Hucknall Day Nursery

🌍🐝 World Wildlife Day at Nursery! 🐝🌍

The nursery celebrated World Wildlife Day with a wonderful hands-on activity all about helping our local wildlife. We were delighted to welcome Hannah Perkins from Hucknall Wildlife Group, who came to show us how to make bee bombs!

Our toddler and preschool children mixed together compost, native wildflower seeds and clay. There was lots of pouring, stirring, squishing and rolling as little hands worked carefully to shape the mixture into balls — it was fantastic sensory fun and a lovely way to learn about nature.

Our next task is throwing them into the garden! The children are very excited for this part, and we can’t wait to watch over time as the wildflowers begin to blossom. Hopefully, before long, we’ll see lots of bees visiting and enjoying the flowers too. 🌸🐝

A big thank you to Hannah for such a meaningful and engaging experience for the children.

🐾💛 Celebrating Love Your Pet Day! 💛🐾

Last Friday we had the best time celebrating Love Your Pet Day! It was wonderful to see so many photos of your much-loved pets and to hear everyone chatting so proudly about their animals. From sharing funny stories to talking about how we look after them, it was clear just how important our furry (and not so furry!) friends are to us all.

We were also delighted to welcome Stephen and Sam, who brought in their beautiful, award-winning Beagles, Rayna and Cody. 🏅🐶 The children and staff loved seeing their impressive rosettes and learning more about the dedication involved in caring for show dogs. Everyone had the chance to gently stroke them, and they were so calm and friendly — true stars!

We’re especially excited that Cody will be appearing at Crufts later this year — we’ll definitely be cheering him on! 🎉

A huge thank you to all of our amazing families who kindly donated items for the RSPCA. The donations were delivered yesterday and the team were incredibly grateful. Your kindness and generosity will make a real difference to animals in need.

Thank you to everyone who took part and helped make the day so special. It was a lovely reminder of the joy and comfort our pets bring to our lives. 🐾💛

A huge thank you to T's Tasty Treats for very kindly donating a beautiful selection of delicious cakes for our amazing apprentices and newly qualified staff 🧁💛

They were such a thoughtful and generous treat, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed them.

Our assessors have also taken the time to write personal messages for each of our apprentices and newly qualified staff, which we’re looking forward to sharing with our families. It’s so important to recognise the hard work, commitment and care they have shown throughout their journey with us. Each and every one of them has made a positive difference to our nursery, and we are incredibly proud of what they have achieved.

Thank you again for supporting us in celebrating them in such a special (and sweet!) way ✨

National Apprenticeship Week ✨

This week we’re celebrating the incredible apprentices who are such a valued part of our nursery family.

From those currently studying and developing their skills, to apprentices who have successfully qualified and gone on to secure roles within our nursery and at other nurseries, we are so proud of every journey.

We’d also like to say a huge thank you to our amazing mentors — our room leads, managers, and practitioners — who have played such an important role in supporting, guiding, and helping our apprentices grow. Their time, patience, and dedication truly make a difference.

We’d also like to say a special thank you to KR Bespoke Events & Occasions, who we were delighted to book to decorate our reception area for National Apprenticeship Week. Their beautiful setup will help to make the week feel extra special and is a lovely way to highlight the importance of our apprentices and celebrate their achievements with all of our parents.

✨ National Storytelling Week at the Nursery ✨

We were so excited to welcome Mel from our local library, who came to share a wonderful story with the children on our very own comfort couch, positioned just outside the Preschool room. Many of our parents have already enjoyed spending special moments with us on the couch, and we’re looking forward to it becoming a true extension of our hygge approach—a cosy, welcoming space for everyone to sit, relax and enjoy a story together.

Storytelling continued across the nursery throughout the week, with our babies enjoying a joyful sensory session with Hannah from Lullababy, while Zita from Boogie Beats visited to bring stories to life through singing, dancing and playing instruments with our Toddler children.

Our days have been filled with sensory walks, exciting activities, and lots of learning inspired by the wonderful world of our children’s favourite stories. There’s been pyjama days, cosy picnics, rainy-day adventures, a rocket trip to the moon 🚀, baking, and so much more!

It’s been a week full of imagination, curiosity, laughter and creativity—and we’ve loved every moment watching the children explore stories in so many magical ways. 💕📖

Throughout the week, the joy experienced across all rooms has been so evident, and none of this would be possible without our exceptionally talented nursery team. Their ability to listen to the children’s interests and turn them into engaging, inclusive experiences is what makes our nursery so special.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this week so memorable and magical! ✨

🇦🇺✨ What a ripper of a day celebrating Australian Day! ✨🇦🇺

Our children had an absolute blast learning all about Australia today! We explored boomerangs and even made our own, discovered some amazing Australian animals, and got creative painting and colouring our very own animal masterpieces 🎨🦘🦜 So much learning, creativity, and excitement packed into one fun-filled day — we’re so proud of our little artists and explorers!

🌼 An Exciting Community Project! 🌼

Today we were delighted to welcome Hannah from Hucknall Wildlife Group into our setting to share a wonderful new initiative with our children.

The children were given cowslip seeds and compost, which they will be planting and caring for over the coming weeks. Once the plants have taken root, our families will then have the opportunity to re-plant these flowers out in the community to help encourage local wildlife. 🐝🌸

We are so excited to be involved in this project and incredibly proud to be working alongside Hucknall Wildlife Group to make a positive difference together. Thank you for involving us — we can’t wait to see our community bloom!

🎄✨ A Christmas to Remember at Our Nursery! ✨🎄

What a magical festive season we’ve had! From Santa landing in our car park 🎅✨ to Christmas crafts, sing-alongs 🎶, dancing 💃 and wonderful visits from St Mary’s Church, Warriors Utd and Lullababy — plus Christmas teas with our families — our nursery has been bursting with joy, laughter and festive cheer ❤️

We’re also incredibly proud of our amazing staff team for spreading Christmas kindness by donating to our local food bank 💝

We wish all our nursery families a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year, filled with good health and happiness ✨🎄

A huge thank you to our lovely neighbours at Whyburn Court for welcoming us today! 🎄

We set off on our little adventure wearing our brand-new high-visibility jackets, kindly gifted by Eagle Building Specialist Ltd, the builders currently working on our nursery roof. The children were so excited and felt very grown-up in their special jackets! 🦺💛

When we arrived, the children sang their Christmas songs beautifully and even practised some Makaton signing. Our standout favourite was “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” — the children performed it with such joy and confidence. 🦌❤️

It was truly heart-warming to see the smiles on the residents’ faces, and many of them commented on how special the performance was. They were full of praise for how polite, well-mannered, and wonderfully behaved the children were.

We ended our visit by wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas, and the residents kindly surprised the children with some chocolate as a thank you. 🍫🎅

A truly lovely festive experience for everyone involved. 🎶🌟

Well, that’s a wrap for another year with our wonderful Hucknall Ukulele Group!

They’ve entertained us all year long, bringing so much fun, laughter, and joy with every visit. We always love hosting this special group from our community—they show such genuine interest in what we’ve been learning and in everything that relates to our children.

Thank you for another fantastic year of music and memories! 💛🎵

✨🎄 Visit Our Festive Storytime Tree at the Christmas Tree Festival! 🎄✨

This year, our tree celebrates one of the most magical traditions of all… reading with your child at bedtime. 📚💫

Every story shared builds confidence, imagination, and the kind of memories that stay with us for life. Our tree is decorated with reminders of just how special books are — including beautiful book-cover artwork created by the children themselves!

A huge thank you to our wonderful parents for sending in your treasured photos of your children with their favourite books. They’ve helped make our Storytime Tree truly magical. 💖

🌟 Don’t forget to cast your vote! 🌟

📚🎄 Because the greatest gift we can give is a story. 🎄📚