May 2025

Dear Parents,

This term we welcome Arlo de Pinna Tilbury to Little Steps, I am sure that with your support

he will soon settle especially as he already has friends within the group.

We have started our new project on ‘Food’. We will cover where our food comes from, why we need food and I hope to do some cooking. We will have and exciting visit from Clover the ‘goat’ and Daisy the ‘cow’ who will give the children the opportunity to ‘milk’ them. They come from Newbury agricultural show as part of their education programme. This project will also fit very well with our garden as we have beans tomatoes and courgettes already planted. A huge thank you to Max (Nate’s mum) for sorting out our lack of soil problem. In science we will investigate time, seasons days of the week, months, parts of the day etc. Lots of outdoor learning and arts, crafts and music.

Please apply suncream on hot sunny days and make sure your child has a named sun hat. It is often cold and windy at Little Steps so coats and jumpers are also needed. A change of clothes should be kept at school in a draw string bag, ready for accidents or messy/water play.

Concept Photography are coming to Little Steps on 8th May. Every child will have their photo taken during the morning as well as any siblings that are able to come. If older siblings come we will get them in first so they are not too late at school. Concept take the most stunning pictures, there is no obligation to buy but they are hard to resist.

Bag2School will be collecting from us on Tuesday 20th May. They collect clothes, shoes, linens, belts & bags to recycle. We have used this company for a few years now and they are very efficient, unfortunately the amount per kg that we will receive has been drastically reduced this year due to the increased costs of re-distribution and the troubles around the world, so it is even more important that we all make a huge effort to collect as much as possible, ask your friends, neighbours and families please. This is our main fund raiser for Little Steps and helps us to replace and update our equipment, please support us.

With this newsletter is the form for our Summer holiday club. Little Steps children always have a priority but please return your form as soon as possible as I already have people asking for forms and it does get booked up very quickly.

Children may borrow a book from our library to share with you at home. If they would like to borrow a book or are returning a book, their book bag needs to be put in the red box which is beside the big table and we will then help them to choose a book, this book will be your child’s choice.

Bertie is our Little Steps school bear he doesn’t eat very much, always goes to bed when he is told and is easy to entertain. When he comes back to Little Steps he helps your child to tell everyone what he has done while he stayed with you. His suit case and diary are ready! If you would like Bertie to visit please let us know so we can put it in the diary.

Our Facebook page is updated every Friday with lovely photographs of activities we have done during the week. Please comment and share so others may see what we are doing. We also try to put quote for the week up on Mondays, this is usually from Montessori and promotes our philosophy.

A few reminders.

Please take care in the car park. Use the in and out gates appropriately, drive slowly both in and out and park considerately! Remember there may be a child about! If you need help when carrying bags and babies to the car please ask, we are always happy to help.

As usual we continue to need Birthday cards for cutting and sticking and foil milk bottle tops, also washed and dried egg shells..

Is your child potty training? They have to have clothes that are easy to manage in order to give them every opportunity of success, so undoing belts, braces, dungarees, and pop up vests does not help!

If your child is not able to come on a particular day or will be more than a few minutes late please give us a ring or text on the number above. Our morning does start at 9am and I am aware that some children will always be a few minutes late due to other school runs but please get to Little Steps as close to 9am as possible.

Have you changed address or phone number? We need to know.

Please remember to tell us of any change at home which may effect your child, any thing from a pet dying to a parent working away or unusually at home, can unsettle young children and it helps us to help them if we know. Rest assured anything we are told at Little Steps is completely confidential. Please also make sure we know who is collecting your child unless it is already an established routine. In an emergency a phone call or text will do.

Please continue to spread the word about Little Steps so we can welcome more families into our

OUTSTANDING nursery.

Thank you for your continued support.

Brenda

Dates for the diary:-

Bank Holiday Closure: Monday 5th May

Concept Photography: Thursday 8th May

Bags2School: Tuesday 20th May

Summer Half Term: Monday 26th May - Friday 30th May inclusive.

End of Summer Term: Thursday 17th July end of term party for all 9am - 1pm

Holiday Club: 21st July - 15th August

Start of Autumn Term: Wednesday 3rd September