This term, we’ve welcomed a whole host of teachers from nearby prep and primary school to Two Hands. They’ve come to visit the children who will be starting school with them in September, to meet them in a familiar environment and to talk to their preschool teachers about them. Overall, these visits have affirmed what we already knew; our first cohort of children to leave Two Hands are heading off to school more than ready for their next adventure. Starting school is still a big transition for the child and indeed the whole family, so as our term draws to a close, here are 5 tips to prepare your child – and you!

Do you struggle with feeding your kids at mealtimes? Unsure if they’ll dive into what’s on the plate? Say goodbye to mealtime stress. In this article, Laura Matthews, a Registered Nutritionist, food consultant and early years nutrition expert, reveals the mealtime rules and phrases to avoid and the secrets to creating a smoother mealtime experience.

How do you feel about sugar? Do you worry about how many sugary foods your children are having? Do you understand the difference between natural and added or free sugars? In this article, Laura Matthews, a Registered Nutritionist, food consultant and early years nutrition expert, answers all your sugar-related questions.

There is a reason that the early years are known as the foundation stage in education. For it is now beyond dispute that how a child learns and develops in their early years is critical and has a lasting impact on their future in education and beyond. The attitudes and dispositions that secondary school teachers strive to develop in the children that they teach can be learnt in a child’s early years. So what can your child learn in their early years that, if built on rather than dismantled during primary years, will stand them in good stead for academic and personal success as teenagers?

Ever wondered why your child seems to eat well / follow instructions / cooperate with adults / do things for themselves / regulate their emotions (delete as appropriate) at nursery and save all their most difficult behaviours for home? If so, you are most definitely not alone. This is a really common observation by parents of preschoolers. In this article, our headteacher, Alex, looks at the reasons why this might be happening.

Contributing article by Dr Sarah Taylor, paediatric registrar in West London.

We all worry about our children becoming unwell when they first start attending nursery. And with good reason. Children attending group settings have been shown to contract more infections than those looked after at home. Of course, this needs to be weighed against the numerous educational, developmental and social benefits of nurseries for children, and the ability that they give to parents to return to work. But not all nurseries are created equally – and this article is also going to explore what settings can do to limit the spread of infections and keep illnesses to a minimum.

Our partners, the Nursery Kitchen, provide recipe cards of their delicious dishes so that our parents can re-create them at home if they wish. Take a look and see what takes your fancy!

With our busy lives it can be difficult to make time to cook with little ones, but if you’re taking a pause over Christmas it could be a good time to get children involved in some food based activities around the kitchen. Offering them simple tasks builds their confidence and increases their familiarity with a wide range of foods, textures and flavours and increases the likelihood of them trying new foods at mealtimes and becoming more adventurous eaters! It’s good to talk about food away from the dining table, where the pressure to eat is removed.

Fussy eating (also known as picky, faddy or choosy eating) is usually classified as part of a spectrum of feeding challenges. It is characterised by an unwillingness to eat familiar foods or to try new foods. There is no single widely accepted definition of fussy eating and so there’s little agreement about its assessment and prevalence. The NHS reports that babies’ growth rate does slow after the age of 1 which can be seen by a decrease in appetite and a greater lack of interest in foods. This stage is often noted by parents as a very tricky phase around food and mealtimes, but it’s also very common and there are tactics we can employ. I hope some of the tips below are useful and you can practice and apply them at home.

Every parent wants their child to have a balanced, nutritious diet. Many instinctively believe that this needs to include plenty of meat and fish. This creates a conflict with the trend towards plant based diets, which are increasingly followed for environmental or animal welfare reasons. In this article, Laura Matthews, a registered nutritionist, food consultant and early years nutrition expert, answers your questions about following a plant based diet with your child.

Autumn is here! Crunching through leaves and finding the first conkers. The arrival of each season brings with it its own unique natural characteristics and the ideal opportunity for helping children learn. One of the best ways of helping children get an idea of the changing seasons is to get outdoors and explore. Here you can read about the benefits of nature walks for children and download our free printable resource for an autumnal walk with toddlers and preschoolers.

There is a lot of talk about getting your child ready for their transition to primary or prep school, but what about the parents? If your child is currently in an all-year-round nursery or preschool, the thought of having to find a childcare solution for the school holidays from next year can be a daunting prospect. Depending on the school they go to, you have between 13 and 20 weeks to find a childcare solution for. Assuming there is no parent, relative or paid professional to take on your child(ren) for the full length of each holiday, there is no elegant solution to this problem. But when your child reaches primary school age, you start to have more options available for school holidays than you will have had with your preschooler. Here are 5 of them that you can use to create your family’s hybrid solution.

Across the globe, parents tackle toilet training using a range of approaches and start their child at various ages. There is no single method of potty training that has been proven to be more effective than others and no specific age that makes it easiest. If someone claims they know a particularly effective method or a best age to start, what that probably means is that it worked really well for their child(ren) in their family or for people they know. Although it can be daunting to have so much choice about when and how to potty train your child, what this really means is that you get to choose the best time for your family and your preferred approach.

The short answer is ‘no’. Rather than remaining faithful to one educational approach, such as Montessori, we draw from a range of early years philosophies, including Montessori, Froebel and Reggio Emilia. More importantly, our approach is grounded in the latest research in early years teaching and we cannot make a firm commitment that this will always align to the Montessori method. However, the longer answer is more complex. Although Two Hands Preschool is not an authentic Montessori nursery, it has many features of a Montessori educational setting and, perhaps worryingly, more than some preschools that do claim to be Montessori!

There is a lot that we don’t know about the development of mathematical understanding. Much more research has been conducted into language development, for example. However, we do know that all children are born ‘ready for mathematics’ - even infants understand the fundamental mathematical concept of ‘more’! We also know that preschool mathematics, especially an understanding of numbers, predicts later achievement in school and enhances life choices. Once children fall behind in mathematics, they continue to do so throughout school. Yet just as with the development of writing, the focus in the early years should be on laying secure foundations, rather than racing to ‘get ahead’.

For decades, this question has been asked by parents, researched by academics and opined on by anyone and everyone. It is one of the most hotly contested parenting topics out there (nearly as much as sleep training, but not quite!) and like all hotly contested topics, there is no one-answer-fits-all.

Writing is a vital, lifelong skill. In primary and secondary school many areas of the curriculum are assessed through writing, so strong writing is one of the keys to academic success. Amongst adults, good writing is used as one of the marks of an educated person and one of the most sought-after skills by higher education providers and employers. Does this mean that high quality preschool education should lay the foundations for writing development? Absolutely. This article will outline what this should actually involve – and what it should not!

When it comes to children younger than five, we tend to think more about childcare than education. When parental leave ends, we plan who will ‘care’ for the child in our absence, not who will ‘educate’ them, opting for anything from informal support from relatives to day nurseries, au pairs and nannies. Our main concerns are usually (and understandably) the overwhelming cost of childcare and finding an option that suits the whole family. But in focusing on these matters are we inadvertently overlooking our children’s education – and does it really make a difference?

The benefits of independent play at home for parents do not need extolling. Your child being totally absorbed with their own play allows you to finish off some work, get dinner on the table, tackle some life admin or just catch a break. The good news is that independent play is also good for your child, so don’t need to feel guilty that you aren’t engaging with your child at every opportunity.

The holy grail of parenting is having a child who seems well-rested throughout their waking hours and then is tired enough to fall asleep easily at bedtime and stay asleep until morning. Even if you are lucky enough to have a toddler like this, there is one last milestone to get through: dropping the last nap.