Little Blessings Childcare and Education

Today we all dressed up as something funny 😁 for . We had lots of super heroes, princesses, odd socks and pyjamas! We did lots of fun activities including baking red nose biscuits, making masks and messy play in the garden. Thank you all for the donations 🙏🏾 😊 🔴

For today's story tuff tray we learnt about flowers. We then made our own flowers out of multicoloured cloud dough, coffee grains and tissue paper. The children really enjoyed moulding the cloud dough. We also spoke about spring. Later in the garden we did some of our own planting in our garden. We will keep you updated with the results 🤗🌱🌻💐🌸🌹🌷🌼

Today the children made their role play area into a shop and restaurant. We had a shop keeper, customers, a waiter, diners and cooks. The children were really engaged and enjoyed playing their roles. They chose items of the menu, took and wrote down orders, cooked meals and gave the shop keeper money in exchange for real fruit 🥰🤗. This was a really fun activity 😀.

Last week we celebrated World Book Day 🌎 📖 . We all dressed up as different book characters and brought in our favourite books. The children really enjoyed reading all their friend's stories. We also made our own book marks. Can you spot the different characters we had?

Today we celebrated Pancake 🥞 day 😋. In the cocoon room we experimented with playdough pancakes. The children really enjoyed sieving the flour and using the ladel to spoon batter. We all also had real pancakes 🥞 😋 for pudding. What do you guys like to put on your pancakes? 🍋🍬🍫🍯🥞

Mondays are story tuff tray days 📖. Today we read Elmer's special day. We then tried to recreate our own patterns with small square sponges and paint. The children really enjoyed printing and stamping and creating their own unique pattern. 🎨🖌🤗

Today we celebrated Chinese New year 2022 - the year of the tiger 🐅. Caterpillars played with a Chinese flag made out of rice and felt. Cocoons explored some sensory trays with noodles, tissue paper, chop sticks and rice. Our Butterflies made lanterns and decorated tiger pictures. We all a roarsome day 🐯🇨🇳🐉

We hope you all had a great Christmas and New year 🎉 But now it's time for spaghetti play! 🍝. Today our toddlers had lot's of fun exploring the different textures of the spaghetti. Our children used lots of different words to describe what they were seeing, feeling and doing. We all loved this activity 👍🏾

Last week we took the cocoon room to Centrale in Croydon to do a gingerbread house workshop. This was a great experience 😊. The children loved getting on the bus and walking through Croydon. We had a look at all the beautiful Christmas decorations. The children also really enjoyed making their houses and decorating them. They were really focused and very proud of what they created. 🎄☃️🎁

Today we explored a snowman ⛄ tuff tray. We read a book about snow and we all discussed how much we love snow. We then decided to extend the learning and have a go at making snow. We used bicarbonate of soda, salt and washing up liquid. The children really enjoyed feeling the different textures and pretending it was snowing inside by sprinkling it on the air. They also really enjoyed making marks with sticks. ⛄😊☃️

This morning our toddlers decorated their own Christmas jumpers, to celebrate tree dressing day. We are all very excited about Christmas 😊⛄🎄. The children were really proud of their creations 🤗

Our director Curtly Ania has written a children's book called 'Evie's Super Emotions' . This book was written to help children deal with anxiety, it was inspired by previous children that attended the nursery. Welldone 👏🏾👏🏾 we are so proud of you .
Please go and show your support. It is available to pre-order now on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evies-Super-Emotions-childrens-managing-ebook/dp/B09J1TJ61T/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Evie%27s+super+emotions&qid=1633964500&sr=8-3

Culture day part 2.
We had a day filled with lots of fun activities. The pre schoolers had a go at braiding and beading hair, they also made some Bajan bakes which were delicious. The toddlers made some carnival masks. The babies made a paper mache globe. We also had a Soca themed wake up and shake up, which all the children really enjoyed. 🇸🇳🇧🇧🇻🇨🇱🇰🇮🇹🇳🇬🇵🇱🇧🇷🇬🇧🇰🇪🇺🇬🇯🇲🇲🇺🇬🇭🇪🇸🇨🇴

Culture day part 1. 🇧🇷🇬🇧🇰🇪🇺🇬🇯🇲🇲🇺🇬🇭🇪🇸🇨🇴🇵🇱🇳🇬🇮🇹🇱🇰🇻🇨🇧🇧🇸🇳
Thank you to everyone that dressed up and for all the food contributions. We had a fantastic day. The children really enjoyed tasting all the different foods and dancing to different types of music. Please look out for all the activities we did .....

Pumpkin spice playdough 🎃. As there's lots of pumpkins about we thought we would explore the insides. We mixed pumpkin seeds and flesh with flour, cornflour, mixed spice and extra glitter for some sparkle. We all really enjoyed feeling the different textures and smelling all the lovely scents from the spices and pumpkin. The playdough turned out very well ☺️

Join us next week Wednesday 27th as we celebrate black history month with our own culture day. Please dress up your children in clothes that represent their culture. We are also asking parents to bring in food from their culture. Please let me know if you would like to contribute [email protected]
We can't wait 🎉💃🏾 see you there 😃
Henna Ania

October is black history month ✊🏿🎉💃🏿. As a black owned nursery we are very proud to celebrate black history month. The children have been doing lots of activities about black history. Here we learnt about Garrett Augustus Morgan and how he invented the traffic lights. The children discussed what traffic lights are and why we use them. They then all made their own traffic lights 🚦. The children really enjoyed this. Look out for more black history activities and our culture day. 😊

*BREAKING NEWS*
We would like to announce our new room names.

Baby room is now the Caterpillar room 🐛

Toddler room is now the Cocoon room

Pre-school is now the Blue butterfly room, Yellow butterfly room and Red butterfly room. 🦋🦋🦋

The idea is that you start nursery as a baby caterpillar then you are nurtured into a cocoon and then you grow into a beautiful butterfly before you go off to primary school 😊🤗.

Have a look at our handmade signs 🥰

This morning we read Paper Dolls as our tuff tray story. Then we all made our own paper doll. The children really enjoyed the story and had lots of fun creating their own paper doll 😊.

Today we did an activity on how to wash hand. The children learnt about the importance of washing hands and when we wash our hands. We also went through the routine of how to wash our hands properly. The children really enjoyed getting messing and cleaning those hands. 🙌🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏻 💦

Today we did a story tuff tray with the pre-schoolers. With everything going on atm it's important to check in on our little ones and see how they are feeling. We read 'Worry monsters' which is a great book encouraging children to talk about their worries. We give the worry to the worry monster and they eat it 👾. After reading the story the children made their own monsters. We then discussed our worries and wrote them down, then we gave them to the worry monster to eat. This was a really fun activity we all really enjoyed it 😊.

Today we made our own ice-cream shop. This was a great activity 🎉. All the children got involved and had a really good time. We had lot's of discussions about their favourite ice cream and cupcake flavours. We had some really creative designer ice creams. We used dyed instant mash to make the perfect ice cream scoop. 🍦🍧🍨 We will deffo be doing this again ☺️

Today we explored mark making with paint brushes and paints. Some children painted letters or tried to write their name, some children enjoyed mixing the colours and others were impressed by all the patterns they could create. This activity was a great success and deffo a conversation starter with the pre-schoolers. 🎨🖌️👩🏾‍🎨👨‍🎨👨🏼‍🎨👩🏻‍🎨👨🏿‍🎨

During this mini heatwave we decided to give our baby dollies a bath to cool down. The children really enjoyed creating bubbles in the water and lathering the soap with the sponges. We spoke about why it is important to wash ourselves and to be clean. This prompted lots of discussions and deep thinking. 👶💦🛀

Today we explored different textures in our dinosaur small world tuff tray. The children really enjoyed feeling all the different textures and materials they also explored new ways of describing what they were feeling. We all had lots of fun 😊. The children also enjoyed washing the dinosaurs clean afterwards 👏🦖🦕

Today we really enjoyed exploring orange and limes. The children had fun experimenting with the water and squeezing the citrus fruits. We discussed how they felt and what happens to them after you squeeze the juice. The children loved smelling the fruit and making different dishes with the jelly, fruit and water. This tray was lots of fun the children were very engaged and focused. 🍊💦

This week we had lot's of fun with watermelons as part of our summer themed activities. 🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉
The children really enjoyed cutting out different shapes. We also painted some watermelon pictures and made some watermelon lollies to help cool us down in this heat 🌡️☀️😎🍭

Anybody for ice-cream? Just what we need in this hot weather 🍨. Our kids love ice-cream role play. So we set up an ice-cream factory using crazy soap, glitter, sprinkles and cups/cones. Crazy soap is amazing for moulding the children really enjoyed making ice-creams. We will deffo do this activity again the children had so much for ages!

This week is SUMMER week 🌞🌄😎🏖️
We are so glad to see sun again and we are most definitely making the most of it 😊. Today we created an Arctic scene with ice, jelly baaf and sea animals. The children loved melting the ice and discussing why and how it melts and also feeling the different textures. The ice really helped cool us all down 🥶. This turned out to be a great tuff tray, everyone got involved 😊👍🏾. Look out for more of our summer themed activities this week .... 🏖️😎

As this week was artists week the 3-5s took inspiration for Salvidor Dali sculptures and made their own clay sculptures. They all made beautiful creations. We had some lions, elephants and even a lollipop. The children really enjoyed using the clay. They were also fascinated by the effect clay has on your hands. Our lovely little sculptors 😁 🖌️🎨. Artist week was great for our children to express themselves.

This week was artists week. The babies had so much fun painting the windows of their baby room. They all knew exactly what to do with the paint and brushes. We were all so impressed with them. Our talented little artists. 🎨🖌️

Today we learnt about Doctors and what they do for us. The children really enjoyed dressing up as Doctors and Nurses and taking care of the sick baby dolls 🏥🚑💊. We then painted some x-rays off our hands using white paint and black paper. The children loved these activities and had a good think about the role of doctors. ☺️

This week we are learning about different jobs and professions. This morning the children became detectives and went on a hunt to try and find all the different bugs in the garden. We found bees, snails, butterflies and ladybirds. The children really enjoyed dressing up as detectives and going on their missions. A few off them would love to be detectives when they are older 😉.

Today we explored the 4 elements of nature. Earth 🌎, wind 🍃, fire 🔥 and water 💧. The children really enjoyed feeling the different materials and describing their texture. We also had a conversation about water the elements were and what they are used for. The children were very interested and engaged, it's sparked lots of thinking and questions ❓🤔 We love our tuff tray adventures.

Last week we finished off our monthly theme of 'Health' with mental health week. During this activity the children looked in the mirror, described what they saw and then began drawing themselves. We had some amazing self-portraits. This was a great activity to boost their self-esteem and help them admire and learn about themselves. Overall the children loved 'Health' month and learnt a lot of valuable information as well as having so much fun ☺️.

Last week was mental health week. The children made their own emotions face masks. They spoke about how they knew when someone was happy/sad/angry/tired and role modelled this with their own facial expressions. They then used the face masks to talk about what made them happy/sad/angry. This was a great activity for children to learn and express their emotions.