WOODLAND CORNER: WINTER UPDATE

 

WOODLAND CORNER: WINTER UPDATE

 

The term has flown by and we can’t believe how quickly Christmas is approaching! We have welcomed several new children and families to Woodland Corner and all have settled in really well. Michelle is also now fully embedded in the team having started with us before the summer. We are so grateful for her years of nursery experience and for her transformation of the creative area, which is a hit with both the pre-schoolers and the extended schools children. We have loved seeing the wonderful artwork that has been made.  

Speaking of art, Woodland Corner hosted its first ever art exhibition, Our Colourful World, over two days in November. Skymeadow Gallery exhibited a collection of beautiful paintings which, in addition to being brightly coloured, had a connection to Suffolk or East Anglia. On the Friday night, art lovers (aged 18 and over!) browsed while enjoying delicious wine from Nayland-based wine merchant Anglia Wines and we hosted child-friendly activities on the Saturday. The exhibition was a huge success and raised more than £800. We have already put some of the funds towards a giant easel so we can continue to stimulate creativity in all the children who attend our setting.

 

This term has been busy with other fundraising events, which are vital to us as a charity. We hosted a bake sale, a very successful stall at the Nayland bonfire and fireworks (the extended schools children also helped us to make the guy!) and a tombola at the Nayland Christmas Fayre. We have raised over £1,000 in total from these events and are so grateful to you and your families for your generosity and support.

 

We celebrated Halloween with a pumpkin volcano science experiment and spooky yoga. Yoga sessions are on Tuesdays and multi sports, run by Maxim Sports Coaching, is on Mondays. The children really enjoy both of these activities. 

We have also focused on literacy and speech and language development this term. We read books such as The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Whatever Next! and acted them out with props. We celebrated nursery rhyme week and did an outing to the phone box to choose some new books, as well as hosting a maths week. While our outing to the war memorial was cancelled due to the terrible weather, we commemorated Remembrance Day, making a poppy wreath and explaining the significance of the event to the children.

 

The children will perform their Christmas songs next week at both the care home and the Nayland Church coffee morning. We are also getting ready for our Christmas party on December 20^{th _} the children are very excited to show their families the songs they have been practising so enthusiastically for weeks!

 

We have plenty to look forward to in the New Year, including putting a recent curriculum course into practice and developing Woodland Corner’s new website. We also plan for Laura to start hosting weekly forest school sessions. She is passing her training with flying colours and will start in March, when the weather is a bit warmer. More children will also join us from January and we are so busy that we are looking into doing an extension!

 

Wishing all our families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Christmas crafts at Woodland Corner!

 

Our Christmas Tree in St James Church Nayland

 

Woodland Corner's Gingerbread boy tree

Emma decorating the tree

Nayland Primary School's tree

The children have been busy making their tree decorations to decorate a tree in St James Church Nayland.

 

We will be running our very popular tombola stall on Saturday.

 

Our first EVER Art Exhibition at Woodland Corner - Sponsored by Chapman Stickels

 

Our next fundraiser!

 

Holiday Club 2023

 

Our next fundraiser in conjunction with Nayland Family Festival.

 

Woodland Corner Blog - Summer Update

Summer Update:

We have certainly been very busy over the past few weeks! The sunny, warm weather has meant lots of time outside enjoying our beautiful new mud kitchen, which was built for us by Salvage Stitch Restore. This family-run company specialises in creating bespoke furniture items from wooden pallets that would otherwise end up in landfill and our new kitchen is a fantastic addition to Woodland Corner that will last for many years to come.

We have also loved seeing the results of all the hard work the children and their grandparents put in during our Grandparents’ Gardening Week in May. All that weeding, sowing and planting has really paid off and we now have lots of flowers to enjoy as well as the promise of everything from lettuces to potatoes and strawberries. Given the recent heat, the paddling pools and sprinklers have seen lots of action, while the posts for our new garden sun shades have gone in so the sails will be up any day now.

At the start of June, we finally held our Sponsored Walk, which had been delayed from the Coronation due to the bad weather. When the day arrived, we couldn’t have asked for sunnier, drier conditions! The children all did so well, especially given it was quite hot, and we want to extend huge thanks to the staff for helping and to the parents for participating. Another big well done to the children for smiling so nicely for the photographer – we can’t wait to see the photos when they are ready in a week or so.

Forest School sessions also resumed in June. These are always hugely popular with the children and, here at Woodland Corner, we believe they are an important part of early years education. Forest School emphasises child-centred learning based on the belief that children should play without adult interference – rather, the adult’s role is as a facilitator to children’s learning. Research undertaken on Forest School shows it can improve children’s concentration, confidence, motivation and language skills, as well as having a positive influence on their engagement with the natural world.

Finally, the children have enjoyed our recent topics. We’ve had music week, which involved making some really cool instruments and decorating them. Who would have thought you could make an instrument out of toilet roll tubes?! Another theme has been under the sea, with lots of painting and arts and crafts, including making jellyfish out of paper plates. Even our yoga session that week was sea-themed – the children loved practising their crab and shark poses and were taught how to use the sounds of the waves to connect with their breathing.