Zeeba Daycare Chantrelle

Our 2 year olds made Flapjacks at cookery class. The children experience so pride and a feeling of competence when they have helped create something to eat, especially since they are so used to having an adult prepare food for them at home.
Cooking helps children to practise a range of physical skills, particularly their hand-eye co-ordination. Movements such as peeling and grating also strengthen the hands.
Our toddlers take turns each week at cookery class, each child gets so excited when it is their turn, and feel so accomplished at the end of the cookery class.

Our Preschool children loved and enjoying making Pancakes from the scratch. Creating meals with children can help build their self-confidence and lay the foundation for healthy eating habits. It may take a little flexibility and some simple prep work, but it is worth it.

Toda, the babies had Christmas dinner at nursery...yum! Chef Gloria simply made a version of the Christmas dinner that suits their age and stage. Offering the same or similar foods to what you’re eating is great too. It helps to make sure that your baby copy and learn to eat the same foods as the rest of the family. Which can make feeding much easier later on! Additionally, their vegetables, potatoes and meat were all served in multiple ways – soft cooked, as finger foods, mashed, pureed, or even whole for the older babies.

Today we had Christmas dinner at nursery...yum!
The children and the staff enjoyed eating a traditional British Christmas meal at lunchtime. We all had roast turkey with roast and mashed potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts and broccoli. For pudding we had a special Christmas cake Baked by Ms Gloria.

It was great to celebrate the festive season with the children and highlight one of the traditional ways that we mark Christmas in British culture.

All the children ate really well... some even finished all of their sprouts! They are getting really good at cutting up their food and they all remembered their table best manners. Over the dinner table we chatted about whether the children had put up their Christmas trees and decorations at home and what they had asked Father Christmas to bring them on Christmas morning.

Santa and his elf came to visit us. All of us at Zeeba Chantrelle excitedly awaited Santa’s sleigh arriving at the nursery grounds. And all of a sudden, there he was in his beautiful red suit, black shiny boots and beard as white as snow. He greeted the children with a joyful ho ho ho!
Santa and Buddy the elf, were extremely impressed with the tremendous welcome from the children. There was no question that each individual child deserved a gift, and the children received their presents from Santa and his helpful elf.
it was indeed a fun day for us all.

Our children have been so excited every time they saw the Christmas trees in the rooms, they always yell out, “Christmas tree! we wanted to build on their Christmas tree excitement with a simple invitation to play. This fine motor Christmas activity ended up being perfect for them! They loved putting the Tinsels and Baubles on the tree.
One of our simplest fine motor activities is Christmas themed- Decorating the Christmas Trees with Pompoms and baubles . This Christmas activity is a great way to work on fine motor skills while participating in all the holiday fun!

The children were so excited to see the Christmas Elf. He has definitely been busy! he even made breakfast Angels with the children!
The Elves provide an insight into the festival of Christmas. Being imaginative & expressive – through both the sessions with the Elves and the activities, our children are encouraged to be imaginative and express themselves creatively and through play and imaginative activities.

The Halloween season is a fun and exciting time of the year for children and parents to create unique costumes that represent a fun idea, career, theme or favourite character from a book, movie or television show.
Dress-up play allows children to dream, hope, and use their imagination. It gives them permission to pretend to be someone or something different and extraordinary that reflects their personality and current interests and promotes more independence by allowing children to practice self-care skills. we decorated the Preschool room, and our themed book of the day was "Room on the broom" The morale of the story is all about the importance of friendship and benefits of being kind to others. It was so much fun for both children and the adults.

Setting the table at meal times is an important life Skill for Children to Learn, and starts the custom of eating together.
When you allow children to take an active role, they feel useful. Taking out the plates, forks and napkins sets the tone for togetherness.
Our children love and enjoy the process of setting up for meal times; laying out plates and cutlery instils confidence, it is also a great opportunity for discussion about numbers and colours.

Our toddlers are at a very interesting age where working together help to achieve our children’s developmental milestones. Children in this age group learn how they play, speak, behave and move (like jumping, running or balancing), and have a growing desire for independence. They experience huge thinking, learning, social and emotional changes that will assist in their understanding of the world.
In the Toddler room we follow a more structured routine with set meal/ snack times, group times and outside play. We include a wide range of activities including dough play, shape sorting, soft books, songs and musical activities, sand and water play, messy play, role play, fine motor skills, threading and mark making.
The children just love exploring!

While working in the garden, our pre-schoolers develop fine motor control and also work larger muscles, gardening uses practically every muscle in the body. The children can also practice colour recognition, identify fragrances, and learn how fresh food tastes.

For kitchen science this week, the Preschool children learnt how to make Meringue. This experiment looks at how egg white ( albumen ) is transformed as it is whisked.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND MERINGUE
When we whisk egg white, two things happen:
The whisk creates a force through the egg white which unfolds the protein molecules.
The whisking also causes air bubbles to be trapped in the unfolded proteins which makes a foam.
When baked the foam hardens into meringue! How cool is that?
To practice this at home, and make your Meringue, go to:
https://www.science-sparks.com/how-to-make-meringue/?utm_campaign