Merry Christmas 

from everyone at
Baby Ducks

The letter 'L'

This weeks letter is 'l', 'L'

We have had some great items for the table including a lion, a lemon, a locket and a lock.

Please help your children come up with something for next weeks letter!

Holiday Club

The holiday club for Christmas will be open for:
Monday 19th December
This is the only date we are doing, so if you want a space please see Maryann or Zoe soon!

Costs are: 9am-3pm £20, 12pm-3pm £10 or 9am-12pm £10

Extended Hours

In January we will be extending our hours, our new opening times will be as follows:

Monday 8:30am until 3:30pm
Tuesday 8:30am until 3:30pm
Wednesday 8:30am until 3:30pm
Thursday 8:30am until 4:30pm
Friday 8:30am until 3:30pm

If you are interested in booking these days, please see Maryann or Zoe. We need to get invoices out for the new term so please let us know as soon as possible!

Rainy Days!

With the weather turning for the worst, please remember to bring in wellies (or footware suitable for wet weather), umbrellas and warm clothing as we will try to go outside where ever possible, especially on the longer days!

Parents Meetings

Today we are holding our parents day, this year we have decided to hold it during the day rather than an evening, as it was felt it might be easier as your children were already being looked after (no baby sitter needed!)
We have put out some information for you to look at whilst you wait to see your childs key person and you are welcome to a cup of tea or coffee!
Meetings are being kept to 10 minutes, so please arrive a little before, so that we don't fall behind.
We hope the meeting is useful and please fell free to ask any questions that you may have or any suggestions that you would like to make are always welcome!

The Letter 'k'

This weeks letter is 'k', we have had lots of great things for the table this week, including a kangaroo, a knife, a key ring, a picture of a kitten and a kit kat wrapper!

Please help you children think of something for next weeks letter which is of course 'l'.

School Admissions

If your child is due to start school next September, then you need to apply by :
January 16th 2012
If you want to apply online or want any more information then please use the link below:

http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1160245
or ask to speak to your childs key person!

H.E.Y. (Healthy Early Years)

We are pleased to announce that we have been accepted into the new Healthy Early Years programme being run by the council as an extension to the QUILT scheme!

The module that will start in January covers:

• Overview of the nutritional standards and guidance for childcare settings
• The specific dietary needs for the under-5’s and how to apply them to practice
• The food groups, menu planning and achieving the Healthy Choice Award to help you apply the nutritional guidance in your settings
• Creating a healthy environment and healthy eating habits in children
• Allergies and dietary requirements
• What a food and nutrition policy should include and how to implement it

We will let you know more at the Parents Day later this month and further updates on the blog!
If you want to know more in the meantime please feel free to ask Zoe or Maryann

The letter 'g'

This weeks letter is 'g'

Thankyou to all parents that have brought in items for the table, we have had gloves, gorilla, goat, grand parents and girafe!

What can you think of for next weeks letter 'h'?

Half Term

The playgroup is now closed for half term, we will re-open on Monday 31st October, see you then!

Quiz Night Update

A big thank you to everyone that attended the Baby Ducks Quiz, it was a great evening and I hope that everyone enjoyed themselves. A special thank you to everyone that helped arrange, set up and clear up (leaving at midnight). Congratulations to the winning team of Emma, Sarah, Jo and Matt (The AA Team). We made over £200 for the playgroup (once all costs were taken out) which is great! So once again THANK YOU

Quiz Night!

Tonight is quiz night!!! If you have not already bought your ticket there is still time, ask Maryann or Zoe or pop in and see us at Kids Dreams, Boundary Road. We are also looking for donations for the raffle, if you have anything then please drop it in to use!

Good luck everyone - see you at what is sure to be a great event!

Holiday Club Update!

The holiday club will be open on Monday 24th October and Thursday 27th October, from 9am until 3pm! We are charging £20 for each day! Children aged between 3 years and 8 years old are welcome! Please see Maryann or Zoe if you wish to book a place.

Holiday Club

During the coming half term, we will be offering a holiday club. This will be on the Monday and Thursday, hours to be confirmed. We will be offering places to children aged 3 years old upto 8 years old. If your interested then please speak to Zoe or Maryann. We will post more information including prices very soon!

Recycle your old Cartridges!!!

We are giving out freepost envelopes for the NSPCC and Childline, to raise money by recycling your old printer cartridges. If you want any, please ask.

Letter of the week

This weeks letter is 'd' and thankyou for bringing in some great items for the table.

We thought that parents might like the details of the worksheets that we use. If you interested in looking at these sheets or many other free downloads from sparklebox then use the link below:

Nest week the letter will be 'e', what things can you find for you child to bring in with them?

Quiz Night

Just a reminder that tickets for the quiz night are on sale both at the playgroup and at Kids Dreams in boundary Rd. Tickets cost £5 per person and include one free drink. The quiz will be at 8pm on Friday 21st October, with an arrival time of about 7:30pm. Please come and support us on what has become one of our most popular fundraising events.

Congratulations!

Everyone at Baby Ducks would like to congratulate Leanne and her family on there new arrival. Lois was born on Friday 30th September! She weighed 6lb 6.

We have just found this company called 'Scribble and Stitch'. They are a small business that take pieces of art that your children have drawn and turn them into soft toys.

We hope to use them later in the term for some work with the children, but thought you might be interested. If you would like more information, please use this link : http://scribbleandstitch.co.uk/Scribble_%26_Stitch/Home.html

Work Experience

Next week we have a student from Blatchington School at the setting doing a few days of work experience. Please make her feel welcome.

The letter 'c'

This weeks letter was 'c' and we have had lots of really good items for the table, including: a cup, a toy cow, a camera, a toy car, a carrot, a toy crocadile, a crab and a copy of the 'hungry catterpillar'.

Next weeks letter is 'd', please could you think of some exciting things for your child to bring in next week.

Progress Updates

This week, you should receive a copy of your childs progress update form, with a comments form attached. The update is for you to keep, but we do need the comments slip returned as soon as possible to attach to your childs original form, which will be kept in there file.

Please could you try and get these slips back for next week at the latest, Thankyou

The letter 'b'

This weeks letter is 'b'. Thankyou to all parents that have given children something to bring in for the table. We have had a book, a barbie, a picture of a baby, a picture of a beetle, and many more. We are currently trying to put the work onto the blog to enable you to download it, we will let you know when this is complete.

Next week the letter is ... 'c'. See what you can find beginning with 'c'.

This Weeks Letter is 'a'

This weeks letter is 'a', please could you help us by bringing something in for the table that begins with the letter 'a'. The table stays out all week and the older children will each receive a work book helping them with early letter formation.

Just a quick reminder!

Just a few reminders for parents, we have a child with a serious nut allergy so please avoid putting any items with nuts into lunch boxes. Also, we are trying to encourage healthy eating so not too much chocolate/sweeties and no fizzy drinks please.

We try to do lots of messy activities at Baby Ducks so please do not dress your child in clothes that you do not want getting dirty.

From next week we will be resuming our letter of the week beginning with A, so if you could encourage your child to bring something beginning with this letter we will put it on the display table.

To promote childrens independence it would be beneficial if you could leave your child at the door with a member of staff at drop off, also please could you provide shoes that are easy for your child to learn to put on and take off (no shoelaces) themselves.

Quiz Night

On 21^st October 2011 we will be holding another quiz night. These nights are always good fun and raise a lot of money for equipment to be used at Baby Ducks. We would really like to encourage both old and new parents to come along and join us, so remember to put the date in your diary now.

New Phone Number

At the end of last term we had a phone installed at the hall to enable you to get hold of us easier. Some of you may not be aware of this number, although it will now be on all correspondence.
The new number is:

01273 911373

The phone will be in use during our opening hours and you will be able to leave a message, the mobile number for texts is 07519943885 and the email address is babyducks@sky.com. Emails are checked daily (including weekends) so this is the best form of non-urgent contact.

New Term

Hi,

Just to confirm that the new term starts on Monday 5th September 2011. 

Our opening hours remain the same : 8:30am until 3:00pm on Monday, 8:30am until 12:30pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and 8:30am until 4:30pm on Thursday. We currently have spaces on most days if anyone is looking to either increase or change the hours they currently have booked, simply ask to speak to Zoe or Maryann.

If anyone is yet to pay their first instalment for this term please could you bring this in as soon as possible.

Leanne has now started her maternity leave so will not be with us this term, if she is your child's key person then they will be moved to Emma from Monday. We will let you all know when Leanne has her baby.

We look forward to seeing you all next week, Hope you all had a great summer!

New Baby Ducks Logo

Hi, with the new academic year approaching, we have just finished work on our new logo. The old logo has served us well for six years but was never intended to be the final image.

We have thought long and hard about the image we wanted to use and after several months of work, we are pleased to reveal.....



Please let us know what you think. It will start to appear on paperwork, uniform, etc from the new term but is likely to take some time for all the old images to be updated.

Letter of the Week

Each week we will be looking at a differnet letter of the alphabet.

This weeks the letter is 'Bb'

If your child would like to bring something in which begins with the letter of the week we will put it on our display table.