Welcome to our Fareacres Weekly Blog - Fareacres Pre School and Day Nursery - Childcare at Gants Hill and South Woodford

Food Banks

Every day people in the UK go hungry for reasons ranging from redundancy to receiving an unexpected bill on a low income. A simple box of food makes a big difference, with foodbanks helping prevent crime, housing loss, family breakdown and mental health problems. Non-perishable in-date food and toiletries are donated by the public at a range of places, such as schools, churches and business, as well as supermarket collection points. Care professionals such as health visitors, schools and social workers identify people in crisis and issue them with a foodbank voucher. This entitles them to go and collect some food to ensure there family can eat.

For Redbridge residents the food banks have been a necessity. Redbridge has been listed as being in the top 50 deprived local authorities (out of 326). You can find out more about the work of the food banks on the link below:

http://www.redbridgefoodbank.org/

At Fareacres, we feel compelled to help those less fortunate and have begun to collect required goods with the aim to make a large donation to the foodbank in February. This will work even better if the whole Fareacres community joins together. It may be just one can of food, a box of cereal or a tube of toothpaste, but everything will be donated and of value to a family.

Fareacres will be contributing to the box by adding extra items on our weekly shopping and through donations made from staff. If you can search through your cupboards, include your child in the process and allow them to bring their item into nursery and put it in the donations box.

At Fareacres the children will be encouraged to participate, and staff will be leading sessions explaining to children the importance of helping others. This will help the children develop a sense of social awareness and understanding of differences between their own lives and those of others.

Children have been engaged during the discussions and keen to contribute, they said:

“It’s for parents who don’t have enough money” – Maliha

“I will bring breakfast” – Vanishka

“I bring toothbrush” – Rahib

“I will bring pasta” - Misari

Food Bank GH

Olly - "I have cake for people who don't have a home or food"

Rosie - "I have don't it before. I put in a box and gave it to the church"

Sanjna - "I am going bring in make-up"

Mae - "A food bank is for people who can't buy any broccoli"

Chloe - "I am bringing food back for the people who don't have any"

Food Bank SW

Weekly Experiences

In the baby room at Gants Hill the children have been exploring the outdoor environment to assist with this terms topic ‘The Great Outdoors’. The weather this time of year is cold, but the children have been well wrapped up and have made the most of all available resources. The benefits of outdoor play span across the entire Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. It ranges from physical development to personal, social and emotional development. At Fareacres we believe that children of all ages should have access to the learning opportunities in the outdoors and that they should experience this daily.

Garden Time

In Gants Hill the clever cats have also been participating in activities exploring the theme of the great outdoors’. Using the natural resources from the garden the children have created their mini beasts using non fiction books to support their learning. Some children have made spiders, some made grasshoppers and some making lady birds. Within the EYFS it states that children should ‘show care and concern for living things’ by carrying out these activities it introduces these concepts to the children. To extend the learning children are also encouraged to label their work with their name, this enhances literacy development and gives children encouragement to form letters correctly.

Mini Beast Activity

Sharks room in South Woodford have been to Tesco to pick up some ingredients to bake cakes. The children took a shopping list with them and helped to scan items before putting them in the carrier bag. This helps the children to develop their literacy and mathematical development in a practical way that uses an environment that they are familiar with. Whilst making the cakes, children were using their gross motor skills to mix and scoop the ingredients. The children were also using number recognition by checking the weight on the scales matched the weights needed to bake the cakes and also communication skills to listen and follow instructions.

Cooking Activity

Starfish children in South Woodford have enjoyed their weekly Sports Session with Zak, this week the children were concentrating on listening skills and ball control. These Sessions run on Thursday morning 9.15-10 and are suitable for children aged 3 and above to help with gross motor skills and listening and understanding.

Sports Session

Stingrays children in South Woodford have been washing and cleaning the babies. The practitioner led the activity and the children copied her by cleaning the babies. They pretended to bathe them and then cleaned them with cotton wool. This role play offers a variety of learning opportunities as the children are being communicated with continuously with age appropriate language, introducing new words.

“eyes” – Frederika

“ears”- Clara

“clean” – Clara

Rainbow Fish in South Woodford are learning a new song which involves hand movements and gestures. “A crocodile is very snappy, a crocodile is very snappy, a crocodile is very snappy it couldn’t be anything else” they are learning the snap action whilst singing this version, next verse replace crocodile with hedgehog and use the term is very prickly and a snake hisses. The children enjoy joining in with the actions. Listening and attention is developed whilst learning the new songs and also speaking.

In Gants Hill the baby room has been discovering musical instruments. They loved making lots of noise and exploring the different sounds the instruments made. The listening skills they are developing will assist them later with their ability to distinguish between the sounds in words when learning to read. The also used a variety of fine motor skills which strengthens and develops the muscles they will need in the future when learning to write.

Musical Instruments

Top 5 Children’s Quotes of the week

“I lost my watch, it’s a real watch and its lost” – Minh Anh

“I like my happy face best” – Andreas

“I’m good at matching” – Luca

“I celebrated Pongal” - Vanishka

“I went on a plane to the zoo with mummy and daddy and I drunk coffee” – Anish

Quote of the Week:

‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’ - Nelson Mandela

Thank you for taking a glimpse into our Fareacres Learning Community

Until next time...