To help services keep in touch with the parents this month the Early Years Shop is giving the April newsletter for FREE to all Early Years Services. Normally monthly newsletters are purchased from the Early Years Shop or are FREE for EYRF members but this month it is FREE for all services. The newsletter is easy to use and in addition to your own news, we provide free content for you to use that is created by our partners, Canavan Byrne. The newsletter also includes a FREE family notice which you can include with your newsletter. This month’s Family Notice is ‘Some Great Activity Ideas To Do at Home’.
Keeping in contact with the parents of the children in your service is a great way to show your support at this difficult time of self-isolation. Parents' lives will be very busy, juggling working from home, while trying to keep the children home schooled, occupied, fed and exercised. Bombarding them with too much information is not ideal but if you can strike the right balance they will most certainly appreciate it. A newsletter is a great way of communicating with parents and may be something that you already do on a monthly basis.
The newsletter will give you an opportunity to include up to date information, new ideas for keeping the children active and occupied, talk about ways to celebrate any upcoming celebrations while at home and a chance for you to deliver a message of support from you and your team during this difficult time. The newsletter can be emailed directly to each parent or posted to a closed group that you have with them.
Our special feature gives details of our new ‘live’ Butterfly Garden products available from the Early Years Shop for services and parents for their homes. Bring a little Spring into your homes and teach children how butterflies are formed from little caterpillars in a couple of months. Most children will be familiar with the famous Eric Carle book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This colourful book tells the story of a little caterpillar who hatches from an egg one Sunday morning and takes a journey through the various stages of metamorphosis until the egg finally becomes a beautiful butterfly. Now children can experience this themselves with the Insect Lore Butterfly Garden. The children will receive 3-5 caterpillars and will be able to watch them eat their way through their feed, grow up to 10 times their original size before turning into adult butterflies in their special butterfly net enclosure. The transformation from caterpillar to butterfly will take approximately 3-4 weeks and is a great way to educate young children on the life cycle of an insect, while having first hand experience and lots of fun!
