Dates for your Diary
* 26th September - Jewish New Year - Cooking Lukach - Honey cake
* 3rd October Harvest Festival
* 24th-28th October Half term
* 31st Halloween - dress up day [optional]
* Sat 5th-11th November Bonfire/Firework Celebrations
* Friday 16th Dec 11-1pm Christmas Party all children welcome - 1.30pm Christmas Celebration afternoon for all. [Parents/grandparents must accompany children]
* Friday 16th December - End of term.
* Wednesday 4th January 2023 - Spring term begins
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome
With the new term well under way a big Welcome to our new children and families who have joined us this term. The children are settling in really well and enjoying their time with us. Thank you for your hard work too in helping with their transition into preschool.
It's been great seeing our returning children and families coming back after the summer break [although that feels like a long time ago now]. We are enjoying hearing all about what you got up to over the holidays, looking at the photos that you have shared with us on Tapestry too.
As you can see, we have several things planned for the term ahead - plus more that aren't’ yet finalised. So keep an eye on Facebook, WhatsApp and emails.
Talking WhatsApp - thanks to everyone who has messaged to be added to the group it is a much easier way for us to communicate with you.
Don’t forget to join our closed Facebook group - this is for parents and staff of Playgroup only - we use it as another platform to show you what we are doing, put out notices or updates - as parents of children here you can also share recommendations, parenting ideas and advice or ask for help/advice too. It’s as much for you all to benefit from as for us to post.
Snack and lunches
As we settle back into the term we continue to promote healthy snack and lunches in Preschool, Our morning snack are milk or water, with a range of healthy options , when covid happened we took on providing all of the snack [parents used to provide fruit previously] but with the cost of food rising we thought we would see if any families would like to donate the occasional bunch of bananas or if you have a glut of apples, pears on your trees perhaps send if a few for the children to enjoy at snack time. All of this helps immensely.
Change4lifeLunches are a great social and learning opportunity for the children too, and you can help your child even more by sending in small yogurts and a spoon [a great skill to learn and very helpful for when they go to school to be able to feed themselves using cutlery] as opposed to the squeezy tubes/sachets that they need help opening and then often squirt everywhere. Most of the packed lunches are great but if you need any ideas have a look at Change4life website. website. website. Change4life website.
Tapestry!
Hopefully you will all now have activated your Tapestry accounts to access your child’s online learning journal. Remember you as parents can also upload photos and observations, to share with us what your child/ren are doing outside of playgroup. We love to see a holiday snap or something that they want to show us - we can look at them together in the setting. If you open Tapestry in a web browser you have access to extra features that we use including - documents, memos and end of term reports - so please try to do this from time to time. The app is available on IOS and Android. If you have any problems, please ask. There are lots of useful help topics for Tapestry online to have a look here- https://eyfs.info/forums/topic/47795-tutorials-contents-page-for-relatives/
Christmas Party & Celebration
Yes before we know it Christmas will be here - so to plan ahead we are letting you know the arrangements for the last day of term - especially for those who may need to book time off work to join us.
This year we are doing things a little different again - the Children’s Christmas Party will be from 11am-1pm on Friday 16th December [With entertainment and party food. No sessions this day]
Children arrive for 11am prompt start and are then collected at 1pm.
We have decided to then go straight onto our Christmas carols celebration
We have missed having our parents involved during the pandemic so we are inviting you all back in to join in singing Christmas Carols and enjoy mulled wine and mince pies. A lovely end to the Christmas term.
Children will all need to be accompanied by a parent/carer during the Carols or if you are unable to attend then they will need to be collected at the end of the Party.
Christmas Raffle
We will be running our successful Christmas Raffle, previously organised by one of our VMC members—Parents are asked for prize donations, which are then made up into hampers [consisting of something for both children and adults in each prize box]
You can then purchase raffle ticket to be in with a chance to win a hamper.
We will ask for donations nearer the time [suggested items like chocolate, drinks, books, craft kits, drinks, bath products to name but a few the list is endless]
And let you know when ticket are on sale and the raffle will be drawn after the Christmas Concert.
Fundraising
Our Trim trail is now nearly 20 years old and in need of replacing so we have already started to fundraise towards the cost of a replacement - With one of our building trustees chasing up quotes for replacements we believe we have found a suitable supplier - we now need to raise a considerable amount of money for this nearly £8000.
The trustees have been looking into grants but so far have been unsuccessful. Therefore, all fundraising this year will go towards the cost of replacing the equipment. We really appreciate all the support from our families in the events that we do throughout the year, as a registered charity we have to do this to replace out equipment. If you have any ideas to help raise the funds, please do get in touch.
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