Deck the halls
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and the children have been working like little elves making decorations in readiness for the big day. They have made a number of different Christmas tree decorations including pine cones, paper lanterns and wooden shapes. For the Christmas dinner table they made candle centre pieces using evergreen branches pressed into oasis foam. The nursery was also decorated with paper chains made by the Sunflower group.
As Christmas is a time for giving we wanted the preschool children to have the opportunity to make something delicious for somebody they love. In last week’s cooking session they made Christmas cakes complete with a decorative box and had to decide who they wanted to give it to. A number of them struggled with the idea of giving their treat away and insisted that they would be eating it themselves! Christmas time provides us with many opportunities to teach children about the joys of giving and thinking of others before ourselves.
Last Friday we celebrated Christmas Jumper Day in aid of Save the Children. We saw a magnificent selection of jumpers ranging from fluffy penguins to illuminating Christmas trees. Through your kind donations we were able to raise £232.76 for this worthwhile cause, which is over double that we raised in previous years.
On Monday we were visited by Lucy from Dental Specialists St Albans who gave an assembly on how to look after your teeth. The children were well informed and all seemed to be able to tell her which foods are good and bad for their teeth. Some children even knew how many teeth they had!
On Thursday and Friday we celebrated our nursery Christmas parties and the sessions were jam packed with games, puppet shows and prizes. The children couldn’t believe their eyes when they were visited by some very special guests. For our preschoolers Father Christmas took time out of his very busy schedule to meet the children and gift them a small gift. Our Italian children were very impressed when Santa began speaking to them in their own language and he told them to leave out some panettone for him on Christmas eve! The younger children got to meet the Christmas Fairy in the afternoon who had brought presents all the way from Santa’s grotto!
We now find ourselves at the end of what has been a very busy Autumn term. We have been so impressed by the progress made by all of the children and grateful to all of our very supportive parents. The children are visibly excited for the festivities in the coming weeks but we hope that they find some time to relax. Being the last week of term this is the final blog of 2018. With that I join all of the staff at Mount Carmel Kindergarten in wishing you and your families a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.