Little Chef's Newsletter
October 2025
Welcome to our very first Little Chef’s Newsletter at Blackberry House Day Nursery Corby! We are thrilled to introduce you to our very own chef; David O’Neill, who ensures our children receive the best quality meals at our nursery each day. David has begun his career as a Nursery Chef a few years ago before joining Blackberries last year. Each day, David takes a lot of care in creating delicious and healthy snacks as well as hot lunches and teas to meet the needs and likes of our children, whilst introducing them to new meals and food combinations. David also supports our children in their weekly Little Chefs activities where children get to explore different textures, flavours as well as learn about food preparation and healthy habits! In his free time, David enjoys spending time with his daughter and work on creating improved recipes that expand our children’s experiences with food!
Our Little Chef’s newsletter will introduce you to all the activities our Little Chefs get involved in throughout the month, outline their learning and new experiences gained, as well as all the fun we have had whilst learning about healthy eating habits!
Each month, you will also find a recipe to try at home with your children!
Thank you for your continued support!
October has certainly been a busy month at Blackberries where all our staff have taken the time to get to know our new children as well as understand their needs and preferences. As part of David’s own professional development, he has participated in our Paediatric First Aid course where he gained essential knowledge and skills to further support our children at mealtimes.
Savory Muffins:
The children used their maths skills to measure and weigh the ingredients, literacy skills to read the recipe, physical development to mix the ingredients, we understood the world around finding out where the vegetables came from and expressed our arts and design by watching the textures change as we added different ingredients.
As part of our Little Chef’s in our Preschool room, we have made savory muffins! These were a great success and an easy way to encourage the children to try some new or different vegetables.
Vegetable Sensory Tray:
We don’t just cook the food, we explore and learn all about it!
Linking to the Blackberries Curriculum, we have been exploring Autumn and created a tuff tray of root vegetables. We then used our senses to explore these by touching, smelling and looking. We then cooked the vegetable to see how their texture has changed, and we used our 4th sense to taste them.
This is a fantastic idea for fussy eats as they are exploring the foods before trying them! Our favourite most definitely was our very own grown carrots that the children helped to plant earlier in the year and harvest!
If you are struggling with a child who is hesitant to try need food at home, please feel free to explore the NHS advice as follows: https://www.nhs.uk/baby/weaning-and-feeding/fussy-eaters/
Pumpkin Soup:
As we got closer to the spooky season, we started to explore various types of pumpkins where the children were exploring the look, feel and smell of them all. We cooked up some soup for them to try, with some children being very brave by giving the soup a taste, while others hesitated and explored the texture and smell first! Little Chef’s activities aren’t about the end product but about the process, when learning and exploring takes place first.
Growing the vegetables:
Some of the vegetables we have explored this month grew in our very own garden! Our children helped us plant these earlier in the year and helped us look after them on a daily basis by watering all our plants and flowers! What a lovely opportunity for the children to understand the world around us as well as understand how plants/vegetables/fruits grow! If any of our families are ever interested in supporting our little garden’s club – please let us know! We would love your input and support!
Pumpkin Pizzas:
Our Toddlers got to explore and make their very own Pumpkin Shaped Pizzas! They used different tools to spread the tomato puree whilst improving their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills and then made choices of what to put on top where their independence and choice making was heavily encouraged. We adapted our activity to meet all of our children’s needs b providing a variety of gluten free, dairy free and vegetarian options.
Pumpkin Biscuits:
Our toddlers have also engaged in creating their very own pumpkin shaped biscuits where they helped mix all the ingredients, cut out the chosen shape, and sprinkle flour to prevent the dough from sticking! We learnt all about the different textures of the dough and how to make biscuits. We then waited patiently for the biscuits to bake and compared their size and texture once again. Our toddlers worked on their maths skills by looking at patterns and shapes as well as weighing the ingredients and looking at measurements.
Blackberry Painting
Our babies engaged in their own exploration of blackberries where they were able to squeeze them and feel their changing texture. They were then able to use their hands and feet to make their very own Blackberry Painting! Our babies loved feeling the different textures and watching the colours come out on paper. This was a great activity for our youngest babies to understand the world and learn about the expressive arts!
Recipe of the Month
David's Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients: | Recipe | Child’s Input (full supervision required) | Child’s learning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 small pumpkin 1 butternut squash 1 white onion 3 carrots 5 small potatoes | Peel and chop all vegetables in small cubes. Put all chopped vegetables in a pot, cover with water, add your spices and boil until thoroughly cooked. Blend the soup until nice and creamy. Serve with bread, toast or on its own! Enjoy | Allow your child to carefully chop some vegetables (older children) Allow the child to season the soup Allow the child to observe and occasionally stir the soup Allow the child to support with blending the vegetables and using the blender | Understanding the textures by comparing raw and cooked vegetables Using senses to understand the smell and taste of the vegetables Understanding technology by using the blender Hand-Eye coordination practice through chopping, peeling, stirring and pouring. |
Hope you enjoyed our first edition of “The Little Chef Newsletter!”
We are always keen to invite parents in to show off their own talents or if you have a celebration or cultural event coming up let us know and we would love to incorporate this into our planning.
Thank you for reading!
