WELCOME LETTER - BabyTalk Childcare

WELCOME LETTER
Dear Parents,

Welcome to a new Preschool year! We are delighted to have your children with us
this September. Our first ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) day was
Monday the 30th of August and will run till Friday the 1st of July 2022.
Within this Preschool information pack is a little info about Preschool and some tools
that will help your child become more independent and work towards being school
ready.

   1. Preschool ECCE dates for the coming year, Sept ’21 to July ’22
   2. Preschool Time Table. A guide to show you our day, this may change or vary
      a little.
   3. The Early Childhood Curriculum Framework (birth-6 years), AISTEAR. Also
      some guidelines of age appropriate miles stones of development that we as
      early years teachers look to observe.
   4. Food, what snacks and hot lunch are needed depending on times your child is
      with us thought the day.
   5. Rain gear, wellies and one or two changes of cloths that we can keep in the
      Preschool classroom..
   6. Medicine, your child’s individual calpol to be kept in Preschool at all times.

If you have any questions about these points please feel free to ask me. They are
either to aid in your child’s development and independence, help our preschool day
run smoothly or they are also regulations that we as an early years setting have to
adhere to. Hopefully each point will become clear to you as you read on.

If you have any question feel free to ask me. It can be hard to talk at the preschool
door, depending on the time of day. Feel free to leave questions or information you
want to pass onto us through the child dairy app or give us a call on the phone.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Kind regards,

Grace Coveney

1. Preschool ECCE Dates.

2. Preschool Time Table.

This is our Preschool Timetable. Your child/children may be with us for 3
hours in the morning/afternoon, part time or full time.

 Morning ECCE session starts at 9:00am and runs till 12:00pm.
 Afternoon ECCE session starts at 1:30pm and runs till 4:30pm.

We plan themes that can run for a week or two. The seasons and local
festivals are our long-term plans and we try to let the children’s interest
help us with our bi-weekly short term plans. Mostly we keep to this
timetable but some days it changes slightly depending on the children’s
interests or a birthday. We also have a preschool nature table so feel
free to bring in some nature found on walks or from your garden,
especially now we are entering into Autumn.

8:00 – 8:45am: Breakfast
8:30am:        Move to Preschool
               * Welcome each child, talk with guardian if needed.
               * Encourage/support child to hang up coat.
               * Encourage/support child to place their lunch box and
drink
                 on the yellow table.
               * Free play.

9:00am:           Preschools Morning ECCE Session Begins

9:30am:           Tidy Up Time, with song and sing along.
                  Circle Time: Good morning Preschool, what day is it
                  today? (Song). What date? Count to that number
                  together. What month? (Song). What season? What
                  weather are we having today? Count how many children

are in today. Talk about what we are learning about this
                week, can we remember one thing…
                On Mondays we talk about what we did over the
                weekend.
                 Sign in, children find their name with support if
                   needed and stick it to the preschool tree before
                   washing hands for am snack.
9:45 – 10:00am: Snack (am)
                * Children choose one snack from their lunch box +
drink.
                * Adults sit and talk with children about food, healthy
                eating etc. Encourage interactions between children.
                Use open ended questions etc. Children read/look at
                picture books while waiting for friends to finish.
10:00am:        Activity/learning experience adult lead, moving into
                free play, inside/outside.
                * Cover baby room break @ 10.00
10:30am:        Adult breaks
11:30am:        One adult heating children’s food.
11:45am:        Tidy Up Time, one adult helps children with tidy up.
(Song)
                * Children sit for phonic sound songs, stories, rhythm or
                games.
                * One adult heating food.
12:00pm:        Lunch Time, one adult sits at each table with children.
                Encouraging positive relationships and healthy eating.
                Using open ended questions. Noreen takes her lunch
                break @ 12.15

12:00pm:         Preschools Morning ECCE Session Ends

12:00–12:30pm: Guardians pick up children @ 12.00 & children have
               their hot lunch.
               * Children finish eating if needed.
               * Finish cleaning, pack children’s bags.
               * Sleep time when needed.

* Adults hr breaks begin @ 12.30 till 2.30
                * Story’s read to children.
12:30 – 1:50pm: Free Play

1:30pm:          Preschools Afternoon ECCE Session Begins

1:55pm:        Tidy Up Time (song)
2:00pm:        Afternoon Small Snack (pm)
2:15pm:        Activity/learning experience adult lead, moving into
               free play, inside/outside.
2:30pm:        Noreen finishes.
3:35pm:        Tidy Up Time (song)
3:45 – 4:00pm: Circle Time: Good afternoon Preschool, what day is it
               today? (Song). What date? Count to that number
               together. What month? (Song). What season? What
               weather are we having today? Count how many children
               are in today. Talk about what we are learning about this
               week, can we remember one thing…
               On Mondays we talk about what we did over the
               weekend.
                Sign in, children find their name with support if
                  needed and stick it to the preschool tree before
                  washing hands for pm snack.
4:00pm:        Afternoon Big Snack (pm)
               * Adults sit and talk with children about food, healthy
               eating, etc. Encourage interactions between children.
               Use open ended questions etc. Children read/look at
               picture books while waiting for friends to finish.
               * Clean
               * Adult cleans and mop floor.

4:20pm:          Story time & Guardians pick up children.

4:30pm:          Preschools Afternoon ECCE Session Ends

4:45pm:          Table-top activities & Guardians pick up children.

3. The Early Childhood Curriculum Framework (birth-6
   years), AISTEAR.

Aistear is Ireland’s Early Childhood Curriculum, running from birth to 6 years. It
continues up to senior infants in Primary School. Aistear is the Irish word for journey.
The Aistear framework has four headings: Identity and Belonging, Exploring and
Thinking, Communication and Well-being. Each heading has four aims and from
each aim there is six learning goals. I hope the four posters below make this clearer
for you.

As early educators we look to observe your child’s milestones in development. Below
are some guidelines to these stages of development. We hope to work towards your
child being happy in themselves and school ready.

Personal, Social and Emotional / Communication
Moving towards playing with one friend and onto small groups of friends.
Turn taking.
Understanding how they feel and how their actions affect others.
Dealing with conflict in an age appropriate way. Moving towards resolving these
conflicts independently or with less adult help.
Being able to ask for help when needed.
Sharing their own ideas in small groups like circle time.
Listening to others in small groups when the topic is of interest to them.
At story time listening with increasing action and recall. Starting to pick up on rhyme
and rhythm.

Physical
Fine motor: Drawing, colouring, writing over dotted letters, finger gym play dough
play, these all increase your child’s fine motor finger muscles and pincer grip for later
writing. Cutting, moving towards cutting straight lines and circles. All of the above
also increase your child attention span. Moving towards sitting for longer periods of
time with activities that interest them.
Opening and closing their own lunch boxes reinforces independence, good self-
esteem and school readiness.

Gross motor: Walking and running on whole foot. Working towards negotiating their
space safely without hurting themselves and others. Enjoying different movements
like hoping, jumping, running and catching and throwing balls.

Confident age appropriate self care: Working towards staying dry throughout the day
and looking after their own toileting needs. Washing hands after every toilet visit.
Understanding when they need the toilet, when are hungry or full and when they are
tired. Start to understand the need for healthy food and try or taste new things.

Literacy
Sounds/phonics: Working towards hearing sounds, for example the first sound in
their name. Then the first sound in other words or families names. Lots of
sound/phonic games. Moving onto recognising the sound visually. If child shows
interest, move towards sounding out words then blending sounds to make words.

Jolly phonic is used to aid this in our preschool class. Children are given a tastes of
jolly phonic so they will be familiar with phonics when it comes to reading and writing
in primary school.
Learning to recognise their own name and some friends names. Moving towards
writing their names over dots.
Be able to share with the adults the meaning of the marks they have made, early
writing or drawing.

Mathematics and Numeracy
Counting within a group at circle time or bringing counting into their own play.
Confident, solid counting up to 10 or 20.
Starting to recognise numerals 1 to 10, moving towards 20.
Seeing patterns and shapes in their environment.
Sequencing object 1 to 10 or 20.
Starting to understand the concept of time, space, and shapes.
Using measuring in their own play or when we bake as a class.

Creativity
Enjoying using different textures and colours in their drawing, painting and role play
dress up. Taking part in songs and dance or making their own up. Showing an
interest in the effects of mixing colours. Giving meaning to marks they have made on
paper. Building and making things from our junk modelling recycling.
In role play starting to use props in their play.

If you have any questions or concerns about your child development please feel free
to talk to me and we can arrange a time to talk. If I have any concerns I will contact
you for a meeting or speak to you at drop off or pick up. A little chat can be very
helpful to you in the months before your child starts Primary school.

4. Food.
This depends on how many hours your child is with us per day.

3hrs Morning: Some fruit for morning snack. A small sandwich or crackers for lunch
and a yogurt for after if they like yogurt. This could also be fruit for afters.

5hrs plus: Some fruit for morning snack. A lunch we can heat up for your child. A
small yoghurt for afters. Some fruit / crackers / cheese for evening snack, enough for
three snacks. One at 9.45, 2.00pm and the other at 4.00pm

3hrs Afternoon: Some fruit and a small sandwich if your child would like it depending
what they have eaten before 1:30 arrival.

Hot lunches: Please try to stay away from tins of spaghetti hoops, chips, jelly and nut
products as we can not serve these foods in our setting.
Other foods we can not serve as we have a health food policy:
Brioche/croissants
Pancakes
Sugary cereal bars
Biscuits
Crisps
Chocolate
Nuts or peanut butter (due to food allergies)
Frubes
Large yoplait drinks

If you would like ideas for hot lunches for your child just ask us any time. Most child
have left overs from the night before. It does not need to be large, just a child size pd
portion of food.
Lunch is a very social time in preschool. To encourage and aid their self-esteem and
independence please provide your child with child friendly lunch containers and drink
bottles. At home see if your child can open their own lunch. If they are very young
this is something that we will work towards. The older children should be able to
open their own. All tools to give your child and help them to become independent,
happy and school ready.

5. Rain gear, wellies and one or two changes of cloths
      that we can keep in the Preschool classroom.
We like to get outside every day unless the weather is very extreme. Please provide
your child/children with appropriate rain gear like a rain coat so we can enjoy the
outdoors. Due to Covid19 we are going to try and use our garden as much as we
can through all weathers.

We are asking for a pare of wellies to be left in preschool so your child can enjoy
themselves and not ruin their shoes.

A change or two of clothes for your child. Most of you have spare clothes in your
child’s bag. We will take these and place them in a zippy bag with their name and
keep it in the preschool room.

   6. Medicine
Please provide a bottle of calpol for your child. This will be stored in a safe area in
Preschool with your child’s name on it.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this.

Kind Regards,

Grace