

Today, they created their own pizzas, using ham, sweetcorn, cheese and tomatoes.  They looked delicious!

Happy birthday Sam

It was Sam's birthday on Sunday and he is now 3.  We all sang 'Happy Birthday' to Sam and he blew out the candles on his cake. 

We've done lots of dressing up today, as well as playing with fire engines, train tracks and at hairdressers. 

Just have to show you the photo below.  Sam kindly provided our cat Sally with a lovely hat.  I think she looks rather fetching and fits the description of 'The Cat in the Hat' quite nicely.  Her humiliation is now complete!!!!

Scones, collecting leaves and designing a tree

Yesterday the children made some delicious scones in the afternoon.  Hope you all enjoyed them!

Today, we played outside.  The children noticed lots of leaves on the floor, so we decided to make our own tree.  We collected lots of leaves of all shapes, sizes and colours, and stuck them on to a painted tree. 

For some reason, it won't let me download the photo we took.  I'll try and download it next time.  Sorry. 

Happy birthday William!

It is William's birthday today and he's now 6 years old.  He got various football related items for his birthday, including a PNE away kit, Fifa 11, some goalie gloves, and yet another football (he's wanted this particular one for a long time as its the same ball they use at the PNE matches).

We had a little tea party and all the children sang 'happy birthday' to William.  Thank you so much to those of you who gave him a card and present.  :-)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.   

Firework pictures

We made some lovely, sparkly firework pictures today, using lots of different coloured glitter glue.  We got very sticky and glittery!  The pictures look great on the playroom wall at the moment, and the children will be able to take them home tomorrow.

Bonfire pictures

The children made bonfire pictures today, using twigs, red and yellow paint and glitter.  Even the babies had a go at painting, using their hands to spread it around the paper. 

Yesterday, when we were talking about bonfire night, one of the children made us laugh when they said they were going to 'Pontypandy' to see a fire.  :-)

Biscuit baking

Yesterday, we made some biscuits.  We made stars, hearts and diamonds.  The children had one for their morning snack and took the rest home. 

Welcome back

We welcomed the children back after their holiday this morning.  It was lovely to see them all.  So much can change in a week - the two babies have both started to crawl which is great.  I love it when they move across  the room purposefully when they spot something interesting. 

We had an extra day with William too, as his school don't go back until tomorrow.  We'll really miss him as we love having him at home.  Oh well, only 7 weeks to go before the Christmas holidays!  Best get shopping!

Midweek hello!

Hi everyone.  Hope you're all having a lovely holiday with your children! 

Diggers and building

The children played with the toy diggers, trucks and dumpers today.  We provided the wooden blocks for the children to transport and build and later brought in a basket of conkers, which they incorporated into their play.  We also had to work bench out with all the tools.  What a busy day!

Hope you all have a lovely holiday with your children next week and we'll see some of you on Friday!

Cars down a ramp!

The children were playing with the toy cars this afternoon and started to roll them down a lid, belonging to a small box.  To extend their learning we provided them with a long length of guttering, which they used to push the cars down.  We explored how we could make the cars go faster or slower, by lifting or lowering the guttering. 

Chris took a great photo of them all but unfortunately I've managed to delete it somehow.  Sorry......

Outdoor play and fruit salad again

We spent a lot of time outdoors today.  The children played with the stones, transporting them in trolleys etc, and they played in the cars and trucks, giving each other a ride. 

Later, the children made their own fruit salads again.  This time I remembered the clementines! 

Fruit salad

The children made their own fruit salad today.  We gave them various pieces of fruit, including melon, strawberries, grapes and apples from our own apple tree, and they chose what they wanted to go into their fruit salad.  The children then used knives to cut their fruit into pieces.  They ate their own fruit salad for their morning snack and enjoyed every mouthful!

Painting autumn leaves

We collected some leaves from our garden and talked about the colours.  The children decided what colour paints we would need to paint a picture of the leaves and then painted their own picture, using the various colours. 

Duck pond and autumn trees

We went to the duck pond this morning to feed the ducks.  We looked again for signs of autumn - there were lots of leaves on the floor today.

When we got back, we made some autumn tree pictures, using handprints for the branches and autumn-coloured foam leaves.  The children really enjoyed creating their pictures and couldn't wait to take them home.  

Fire engines and firefighters!

The children are really enjoying playing with some new 'Fireman Sam' engines we bought at the weekend.  They've had all the fire engines out and have been building houses and fire stations out of wooden blocks.  We got out the dressing up clothes today and they wore the firefighters helmets and role-played, using the tent as a house on fire!

Happy birthday Charlotte

Just to wish our very special daughter a happy 17th birthday today!  With lots of love xxxxxxxx

Menu, week beginning 4th October 2010

Monday - Corned beef hash
Tuesday - Shepherds Pie
Wednesday - Cheesy turkey and ham pasta with vegetables
Thursday - Chicken curry and rice
Friday - Fish fingers, wedges, beans

Autumn leaf pictures and lots of 'problem solving, reasoning and numeracy'

The children created an autumn leaf picture from the leaves we collected at the duck pond last week.  We also used some leaves from a tree in our garden which has some lovely autumn colour.  We talked about autumn and what colours the leaves change to.  We discovered that some are red, yellow, brown and even pink. 

Later this morning, we got out lots of items for sorting, including a tray full of shells, lots of lids, some different-coloured gingerbread men and lots of pairs of socks.  The children played for a long time with the various items, counting, sorting, classifying, according to size and colour, and matching patterns.  

Menu, week beginning 27.9.10

Monday - Sausage, mash and green beans
Tuesday - Chicken, pasta in tomato/cheese sauce, peas
Wednesday - Spaghetti bolognaise
Thursday - Fish pie/fish cakes with broccoli and cauliflower
Friday - Chicken casserole and boiled rice

Duck pond yesterday

Hi, I didn't get chance to write last night - we were at Wigan watching PNE lose against them! 

We went to the duck pond yesterday.  The children ran around and we fed the ducks, who were all quite hungry!  We were also looking for changes in the leaves and collected some leaves to make a picture.  We intended to make them today, but we'd had a 'glue' accident!  We'll save them and make one next week instead, when we've had chance to buy some more PVA glue. 

We found some toadstools at the duck pond and we took the chance to remind the children that, although they look like mushrooms, they must never eat them because they will make their tummies poorly. 

Outdoor nature

We welcomed Kaiden-Lee into our setting today.  He's been a really happy little boy and the other children have been making him laugh.

I also played a game, called 'Bag of bits', which is a bag full of various items (can be anything you want) used to encourage thinking and communication in the children. 

The children had fun in the garden looking for signs of autumn.  We found some acorns, ripe rowan berries and saw that our apples were nearly ready for picking! 

Menu, week beginning 20th September

Monday - Chicken fried rice
Tuesday - Pasta bolognaise
Wednesday - Roast ham dinner
Thursday - Home made pizza
Friday - Beef casserole and mashed potato

Madhatters and blocks

We went to Madhatters this morning and again, the children enjoyed running around and playing on the equipment. 

We've also played with the plastic blocks today, making towers and 'boats', as well as recognising and classifying them into colours. 

Hope you all have a great weekend!  We're off to watch PNE probably get beaten by Norwich tomorrow!

Yesterday and today!

Sorry, I didn't get time to write the blog last night.  We spent a lot of time doing jigsaws yesterday, which is one of Adam's favourite activities. 

After our tea-time snack, the children created a masterpiece for the playroom wall, using a long piece of wallpaper!



Today, following on from the water painting last week, the children painted stones.  They really enjoyed mixing the paint colours and were quite excited about what colours the paints would make.  We will do another activity, perhaps on paper, where they can mix colours to experiment.  They have taken their stones home tonight - maybe you could use them as paperweights???





New page on potty training

Please have a look at the new page we've created advising about 'potty training'.  If you have any questions at all on this subject, please do not hesitate to ask.  We are by no means experts, but if we can help we will. :-)

New folders

We have purchased some zip-lock folders for each child to take home every day, so that they have somewhere to put their artwork, rather than squeezing it into a small ruck-sack or carrying it loosely and potentially spoiling it.

For those of you who don't use a daily diary anymore, we are going to make '2-way communication sheets' which will also go in there.  We will use them to write on messages and comments, and if you want to advise us of anything (as, like me, you may forget to mention something in the morning when dropping-off), then please use these sheets for this purpose.  

Menu - week beginning 13th September

Monday - Corned beef hash
Tuesday - Cheesy turkey and ham pasta with vegetables
Wednesday - Chicken curry and rice
Thursday - Shepherds pie
Friday - Fish fingers, potato wedges and baked beans

threading and name-labels

The children played with the buttons and strings today, threading through the little holes.  This improves fine-motor skills which is important for handwriting, plus the children really enjoy this activity which is the most important thing!!  They also played with the plastic gingerbread men, which they can attach together, sort and line-up. 

The children created a new name label for themselves for when they arrive in the morning.  We are going to change where they 'self-register' once all the children have made a new label.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, whatever you have planned.  See you next week.

Making new name labels

Mad Hatters and dressing up

We all went to Mad Hatters this morning.  The children had a good time playing on the soft play equipment.  They were very happy to see Erin there with her mummy!

We got out the dressing up clothes too today and the children became princesses, police officers, fire fighters, monkeys and witches!

We have designed t-shirts for the children to wear when we are out, so that if they should get lost (hopefully this will never happen!), it advises that they are with their childminder and has our contact details on. 

  

Water painting

Gosh, it was hot today!!!

The children played with water and brushes, making patterns, lines, circles and other marks on the patio. This will help with handwriting, developing their fine and gross motor skills.

We also provided them with stones and shells, which we collected from the beach recently, and the children painted those, as well as swishing them around in the water and lining them up on the patio.

Menu - week beginning 6th September

Really sorry, I forgot to do it at the beginning of the week. 

Monday - Sausage, mash, vegetables
Tuesday - Pasta in cheese/tomato sauce with ham and peas
Wednesday - Spaghetti bolognaise
Thursday - Fish cakes, broccoli and cauliflower
Friday - Chicken casserole and rice

Welcome and hidden letters!

We welcomed Eszme into our setting today.  It was her first full day with us and we hope that she will be very happy here. 

This morning, we did an activity involving shaving foam and hidden letters (initial sounds of the childrens' names) and laminated names.  We also included  laminated MacDonalds and CBeebies logos.  The aim was to have fun exploring the foam and at the same time finding letters and names to teach recognition.  As you can imagine, the children were very familiar with the logos!  One child, when asked what one of them was, shouted, "Chicken nuggets!"  We all got very messy and had lots of fun. 

Duck pond today

We visited the duck pond this morning.  The ducks were quite hungry today and ate all the bread that we took for them. 

Hope you all have a great weekend - the weather forecast is fab so make the most of it!!  See you next week x

Feeding the ducks

Walk to the prom

We had a lovely walk up to the prom today.  We took drinks and a little snack and watched the trams go by. 

Thank you to Joel's mummy and Adam's mummy for the stationery supplies that you have provided recently - they are appreciated. 

Sports day

We had our annual sports day today.  We did lots of activities, such as running, egg and spoon, beanbag balancing and jumping races, throwing balls into a bucket, who could throw the furthest, penalties and we had lots of fun with the parachute.  The winners got a 1st place sticker and everyone got a certificate for taking part. 

Egg and spoon race

Running under the parachute

Fleetwood beach

We went to Fleetwood beach on Friday morning.  We collected lots of pebbles in all different sizes, and lots of shells.  The children love to play with them in our garden, so we wanted to add to our collection.  We also found a jellyfish on the sand.

We had a game of football on the beach too and watched the big ferries sail past.

Jellyfish

Choosing pebbles and shells

Woodland Gardens

We had a lovely morning at Salisbury Woodland Gardens yesterday.  The children did some balancing on logs, we looked for bugs, we did bark rubbings and rubbings from the shapes on the benches and the children ran around and climbed trees. 

Proud Mum and Dad!

We're really proud of Charlotte and Alice on their GCSE results!  Charlotte got 11 GCSEs in total (1 A*, 5 As, 2 Bs and 3 Cs) and will be starting 6th Form in September, and Alice got an 'A' in her English Literature GCSE, which she took a year early.  Well done to you both xxxx

Have a great weekend!

Just to say hope you all have a lovely weekend.  See you on Monday. 

No one has commented on the blog for a while, please feel free!  Comments are always welcome :-).

Happy Mount Park

We had a lovely day at Happy Mount Park today.  The children got very wet and had lots of fun in the splash area and then we had our picnic.  We then went to play in the new 'natural' adventure playground, where the children did lots of running around.  Next it was time to have a ride on the train, before playing in the smaller park for younger children, where there were lots of ride-on toys and smaller play equipment. 

It must've been a tiring day as all the children fell asleep on the way home!