Click here for our latest newsletter from Athlone…
…or click here for our latest newsletter from Cresswood
There’s exciting news about the return of yoga and dance classes. We’ve got lots of information about Children’s Mental Health Week and the “Express Yourself” campaign. And after all the snow and ice, Kath has some wintry weather Makaton signs for us too!
It’s all in the PolkaDots newsletter!!
PolkaDots would really like to know what you thought of our mini photo-shoot!
If you have two minutes to answer a few questions, your answers will really help us when organizing future visits from people like Jo at Jampics
Easy-Peasy Make Your Own Playdough
Here’s a simple recipe from the lovely people at The Imagination Tree. There’s zero cooking and minimal prep – in fact, you can make it in 5 minutes flat!
A PolkaDots favourite, the Very Hungry Caterpillar has lots of playdough possibilities! The Imagination Tree website gave us ideas for playdough storytelling.
You can try making 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums… How many of the caterpillar’s vegetables can you make from playdough at home?
And once you’ve made all those tasty vegetables, you’ll have to make a very Very Hungry caterpillar to eat them all!
Click here for our latest newsletter from Athlone…
…or click here for our latest newsletter from Cresswood
Catch up with a dancing Pudsey to find out how much we raised for Children in Need. Find out who our special visitor from the North Pole was. Learn the words to our favourite Dinosaur Song or a recipe for making playdough at home! It’s all in the PolkaDots newsletter!!
This term at Cresswood PolkaDots we’ve been learning all about Dinosaurs!!
We learnt a song about Dinosaurs and it goes like this…
We know they come in all shapes and sizes but mostly they’re really, reaaaallly BIG!
Shhhhh!! Can you hear the sleigh bells ringing?
To get ready for Christmas, Polkadots is doing its very own Makaton Advent Calendar! Every day we’ll post a sign on our Facebook page. Kath will teach you songs and rhymes and show you how to use your new signs!
Will you be able to learn them all and complete our Makaton Advent Challenge?? To help you get ready, here’s a warm-up round!
Can you guess the sign for Reindeer???
Click here to see all our activity ideas
Click here for our latest newsletter from Athlone…
There’s information on how we’re making the nursery Covid secure, introduction to new staff members, results from our parent survey and even a recipe for banana pancakes!
“Staff are kind and friendly and Alyssa loves coming here. Would not have her anywhere else”
Amanda H.
To help Polkadots keep improving, we surveyed parents and carers to find out whether Polkadots was nurturing their child in a safe and stimulating environment.
We asked questions covering 14 areas – like “Is my child making enough progress at this nursery?” and “Is Polkadots led and managed effectively by the management team?” – then asked parents to answer in one of four ways: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree.
87% of responses Strongly Agreed! And the remaining 13% all Agreed too!!
It’s great to know our parents think Polkadots nursery is educating, nurturing and inspiring their children as well as communicating well about their progress and keeping them safe.
71% of parents told us our team was the thing they and their children loved most about the nursery. Other things our parents loved include our activities (like cooking, dance lessons and yoga class), our clean and safe settings, and the happy environment at Polkadots.
“Arabella is really happy and loves nursery. She has come out a lot in herself and is learning new things every day”
Danielle B.
2 out of 3 parents said they couldn’t think of any way to improve our nursery…!
Two parents said their children love Polkadots so much, they want to be in our nursery from even earlier in the day!! We can’t do that just yet – our excellent team of staff have their own children to wake up and get ready for school – but we’re always listening for ways we can make Polkadots better for all our children.
For example, one parent suggested technology was an area we could improve in. So we’ve responded – now we’re giving parents detailed guidelines on how to use our Tapestry app during our settling meetings.
Another suggestion we received was a parent get together. Sadly, we can’t do this with current Covid restrictions. But in the future, is this something you’d be interested in? Get in touch and let us know what you think!
“The staff are amazing and have been so supportive… communication between nursery and home is excellent. Joe has thoroughly enjoyed his time at Polkadots and will miss everyone so much. The progress he has made is great and all thanks to the excellent staff. We can’t thank you all enough.”
Emma F.
