…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!
We’ve got a playdough recipe you can make at home and inspiration for lots of fun ideas to try…
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!
What you’ll need…
2 cups plain flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 to 1.5 cups boiling water
gel food colouring
Colourful Caterpillar
Spotted Dinosaur
Mushroom Stool
How to make no-cook playdough…
Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl
Add food colouring to the boiling water
Add the boiling water to the dry ingredients, little by little
Stir continuously until it becomes a sticky dough
Allow to cool, then take out of the bowl to knead vigorously for a couple of minutes until all the stickiness has gone
If it’s still a little sticky just add a bit more flour
Why not try… The Very Hungry Caterpillar!
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!!
Get ready for Santa with Polkadot’s Makaton Advent Calendar!
Shhhhh!! Can you hear the sleigh bells ringing?
Open a door each day and learn all our signs for Santa!
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!
Click here for our latest newsletter from Athlone…
Or click here for our latest newsletter from Cresswood!
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!
The results are in – and the response has been overwhelmingly positive!!!
“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.
The survey made it clear that Polkadots’ shining feature is our excellent staff!
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!
Thanks to everyone who took part in our survey! This year, we’ll do our best to maintain our high standards and keep nurturing and inspiring children at Polkadots!!
“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.”
Our February Newsletters are here!
We’ve got news about the return of yoga and dance classes, lots of info about Children’s Mental Health Week, plus Kath has some wintry weather Makaton signs too!
What did you think of our photographer?
If you have two minutes to answer a few questions, your answers will really help us organize future visits from people like Jo at Jampics
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 5 minutes flat!
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!!