Fingers 'n' Thumbs Day Nursery

Come Talk with Me – March tip – Making eye contact when your child talks to you will help them to know they are being listened to and build their confidence. If you need support with your children's speech and language, please contact your local family hub here: bcpcouncil.gov.uk/familyhubs and find activities to try here too: bit.ly/cometalkwithmeactivities NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group

Spring is in the air! We Be Kids favourite things to do...

Spring is the season filled with hope and new beginnings. The sight of spring bulbs and early buds blooming can lift our spirits and remind us of brighter times. With the re-emergence of colour, the sound of the birds singing and the lighter mornings its a great time to get outdoors and connect with nature.

Our friends at We Be Kids have put together some of their favourite things to do in spring to connect with nature and boost wellbeing - find out more: webekids.net/spring

With Spring in the air, we are talking about new life, life cycles and how things change over time. We have a fabulous new hairdressers to encourage conversations around growing and self-care.

Check now to see if you are eligible for 30 hours funded childcare. All 3 and 4 year old children are currently entitled to 15 hours of funded childcare (570 hours per year), but some working parents will be eligible for 30 hours of funded childcare. Apply now and get your code. bit.ly/2QCxR63

Does your child/young person (age 0 to 25) have a special educational need/disability? If so, have you signed up to free membership with Parent Carers Together to receive surveys, local SEND news updates and consultation opportunities? Sign up now and receive a welcome gift as a thank you for your support: bit.ly/pctmember.

The children had lots of fun learning about Chinese New Year and have made some lovely things to celebrate.

Dinosaur Land !!!!

Photos from Fingers 'n' Thumbs Day Nursery's post

Holiday Dates for 2022

Easter:
we are shut on Wedneday 13th April 2022 and back open on Wednesday 20th April 2022

May Bank Holiday:

Monday 2nd May 2022

June Bank Holidays:

Thursday 2nd June 2022
Friday 3rd June 2022

August:

15th August 2022 - 26th August 2022 - Summer break - nursery closed

29th August 2022 - Nursery shut due to bank holiday

Back open on the 30th August 2022

December 2022: Our last day open is the 23rd December 2022, we will be back open Tuesday 3rd Jan 2023.

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School application deadline 15 January 2022!

Is your child due to start Reception or transfer to Junior or Middle school in September 2022? You need to apply by 15 January 2022. Apply online now: bit.ly/BCPadmissions

Moving to a new school with an Education Health and Care plan? Find out more: bit.ly/EHCPchangeSchool

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Don't forget that if your child is due to start school, or move to junior or middle school in September 2022 then applications for a school place must be made by no later than 15 January 2022: bit.ly/BCPadmissions

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Come Talk with Me – January Tip – Try to have a fun conversation with your child every day. Words for Life have activities to help you chat with your baby. wordsforlife.org.uk/activities/five-chats-day/
Find more information and support with your child's speech and language here. bit.ly/BCPspeechandlang

NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group BCP Council

🎄The ladies at Fingers n Thumbs would like to wish all of the children and their families a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year. 🎄

🎁Thank you for all of your cards and generous gifts. 🎁

⛄We look forward to hearing all about your Christmas when we are back open in the New Year (Tuesday 4th Jan is our first day back open.) ⛄

See you in 2022 !!

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Help to support your child's speech and language development by visiting the local parks and talking about what you can see and do together: bit.ly/BCPspeechandlang. For a list of the local parks visit: bit.ly/BCPparks

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Don't forget that if your child is due to start school, or move to junior or middle school in September 2022 then applications for a school place must be made by no later than 15 January 2022: bit.ly/BCPadmissions

⛄🎄🎁🎈🎉 PARTY TIME !!! 🎉🎈🎁🎄⛄
We had the best time at the Christmas Party today and even had a visit from Father Christmas !!!!!

Thank you to all the parents for bringing in such lovely food for everyone to share.

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Don’t forget to reconfirm! To keep getting your Tax-Free Childcare or 30 hours funded childcare, you must sign in to your childcare account every three months and confirm your details are up to date. bit.ly/signintochildcareaccount

This week has certainly been a musical one ! The children have shown a great interest in exploring the different sounds of instruments and watched an information video that taught us all about the different types of instruments, we then played a game where we had to listen to a sound and match it to the picture. We danced to some classical music, pretending to be musicians and used some dance props too.

As previously posted, the children worked together to do some building, listening to each others ideas is so important and resulted in a fantastic 'Dinosaur Land' being built.

We have many books at nursery, there are some pictures of some of the stories we have looked at this week along with the story props that the children have been using to act out the story as well as make up some of their own ideas. We talked about the settings, characters and story events.

Batman, Spiderman and some other superheroes have been spotted round nursery this week. The children are loving the new dressing up capes and are building up some lovely role play activities in a group.

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Come Talk with Me – December Tip – Say your child's name before you start talking to them - this will help to get their attention. Find more information and support with your child's speech and language here. bit.ly/supportforspeechandlanguage NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group BCP Council

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Our friends at We Be Kids have put together their favourite things to do during the festive period for you to share with your family: bit.ly/WeBeKidsXmas

We Be Kids activities improve wellbeing and help families connect. Christmas is a great time for joining together as a family and remembering those things that are most important.

This one couldn't wait until Friday, lots of the children wanted to show their mummies and daddies this today !

This is an incredible 'Dinosaur Land' that some of the children worked together to make. They shared their ideas, some made slides for the dinosaurs because "dinosaurs love slides of course". One of the children had a great idea to make a bridge, another child made a den so "people can hide when they want to get away from the dinosaurs". They listened well to their peers ideas and built a story around the toys.

They learnt the names of some dinosaurs and talked about which dinosaurs are carnivores and which dinosaurs are herbivores.

They were very proud of their creation and the ladies were very proud of their great team work !!!

🎄⛄The last day we will be open before Christmas will be Thursday 23rd December, we will be back open on Tuesday 4th January. ⛄🎄

Its been a rather cold week, so when in the garden we have been doing lots of activities to keep us warm. The children have been doing races moving in different ways, the practitioners have joined in with a race or two as well! We have learnt about countries, numbers and the months of the year through our 'Storycise' physical activities.

The cold weather has meant we have found lots of ice in our garden this week, the children have enjoyed touching and breaking the ice as well as adding hot water to see the effects it has.

The batman toys have been a favourite this week with children playing in groups to build stories around the toys.

Good listeners become good learners, so we have been taking part in some activities with Lola the Listening Leopard. She teaches us that to be a good listener you need to:

- Look at the talker
- Try to keep still
- Try to stay quiet when someone is talking

Some of you may have received an invitation to our party on the 16th, if not you will get it next week. We have lots of excited children !

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

This week we have been busy exploring our space resources, we talked about the planets, compared the sizes and counted the planets. The children have enjoyed dressing up as astronauts and we have had a couple of aliens spotted round nursery too! We talked about how we live on Earth and looked at our globe to see what Earth looks like and we talked about the different countries.

We have been doing obstacle courses that involved balancing, throwing , jumping etc. We have also been observing the effects of activity on our body after doing some races, yoga and our 'traffic light' game that involves following instructions. When the traffic light is green, we run. When its amber, we jog on the spot etc.

We have also continued to do 'Storycise' each day, an activity that is always a hit with the children. Here is some information on Storycise for some of our new parents who may not have heard of this before :
http://www.storycises.com/storycises.php

Now we know its still November, but we couldn't wait much longer and Christmas Craft has begun. They won't be bringing it home quite yet, you will take it all together as it gets closer to Christmas.

There is a couple pictures of our new mud kitchen that the children are loving as well as a habitat activity and the Frozen castle that has been a firm favourite this week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Fingers n Thumbs

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Top Tips on keeping children safe near roads

Last week was Road Safety Week with the theme 'Road Safety Heroes', celebrating the heroic work of road safety professionals, and explaining how we can all play a part in making journeys safer for everyone.

Check out these top tips for keeping children safe near roads: bit.ly/BrakeRoadSafetyTips

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Check now to see if you are eligible for 30 hours funded childcare. All 3 and 4 year old children are currently entitled to 15 hours of funded childcare (570 hours per year), but some working parents will be eligible for 30 hours of funded childcare. Apply now and get your code. bit.ly/2QCxR63

Check to see if you are eligible for thirty hours funding.

Check now to see if you are eligible for 30 hours funded childcare. All 3 and 4 year old children are currently entitled to 15 hours of funded childcare (570 hours per year), but some working parents will be eligible for 30 hours of funded childcare. Apply now and get your code. bit.ly/2QCxR63

Our new space area and some of our space resources.

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Bonfire night safety story to share with your children

"Tim, Lilly and Cora are very excited as it is one of their favourite times of year! They love the 5th November as it's Bonfire Night which means the sky is full of beautiful fireworks. But it seems Grandad has a lot to learn about being safe on Bonfire Night...."

Listen to the rest of the story read by Firefighter Paul from Dorset and Wiltshire Fire Safety here: bit.ly/BonfireNightSafetyStory.

After the story complete the quiz to be entered into a prize draw for a chance to win a VIP trip to a participating DWFRS fire station. Closing date Sunday 7 November.

Happy Diwali.

The children have been colouring in some beautiful Diwali pictures after listening to the story of Rama and Sita. We used the computer to help us find out more and watched some information videos on how Diwali is celebrated.

The children talked about some of the things that they celebrate and talked about past experiences.

Happy Diwali!

Today is the main celebration day of Diwali - the festival of lights celebrated by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains across the world. Find out more: www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/15451833

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Tiny Happy People have some great rhymes, songs and music is great for children's development and language learning. Why not try some of these traditional nursery rhymes and original songs with your baby or toddler? bit.ly/tinyhappypeoplerhymes

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This year, more people are being offered the flu vaccine in an effort to reduce the spread and ease pressure on local services.

The following groups of children and young people will be offered the vaccine:

• all children aged 2 or 3 years old on 31 August 2021
• all primary school-aged children
• all year 7 to year 11 secondary school-aged children
• children with a health condition that puts them at greater risk from flu
Children aged 2 and 3 years will be given the vaccination at their general practice, usually by the practice nurse. School-aged children and young people will be offered the flu vaccine in school. For most children, the vaccine will be given as a spray in each nostril.

If you or your child have any questions about the vaccine - you may find the following resources helpful...

- Children's Flu vaccine (nasal spray) - social story: bit.ly/FluVaccineSocialStory
- Children's Flu vaccine NHS website: www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/child-flu-vaccine/
- Flu vaccine - information leaflets including easy read versions and videos: www.gov.uk/government/publications/flu-vaccination-leaflets-and-posters
- Dorset School Age Immunisation Service: www.dorsethealthcare.nhs.uk/schoolageimms

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Check now to see if you can get Tax-Free Childcare. For working families, you could save money on all your childcare needs including breakfast and after school clubs and holiday schemes too. For every £8 you pay into your online account, the government will add an extra £2, saving you a massive £2,000 per child, per year. Apply now to get your code. bit.ly/Tax-FreeChildcare

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Whether you choose to send your child to a pre-school, nursery or a childminder, one thing they all have in common is needing to meet the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

The Early Years Foundation Stage was introduced in 2008 and is how the government and professionals working with young children describe the important stage in a child’s life between birth and age 5, this includes Reception classes in school too.

It provides a framework that sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children are ready for school and beyond!

Find out more:
https://bit.ly/EYFSguideForParents
https://bit.ly/EYFSfamilyCorner

🍁 Autumn 🍁