Partou Small World Day Nursery and Pre-school, Hatfield

Today the children in the Lion room, the children have been getting really excited for spring, we've been talking about all the different changes that happen and all the different colours we will see. After having this conversation we decided to get out our green thumbs and plant lots of flowers in our growing garden!
We spoke about the different flower names and what we have to do to keep out flowers alive. We cannot wait to plant lots more flowers, herbs and vegetables in our growing garden.

⭐Partou Apprentice Awards⭐
We want to say a huge congratulations to Jasmin for winning the Partou apprentice award for Family relationships.
Jasmin always goes above and beyond for our families and children and wants everyone to feel welcome at Small World.
To be recognised out of 106 of our nurseries just shows how lucky we are to have her and we are so excited to say that she is very close to completing her apprenticeship and becoming a level 3 qualified practitioner.
Keep up the hard work Jasmin!

🌹Giraffes Spa day🌹
This week is children’s mental health week so we have been looking at different activities we can do to help us feel calm, happy and relaxed.
Yesterday we had a spa day!
We added a nice peppermint scent which we all took turns to smell. We discussed how it smelt just like toothpaste!
We poured it into some warm water and then we put some rose petals into our water and put our feet in so we could splash around.
We liked how relaxing it was!

🧘🏻‍♀️Yoga🧘🏾
This week it is children’s mental health week and in the Giraffe room we are going to be trying lots of different activities that help to support our mental health.
Today, we decided to do yoga!
We put the yoga mats on the floor, took off our shoes, and sat on the mats with Beth.
We spoke about our breathing first, taking big deep breaths in and out. This is a good tool to help us self regulate!
Then we looked through the big yoga book, practicing lots of the different poses. To do the different poses we had to stretch up high, reach down low all whilst still taking our deep breaths.
We worked very hard to try and do all the different poses, laughing together and having lots of fun.

🐍🎆🎇CHINESE NEW YEAR 🐍🎆🎇

As it’s Chinese new year we have been doing our circle time and talking all about it!
We have spoke about the festival and what animal they are celebrating with this year which is a snake.
We also spoke about how they decorate their houses and wear fancy clothes and let fireworks off and decorate with lanterns as this is a symbol for the Chinese to let away the bad from the past year.
So we decided we were going to make our own lanterns. We have also made firework pictures with the glitter! We have made super super long snakes with the pipes and using the connectors we worked as a team and made the animal of Chinese new year.

👑👑Zog and the flying doctors 👑👑

This morning we read Zog and the flying doctor’s with Neelam. Afterwards we noticed that princess pearl had lost her crown! So we decided we would help to make her a new one. So we cut out a crown shape and glued it. Next we found some sparkly sequins and feathers to decorate it. We used our fine motor skills to pick up the small sequins and we used our gross motor skills to spread the glue all over the paper. We also enjoyed wearing our crowns!

🎆Happy New Year!🎆
This morning in the giraffe room we have been talking all about fireworks!
We spoke about how loud they are and all the different colours we see when we look at them.
Some of us said we saw them on the TV and in the sky too!
We decided to do some of our own firework paintings. We used lots and lots of colours to make marks on the page and we also added lots of silver glitter too.

⭐My name is Sam and I work in the Cub room⭐
I work in the cub room with our youngest babies and this is my favourite age group to work with.
I have worked in childcare for 14 years now and began working at our sister nursery St Mary's over 11 years ago. I have spent most of my time working with babies and toddlers (But I have also done a short time leading the Pre-school room too). I have been a room leader and was also the deputy manager for 8 years. I decided to step down from this role so that I could spend more time with my daughter. I am the nursery SENCO (special educational needs coordinator) and I have been doing this role for 10 years.
I moved across to Small World from our sister nursery St Mary's 5 years ago now and I just love my job! I find it very rewarding to know I have helped the children grow up to the best of their potential.
I have a 6 year old daughter who is my best friend and little side kick. At weekends we are always busy going to different places and trying new things. You may see us at different events, play areas, trampoline parks, the cinema, theme parks and at may more child friendly places.

This morning in the giraffe room with Neelam we made some reindeer food. We used some oats and glitter to do this. We used the rakes to mix the glitter together. Then we used our scoops to pour the mixture into our elf bags. We also were telling our friends about our Christmas trees and decorations we had at home. We then read “that’s not my reindeer “.

⭐My name is Shannon and I work in the Cub room⭐
I started my childcare journey in 2017 by completing a level 2 childcare apprenticeship. After completing this in 2018 I then took a few years off to raise my own children. The skills I have gained having them has helped me in my everyday tasks and with my role with the children in the nursery.
I decided to come back into childcare this year and joined Small World day nursery in March 2024 as a level 2 practitioner. I was first in the zebra room and I really enjoyed that room. I then came to cubs at the beginning of the December and I am enjoying this room just as much!
I chose to work in childcare because it was my favourite subject in school. My childcare teacher was my favourite teacher out of them all, she was lovely! I enjoy my job because I love spending time with each of the children and creating bonds with them and helping them throughout their journey at nursery. Eventually when the time is right I would love to do my level 3 childcare qualification.

⭐My name is Caitlin and I work in the Zebra room⭐
I started my journey at Small World when I was 17 years old as an apprentice and worked myself up to being a level 3 practitioner.
I’ve always wanted to work in childcare. When I was little I used to always play babies and teachers and have tea parties.
I’ve worked in the Cub room, the Giraffe room and the Zebra room and I have loved working in them all and with children of all different ages!
My favourite things to do in my spare time are spending time with family and shopping.

⭐My name is Jasmin and I work in the Zebra room⭐
I have worked at Small World for 2 years and 5 months within this short time I have found my love of working with children supporting their development as they grow.
I am very close to completing my level 3 in childcare and just can't wait to be qualified!
Working with young children has always been my career career of choice, having previously studied childcare in school and college.
My interests out of work are spending time with my daughter, going to the cinema and shopping.

⭐My name is Charlotte and I work in the Giraffe room⭐
I have been working in childcare since I was 16 but I began volunteering in childcare settings since I was 14.
I completed my level 3 qualification in Children’s play, Learning and development in 2020 and have since gone on to complete my level 4 in psychology and counselling.
I have always wanted to work with children and hoping to specialise in mental health.
I began my career working with children with additional needs and I found this very rewarding.
Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my family and friends.

⭐🎄Twinkle twinkle little star ⭐🎄
In the giraffe room, we have used the different coloured and sized stars to make lots of marks on the cards. We enjoyed going stamp stamp stamp with them, and spoke about what marks we had made, and we also enjoyed counting the stars too.
We decided to do this activity because we have been very interested in our star on top of the tree that we worked together to decorate and we enjoyed speaking about it and singing twinkle twinkle little star.

⭐My name is Jess and I work in the giraffe room ⭐
I began my child care journey at Small World 2 months ago and I am going to start my apprenticeship in the new year. I have settled very well into the giraffe room and I am enjoying my start.
I chose to join child care because I wanted to help the children grow and adapt into the best they could be!
My hobbies are baking at home and spending time with my family.
My interests are rugby games and theatre’s.

⭐My name is Emily and I work in the Lion room⭐
I have been a level 3 qualified practitioner since 2015 which I completed at Doncaster College.
I had a little break from the childcare industry and worked for William hill for a while and decided I missed childcare and wanted to get back into what I love!
I’ve always mainly worked in the 3-5 year old's helping to prepare them for school.
I’ve worked at Small World since march 2024 and I’m looking forward to seeing you all at some point in the future and your children as they move into the Lion room.

🎄⭐Christmas stay and play!⭐🎄

Gemma, Paige and Beth just wanted to say thank you so much for everyone that came to the Christmas stay and play! Everyone seemed to be enjoying all our festive activities and having lots of fun and we all hope you did.

Also hope you all have a lovely Christmas!

⭐My name is Makayla and I am an Apprentice at Small World⭐
I started as an apprentice in October.
In school I chose to do child development however, I never considered a career in child care until one of my brothers got his diagnosis for ASD.
I come from a big family, with 5 siblings and take pride in doing as much as I can for them. Supporting them has changed my perspective and I want to do as much as I can for as many children as I can.
I had a brief start in the Giraffe room before moving to the Lion room and felt instantly confident in my choice of career. I hope to learn as much as I can and make a difference for the better!