Little Butterflies Nursery

Hello and welcome to Little Butterflies Nursery! 

We are the youngest members of the Grangetown Primary School family, catering for children aged 2 - 3 years.  If you are interested in joining the Butterfly gang, you can pick up an application form from the school office or you can pop into Nursery to speak to a member of staff. 

About Little Butterflies Nursery

At Little Butterflies Nursery we aim to provide a happy, safe and stimulating  environment for children to explore, investigate and learn. We believe that by providing support, praise and encouragement, the children will be able to flourish and reach their full potential. 

To ensure the best possible start for the children we follow a play based approach to learning in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. By closely observing the interests of our children, our practitioners are able to create a fun, stimulating and meaningful learning environment that sparks curiosity and encourages independence. 

Meet the Team

Charlotte - Room Lead                                Helen - Nursery Nurse

 Donna - Nursery Nurse                             Daphne - Nursery Nurse   

Session times and Prices

Little Butterflies provided places for 2 - 3 year old children. As we work to a ratio of 1:4 we are able to offer 12 morning places and 8 afternoon places. We also provide full days to a limited amount of children depending on availability. 

For families who are eligible, we offer FREE 15 hour places. Families have the option to choose either Morning/afternoon sessions or if it is more suitable 2.5 days. Children who attend a full day session can pay £2.20 per day for a school dinner or if preferred can bring in a packed lunch.  If your child receives a school dinner, the additional £2.20 per day will be added to the total cost.

We encourage good attendance and punctuality at Little Butterflies Nursery. We have found that sticking to your child's Nursery routine helps your child to feel happy, safe and settled. 

If your child is not attending their session please inform the school office of their absence.

If you will be late to collect your child please call the school office to let us know. 

Termly intakes 

At Little Butterflies we welcome new children on a termly basis. We have 3 school terms - September, January and April. Your child will be able to access their place at Nursery the term after they turn 2. 

If you are eligible for FREE 15 hours you will need to apply for your code the term before your child is due to start. You MUST inform us off their code before they begin their sessions. 

Snacks & Refreshments

We provide a variety of delicious and nutritious snacks for the children including fresh fruit, toast and pancakes. We also offer a range of drinks such as milk, and fresh fruit juice.

We also enjoy baking and cooking with our Little Butterflies and love to eat our tasty treats!

If your child has any dietary requirements please inform a member of staff and we can find an alternative. 

Your Child's Progress

Sharing your children's progress and achievements are vitally important to us. There are a range of ways that we communicate your child's progress with you: 

• Weekly updates/ monthly newsletters
• Termly parent/ teacher consultations 
• Tapestry - Our online Learning Journeys: When you fill out your registration forms it would included a letter about Tapestry and an accompanying consent form. We will create a secure account with the details you provide us which enables us to upload photographs, observations and reports relating to your child's time with us. As a parent this allows you to view exciting achievements via a computer or smart phone. 
• Open Door Policy: All of our staff are happy to answer any queries or questions during drop off and pick up times. More lengthy meeting can be arranged usually for that week or you can also email and phone us at any time.

Reminders

Could we remind parents and carers to bring the following items in their child's bag:

• Spare clothes - top, trousers, underwear, socks, etc 
• Extra spare clothes if your child is toilet training 
• A water bottle 
• Nappies, wipes and cream 
• Wellies - these can be left at nursery 
• Slippers - these can be left at nursery 
• Hat, scarf and gloves in the winter 
• Sun hat, sunglasses and sun cream in the spring/ summer. 
• A coat appropriate for the weather.

June

This month we have focused on one of our new core stories "Going on a Bear Hunt" We decided to go to Back House Park and go on our own little Bear Hunt. We found some swishy swashy grass, thick oozy mud, a deep dark forest and a BEAR !!! We even  found time for a lovely snack at the park. All the children were amazing they used their listening ears and really enjoyed being independent and exploring the park. The children have loved this story and can already remember the story and are able to retell the story in our Bear Hunt small world.

Bear Hunt June

 May

This month we had lots of fun getting to know our new Little Butterflies. We found out what makes them happy and it was lovely to see them forming friendships already. Everyone loved exploring I think it's safe to say everyone really enjoyed playing outdoors the best, especially the water !!!! We  the children had shown an interest in planting. We planted some pumpkins, peas and strawberries. We can't wait to watch them grow.
                                                                                             

April

This month we have enjoyed being outside exploring. We found lots of worms in the planting area. We had fun digging and seeing what else we could find. We then brought the worms with us to read them a story. We made marks using the shaving foam on the windows and easel. We made an obstacle course using the planks of wood and the pallets. I think everyone love jumping in the water area making big splashes. We finished the month off by welcoming our new Little Butterflies everyone has done an amazing job settling in. We can't wait to get to know you all !              

March

This month we  walked to Back house park to look for different animals and also to see if we could see any changes in the seasons. The afternoon children had their first visit to Grangetown park, we had lots of fun on the slide and swings, we even found some flowers to pick.

We had our Easter stay and play with our mammies and daddies, the children loved showing their grown up all the fun things to do at nursery. I think everyone enjoyed being outside in the warm  sunshine.

We had a little visit from Angela's Ark, she brought a variety of animals for us to meet. She gave us the opportunity to hold and stroke some of them. There was even a giant African snail !

We finished off the term with a bouncy Ofsted treat, everyone loved the bouncy castle even the staff. Peter Rabbit even came to say hello to us. 

Thank you for another lovely month Little Butterflies, we hope you have a lovely Easter.

February

We have been very busy this month  at group time we have been reading The Gingerbread Man as one of our core stories.

This month we visited our local bakery to see what goodies they sold.  The children enjoyed looking at all the different cakes. We managed to buy some gingerbread men and some star biscuits we took them back to nursery to eat for our snack they were very yummy.

The next day we decided to be the bakers and we made some yummy Valentine's cakes for the people we love. We all took it in turns to  measure the ingredients,  pour them into the bowl and then stir them.  Once they were cooked everyone had a go at decorating.

January

This month we have welcomed our new children into our Little Butterflies family and they are all doing really well settling into their new nursery routine.

We have also celebrated Chinese new year which the children loved. We tried some new foods at snack time, had fun ribbon dancing to traditional Chinese Music and we were mesmerised by watching the parades with all the different dragons.

This term one of our core stories was The Three Little Pigs. We set up a provocation in our small world to see what the children would do. They were very excited and couldn't wait to start building the three pigs house's. It was lovely to hear the language the children were using as they talked to each other. The children were able to tell us what the three houses were made from and that the big bad wolf goes huff and puff !   

December

This month we have been having so much fun celebrating CHRISTMAS!! The Butterflies really enjoyed helping to decorate our Nursery making it feel so cosy and magical.

We stole the show as shining as stars in the Early Year Nativity 'Wriggly Nativity' where we sang and twinkled to our song 'Twinkling stars.' The children were fabulous and so brave!

 We also enjoyed a Christmas treat - a visit to soft play! The children absolutely loved their visit to Fuzzy Ed's where they are able to burn off some of the Christmas excitement by sliding down the big curly slide!! 

We also hosted our Parent Christmas workshop where our families were able to join their child making Christmas crafts. Thank you to everyone who came! We really appreciate all your support :)

Finally to end and amazing and extremely busy term we had our Christmas party with Big Nursery, Reception and Key Stage 1. It was full of dancing, party games and delicious food! To top it all off, we had a special visit from Santa Claus! He couldn't believe how fantastic we have been all year and was so proud that we all got an early Christmas present!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

See you in January!

 November 

This month we started to explore our new topic 'Light and Dark.' We began our topic by celebrating Bonfire night! We enjoyed watching a fireworks display on the interactive whiteboard which inspired us to make our own sparkly firework pictures. We discussed the fireworks that we had seen on Bonfire night and talked about keeping ourselves safe at when watching the fireworks and playing with sparklers. 

We then celebrated Diwali - the festival of light! We read 'The best Diwali ever' to introduce this new celebration to the Butterflies. The story was full of beautiful and colourful pictures of Rangoli patterns and even talked about some special foods that are typically made during this holiday. Donna and the Butterflies decided to make Coconut Burfi which are delicious Hindi sweets just like in the story! The Little Butterflies really enjoyed helping to mixing all the ingredients together before leaving them to set in the fridge. They were delicious and we can't wait to make them again!

Finally, we read 'Peace at Last' one of our favourite core stories! A story about a bear who couldn't get to sleep because of all the noise. We decided to play 'What's that noise' with the Butterflies linking the sounds to the sounds in the story. The Butterflies were fantastic at listening to the sounds and were about to identify all the sounds. 

October

October has ben a busy month at Little Butterflies. We went on our first walk to Backhouse Park to look for things linking to Autumn. We found plenty of leaves, sticks and bits of bark. We also found lots of conker cases and pinecones and even a big, juicy slug! While we were at the park we experienced glorious sunshine and lots of rain! 

The Butterflies have also joined the rest of Early Years and Key Stage One in the hall to celebrate Harvest Festival. We collected lots of food donations for our local food back and sang Dingle, Dangle Scarecrow in front of all our special grown up! 

Finally to end a busy month, we celebrated Halloween with lots of spooktacular activities such as pumpkin carving and chopping, decorating Halloween biscuits and finally getting dressed up as scary monsters for a Halloween party! 

September 

What a month September has been! We have welcomed some fabulous new Little Butterflies to the gang and have even welcomed 2 new members of staff - Helen and Donna. It has been so wonderful to see how kind and welcoming our returning Butterflies have been and makes us all very excited to see what happens in the year ahead.  

Check out all the fun we've had so far!