22 Street Lane Nursery - April 2025 Newsletter

Nursery Newsletter April 2025 Play • Discovery • Growth

April Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to our April Newsletter, and as always, a warm welcome to our families who have recently joined us. Things are looking brighter with the warmer days ahead, the beautiful spring flowers and some sunshine these past few days. We’re also looking forward to longer days now that the clocks have changed! The children at 22 Street Lane have had a very busy March including celebrating World Book Day, World Wildlife Day, Shrove Tuesday, International Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Red Nose Day, Global Recycling Day, World Down Syndrome Day, the Holi Colour Festival and Eid Al Fitr. We have lots to look forward to throughout April starting with Vaisakhi festivities, followed by Passover, our annual Easter Bonnet Parade and Egg Hunt, Earth Day, and St. George’s Day. To find out more, please read on...

April Newsletter STAFF NEWS

Welcome Sarah! We would also like to welcome Sarah, who will be joining our Swans Team on Monday 31st March as a Qualified Practitioner. Sarah is a Qualified Teacher and has lots of experience working in both primary schools and nursery settings. “I love working with children, seeing their joy and wonder as they learn something new or try a new experience. I am excited to be part of the Swans team and use my skills as a qualified teacher to help the Pre-School children learn and thrive. In my spare time I love reading, baking and walks with my husband.”

Welcome to Liv and Ella! We would like to give a warm welcome to Liv and Ella, who have both recently joined our Bank Staff team. They have already started working closely with all of the children and are enjoying getting to know everyone. Liv said “My name is Liv and I’m so excited to join 22 Street Lane Nursery, as it’s such a welcoming community of wonderful practitioners. I’m a passionate person and feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many optimistic and talented children. I’m really looking forward to being able to support a group of children and watch them grow as they learn new skills.” And Ella said “I am excited to join the 22 Street Lane Nursery team as I am passionate about childcare and giving children the best start to life. I love nurturing creativity in young children and helping them to learn and express themselves in a safe environment.”

April Newsletter

STAFF NEWS

Goodbye Laura Sadly, we said goodbye to Laura in March, as she has moved to another setting to continue her career in childcare. We wish Laura the best of luck for the future!

Country of the Month, April 2025: England Throughout March we learnt all about Ireland as the Country of the Month. The children enjoyed a delicious Irish feast for St. Patrick’s Day, designed their very own Shamrocks, and even gave some Irish dancing a go! Throughout April we will be celebrating England as it is St. George’s Day towards the end of the month. The children will be learning lots of facts all about our country, as well as creating their own versions of the flag and eating lots of traditional British foods. We look forward to sharing on Tapestry some of what we get up to.

April Newsletter NEWS

New Buggy Park and Cycle Store As you may have noticed, the construction work has begun for our new buggy/cycle store recently, and we hope work will be complete over the next couple of weeks. Please Note: whilst under construction, parts of the car park will be closed for periods of time, however, we will provide updates of any closures on Tapestry. We hope this helps many of our families who enjoy walking and cycling to the nursery!

World Wildlife Day: Monday 3rd March Everyone enjoyed celebrating World Wildlife Day, where we focused on the importance of looking after living creatures and protecting the endangered species. The children designed their own animal pictures using a range of materials, as well as creating bird feeders to place in the outdoor area along with other handmade animal habitats.

Shrove Tuesday: Tuesday 4th March The children had a lovely time for Pancake Day, creating their own ‘play dough pancakes’ and having a flipping competition. Oli also cooked some delicious pancakes for all the children and some taster pots for the parents to try too - delicious!

April Newsletter NEWS

Fun on World Book Day The children and staff had lots of fun celebrating World Book Day. Everyone came dressed up as their favourite characters and loved taking part in lots of fun and exciting activities relating to their favourite books.

April Newsletter NEWS

International Women’s Day For International Women’s Day the children learnt about some of the amazing achievements that Women have made over the years.

Holi Colour Festival Celebrations The children enjoyed learning about Holi, the Festival of Colour. We had lots of fun exploring some wonderful and very colourful tuff trays containing rice, paint and pasta! The children also enjoyed participating in some large scale mark-making using spray cans, paintbrushes, tissue paper and large pieces of paper.

Global Recycling Day For Global Recycling Day, the children looked at ways we can help to look after our planet. Everyone also enjoyed taking part in lots of junk modelling, and using a range of recycled materials to create some fantastic creations!

April Newsletter

NEWS

Red Nose Day: Friday 21st March The children took part in lots of activities linked to Red Nose Day, exploring themed tuff trays and creating their very own red noses using paint, pom-poms and even play dough. The children also wore their favourite red clothes - it was great to see all of your outfits! Thank you so much for all of your generous donations, we raised a total of £145 for Comic Relief.

World Down Syndrome Day The children all came into the nursery wearing their craziest, funkiest socks - linked to the campaign “lots of socks” to end the stereotypes often linked with people who have Down’s Syndrome. The children enjoyed learning all about the wonderful campaign, designing their own socks using a range of paints, colours and materials and exploring themed tuff trays. Thank you so much for all of your generous donations, we raised a total of £120

April Newsletter NEWS

Mother’s Day Stay and Play Sessions Thank you to all of our lovely mummies and other special people who attended our Mother’s Day Stay and Play Sessions last month. We hope that you all had as much fun as we did!

April Newsletter NEWS

Eid Al Fitr Celebrations The children had a lovely time celebrating Eid Al Fitr. They explored Eid inspired tuff trays and created moon and star pictures, some of the children created their own Mendi patterns. Oli also cooked a delicious feast for the day!

Vaisakhi Festival Celebrations: Monday 14th April This festival marks the Sikh New Year and Harvest Festival and is celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs alike. The colourful and energetic celebrations involve singing and dancing, chanting hymns and processions throughout the town. The traditional Bhangra folk dance is becoming more and more popular. The children will be listening to traditional folk music and may also give some traditional dancing a go. If any families have any clothing, decorations, traditional meals or photographs they would like to share with us, we would love to see them and help support the celebrations.

Earth Day Festivities: Tuesday 22nd April In support of World Earth Day, we will be teaching the children about the importance of looking after our world, such as reducing plastic and recycling.

April Newsletter NEWS

Passover: Saturday 12th April - Sunday 20th April Passover is a Jewish festival lasting eight days, which links to the biblical story of the Jewish people escaping from slavery in Egypt. During Passover, families will hold a ‘seder’ night on the first and sometimes second night of Passover. A seder night is a religious service set around a dinner table, where people eat, pray, sing, and read stories from a ‘Haggadah’ book. Traditional foods are also eaten during the festival, including Matzah, gefilte fish and chicken soup. The children will be learning all about Passover and will have the chance to make their own Matzah crackers, listen to some Israeli music, and design their very own seder plate. We will also be trying some traditional foods too.

Showcasing our new Summer Menu! As the warmer months are quickly approaching, we would like to share our summer menu with everyone. We’ve tried to include as many of your suggestions as we can. We hope that you like it. If you would like to request any of our recipes, please email Shosh at shoshanna@22streetlanenursery.co.uk and we would be more than happy to share these with you. See the full menu on our website: https://www.22streetlanenursery.co.uk/healthy eating/summer-menu/

April Newsletter

On Thursday 17th April, we will be holding our annual Easter Bonnet Parade and Egg Hunt. The children are welcome to bring their decorated bonnets from Monday 14th to Thursday 17th April. We hope you will get creative with your children to produce some masterpieces and we’re looking forward to the children showing us their works of art. Easter Bonnet Parade and Egg Hunt: Thursday 17th April

April Newsletter Easter Bank Holiday Closures: Friday 18th - Month 21st April Please remember that the nursery will be closed on Friday 18th April (Good Friday) and Monday 21st April (Easter Monday). We hope that everyone has a lovely four-day weekend with their families! Will we be reopening on Tuesday 22nd April and are looking forward to the children return to the nursery.

April Newsletter

Dish of the Month

Spinach and Banana Loaf (Dairy free, featuring on the New Summer Menu 2025)

See our past selections on: 22streetlanenursery.co.uk/dish-of-the-month/

Ingredients • 2 very ripe bananas, mashed • 5 large free range eggs • 225g soft vegan butter • 225g golden caster sugar • 225g self raising flour, sieved • 180-300g bag of washed spinach • 5ml of vanilla extract • 5g of nutmeg

Method 1. In a food processor or blender, blend the eggs and spinach to a paste and set aside. 2. Using a mixer or hand whisk, lightly whip the butter and sugar together until they form a fluffy texture. Add the pre-mashed bananas, then slowly add the spinach and egg mixture, a little at a time. 3. Add the nutmeg and vanilla essence then slowly add the flour until the mixture comes together. 4. Line a loaf tray with parchment paper and bake it in a pre-heated oven for 30-45 minutes until it is fully cooked through (use a wooden skewer to check the bake).

Let it cool and then slice it up. Best served with a cuppa!

April Newsletter

Chicklets Room News

We started the month off by celebrating the Holi Festival, the festival of colour. The Chicklets enjoyed getting involved with all the colourful activities. We explored different coloured rice to fill and empty different-sized pots, and experiencing new colours using single words like ‘red’, ‘blue’ and ‘green’. The Chicklets have also been star bakers this month and have been enjoying getting involved with different baking sessions. The Chicklets all used their fine motor skills to mix all the ingredients and used rolling pins to roll the mixture out and make little star shortbreads. The Chicklets did very well at waiting turns and helped Chloe pour all the mixture together. This was so much fun! The Chicklets have also been enjoying trips to the local park where we saw some beautiful daffodils and flowers growing in the grass. as well as two Swans making their nest ready for their little babies to come along. The Chicklets also enjoyed being natural explorers and exploring the woodland area looking for leaves, and twigs and visiting the fairy houses! We also had a lovely time celebrating Mother’s Day and inviting our mummies in for a Stay and Play. The Chicklets had so much fun exploring the room with their mummies, using their fine motor skills to plant sunflower seeds and flowers. We also enjoyed scooping the petals in the water and speaking about the different colours ‘pink, red.’ We also enjoyed being creative and decorating a photo frame with pictures of us and our mummies using natural dried flowers.

CHICKLETS ROOM

April Newsletter

Ducklings Room News

March has been such a lovely month in our Ducklings Room. To start the month off, we celebrated World Wildlife Day! Our Ducklings made wriggly worms out of playdough and looked through the magnifying glasses to see the different insects on the table. All our children had wonderful costumes on World Book Day and we explored lots of exciting activities such as ‘the hungry caterpillar’ where we made caterpillars out of paint and playdough and explored fruit. We also had a ‘that’s not my’ themed tray where the Ducklings felt all the different materials and shared the books with each other. We finished World Book Day off by baking gingerbread men and making our own ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ trail. The Ducklings had so much fun splashing in the water, making marks in the snow blizzard and finding the bear in the cave. We celebrated Holi, the festival of colours, love and spring in our room. The Ducklings love getting messy, so this was a great opportunity for them to explore our powder paint tray. They used paintbrushes and their fingers to create different marks before doing some wonderful gluing and sticking to take home. We would like to say a huge thank you for attending our Mother’s Day Stay and Plays! It was so lovely to see our parents and children explore all our exciting activities such as our red love heart playdough table, our mummy animal sand tray and our red water Mother’s Day picture tuff tray.

DUCKLINGS ROOM

April Newsletter

Goslings Room News

It has been a busy month for the Goslings. We celebrated many different festivals from all around the world by exploring various sensory trays. The children enjoyed getting in touch with their five senses and using these to discover different textures, animals and foods. This month we showed our support for Global Recycling Day where the children enjoyed a junk modelling project where their challenge was to build a spaceship. We used old cardboard to cut out the rocket shape and then the children got busy with the decorating. We glued tissue paper onto our rocket before we built it and set it off to be free in the garden. We also encouraged the Goslings to recycle our food waste, so as a group we would empty our food waste into the compost bin after tea. We have also been enjoying the outdoors and exploring our community lately. The Goslings have been on trips to the park for nature walks. We have also enjoyed picnics when the weather has been lovely and we have been challenging our fine and gross motor skills by participating in some risky play such as grabbing and throwing sticks, jumping over branches and climbing tree stumps. Next month we will be focusing on the spring term, and we will be looking to grow our own plants at nursery. We will be taking more trips to explore the outdoors and collect more natural loose parts for our collection back at nursery and we will be exploring the seed growing cycle.

GOSLINGS ROOM

April Newsletter

Cygnets Room News

We started the month with Pancake Day and World Book Day which were both a huge hit with the Cygnets. The children had so much fun mixing pancake ingredients in the tuff tray, flipping playdough pancakes on the finger gym, and decorating paper pancakes with their favourite toppings, while Chef Oli treated them to real pancakes for pudding. For World Book Day, the children arrived in fantastic costumes and enjoyed exploring a bear hunt tuff tray while reading the story, as well as creating beautiful bookmarks with dried flowers and petals. In March, we celebrated Ireland as our Country of the Month. The children loved making Irish flags with rice in the tuff tray and painting their own versions at the creative table. They also searched for gold coins and shamrocks in green playdough, painted shamrocks, and even learned a few steps of Irish dancing. We have enjoyed celebrating Ramadan with creative activities that encouraged fine motor skills. The children made tasbeens (prayer beads) from colourful pasta, painted lanterns, and had fun making their own iftar meals in the tuff tray using a variety of materials. The children loved having their mums visit for our Mother’s Day Stay & Plays. They made pasta bracelets and handprint bouquets, and even served tea! The Cygnets also showed our support for Red Nose Day and World Down Syndrome Day by wearing red and funny socks. The children talked about how everyone is unique and celebrated by playing with a messy red tuff tray, creating red noses from egg boxes, and designing their own funny socks with different patterns.

CYGNETS ROOM

April Newsletter

Swans Room News

In March all the children were filled with excitement, as we welcomed some very special visitors - chick eggs! The children were captivated as they watched the eggs crack and heard the first little peeps as the chicks began to hatch. This experience has provided us with a fantastic opportunity to explore a variety of activities and create an array of chick-themed crafts. From painting chicks to making textured egg pictures, as well as discussing the different stages of the chick life cycle. The children have been learning about how chicks grow, what they need to survive, and how to care for them. The children have been very mindful of handling the chicks gently and with care as well as creating a calm and safe environment for them to thrive. We have also been busy celebrating lots of events throughout March. We started by celebrating World Wildlife Day, where the children enjoyed learning about different animals and their habitats. We then went on to celebrate Pancake Day. Our little chefs also got artistic, designing their own pancake toppings at the creative table and exploring ingredients used to make pancakes in the tuff tray, before taste-testing Oli’s pancakes. To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day the children created their own brightly coloured rainbows with a pot of gold at the end in the creative area. We also explored green playdough, rolling, squashing, and moulding it into various shapes. As we prepare for Spring the children have been helping Oli with some planting in the garden. The children have been caring so well for these and get excited to watch the plants progress each week!

SWANS ROOM

April Newsletter

2025 Events Calendar *Dates subject to change - Please check the website for the latest calendar

Monday 14th

Vaisakhi Festival Celebrations

W/C Monday 14th

Passover

Thursday 17th

Easter Bonnet and Egg Hunt

April

Good Friday, Nursery Closed

Friday 18th

Easter Monday, Nursery Closed

Monday 21st

Tuesday 22nd

Earth Day

Wednesday 23rd

St. George's Day

Early May Bank Holiday, Nursery Closed

Monday 5th

W/C Monday 12th

Mental Health Awareness Week

May

Tuesday 20th

World Bee Day

Spring Bank Holiday, Nursery Closed

Monday 26th

W/C Monday 26th

National Childrens’ Gardening Week

April Newsletter

2025 Events Calendar *Dates subject to change - Please check the website for the latest calendar

Tuesday 3rd

Bicycle Day - Bring your bike to Nursery day!

Wednesday 4th

Team Training Day, Nursery Closed

W/C Monday 9th

Father’s Day Stay & Play

Healthy Eating Week & Great Big Green Week

W/C Monday 9th

Friday 6th

Eid Al Adha

June

Monday 16th

Chicklets, Goslings, Swans Parents Evening

Wednesday 18th National Picnic Week W/C Monday 30th - TBC Beach Party Week Wednesday 25th

Ducklings & Cygnets Parents Evening

Thursday 28th

Thanksgiving

July

Thursday 10th

Swans Graduation Ceremony

Friday 1st

Yorkshire Day

August

Summer Bank Holiday, Nursery Closed

Monday 25th

W/C Monday 25th

Carnival Week

TBC

Macmillan Bake sale

September

W/C Monday 22nd

Rosh Hashanah

April Newsletter

2025 Events Calendar *Dates subject to change - Please check the website for the latest calendar

Wednesday 1st

Black History Month

W/C Monday 20th

Diwali

W/C Monday 20th & W/C Monday 27th

October

Halloween Stay & Play

Team Training Day, Nursery Closed

Thursday 30th

Friday 31st

Halloween Fancy Dress Day

Wednesday 5th

Bonfire Celebrations

Monday 10th

Chicklets, Goslings, Swans Parents Evening

Tuesday 11th

Remembrance Sunday

Thursday 13th

World Kindness Day

November

TBC

World Nursery Rhymes Week

Friday 21st

Children in Need

Wednesday 19th

Cygnets and Ducklings Parents Evening

Thursday 27th

Thanksgiving

TBC

Christmas Jumper Day

TBC

Swans Christmas Nativity

W/C Monday 15th

Chanukah Celebrations

December

W/C Monday 15th

Christmas Party Week

Wednesday 17th

22SLN Christmas Dinner Day

Christmas Eve, Nursery Closes at 12pm

Wednesday 24th

April Newsletter

*ATTENTION* Important Information - Please Read Rubbish Disposal in the Car Park Recently, there have been several occasions where rubbish, plastic bags and dog faeces have been found on the grass, or on the ground in the car park. Please can we therefore politely remind all parents to dispose of any rubbish in the bins inside the Nursery, and not allow any pets to go on the grassy areas, as this is not permitted. Car Park Please can we kindly ask you to only park in the designated parking spaces when dropping off and collecting your child/ren so that other families can get in and out of their spaces safely. We only have limited parking spaces and at peak times it can get really busy so please find street parking if the car park looks full, rather than causing long queues onto the main road. Please can we also remind you to be cautious when reversing and parking in spaces, as there have been several incidents recently where items in the car park have been damaged/knocked over. Tax-Free Childcare Tax-free childcare accounts are also available and can lead to savings of up to £2000 per child per year. These accounts can also be used alongside funding. For more information, please visit: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk Labels in Clothing To avoid items being lost, please can you ensure that your child’s uniform is clearly labelled including their coats, hats, scarves and wellies. If your child brings gloves to nursery, we strongly advise for these to be attached and threaded through their coat to avoid any gloves going missing.

CONTACT US 0333 043 22 22

www.22streetlanenursery.co.uk info@22streetlanenursery.co.uk