Welcome to the Blackberry House Day Nursery Newsletter! In our monthly issues we will be letting you know of the achievements and beautiful learning opportunities that children engaged in that month from across our four settings. We will also be providing you with two articles that will keep you informed within the sector and might even provide some helpful information! In this month’s issue we have covered all about How Blackberries Support Children with English as Additional Language, and Why Is Being Outside Beneficial for Children?
Thank you for your continued support and enjoy reading!
Summary
Our children engaged in walks around the community including going to a local shop, painting and decorating pumpkins, talking about the textures of the inside of a pumpkin too! We explored our forest areas and observed the animals as well as the changing nature around us. Children participated in some spooky activities in readiness for Halloween, and also looked at the natural resources in the outside world.
We also explored a little bit of space during Space Week as we learnt about the stars and planets with our oldest children.
Our children engaged in walks around the community including going to a local shop, painting and decorating pumpkins, talking about the textures of the inside of a pumpkin too! We explored our forest areas and observed the animals as well as the changing nature around us. Children participated in some spooky activities in readiness for Halloween, and also looked at the natural resources in the outside world. We also explored a little bit of space during Space Week as we learnt about the stars and planets with our oldest children.
Under 3's
Our youngest children continued to work closely on understanding their own feelings and emotions as we explored our Colour Monster and looked at different books that support their own understanding. We also continued to look at different textures as we engaged in sensory play using feathers, cotton wool and foam. Babies also looked at the various sounds some of our instruments and toys make as we used them during our group and singing time. Our toddlers enjoyed exploring our mud kitchens as they cooked some pretend soup and engaged in some mud cupcake making. We also enjoyed looking at our own reflections in the mirrors to explore our facial features as well as see ourselves wash hands or wiping our own face after meals. Babies also absolutely loved getting dirty as they explored our cocoa powder mud sensory tray!
Our toddlers also explored conkers and their shapes as they rolled them down the ramps and watched them fly everywhere, what great fun! We then used our conkers to make some autumn soup for the animals in our forest areas. During Space Week, our babies were able to explore our very own space tent that had amazing lights and resources to play with as we watched multiple shapes and shadows as they appeared on our tent.
Over 3's
Our oldest children continued to explore and further their experiences as they engaged in a piano session! The children absolutely loved having a go and enjoyed singing various songs to the tunes they were playing. We practiced waiting patiently as well as team work as some children joined efforts to make the best sounds! We also engaged in many forest school sessions as the children looked to find the right sized shapes and match them to the stories we were reading.
During Space Week, our children explored the night sky and learnt about stars and planets as we worked super hard on decorating and showing off our own stars in the rooms. We also made our own astronaut to send to space and learnt all about the type of jobs astronauts do.
Our Preschool children continued to build beautiful friendships with their peers as they engaged in many role play opportunities. They enjoyed pretending to go to a sleepover as well as make dinner for their family and friends together. We also continued to support our children with their understanding of the local community as they went out on various walks and explorations including visiting a local shop! The children absolutely loved being independent and do some shopping to help their practitioners make cakes and even our own pumpkin soup! We all loved a nice warm bowl of our very own soup after a nice walk in the cold air.
Most of our settings also worked on being independent and prepared their own snacks or supported our chefs with cutting vegetables for their lunch. The children showed great listening skills and loved having this responsibility!
Forest School Day
This year, we were all able to celebrate the day in our forest areas with a bit of sunshine. We were exploring the changing nature in our forests and talked about our story books that link to the areas. We talked about pumpkins, animals and trees as we compared them to the pictures in our books. The children used their thinking brains as they worked with sticks to build dens to allow us to have snack in our forests. We also allowed children to explore the area and free-play during which they decided to build more things!
Links to Development Matters
- Active Learning – Participate in routines / Begin to correct their mistakes themselves.
- Playing and Exploring – Plan and think ahead about how they will explore or play with objects / Make independent choices.
- Creating and Thinking Critically – Sort materials / Review progress as they try to achieve a goal.
- Communication and Language – Babble, using sounds like ‘baba’ ‘mamama’/ Use intonation, pitch and changing volume when talking. / Develop pretend play / Start a conversation with an adult or a friend to continue it for many turns.
- Physical Development – Build independently with a range of appropriate resources / Start taking part in some group activities / Increasingly be able to use and remember sequences / Show a preference for a dominant hand / Develop their small motor skills
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development – Find ways of managing transitions / Develop friendships with other children / Increasingly follow rules, understanding why they are important / Talk with others to solve conflicts
- Literacy – Enjoy sharing books with an adult / Repeat words and phrases from familiar stories / Write some letters accurately
- Maths – Experiment with their own symbols and marks / Show finger numbers
- Expressive Arts and Design – Enjoy and take part in action songs / Start to make marks intentionally / Make simple models which express their ideas
- Understanding the World – Use all their senses in hands-on exploration of natural materials / Talk about what they see using a wide vocabulary
The support we provide for English as Additional Language children
At Blackberries we take pride in ensuring all of our children receive the best educational start as possible, and that all children have the equal opportunity to learn and explore the world. We ensure all children have enough support during their settling in time as well as throughout their time at nursery. Please refer to our July 2024 newsletter to find out how we support our children during their settling in time.
As our children come from different backgrounds, our practitioners are trained to ensure the backgrounds and cultures of our children are respected and celebrated. Starting from their first day at nursery where practitioners will ensure they have enough information about your child for them to comfortably support them, as well as finding out the key words that your child will recognise in their home language. Providing us with some words to use and communicate with your little one will support the process of settling in and allow us to communicate more effectively. Your child’s key person will be able to guide you on these and ensure we have these in place too. In order to further the communication opportunities, we ensure all rooms have visual cards and labels to support with the daily routine. Each child has access to these and is able to revisit them as many times as possible. Our practitioners use these to show the children what is about to happen so that they understand the next steps. Our areas and resources are also beautifully labelled to ensure all our children enrich their language and vocabulary from an early age. Practitioners ensure that the language is correctly modelled throughout the day and that the new vocabulary is repeated and revisited as often as possible. This ensures the children start to recollect new words and will encourage them to start using them once they are fully settled in and are comfortable in the setting.
In order to support our EAL children with expressing their feelings and emotions, we use our Colour Monster that allows our children to learn all about their emotions and how to express them. This is always available to all children, and our practitioners dedicate time to provide focused activities that support our learning about our feelings.
As part of our curriculum, we also ensure we cater for all children’s needs and backgrounds to provide an equal start for all. We engage the children in Little Chef’s activities where they learn about traditional food or listen to traditional music!
To further support our children that are multilingual, we also offer books and resources that support the learning of their home language. We’re also able to request such books to be sent to you directly, if there’s a need or a wish for it. Please speak to your setting if you’d like to hear more.
The importance of Outdoor Provision
At Blackberries, we recognise the importance of outdoor provision for all our children. As part of our ethos, we dedicate our practice to ensuring all children get the best start and the best learning opportunities they can from an early age. With this being said, providing an outdoor learning environment with appropriate outdoor provision is a must. Most of our settings are lucky to have a huge outdoor space with a forest area. Two of our settings are accredited forest school providers and they ensure children use the space and the opportunity effectively. Our staff are all trained and supported with the outdoor provision and in ensuring it runs on a daily basis and multiple times throughout the day.
The main and most obvious benefits of outdoor provision is the support of the children’s physical development. With the outdoor space being most of the time bigger and more open, practitioners are able to plan for more challenging and more active opportunities. This also supports in learning and understanding all about our health and a healthy lifestyle. Encouraging children in physical activities outdoors allows them to improve their stability, bone density and supports their muscle development. This will also contribute to the healthy lifestyle we teach our children about, along with our Little Chefs activities that also touch on healthy food choices.
Children often use the outside space to have a break from the everyday. Being out in the fresh air supports children’s brains to switch off for a while and burn off some energy improving their ability to concentrate later in the day. Being physical outdoors supports with the release of chemicals that support our mental health regulation allowing us to lower anxiety, reduce stress and boost self-esteem. Letting children explore the outdoors also allows for new and exciting learning to take place and support with their understanding of the world.
Having a bigger space allows children to work in a group or a team on an activity or game that supports their personal, social and emotional development building their empathy skills as well as relationship building. Connecting with nature and supporting children with the exploration of the outdoor space also builds on their world experience which so vital and exciting at this age.
According to Development Matters, children should have access to outdoors for at least around an hour each day. At Blackberries, we believe in the importance of outdoor provision and the benefits of it, therefore most of our rooms and our settings will have constant access with a supportive free flow system allowing children to choose where they wish to learn. Our babies also engage in both garden and forest sessions throughout the day to ensure all children have the best opportunity to spend time and learn in the outside environment.
