Our Blog.
Welcome to our blog. Here you’ll find news, updates and events relating to Little Cedars Day Nursery along with useful articles and information about childcare, parenting, nursery life, Streatham and early years education.
Welcome to our blog. Here you’ll find news, updates and events relating to Little Cedars Day Nursery along with useful articles and information about childcare, parenting, nursery life, Streatham and early years education.
Little Cedars Day Nursery
27 Aldrington Road
Streatham
London
SW16 1TU
020 8677 9675
Email us here
The nursery is open
7.45am to 6.15pm
Monday to Friday
(Except Bank Holidays,
Christmas Week &
1 inset day per term)
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Outdoor Safety for Kids — Top Tips
As parents and caregivers, we understand the incredible value of outdoor play in our children’s development. The fresh air, unstructured exploration, sensory-rich experiences, and social interactions contribute significantly to their holistic growth. However, while we encourage outdoor adventures, safety must remain our top priority. With that in mind, this article provides some essential tips and precautions that will help to safeguard children during outdoor play. The suggestions can be used as a checklist, but parents/caregivers should use it only as a starting point and do their own risk assessments.
Free Minibeast-Spotting Activity & Poster for Children
Today’s minibeast-spotting activity is the third in a series of nature-based children’s activities and, like the others, comes with a free poster. As with the bird-spotting activity and butterfly-spotting poster, children can display this new minibeasts poster on their bedroom/nursery wall, or print it out for reference when they’re spotting minibeasts outdoors. This is another fun and educational nature-based activity and, as we know, spending time in nature is hugely beneficial to children, including the very young.
The minibeasts poster will help children identify 30 critters that are commonly seen in gardens, country walks, city parks and anywhere there are flowers, plants, trees or soil. Children can explore, under supervision*, to see how many of the creatures they can discover. To help record this, there are tick boxes that children can use to mark which ones they’ve so far spotted. Why not see how many they can identify over the summer and autumn? The poster is sized at A3 but can also be printed out smaller, e.g. at A4. It can also be viewed large, on screen, for glorious colour and detail.
Support for Children with SEND in Early Years Settings
Today, we’re looking at what help is available for children under five with Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (‘SEND’, also sometimes referred to as ‘SEN and disabilities’). Good support for such children, particularly in their formative years, is of critical importance to their longer-term progress, well-being and success. Appropriate support, provided in a timely and tailored manner, can have a real, positive impact on outcomes for children’s lives.
Sowing & Growing Wildflowers – a Nature-Based Activity for Kids
In today’s guide, we outline a simple but powerful nature-based activity that will be both fun and educational for children and under-fives. This one is all about how to sow wildflower seeds. Once growing, these will bring beauty and wonder to any setting. The activity will also complement our recent Butterfly-Spotting Activity for Kids as it should result in exactly that kind of little visitor to the child’s world — along with bees, insects, hoverflies, damselflies, and possibly even dragonflies and birds. Sowing and growing wildflowers really is very simple and the results will be beneficial in a multitude of ways. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how to approach this excellent children’s activity and learn why it’s so worthwhile.
Guide to the Progress Check at Two
At Little Cedars Nursery, we understand the importance of monitoring growth in children’s learning and development and ensuring they are reaching their full potential. With that in mind, today’s article is a detailed guide to the Progress Check at Two. An essential milestone in children’s early development, the assessment leads to profound benefits for young children. So, today, we will walk you through everything you need to know about the Progress Check at Two, its purpose, what to expect, and how parents* can actively participate.
Free Butterfly-Spotting Activity & Poster for Children
Following on from our bird-spotting article and poster published in March, we now bring you a matching butterfly-spotting activity. Butterflies are both beautiful and adorable. As such, children will love them and will enjoy spending time around them during this activity. Like before, it comes with another free poster for children to print out, display, learn from and enjoy. Butterfly spotting is another wonderful way to get children outdoors to enjoy the fresh air and benefit from everything that nature has to offer.
This time around, we showcase 36 beautiful butterflies that can be seen in many parts of Britain. Indeed, that was one of the main criteria we used when deciding which butterflies to include. Having said that, some of the butterflies will be more common than others and we really don’t expect every child to spot all 36 butterflies that are featured — although it’s possible if they’re patient and adventurous! It’s a lovely challenge for children, though, and spotting such beautiful creatures may begin to instil in them an appreciation of nature and all the amazing creatures within it. That would be a good thing because nature is more under threat than ever and children of today will eventually become custodians of Britain’s phenomenal natural environment. Nature will also benefit children in many profound ways, including spiritually and even academically.
Bird Feeders: a Creative ‘Nature’ Activity for Kids
A wonderful way to encourage young children to enjoy and learn from nature is for parents to help them make bird feeders. There are many ways to approach this creative, fun activity and it’s sure to result in lots of our feathered friends visiting. Birds are delightful creatures that are simply a joy to see and hear. They will also greatly appreciate the extra food, particularly at times of the year when it’s more scarce or when they have little mouths to feed. So, this is an activity that’s a win for everyone! Some birds may even become regulars if the food is topped up. In fact, we’ve given some of our own visiting birds names as they now come every day and even stare through the window at us when food needs topping up! With all this in mind, today, we take a look at some of the simple ways children can make home-made bird feeders to encourage birds to visit. Take a look and see how easy and creative the activity can be.
The Blossom Parent App (Rough Guide)
Staying on top of children’s activities, nappy changes, meals, and developmental milestones can be a challenge for parents when they happen away from home at the child’s childcare nursery. At Little Cedars, however, we use the Blossom app to take care of all of this. The mobile phone app is designed to help make things easier for parents by providing real-time updates on children’s activities and progress, as well as providing a convenient platform for communication between parent and childcare provider. In today’s guide, we’ll take a closer look at the Blossom app, its benefits, and how it can be used to bolster the partnership between childcare providers and parents.