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Welcome to the Leaps & Bounds Blog. Here you’ll find our latest nursery news and useful information from the world of early years education, childcare and parenting.
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Leaps & Bounds Nursery
161 Gillott Road
Edgbaston
Birmingham B16 0ET
0121 246 4922
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from 7.30 am to 6.15 pm
Monday to Friday.
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Christmas to New Year)
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From the Blog
Childcare in Birmingham
Leaps & Bounds is a high quality nursery & pre-school in Edgbaston, Birmingham, B16. It offers outstanding childcare near Harborne, Ladywood, Bearwood & Smethwick.
Jokes to Tickle Tots
Here’s a little something to amuse the little ones in your life — a dozen jokes suitable for young children, including preschoolers and toddlers. Please feel free to bookmark them in your browser or to share them on social media as these will brighten anyone’s day! Our own personal favourite is the Elephant joke. Take a look below (click for a larger view) …
Laughter is important.
Science has proved again and again that laughter is good for you, whether you are a child or an adult. However, a sense of humour is a learned thing apparently; we’re not born with it. So, regular exposure to funny things when we’re very young will help us to …
Rough Guide to Dyslexia in Under-Fives
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is summed up most simply by the 19th Century description of it. Back then, it was known simply as word blindness although it was not as well understood then as it is today.
How Does Dyslexia Affect Children?
To give those without the condition an idea of its effects, words and letters are often described as …
10 Fascinating Facts About Edgbaston
Leaps & Bounds Day Nursery is fortunate to be based in Edgbaston, an affluent suburb of Birmingham, just to the south-west of the city. In this post, we take a look at some of our favourite facts about the location, touching on history, significant venues, plus a few famous people with close links to the area.
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At the time the village was recorded in the Doomsday Book in the year 1086, it had just 10 homes.
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Edgbaston village remains quite an exclusive and affluent area. Indeed, in terms of property prices, it is one of the most expensive areas in the West Midlands. Much of this is owed to the village’s historical background. Back in the 19th Century, the Gillott and Gough-Calthorpe families, then land owners of much of Edgbaston, refused to allow the area to be industrialised with warehouses or factories and indeed it was often referred to as the area “where the trees begin”. In so doing, the unspoilt area attracted the more wealthy people who typically lived in impressive detached houses, many of which are still in use as private residences today.
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The Importance of Early Years Education
If you are in any doubt as to whether to send your child to nursery/pre-school, then this post is especially for you. It will show, in no uncertain terms, that early years education is incredibly important for children, benefiting them throughout childhood and right through into adulthood. Study after study has reached this same conclusion and, in today’s post, we’ll take a closer look at the findings of just two of the key studies.
The UK’s EPPSE Study
The Effective Pre-School, Primary & Secondary Education (EPPSE) study began in 1997. It followed the progress of a cohort of over 3,000 children, then aged around 3, from first attending pre-school right through their subsequent education at school up to the age of 16. It compares them to other children of the same age who did not attend high quality early years education/pre-school.
The results are crystal clear and have gone on to be referenced worldwide by such organisations as UNICEF and UNESCO. Indeed, they have helped to shape UK early years education ever since, including not only the curriculum itself, but also teacher training and pedagogy (the approach to, and practice of, teaching). What’s more, their impact has been so strong that it led to the UK Government introducing free early years education for all UK children aged 3 to 4 and also childcare funding for 2-year-olds from the poorest 40% of UK households.
Findings
Children who experienced a high quality early years education:
Baby & Toddler Teeth Brushing Guide
We promised to publish a guide to brushing infant teeth in our article about fluoride for under-fives earlier this month. That time has now come, so we explain below what’s generally accepted as the best approach for brushing teeth for babies, toddlers and under-fives in the UK.
When to Start Brushing Children’s Teeth
First, though, it’s important to start brushing children’s teeth — and in the right way — as soon as your baby has any teeth showing. That’s the case even if it’s only one or two teeth initially. Getting the brushing approach right will protect your child from tooth decay and oral health problems, of course, but will also reinforce the importance of a good oral hygiene regime to the child. They learn from adults all the time so, when parents make a habit of cleaning children’s teeth at least twice a day, children are also more likely to continue to do so once they reach an age when they take over teeth brushing completely, by themselves. For the same reason, it’s a good idea to let them see you brushing your teeth too. Their totally independent brushing comes usually around the age of 7, by the way. However, they should be encouraged to actively brush teeth themselves — under close parental supervision and often with hands-on help — well before that. Let’s take it step by step:
Brushing Babies’ Teeth
So, how do you brush a baby’s teeth? Firstly, you need to ensure that you’re using the right toothpaste, with the right fluoride content, so ensure that you carefully read the label. For babies and children up to the age of 3, use either ‘children’s’ fluoride toothpaste that has at least 1,000 parts per million (ppm) of fluoride in it, up to a maximum of 1,500ppm if using a ‘family’ toothpaste (learn more about fluoride for children here).
Just a smear of the toothpaste is needed, up to the age of 3. You can use an infant’s toothbrush, a ‘finger brush’ or even simply a small piece of clean gauze wrapped around your finger. The easiest method is to…
Fluoride for Under-5s: Facts & Myths
Fluoride
As well as being found in commercial toothpastes, fluoride is naturally found in several foods, including fish and tea, as well as in the drinking water supply. It’s a natural mineral that hugely benefits the population by significantly reducing tooth decay. This is achieved through a reduction in the effects of acid produced by bacteria in the mouth, as well as by strengthening tooth enamel.
It’s interesting to note that children whose teeth are regularly exposed to fluoride when their young teeth are developing tend to have a reduced amount of grooving in the surface of their teeth. This allows harmful plaque to be removed much more easily, again helping to fight tooth decay.
For that reason, where the natural water supply falls below this fluoride strength …
How to Help your Infant Sleep
If adults feel like that, imagine how babies, toddlers and preschoolers feel after a bad night’s sleep. Adults understand why they’re feeling fatigued and what they need to do about it. However, young children simply don’t understand why everything is such a struggle. They may throw tantrums and even become a danger to themselves when they’re too tired. With too little sleep, they often become tearful, lacking in energy, intolerant and — dare we say it — very grumpy to be around!
Toddlers and under-fives at nursery or pre-school will not learn so effectively if they have not had enough sleep. Concentration levels, memory and general cognitive function are all adversely affected when sleep has been lacking. There are even some serious health risks associated with the lack of regular sleep. These include mental health issues, possible blood pressure problems and diabetes. If poor sleep goes unchecked, the release of growth and repair hormones could also become deficient — and that is absolutely critical in the early years when children are growing and developing.
So, what can be done to improve both the quality and length of your infant’s sleep, and how much is enough?
Childhood Obesity Matters
Childhood Obesity – the Shocking Statistics
More and more children are becoming obese at younger and younger ages. Statistics show that, once obese, children are far more likely to remain so longer term.
What’s more, people are more likely to suffer from depression and heart disease if they are obese.
That’s another shocking statistic. Here’s another:
That’s why children living in deprived, low-income areas tend to experience an unfairly high level of weight issues, along with the health problems that are associated with them.
It’s clear that childhood obesity needs to be avoided if at all possible. So, what can be done? …
Children Are So Funny — 12 Comical Quotes from Kids
Children can be so naturally funny — especially when they’re very young. Many families will have at least one child who, at some point, has come out with the funniest of comments at the most unexpected moment. Take the toddler, for example, who, at a funeral, asked what was in the ‘box’ — making the entire funeral gathering giggle when they were just at their saddest point. Or the examples of several children who, when shopping with Mum at the local supermarket, ensure that all the shoppers nearby know their parents barely go an evening without alcohol! These examples and more are shown below, in our slide show of a dozen of our favourite funny quotes by toddlers, preschoolers and 5-year-olds.
10 Reasons to Read With Your Child
1. A Fun Way to be Quietly Educated
Reading with your child is a really fun and immersive way for a child to be educated yet it happens in a very natural way that doesn’t feel in any way like studying, nor like a formal lesson. It can also be a fun ‘escape’ for the parent!
2. A Massive Boost to Language Skills
Regularly reading with your child has been proven to increase their language skills by an impressive 20%. In a study by the Nuffield Foundation using data stretching back over 40 years, children aged on average 3¼ years old were found to have boosted language skills by the equivalent of 8 months of early years education. That’s a huge leap given their very young age.
3. Reading Helps Learning in Every Other Area
4. Better Literacy Overall
Reading with an adult helps children to grasp phonetics, letter patterns and syllables, greatly improving word recognition and reading methodology. With an adult present and reading a shared book together, the …