Tel 07876 485516

7^th September 2011

Dear Parents

Welcome back!

We hope you all enjoyed the summer holidays and we offer a warm welcome to the new children and their families who will be joining us over the next couple of weeks.

Over the next two weeks our topic will be “Getting to know you” - we will be concentrating on helping the children to settle back to the routines, and helping the new children settle into their new environment.  During this time, we will be getting to know the children, their likes and dislikes and their interests. We will be providing lots of activities to help them feel settled and valued – and we would also like to ask for your help with this, in particular with photographs and home books.  The children will also be making special ‘me’ boxes – more details will follow when they bring their boxes home – we do hope you will enjoy helping them with this mini ‘project’.

Photographs

Please could you let us have a small, fairly recent photograph of your child with members of the family to put on a ‘family board’.

Home Books

If you have not already done so, it would be great if you pop a note in your child’s home books to let us know what he/she has been doing during the summer holidays.  We would also like to make a special plea for you all to update your home books regularly throughout the year.  It doesn’t have to be updated daily (although we would ask that your child brings it in each session), but if you could aim for once a week that would be brilliant.  The children really enjoy looking at their books with their key person and also each other, plus they are a great way of stimulating language and a sense of belonging as they talk about their experiences at home and during outings, from local trips to shops to trips to zoos, farms, swimming etc. 

Furthermore, the home books give us a real insight into the children’s interests, and often provide us with topic ideas. You don’t have to write reams in the home books - we find that often the children particularly enjoy looking at photos and pictures in their books (you could include brochures and leaflets from, say, a farm visit or bus or train tickets). To make it even more appealing, the children can add their own colourings, drawings and ‘writing’ (this includes random ‘scribble’ – all mark making is valuable) and stickers. 

WOW certificates

These are an opportunity for you to sing your child’s praises and share with us their achievements away from Pre-school, for example, stop having a dummy at night, swimming without armbands or maybe their first dip in the pool, trying new foods etc or something that they or you are incredibly proud of…

The WOW certificates will be shared with your child and key person and during whole group or small group circle times.  The certificates will be placed into their Learning Journey books as a reminder. A few certificates are attached to get you started.

We are looking forward to another fun year ahead – we hope to see lots of you during session time (a new ‘stay and play’’ rota will be on the wall next week, although you are welcome to join us any time).  Your child’s key person will keep in touch with you throughout the year to talk about your child’s progress and share their ‘Learning Journey’ – should you have any concerns or any questions at any time, please feel free to contact your key person or any of the staff at any time, either in person, or by telephone using the number above

And on a final note, don’t forget to look at the web-site now and again – I will endeavour to keep all diary dates and topic and activity details on the ‘just play’ and ‘weekly play’ sections. 

Kind Regards

Mrs Helen Kenyon

Supervisor