We celebrated the Chinese New Year by making the children familiar with Chinese food and culture. The preschool children enjoyed cooking and tasting Chinese noodles using chop sticks.
Melian, whose child Andy attends our Eglantine Pre-School group kindly presented a slideshow to the Pre-School and After-School children about the origins of the Chinese New Year. She spoke to them about Chinese Astrology relating it to the year the children were born. She also provided prawn crackers and boiled dumplings which the children enjoyed for snack.
The children created dragon masks and danced the dragon dance to symbolise the Chinese New Year.
The children had the opportunity to make fortune cookies. We wrote fortunes on paper and put them inside the cookies.
Chinese lanterns have been used for thousands of years and are tradionally used to bring good luck. Our Pre-school and After-School children went to the garden to let go of the lanterns and make a wish.
Deramore and Eglantine nurseries kicked off the Christmas season with our annual Christmas parties. Minced pies, Mulled wine, Christmas puddings and Christmas cheer warmed the parents as they settled in to enjoy the entertainment.
The parents join in the festive fun activities!
Eglantine Pre-School and After-School children presented ‘The Sleepy Shepherd’
Deramore Pre-School presents ‘The Nativity Story’
Deramore After-School present ‘Humph the Camel’
The children were so excited to meet and receive a special gift from Santa.
The children have the opportunity to explore different sensory materials daily during discovery play.
The children have had the opportunity to experiment bubble blowing. They created some amazing space paintings.
Throughout the month of October the children have been busy making Halloween decorations for the nursery.
Halloween arrived and the nursery looked spooktactular!
The children had a fantastic time adding a spooky touch to discovery play.
We all thoroughly enjoyed our Halloween fancy dress parties. Thank-you to all our parents who offered support by providing and even making wonderful costumes.
During the month of September the children have been taking part in numerous activities both in and out of the nursery. On a Friday morning Jo Jingles pays a visit to the nursery to interact with the children through music. Jo encourages the children to sing, dance and play musical instruments along with his favourite songs.
The pre-school children keep fit at Salto Gymnastics. During their session at Salto they take part in obstacle courses. Here they are given the opportunity to develop their large motor skills and co-ordination on the A-Bars and the Balance Beams.
Monkeynastics class keeps our excited Toddlers very fit each week. When they visit they bring with them various pieces of equipment such as a trampoline, balancing beams, “monkey bars” and other amazing pieces of equipment. Monkeynastics also takes the toddlers on a long walk through the “Jungle” which resembles an obstacle course that encourages the children to use their imagination!
The children attend a Soccer coaching class once a week which the boys and girls really enjoy. This activity really encourages the children to play together as a team.
Throughout the Autumn season in the garden we have been watching the leaves fall, then collecting leaves, twigs and acorns to use in our discovery play activities and to add to our nature table.
During our Summer months the After-school and Pre-school children enjoyed taking part in summer outings. They went on several visits to Belvoir Forest Park were they carried out activities such as Mini-Beast hunting and Pond dipping. The children had a lot of fun searching for Mini-Beasts both in and out of the water.
The Pre-school children paid a visit to the Belfast Zoo were they encountered a number of different animals. The children got the opportunity to meet and handle the smaller animals. The children had fun looking at the Hedgehog’s spikes and touching the Lizard. They enjoyed getting to see the Elephants, Monkeys and other animals that live in the Zoo.
As the children from the nursery had visited many different places, a visit from Jumping Clay was a change of pace. The children had so much fun when they were given the opportunity to make an Octopus. They really enjoyed having Jumping Clay in the nursery.
Throughout these summer months the children have been taking part in a number of exciting activities, in our newly renovated garden enjoying a range of new outdoor equipment.
All our Toddler and Pre-school groups have enjoyed their outings to the “Ark Open Farm”at Newtownards. They were able to feed the lambs and young goats bottles of milk and even hold a week old chick in their hands. Many of the children were so brave they fed carrots to the donkeys and threw grain to the hens and chickens.
Fundraising for Comic Relief was a great event at “Over The Rainbow”. All the children and staff were involved in someway. Babies had Pyjama Parties, Tiny-Tots were dressed as the Gruffalo, Toddlers went for a walk in fancy dress. The Pre-school children at a Trike-A-Thon and even the After-school children joined in after their hard day at school by having a Rock themed disco.
Many thanks to everyone who kindly helped us raise £ 1720.03 for Comic Relief. Your generosity was greatly appreciated.
Children inspecting the ongoing work
Brand new improved facilities underway at our Deramore site. New Kitchen and Dining room improvements with a larger Messy Play Area being designed.
The children have loved watching the diggers and larger transport vehicles going to and fro from the Nursery and seeing ‘real buiders’ at work !
We once again apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and look forward to sharing our improved facilities with you and your children.
