Nursery news and interesting information
At Little Acorns nursery we want all families to be informed as much as possible…
Nursery news and interesting information
At Little Acorns nursery we want all families to be informed as much as possible…
Our Little Acorns Nursery Blog
Latest News
- Children Get Ready for National Storytelling Week!17th January 2025 - 2:08 pm
- Winter Nature Hunt — a Fun, Educational Activity for Children (Free Reference Sheet!)15th December 2024 - 8:15 am
- Glowing Ofsted Feedback for Little Acorns Nursery15th November 2024 - 2:28 pm
Little Acorns Nursery
Little Acorns is an excellent nursery in Clayton-le-Woods, Chorley, Lancashire (PR6), near Clayton Green & Clayton Brook. It provides high quality childcare for babies (3 months +) & children of pre-school age.
Contact Us
34 Sheep Hill Lane,
Clayton-le-Woods,
Chorley,
Lancashire
PR6 7JH
New Pre-School Build Nears Completion
A New Home for Our Pre-School & Forest School
The new build is going to be used as our pre-school area and also as our Forest School unit. So, a lovely timber finish is rather apt when you think about it. Our children will also find its attractive design and finish very appealing and much more exciting than a standard, brick-built unit. The building even has its own kitchen area and toilet facilities, so will be very self-contained. However, it has lots of large windows and doors to let the natural light in and will allow easy, free-flowing access for outdoor play when appropriate.
Being a modular, timber-framed construction means …
Exercise & Active Play for Under-Fives
A healthy lifestyle is crucially important for health and wellbeing at any age, but it’s even more important in the early years. At this age, children are still at a critical time in their physical and mental development. We wrote last month about the need for healthy eating for toddlers and preschoolers and now follow this up by exploring the importance of exercise and active play for under fives.
The Importance of Exercise for Under-Fives
Exercise for Babies — Tummy Time
Exercise for babies comes in the form of light, active play. At this early age, even starting as newborns, they can begin via floor activities known commonly as Tummy Time. Here, the supervising adult places them on their stomach on a suitably comfy, safe and soft area of the floor and encourages them to move their head, arms and legs.
Allowing babies to move on their tummies will help to strengthen limbs, neck, shoulder and back muscles and also help the infant to develop their motor, coordination and visual skills. It’s also believed to help babies avoid ‘positional conditions’, including the development of skull deformations and neck problems. As we mentioned before, it even helps babies’ brains to form new neural pathways.
Tummy time should last only 3 to 5 minutes when they first start as young babies, with the infants attempting it only 2 to 3 times over the course of each day initially. As they grow towards the age of 12 months, this can be slowly increased to suit the baby’s increasing strength and physical abilities. Eventually, the baby will be able to roll over sideways in both directions, be able to sit and self-direct — and may indeed be crawling by the time they’re around 7 to 9 months of age.
Exercise for Toddlers
By the time they are toddlers (1-2 years old), they will usually have mastered all of the above and be adept at self-directing, grasping, pulling, pushing and moving around unaided. Indeed, toddlers should now be active each day for around …
Healthy Eating for Toddlers & Preschoolers
The Benefits of a Healthy Diet
The benefits of maintaining a healthy eating regime are far-reaching and important, especially for young children. At this age, it’s important for them to get into good eating habits rather than bad ones. So, setting them on the right path at an early age is essential. As well as feeding their bodies and brains with everything they need to properly develop, some of the significant benefits of healthy eating include:
That’s a huge and important list of benefits. Advice from Public Health England also suggests that
Days Out Near Clayton-le-Woods, Chorley
Little Acorns Nursery School is located in Clayton-le-Woods, Chorley. This is a wonderful location with great amenities, attractions, outdoor spaces and leisure facilities all within a short distance. In today’s guide, we explore some of the more interesting places that local families can visit nearby, perhaps for a day out. There are some great ideas below and every one of them receives top reviews from previous visitors:
Cuerden Valley Park
Kem Mill Ruins
The British Commercial Vehicle Museum
Worden Park
Worden Park is 3.4 miles west of our nursery in Clayton-le-Woods, in the southern outskirts of Leyland. It’s an
Our EYFS Nursery Curriculum
The curriculum at our Clayton-le-Woods nursery adheres to what’s known as the Early Years Foundation Stage (‘EYFS’) framework. This educational framework is specified by the UK Government and its implementation is overseen and appraised by Ofsted. It’s down to individual nurseries like Little Acorns to implement the framework and we strive to do so in the optimum way. This is all achieved in a stress-free, relaxed way, almost entirely through active play. This approach makes learning natural — and immense fun!
The EYFS curriculum covers all the critically important areas of learning and development for babies (from birth) up to children aged 5. As such, it’s a perfect fit for children at Little Acorns Nursery.
The 3 Prime Areas of the Curriculum
There are 7 key areas within the early years curriculum. These include 3 ‘prime’ areas which, in turn, interconnect and enhance the remaining four — each helping to improve the other.
Why *Every Parent* Should Be Involved in Their Child’s Education
Compelling evidence shows that there are enormous benefits for children when parents are closely and proactively involved in their education.
Additional research also concluded that children are statistically far more successful in school when their parents “invest time and place value on their children’s education.”
So, How Can Parents Help?
Children will benefit in a multitude of ways when parents involve themselves in the child’s education. That involvement can take many forms …
Ultimate Guide To Forest School
Ofsted Report: “Outstanding Childcare Provision” from Little Acorns Nursery
Last month we reported on Little Acorns Nursery winning best ‘Individual Nursery’ award at the National NMT Nursery Awards. When you consider that the nursery was selected from all the other possible nurseries from across the entire UK, that’s an incredible feat! It should now come as no surprise, then, to learn that Ofsted’s most recent report also scored the nursery as ‘Outstanding‘ — in every category.
In this post, we’ll go through Ofsted’s report to see what they said about the nursery and why they were so impressed during their inspection.
So, “Outstanding” — right across the board! Click the report image to download/view it in full (Acrobat PDF format) or read the highlights below.
We’ll cover each of those areas in more detail below. First, though, we’ll highlight some general comments received in the Ofsted Report. Every one of them is extremely positive; indeed Ofsted had literally nothing negative to say about this outstanding Chorley nursery anywhere in their report …
Continuous Improvement “to the Highest Possible Levels”
In the Ofsted Report, the inspector recognised the culture of continuous improvement at the nursery, saying …
Our Spring 2021 Newsletter.
Our Spring 2021 Newsletter. The newsletter is also downloadable as a pdf here
Little Acorns Wins the UK’s Best Individual Nursery Award
Little Acorns Nursery is delighted to confirm that we WON the Best Individual Nursery Award at the 18th National NMT Nursery Awards towards the end of 2020. To win this unique award is an incredible achievement, particularly in the face of such strong competition from many other high quality nurseries from around the entire UK. We are extremely pleased and incredibly proud to have won this award.
The NMT Nursery Awards are run by Nursery Management Today (‘NMT’) magazine. They are designed to “discover, reward and celebrate the very best people in the nursery sector,” from across the whole of the UK. The judges were really impressed by Little Acorns’ entry, particularly liking the Little Acorns Forest School, the high level of staff qualifications and the nursery’s strong involvement with the local community. They also thought the fundraiser for a nursery defibrillator was excellent. The judges felt that it was a close competition, however Little Acorns truly “deserved this award”.
Thank you to everyone who made this award possible. At the nursery, we are so happy that everyone’s hard work, professionalism and dedication to our children, families and community has been recognised.
Why we won …
Below is a transcript of the video that supported Little Acorns Nursery’s winning entry into the 18th National NMT Nursery Awards for 2020. Presented to the judging panel by Sarah Smith, our nursery manager, it will also give parents and carers a real insight into why the nursery won the award and what makes Little Acorns so special. As you’ll see from the transcript below, Little Acorns really does go the extra mile for their children under their care — and for the families of those children. Sarah explains …