We are proud to announce that PlayAway is now officially a part of the TinyTalk baby signing Accredited Nursery Programme. Our enthusiastic and dedicated team of staff have recently completed intensive training with a TinyTalk professional, and they can now engage in their own signing talk with the littlest ones at PlayAway! What’s more we invited our parents to the nursery for a taster session to enable them to understand the benefits and to sign with their own babies at home. We are also supporting any parents that would like to learn more by lending out DVDs to those that would like them.

Research has shown that using signs can help develop your baby’s language skills: Babies taught baby signs often learn to speak sooner and have richer vocabularies than non-signing babies. We believe that baby signing is a great way to communicate with babies before they learn to talk, and our staff are now using a range of everyday signs with the children at the nursery on a day-to-day basis. We will record the children’s baby signing achievements and report regularly on the new skills they are developing. We have also introduced a ‘Sign of the Week’ within our baby and toddler rooms and our room displays helps parents learn the sign so they can sign with their child at home.

Here are a few of the benefits of signing with your baby:

• Knowing what your baby is thinking about, how they are feeling or what they are wanting
• Giving your baby a means to express themselves, months (if not a full year) ahead of words being spoken
• Enhancing interactions between your baby and you
• Boosting your baby’s self-esteem
• Alleviating frustrations that come from not understanding each other
• Introducing language to your baby, which then gives them the confidence to speak
• Giving them a great foundation in speech and language in the pre-school years

If you would like to know more about the new PlayAway baby signing initiative, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

In other news….PlayAway recently held a farewell graduation picnic involving the whole nursery for our pre-schoolers on the stray at the front of the nursery. We had a little graduation ceremony where the children wore mini graduation gowns and were given certificates and a keepsake book of their nursery friends’ handprints. Lots of fun was definitely had by all even though it is always sad to say goodbye to our little (big) ones!

The children and staff at PlayAway also very much enjoyed a ‘People Who Help Us’ month at nursery where parents came in to talk to the children about their professions. We had a fireman, policewoman, paramedic, nurse and dance teacher. The children had fun trying on a fireman’s outfit, learning about batons & handcuffs having a go at street dancing and finding out about all the medical equipment the paramedics have in their ambulance. Perhaps most importantly the children learned all about using ‘999’ and what to say.

Dear Parents/CarersAs the staff have all done training in baby signing and we are now using it throughout the nursery with positive results, its now your turn to learn if you are interested.

baby signing course at playaway day nursery

It is beneficial to your baby/child if you are able to consolidate the signs at home and use them with your child.  Signing helps children to communicate and avoids the frustration children sometimes feel when they are not able to ‘tell’ you what they want, or how they feel.   The staff do display a sign each week but the training course will give you more background information and training on baby signing.

The course will be on :       Monday 23 August at Playaway at 7.00 pm

It should last for approximately one and a half hours.

We look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

Kind regards

Dee Sturges