Toilet training isn’t always straightforward, and that’s okay. Every child takes this step in their own time, and here at Country Kids Nursery, we’re with you for the ups, the accidents, and everything in between. Whether your child is curious about the potty or confidently running to the toilet, our team is here to support your family every step of the way. We believe toilet training is a team effort – and it works best when we’re working closely with you.

At Country Kids Day Nurseries, your child’s safety and wellbeing are our top priority. With over 80% of our team being parents themselves, we deeply understand how important it is for you to feel completely confident leaving your child in someone else’s care. That’s why our nurseries are more than just places to learn and play, they are nurturing, secure environments where every child is cared for, protected, and supported through every stage of their development.

How our SENCO helps all children thrive at Country Kids Day Nurseries

Everything you need to know about what funding is available from September 2025

If you have a child aged 3 - 4 years old, up until October 2020 you will be able to receive 30 hours of free childcare and tax-free childcare, even if your income has reduced due to COVID-19.

Did you know here at Country Kids Nursery we have an app called Parent Zone?

On June 1st, hundreds of nurseries re-opened their doors to their much missed children for the first time in 10 weeks which included 2 of our own sites, Kneesall and Newark. We were given just one week to put government measures in place, reach out to our parents and prepare nursery for re-opening. As a high quality childcare provider, our focus was of course to ensure that each child would be as safe as possible on their return to nursery, but also take into account how this could affect them emotionally. I'm sure you will all agree with us here, that it is simply impossible to socially distance from any child under the age of 5. Although they can take in the information and do have some understanding, they do not yet have the capacity to remember to socially distance. The government guidance stated that as a nursery, we must have a small hub of children that stay with the same staff member all week. In addition to this, we were to spend as much time as we could outside and with this guidance, we started to look at what nursery life would look like upon our return. Country Kids are incredibly lucky to have an exceptional group of staff who were willing to help shape our return and were eager to return to work. As our staff members have been having weekly zoom calls with their key children during the lock down period, it allowed our first day to be a little easier on the children as they still had their amazing bond with the staff members. Drop off & Pick ups are one of the biggest changes within nursery. Each parent has a 5 minute time slot where one designated family member can drop off and collect the child for the foreseeable future. Children arrive and depart through the outdoor gates and are met by their key worker. The first day was a little unusual for the children but as the week has gone on, they find it really exciting to go straight into the outside play area! Each hub of children have their own set of toys that are thoroughly cleaned at the end of each day. Following advice, sand play has been restricted so that each hub can play in the sand every couple of days. Country Kids have invested in extra shading at both sites to ensure the children can spend as much time outdoors as possible. Luckily, just before our return both sites had their outside area's revamped so the children had something really exciting to return to! In addition to this, each site has a brand new outside hand washing facility which has been fantastic. It has not only allowed hand washing upon arrival but also frequent hand washing throughout the day even whilst playing outside. An additional member of staff has been brought in at each site to help with cleaning and to cover staff lunch breaks. This staff member is extremely vigilant with hand washing and input will be kept to a minimum. All other external providers such as Caterpillar Music and Tennis have been temporarily put on hold. Usually, we would chat to parents upon collection about their child's day however due to social distancing, we have decided to revert back to an app called i-connect. This allows the parents to receive real-time updates of what their child has been up to throughout the day including sleep times, nappy changes and what they have eaten. All in all, our return to nursery has been extremely successful and we would like to thank our staff members, parents and children for being so fantastic and working with us to ensure our transition back to nursery was a positive experience for our children. Looking for childcare in the Newark area? Check out the rest of our website, enquire about a place though our contact form here , or call us on: Kneesall (A616) - 01623706100 Newark (Lincoln Road) - 01636370822

A simple guide on how to make your own coloured sensory rice for activities!

Question: What is Squiggle While You Wiggle? Squiggle while you wiggle is a fantastic activity to engage children in developing the motions they need to learn in order to prepare them for writing. Squiggle while you wiggle is an activity to kickstart their journey in learning to write by doing circles, semi circles, horizonal lines and the vertical lines they will use to write a letter whilst dancing along to our favourite music. It’s important to remember that children are not expected to write letters and their name until they attend school at the age of 5. At Country Kids, this is something we strongly believe in and the children love when we do Squiggle while you wiggle! We focus on developing their gross and fine motor skills to imitate lines and circles in order to write each letter of the alphabet. You will need: Anything you can wave around in the air! You can do Squiggle while you wiggle anywhere, with anything that can swish around. In nursery, we like to use: Scarves Material Shakers Ribbons Bamboo If you are at home, you could use: Cheerleading style Pom Pom's Ties Long socks Tea towels We like to add some music to our Squiggle while you wiggle, some of our particular favourites in nursery are: Dolly Parton: 9-5 S Club 7: Reach Tina Turner: Proud Mary You can use any of your favourite 60s / 70s / 80s classics. The clue is in the title - they really do squiggle while they wiggle! Now, let's get started! The next part of this activity requires some adult led learning. It really doesn’t matter how silly you may feel, the more you squiggle, wiggle and have fun the more engaged the child will be in this activity. 1. Start by doing some big circles with your arms, you could do 5 one way and then 5 the opposite way. To add some mathematical language, you could talk about clockwise and anticlockwise movements with older children. Then you could do some small circles with your wrists, again both ways. 2. Once you have done circles, you could draw lines reaching all the way to the top, and crouching all the way to the bottom, and touch the floor. These movements can go up and down, or side to side. Again, with older children you can really emphasise going left and right. 3. Next, we like to do some wavy lines, and dance around twirling around in a circle. The children are likely to do these motions to a couple of songs before they get tired or their arms hurt! This activity is so simple but really is effective. We hope you have lots of fun trying Squiggle while you wiggle at home! - The Country Kids Team x