November 2025 Events
November: Veg Pledge/World Vegan Day
Throughout the month of November, Cancer Research UK are encouraging us to embrace a plant-based diet and go vegetarian (or vegan) for one month to raise money to beat cancer. Remember to link in Fay 5 a day. If you want to take the veg pledge this November, visit the Cancer Research UK website for details on how to sign up and order your fundraising pack. We also have some vegetarian family recipes on our Startwell website that you can share with parents to try at home.
3rd – 9th November: Children’s Book Week
Children’s Book Week is all about celebration of books and reading. At startwell we encourage you to make your stories as physical as possible. Have you visited our active stories section on the website? We encourage you to use some of the children’s favourite stories and instead of reading them sitting down make them as active as you can. Remember to link in Active Azra, Sammy Skills or 180 Katie and take a look at our youtube active story clips to inspire you
5th November: Bonfire (Guy Fawkes) Night
Remember, Remember the 5th of November – why not check out our Pinterest page for Autumn and try some of the amazing, fun, and healthy activity ideas that we have pinned for you such as dancing like fireworks and flames with the children and Active Azra or what about cooking up a batch of our super warming spicy lentil and carrot soup or pumpkin/butternut squash soup from our website recipe tab. The children will love getting hands on with the contents of the inside of the pumpkin or hammering nails into them, remember to link in Mickey Me Size and Sammy Skills. All these ideas and more can be found on our Startwell website and social media pages. Why not share the recipes with your parents so they can have a go at home!
6th November: Outdoor Classroom Day
Outdoor classroom day is an initiative that takes place across the UK and the World. The focus is on celebrating the outdoors, learning through the environment, and making children happier and healthier and improving their sense of wellbeing. Outdoor classroom day will see lots of children in a variety of settings spending the whole day outdoors. Why don’t you have an outdoor day where all the learning takes place outdoors. We know the amount of time children spend outside has decreased and days like this really hope to promote its importance and highlight the issue. Link in the physical characters to your activities. Why not try making mud dough with Sammy skills or doing an outdoor wake and shake up with Active Azra. You can also access our Outdoor Environment page and our environment workshop from the end of October.
10th – 14th November: World Nursery Rhyme Week
Nursery rhymes play an important role in early childhood development and education. As well as being fun they are excellent teaching tools for a range of topics. Here at Startwell we love an active nursery rhyme or using music to encourage movement. Children spend too much time sitting singing songs so be creative and get everybody moving. Can you be a great role model like Suzy Startwell and get the children active with Azra by turning your nursery rhymes in to active songs? Why not check out the Active Azra Nursery Rhymes Cube Game on our website and see an example here of active nursery rhymes for babies.
13th November: World Kindness Day
World Kindness Day is celebrated throughout the World every year on 13th November. People pledge to undertake a good deed to help someone else on this day. Why not use this day as an opportunity to get the children to pledge to do a physical activity to keep their bodies healthy and a pledge to do something else for someone in the setting or at home and create a World kindness board where they can share their pledges. Remember to link in Suzy Startwell as you start off the kindness pledges.
14th November: World Diabetes Day
The purpose of this one day is to raise awareness of a condition that millions of people all around the world live with every day. Diabetes is a serious, lifelong condition where your blood glucose level is too high. There are two main types, Type 1, and Type 2. There is nothing we can do to prevent Type 1 diabetes but 12.3 million people in the UK are at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Around 3 in 5 cases of type 2 diabetes can be prevented or delayed by maintaining a healthy weight, eating well and being active. The colour and focus of World Diabetes Day is wear blue, be more physical and increase your steps. Remember to link the Startwell characters to your activities. Check out the Diabetes UK websiter here.
16th – 22nd November: Road Safety Week
Road safety week is about raising awareness of the damage that can be done to lives through driving too fast and the importance of making good choices whilst in a car but also as a pedestrian. Why not set up a road/bike track in your garden and use traffic lights to control the speed of the children driving. Link in Sammy Skills as they increase their skill of driving/riding. You could also play traffic light games with them where they need to move at different speeds according to the lights etc. You could take the children on a walk with Active Azra and use traffic lights and zebra crossings to cross safely. Check out Brake’s website for more on how you can take part.
17th – 23rd November: Sugar Awareness Week
Eating too much sugar can cause us to gain weight and has a detrimental effect on our teeth and can contribute to tooth decay. Can you promote healthy snacks for families at home and promote our 2 Snacks Max message? Put up a Smiley Shen sugar display to highlight how much sugar is in various drinks, cereals, toast toppings, sweets, biscuits, and chocolate. Check out Better Health, Healthier families sugar swaps and Action on Sugar for more information. For more ideas on how to protect teeth and for activity ideas to do with the children, look at Smiley Shen’s activity ideas on our Startwell Website.
20th November: Universal Children’s Day
Universal Children’s Day is celebrated across the World with a focus on improving children’s rights and welfare. Why not hold a week of activities in your setting where you focus on children looking at nursery rules and any changes that are needed that the children can action. Lots of nursery rules focus on kind hands, good sitting etc but can you add some nutrition and physical ones in – such as We try new food, we eat our fruit and vegetables with Fay 5 a Day, we keep our belly buttons moving like Active Arza etc. It’s another opportunity to look at children’s health and what keeps our bodies’ healthy and taking part in activities to keep them healthy alongside the Startwell Characters.
22nd – 30th November: National Tree Week
National tree week marks the start of tree planting season, but it has been linked to tree dressing as it coincides with the festival of Christmas as well as stories and walks all focused-on trees and their role. The dressing of a tree is meant to focus on how much you appreciate and value trees so where possible use a living tree/bush. Why not go out with the children for a walk to look at some trees and take some bark rubbings. You could sing active songs with Active Azra around a tree and link this into decorating the trees in your setting real and artificial.
30th Novmber: St Andrew’s Day
St Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland. On this day people gather and celebrate the day with food, celebrations, flying the Scottish flag, dancing, and storytelling. Why not make Scottish flags with coloured rice in tuff trays and listen to some traditional music such as bagpipes etc and watch how children move to the music. Remember to link in 180 Katie as the children move and dance to traditional music.
