Week Commencing 24th May 2021

Monday 24th May – Emma F + Amy

Thursday 27th May – Tabitha

Friday 28th May – Hayley + Abby

All week - Rachel

Over the last two weeks we have seen a rise in many children having temperatures, coughs, and colds. Unfortunately, these are COVID-19 symptoms and therefore we must ensure those children have a PCR COVID-19 test. Once this has been completed and the child’s results are returned as negative, your child is able to return to nursery if they are feeling well.

Please can we remind you all that Lateral Flow Tests are used to identify asymptomatic people. Therefore, they should not be used if your child or a member of their household has any COVID-19 symptoms.

As we all know the Governments Roadmap is on track and planned Step 3 easements will go ahead on 17th May, the Prime Minister has confirmed. Therefore, we have been issued updated Guidance from The Department for Education and wanted to share with you all that the following is still in place.

• Bubbles remain in place.

• Drop off and pick up times remain in place.

• Face coverings remain a requirement unless you are exempt.

• Social distancing remains in places.

• Visitors remain prohibited within the nursery building unless they are an educational professional who is here to work with a specific child for a specific need.

• Lateral Flow tests should still be taken twice a week if you have none of the COVID-19 symptoms stated below.

• You MUST still ensure a PCR test is taken by anyone in your households who shows symptoms of COVID-19, cough, temp, change or loss of sense of taste or smell.

• 10 days isolation is still in place.

• Please remember if your child is isolating and therefore not attending nursery you will not be charged nursery fees during this time.

• If your child goes home from nursery in the morning with a COVID-19 symptom you will be charged for your morning session but not the afternoon session.

• If your child goes home during the afternoon with a COVID-19 symptom you will be charged for a full nursery day.

We will of course keep you updated as we receive new updates over the next few months.

The Royal Mail has launched a new competition and they would like children to design a stamp to honour the heroes who worked extra hard during the pandemic. This could be teachers, police officers, doctors, nurses, supermarket workers and many more. The competition closes on the 28th May so get your designs in quick! The winners of the competition will see their stamps being used by the Royal Mail Service as their design will form a set of 8 stamps which will be released in Spring 2022.

Register your interest by following the link provided:

Heroes Stamp Design Competition - from Royal Mail and iChild

If you have any concerns regarding your child’s speech or communication development our Hertfordshire, SEND Local Officer has provided us with the following telephone number:

Here is a copy of our delicious beef chilli wraps recipe:

You will need:

Onions

Tomato puree

Chopped tomatoes

Kidney beans

Chilli powder

Garlic puree

Beef

Wraps (wholemeal)

For a vegetarian option this is what you will need:

Quorn chunks

Butternut squash

Onions

Tomato puree

Chopped tomatoes

Kidney beans

Chilli powder

Garlic puree

Wraps (wholemeal)

Method:

Fry off onions and meat / Quorn

Drain off excess oil

Add tomatoes, tomato puree, garlic and chilli powder

Stir altogether

Add kidney beans and butternut squash

Simmer until ready

Creating jelly fish, using a range of resources to explore texture as well as making marks using animals to walk through and stamp in the paint, sharing stories and rhymes during circle time, and looking for hidden objects. The babies have also crated their very own fruit salads to take home and developed their imaginative play by having a picnic.

Exploring grouping objects such as blocks into groups of the same colour, creaking marks using our dabbers to explore how to make marks, as well as having a go at developing our imaginative play by making dinner in our home area.

Creating brush strokes when painting onto cling film. They have also been exploring animals within the paint. They have been talking about community and building found in our community. They used blocks to make structures such as the cinema and shops.

Our Topic activities have been creating positions and exploring our senses using a range of tools, lemons, limes, and oranges. As well as using scissors carefully to create snips in our paper and cut out our pictures.

Our Phonics focus has been building our names using magnetic letters, identifying the sounds that create our names, using phoneme frames to have a go at segmenting and blending a range of CVC words as well as creating patterns and letters within our glitter tray.

Our Mathematical focus has been identifying a variety of shapes whilst kicking and throwing footballs into our ‘shape goals.’ Forming recognisable numerals 0 – 5 and 5 – 10 on our chalk board and on the floor in the garden as well as matching numerals to the correct quantity.

Our new topic is – ‘Following our children’s individual interests.

Our Topic interests will be continuing to follow our individual interests, such as exploring our playdough table to develop our finger muscles, mixing our own paints to explore making primary and secondary colours, pretending to be a chef when backing our own cakes with our very own Head Chef Nikki and exploring a variety of small world environments.

Our Phonics focus will be exploring rhythm and rhyme by sharing repetitive stories, perform actions to nursery rhymes, exploring rhyming bingo and continuing a rhyming string. As well as throwing balls and bean bags into hoops labelled with a range of CVC words.

Our Mathematical focus will be exploring capacity in the water tray, continuing to recognise numerals 0 – 10 and 10 – 20 using pegs to represent the correct corresponding numeral, take part in a number hunt during our garden time as well as exploring measuring using non-standard units.