June 2024 already!

Where has the time gone!?

We started the year with a 'Mocksted' - a practice run of an Ofsted inspection. (Ofsted is our regulating body for Early Years). This was a great insight to see what we do well plus where we can improve and implement changes to make the nursery an excellent place for our little students and our staff. This will help us to improve our services as a nursery.

One of our first topics of 2024 was healthy eating and good food habits. Our current supplier YumYum (https://www.yumyumfoodcompany.co.uk/) provides nutritional balanced vegetarian meals packed with lots of good stuff for our children! We also provide breakfast and two snacks a day which form part of the children's healthy eating habits. These include cheese, raw vegetables, rice cakes, fruit and crackers. We regularly introduce the children to new foods such as pomegranate, mango, plantain, crumpets and savoury muffins to name a few. We also bake both sweet and savoury dishes each week so that the children know what goes into their food and where it comes from.

We celebrated World Book Day. At Little Cakes it's not just about reading for one day, it's about celebrating books everyday. We read in the mornings, afternoons, outdoors, circle times, before going home and sometimes as a treat at lunch! Both the baby room and pre-schoolers made their own porridge just like Goldilocks and the three bears! We tossed pancakes like Mr Wolf's Pancakes, created Gruffulo toast, masked ourselves as Little Pigs, created our own gingerbread men and made our own aliens from Aliens Love Underpants! (Just to name a few!). We also invited parents into the nursery to read their favourite children's books to everyone.

After Easter our we had the arrival of our duck eggs. Each year we have chicken eggs so it was great for us to compare the difference between both chicks and ducklings. We even brought out a paddling pool for the ducklings to have their first swim! We looked at the life cycle of the duck and created lots of duck crafts.

We have been learning about different modes of transport; in Air, on Road and in Water. The children created their own boats and floated them in water, we made our own raft during forest school and designed some lovely counting maths games using boats and numbers. We also talked about planes, hot air balloons and rockets. We will be visiting the Amersham & Chorleywood Model Railway Society (which happens to be next door to us!). The children will get to experience a whole model railway and trains.

'School Readiness': Pre-School

At Little Cakes we help children become independent in tasks like using the toilet, putting on their shoes/coats, feeding themselves and following simple instructions such as 'Can you get ready to go outside?', 'Please tuck your chair in' and 'Can you write your name?'. We work on these tasks with the preschool children on a daily basis. To assist the children further with the independent tasks it does help if parents could follow through and work on the same tasks with their children outside of the nursery.

Online Safety

It is essential for parents to be proactive in ensuring their child's safety when using the internet. An increasing number of preschoolers either own their own tablets or use their parents' devices for playing games, using apps, and watching TV programs.

At Little Cakes Montessori School, we believe in fostering a safe and responsible online environment for children. We use social media when discussing particular topics. For example; exploring David Attenborough clips about animals or the climate or when celebrating different cultures and festivals. We also use it for stories with animation such as The Hungry Caterpillar. The following points below are guidelines on what you should cover when allowing your child online:

1. Parental Controls

2. Age-Appropriate Content (Child Friendly Apps and Websites)

3. Active Supervision

4. Educate your Child

5. Set Boundaries

The full explanation can read it HERE, under 'e-safety' in the Policies and Procedures section of our website.

Nursery News

We are currently working on a plan to improve the main nursery garden, we are hoping to grass some of the ground and create a path for the children to use their ride-ons. We hope this will help us spend more time in the garden during the winter months when it gets very muddy!