Tortoise Nursery

Preschool have had a super week of exploring what they can do with paper...cutting and folding into shapes and 'art'! We've done lots of cooking and then making our own dough Lots of outdoor role play, practicing our gross motor skills and then visit from Claire @ Mini Athletics this afternoon! 🥰🤩🥳

A mix bag for Preschool this week as they found bugs, explored fruit, loved crafting which turned into Pirates so making their own ship and role play games! Number splat, hunting for treasure and developing their story telling skills too! 😄🥳🧐

A super sensory and heuristic play week for toddlers! We've also been loving shakers, learning how to use bats with balls and copying Coco and Kelly's dance moves 🤩🥳😎
**IF ANYONE HAS ANY EMPTY HERB/SPICE/GLITTER SHAKERS WE WOULD LOVE THEM PLEASE!**

www.specsavers.co.uk

https://www.specsavers.co.uk/book/location

Did you know all children aged 4-8 get FREE eyetests and should have one every year? Book in at Wellington Specsavers for a fun and age appropriate test today 🤓

www.specsavers.co.uk

Toddlers have had a busy couple of weeks...we've been noticing colour so are starting to categorise, small world play, a love of brushes and brooms as well as the usual mess and muck!! 😄🥳😎

Preschool have been very independent this week and done alot of working together, creating their own activities and exploring the many weathers we have experienced!! Our school leavers are loving learning about the letter sounds and even looked at the 'tricky' words this week too! We have had lots of crafting, role play and critical thinking too 🤩🧐😎

Talk PANTS

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/pants-underwear-rule/

Talk PANTS Our PANTS activity pack makes it easy to talk to your child about staying safe from harm. With a word search, dot-to-dot and maze game, you can help them learn without using any scary words.

Hi all! We are on the hunt for rugs, old curtains, tablecloths, large scarves and wallpaper rolls please!! 😄🧐🙏

⚠️Recall alert: Asda is recalling eight George Home sleeping bags for ages 0-36 months. This is because there’s a risk that the snap buttons on the bags can become loose and may detach. This makes them a potential choking hazard.

If you own one of the affected bags, stop using it immediately and return it in-store for a full refund.

The affected products are:

Happy Floral Sleep Bag, 0-6 months, 6-18 months, 18-36 months, 1 tog.
Barcodes: 5057172999958, 5057172999965, 5057172999972

Stitch Sleep Bag, 0-6 months, 6-18 months, 18-36 months, 1 tog.
Barcodes: 5063089070925, 5063089070932, 5063089070944

The Lion King Sleep Bag, 0-6 months, 6-18 months, 18-36 months, 1 tog.
Barcodes: 5057172999835, 5057172999842, 5057172999859

2pk Natural Safari Sleep Bag, 0-6 months, 6-18 months, 18-36 months, 1 tog.
Barcodes: 5063089070895, 5063089070901, 5063089070918

Rainbow Sleep Bag, 0-6 months, 6-18 months, 18-36 months, 1 tog.
Barcodes: 5057172999897, 5057172999903, 5057172999910

Dino Sleep Bag, 0-6 months, 6-18 months, 18-36 months, 1 tog.
Barcodes: 5057172999989, 5057172999996, 5063089000007

Dumbo Sleep Bag, 0-6 months, 6-18 months, 18-36 months, 1 tog.
Barcodes: 5063089000014, 5063089000021, 5063089000038

Bunny Floral Sleep Bag, 0-6 months, 6-18 months, 18-36 months, 1 tog
Barcodes: 5057172999927, 5057172999934, 5 5057172999941

Preschool have visited their friends at Morris Care every day this week..they have been spoilt with treats, played games and had some lovely chats together 🥰 Their confidence and kindness has amazed us all!
Back at HQ they have explored waterfalls and water flow, doing sums/counting, team work with some unusual building materials to make bridges and the usual lovely role playing including buses (DVD cases for hats 🤣) and teachers (children leading circle games!) 😎🤩

Toddlers loving scooping, filling, pouring, threading and poking! They have started to use large items to carry and reposition for a range of purposes this week too....they've made roads and explored moving on the crates in a range of ways! They're exploring big/ small/heavy vocabulary so lots of opportunities engaged in this week in the water outside too! 🥰🤩🥳🧐

Preschool have had a super week filled with numbers, matching quantities to the numerals, loose part play and bridge building! Lots of problem solving, experiments, mixing, filling and role playing too! 😃🤩🥳😎

Every Wednesday we hold a play session for under 5s where there is plenty of toys, books and some games, which is NOW being held in our more spacious, upstairs event room. £2.50 entry also get you and your little one unlimited standard tea, coffee, juice and toast. And yes we run it all year around, including holiday periods 😁 SPECIAL THEMED SESSIONS COMING VERY SOON 😃

A super few weeks in toddlers too where they've been continuing their love of textures, mark making and pushing their physical abilities! they are beginning to play together so nicely and problem solve! 🤩🥳🧐

A super half term for Preschool.....they've explored tadpoles, caterpillars/butterflies, patterns, writing, construction, role play, creative thinking skills, working together, building their gross and fine motor skills, mixtures and textures and as always building their resilience by showing determination achieve their own goals 🥳🤩🧐😎 Only 7 weeks left for our school leavers too! 🥲🥰

If any of our lovely parents (Past&Present) have any of these jigsaws around the house not getting used... We would love to give them a loving home :)
Our Toddlers are really loving these at the moment.
Thank youuuuu!
Kell x

Hahaha 😅 Happy bank holiday all... Remember we are closed tomorrow 🎉

A super start to the Spring term for Preschool too....plenty of weather to explore and physical games and skills to practice! We had a lovely stay and play for Easter too! 😃🥳🧐

A fabulous few weeks to welcome in Spring in toddlers! 😄🥳🧐

It's official....we are OUTSTANDING!! Little old Tortoise has done it....we are super proud of ourselves, the children and our lovely families! We will continue to take our pride from our daily work but to be recognised like this puts the cherry on the top of the cake! 🥰🥳🤩

Here are our favourite snippets from the report.....

'Children thrive at this inspirational nursery'
'The nursery team nurtures strong relationships with children and their families.'
'Children are intrigued and deeply curious to explore the extensive variety of learning activities that have been thoughtfully planned by knowledgeable staff'
'Staff are passionate about what they do. They extend children's experiences beautifully as they offer fascinating, intriguing and exciting activities in a well organised, child-led play environment.'
'Children are independent and behave very well. They are thoughtful and interact sensitively with each other'
'Children's resilience is a strong focus and staff endeavour to take every opportunity to support this.'
'Staff understand about child development and know their children extremely well.'

Full report can be read here https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50214353

Some very special visitors this morning!! The lovely and patient firefighters of Wellington took an hour of their time and showed the children their truck and tools! We definitely have some future heroes on our hands! 😊😎

We are on the hunt for some frog spawn guys!! If anyone can help please drop us a message!! We can collect!! 😃

Preschool have had one great adventure today visiting Telford Town Park and also the Exotic Zoo! We saw various animals from Rabbits to Lemurs and also lots of new life! The children mainly loved seeing the baby goats and stroking them inside a small pen which I'm sure they will always remember and talk about for days about them! Definitely worth a visit if you need something to do in the holidays! 🐇🐢🦦🦨🐐🦘

Preschool will be visiting the exotic zoo on Monday if anyone would like to meet them there! 11am opening time 🙏🏻 weather dependent!
They have been loving animals... Listening to facts from our books and asking questions 👀🕵️

We are looking for a new apprentice as our wonderful Jade joins us fully qualified now 🙌🏻❤️🎉 A huge well done from us all!!

Toddlers have had a super week or 2 as well…..we have taught them to BLOW! This is a great skill for strengthening those mouth muscles and supporting breathing techniques.
They have loved finding different objects to use for blowing... Straws, bottles, bubble wands, potato mashers and blowing the watery paint across the table.
We have been doing lots of work on our hand and eye co-ordination, by doing this we have used various resources to thread. Playdough and skewers have been a big favourite as well as sticks and foam.
We have invited parents in for a "mothers day" stay and play which was lovely to see.
We have seen high levels of focus during activities over the last few weeks and children showing perseverance.

A super couple of weeks in Preschool! They ended last week showing off their awesomeness to an Ofsted inspector so watch this space for our results!! 🤩
More magnets, junk modelling, recycling that ended up leading on to textures.....measuring the daffodils then exploring the snow really messed with teaching the children about the seasons but it's all good for those questions about our world!! School leaver group have started flying in their maths and literacy....we have some good little problem solvers who are interested in sums and they are loving copying letters and starting to do some phonics already!
As always, teamwork and high levels of engagement shining through our critical and resilient little people! 🧐😎

Photos from Wrekin Forest School & Adventure Centre's post

Free childcare places for 2, 3 and 4 year olds - Telford & Wrekin Council

https://www.telford.gov.uk/info/20393/free_childcare_places_for_2_3_and_4_year_olds

Free childcare places for 2, 3 and 4 year olds - Telford & Wrekin Council Find out if you can access the 15 hours and 30 hours of free childcare per week.

SEND - Local offer

https://www.telfordsend.org.uk/site/index.php

SEND - Local offer Information about Special educational needs and disability (SEND) local offer.

A good remember from BBC Tiny Happy People about the importance of rhymes and songs.

A great few weeks for Preschool which included a visit to Cosford Museum and to the park.✈️ We have also been exploring how magnets work and used these to complete races and paintings. 🧲 We have also done lots of risk taking with obstacles and also started to explore the daffodils! 🌼

Toddlers have had a super week....lots of outdoor play in the mud kitchen, bat and ball and tunnelling! We have LOVED the kitchen roll absorbing the watery paint and ended up sticking it to the windows! Threading, posting and filling/pouring galore using our problem solving skills and building that perseverance! Lots of love going around too with the children saying 'ta' to each other when they want something they've got and even asking each other for cuddles 🥰🧐😎

Toddlers have also had a wonderful start to their year! they have been focussing on cause and effect (through posting, hiding objects, ice play, mark making) and categorising objects in a range of ways! They have loved looking at different colours, using different tools and most of all they continue to show us their independence and ability to come up with new ways to do things that we could never plan for! Sticking playdough on windows and easels, shaking the pasta out of tubs to watch it fly, using balloons as mark making tools to name a few! ☺️🧐😎🥳

Preschool have had a wonderful first half term of the year!! We have explored ice/snow, wind, Chinese New Year, had storyteller visits, learnt about healthy eating by making smoothies and soup, celebrated Pizza Day, explored positional language, plenty of cutting, using hammers, making obstacles courses, role play, playdough, building, loose part play AND of course....looking at books together! 😁🧐😎

ALSO REMEMBER CHILDREN SHOULD NOT WEAR COATS IN CAR SEATS TOO PLEASE!! 😃

Babies need regular breaks from their car seats when travelling. So, if you’re going away this half term, remember to plan in some short stops along the way. You’ll also need to think about where your baby will sleep once you arrive as car seats are for transport only and shouldn’t be used as an alternative for a cot.

More info available on our car seat advice page as well: https://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/safer-sleep-advice/car-seats-and-sids/

Our childrens library is looking a little bare, if anyone has any books they would like to donate I would be very grateful. 📚📚📚

Pre-school (0-5) online safety tips and advice | Internet Matters

https://www.internetmatters.org/advice/0-5/

Pre-school (0-5) online safety tips and advice | Internet Matters Pre-school (0-5) online safety tips and advice | Internet Matters. Help pre-schoolers get the best out of the internet and understand staying safe online.