Top Tips for Toddlers

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Top Tips – Make Your Own Play Dough

Too chilly to get out? Stay cosy indoors and make your own play dough!

This play dough recipe is quick, easy and there’s no cooking involved whatsoever!

Ingredients:
1 cup of cold water
1 cup of salt
2 teaspoons of vegetable oil
3 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of cornflour
Food colouring

How to make:
Put all the dry ingredients and the vegetable oil in a bowl and slowly add in the water. Give it a good stir until it forms a dough.

The dough should be easy to pick up – if it’s too sticky add some more flour, if it’s too crumbly add more water.

Add a few drops of food colouring to the dough – make sure you knead it well to get the colour to blend in properly.

Get modelling!

When your little one has finished playing with the play dough store it in an air-tight container.

Top Tip: To make it even more fun you can add a few drops of essential oil – lavender is good – glitter, or dried lavender grains to make the dough tactile and interesting to touch.

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Top Tips – Feeling Festive?

Are you channelling the Christmas spirit?! Here are five fun Christmas activities to try with your little one(s)!

With Christmas songs already playing in the shops (‘It’s Christmaaaaas!’), the countdown to Christmas has begun!

We’ve put our collective Christmas expertise together for some great days out in the Windsor area:

Sleeping Beauty at South Hill Park – This year’s panto at South Hill Park, Bracknell runs from November 29th 2016 to January 3rd 2017. Tickets start from £14.25 but it promises to be a good few hours of festive fun. (Oh, yes it does!)

Christmas Illuminations at Kew – Kew are offering a magical after-dark experience with brightly coloured laser beams, tunnels of light and a scented fire garden. You can also visit Santa at the north pole village, plus there’s lots of vintage fairground rides. The event runs from 23rd November and booking is advised. See here for more info.

Ice Skating at Alexandra Gardens, Windsor – Fun on the ice for any age! The ice rink is just five minutes’ walk from Windsor’s main shops. It opens on Saturday 26th November all the way through to 2nd January. There’s a viewing platform for those who want to watch. You can find out more and buy tickets here: http://www.windsoronice.com/

Christmas at Cliveden – Cliveden Country House near Taplow is running a fun pantomime-themed trail during the weekends throughout December (apart from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day). Adults pay the usual admission price and the trail costs £5 per child. There’s also two cafes on site where you can thaw out with a yummy hot chocolate.

Norden Farm, Maidenhead – Suitable for over 3s, Norden Farm’s production of ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’ promises puppets, music, surprises and more. Shows start on 22nd November. See more details and viewing times here:

Enjoy! Don’t forget to tell us about your Christmas adventures at nursery!

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Top Tips – Autumn Activities and Games

With the nights drawing in and leaves starting to change colour, Autumn is definitely settling in.

It’s a lovely time of year to wrap up snug, get outside and explore with your children.
Here are some fun outdoor autumn activities to try:

Leaf Art and Craft – there’s an abundance of beautiful leaves around at the moment. Collect coloured leaves of different shapes and sizes take them home and stick them on some card, paint them or string them together to make a leaf garland.

Not sure your birch from your beech tree? You can download a handy leaf ID sheet from the woodland trust here.

Pooh Sticks – Take your little one to a park with a stream and a bridge and play pooh sticks. When you collect sticks talk about the different shapes and sizes of sticks and what they feel like. Aldenham Country Park near Watford has a free flowing stream and you can even visit Winnie the Pooh’s home in 100 Acre Wood for free!

Blackberry Bake Off – Jammy and juicy, blackberries are in abundance at the moment. Forage hedgerows and take them home to bake with. Blackberries are yummy in crumbles and flapjacks.

Mini Beast Hunt – Pack up your magnifying glass and head to the woods to hunt for bugs and beasties. There’s plenty to see this time of year, from spiders spinning webs and wriggly worms to lovely ladybirds and late summer bees. You can draw them too when you get home.

Woodland Playground – Woodlands make the best play grounds. Wendover Woods in Wendover, Swinley Forest in Bracknell and Black Park in Wexham all have woodland trails, forest playgrounds and nice welcoming cafes for post play tea and cake.

Don’t forget to tell us about your autumn adventures at nursery!

Yummy blackberries!

Yummy blackberries!

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Top Tips – Five ways to have fun outside this summer

Now the sun is finally (!) putting in an appearance, it’s the perfect time to get out and enjoy the great outdoors.

Remember to take sun hats, sun cream, cool drinks (it’s a good idea to pack plenty of water, especially when travelling by car) and a change of clothes for your little one.

Here are five fun, purse-friendly activities to try with your little one:

1. A day at the sea-side: Why not pack up your bucket and spade and head to the sea-side? There’s plenty to do, from hunting for sea shells to poking around in rock pools. West-Wittering near Chichester is a two-hour drive away and has a large sandy beach, grassy picnic area and beach café.

2. Park life: There are some lovely parks near Windsor, including Windsor Great Park, just south of the town. Slightly further afield but still only a relatively short car journey away are Black Park – a country park near Wexham with a lake, café and woodland play area – and Cassiobury Park in Watford. Cassiobury Park has two large playgrounds, a miniature railway, plus acres of space for picnics and ball games. Its paddling pool area is due to re-open in Easter 2017.

3. Back garden fun: Throw open the back door and set up some fun activities in the garden. How about filling a paddling pool and adding some ball pit balls? Or letting your little one go for it with the paint pots? Unused or old wallpaper rolls are fab for drawing and painting on and as it’s outside there’s less mess to worry about.

Some large coloured chalks and a small concrete space will keep little ones entertained for hours – simply wash the area down with a hose (or wait for the rain) to clean up after.

4. Get planting: If you have space, clear a small patch to plant vegetable or flower seeds. Flowers such as sunflowers and sweet peas can be sown directly into the ground and shoot up fairly quickly. Some varieties of sunflowers (the Mongolian Giant) can grow over 10 feet. If you don’t have a flower bed, why not pop some tomato plants or potato seeds into a grow bag on your patio?

5. Pirate treasure hunt: Indulge your inner pirate by holding a treasure hunt. The kids can dress up too! Make a treasure map with clues and send them on their way. A bounty of gold chocolate coins at the end will make a tasty reward.

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Getting your child ‘school-ready’

Our aim, together with your support, is to help your child get ready for primary school.

Here are the main areas we focus on to ensure your little one is school-ready.

Emma Summersgill, Founder of the Riverside Day Nursery, Windsor, says: [pb_blockquote] “We work closely with our pre-schoolers to learn lots of skills, such as phonics, pencil control, simple maths, sensory, literacy and understanding the world. But besides these, we also focus very much on developing our pre-school children’s social skills and confidence. For example, helping them to learn how to dress, socialise with other children, write their name and name recognition. All this helps prepare them for the next important stage of their journey, starting primary school.”[/pb_blockquote]

To help build the children’s social and academic skills, here are some of the key areas we focus on prior to starting school:

• Social skills – Knowing how to play well with other children (most of the time!) and make friends
• Self-help – Understanding how to sit still and listen when they need to for short periods, dressing and undressing independently (practising buttons and zips), being able to carry food on a plate and hold a knife and fork
• Self-confidence – Listening, being interested and being prepared to ‘have a go’, developing confidence so that they can communicate their needs, for example, putting their hand up and asking to go the toilet and other important questions
• Manners – Saying ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’
• Literacy – Preferably recognising some phonic sounds, perhaps writing some letters in their name and recognising their name
• Numeracy – Showing some number recognition and being able to count or share objects.

It’s a good idea to practise these skills at home too. If you would like more information on how to prepare your child for school, please come and talk to us.

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