Fig Tree Newsletter - March 2022

Dear Fig Tree Families,

 

We hope this finds you all well after a wet and windy half term! We welcomed a number of new children to Fig Tree in January and February and it’s been lovely to see the children settle and make new friends and to have the nursery a little busier! We enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day. The preschool children used a salt tray to recreate Chinese symbols, developing fine motor control, literacy skills and an awareness of other cultures. 

 

Tweenies shared a ‘bubble bath’ and made heart salt dough ornaments for Valentine’s. The bubble play continues to be popular in Tweenies and you can see the children making a splash in their new aprons here:

 

Baby room have been exploring musical instruments and have been building new friendships as we welcome our newest babies to the room. They have also enjoyed wrapping up warm and visiting the ducks at the pond, although some prefer to snooze away once in the pushchair!

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We have had a lot of fun in the first half term but we are certainly looking forward to some warmer days ahead and being able to enjoy increased access to the garden spaces. We always notice how much more relaxed the children are with more time outdoors and we endeavour to provide children with as much access as possible, with the back door open all afternoon so that the children ‘free flow’ from the inside to the outside spaces. This helps children to regulate their energy and be more in control of their learning experiences. It is also ideal for developing their physical and gross motor skills. Please do ensure that your children are dressed appropriately for the weather and have a jumper or cardigan which is labelled with their name. 

 

Routines & Transitions

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We have also spent some time looking at our routines and trying to make the day to day movement of children smoother to create calmer transition times. Here, we would like to ask for your support. We have a lot of movement at 9:00am when many of our children arrive for their funded sessions. We plan the staffing accordingly and also ensure that our children who have been in for breakfast are moving into their ‘home rooms’ by 9:00am. This keeps the main entrance clear for children who are just arriving and their key workers are ready to receive them on arrival. Please support us by ensuring that your child arrives no earlier than 9:00am if that is when their funded session starts. Similarly, we ask that you collect your child no later than their finish time. Our late collection policy states that £10 is payable for every 10 minutes late or part thereof. This is particularly key at 6:00pm when the nursery closes to children and the evening checks and cleaning need to be completed before staff can go home. 

 

TeachKloud

 

This week you will all be receiving an email invitation to download the nursery app, TeachKloud. You will then receive a second email inviting you to set up your child’s profile. The app is new to us and has a number of features including invoicing, attendance, policy updates and a direct message function. Initially we will be using the app to update the children’s learning stories with photographs and information on what they are learning at nursery. We will then gradually move to utilising the full capabilities of the app. Please do bear with us as we are getting used to TeachKloud and do please share your feedback with us in these early stages about what you like or would prefer to change.

 

General reminders

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• Please support our healthy eating messages by keeping sweet treats at home, not bringing them into nursery as it can upset children if we don’t allow them to eat the sweets ,pthey have in their pockets or sugary snacks in their hands! 

• Also, please refrain from allowing your children to bring in toys from home. If children bring in toys we can’t be held responsible for their return at the end of the day and they often get mixed up with the existing toys in the nursery. It can also cause conflict when other children want to share them. 

• Please label your child’s outer garments - coats and jumpers so they don’t get mixed up and please ensure they have plenty of spare clothes (particularly bottoms) for when they need to get changed as we don’t always have enough nursery spares. If you do have any old trousers or leggings at home that your child has grown out of, we would happily accept these for use at nursery!

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Upcoming Dates
 

This half term runs from Monday 28th February to Friday 8th April for funded-only places and the Easter bank holidays are Good Friday (15th April) and Easter Monday (18th April) during the Easter holidays.

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Pancake Day - We’ll be flipping pancakes and topping with fruit of the children’s choice.

 

World Book Day is on Thursday 3rd March. If your child is at nursery on that day, please feel free to send them in fancy dress as their favourite book character and bring them with a book to share with their friends. We will be having lots of story time, acting out our favourite stories and looking at books. Babies will be enjoying a gruffalo crumble themed sensory tray!
 

Coming Up

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March also sees us celebrating St Patrick’s Day, International Women’s Day, Oral Health Day and finishes with the ‘Healthy Body, Happy Me’ week where we will be having all manner of healthy activities from tooth brushing to a ‘sports day’ to cooking activities.

 

Thank you for all your support and for bearing with us last term when our staffing was affected by covid restrictions. We sincerely hope that we are past the worst of this now but we really appreciated your help when it was needed. 

 

Finally, if you haven’t already, please follow us on our social media channels (links for Facebook and Instagram) to keep up to date!

 

Many thanks for reading, Kate and All the team xx
 

Next issue - Startwell and Hygge and WellComm