22 Street Lane Nursery - December 2019 Newsletter

Newsletter December

Play • Discovery • Growth

December Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers, It’s the most wonderful time of the year here at 22 Street Lane Nursery! The Christmas tree is up, we have written our letters to Father Christmas, all we need to do is wait for the big man to arrive! We have a very magical month planned for the children including our Christmas dinner, Christmas party and a special surprise from Santa! As the year draws to a close, we would like to thank all of our families for your continued support throughout 2019. The nursery will close for the Christmas holidays on Tuesday 24th December at 12pm, we hope that you all have a very merry Christmas and prosperous New Year! We look forward to welcoming you back on Thursday 2nd January 2020!

December Newsletter STAFF NEWS

Deirdre Millar Leaving Sadly, Deidre will be leaving us Friday 20th December to take on a new role as a Care Officer. Deirdre has been a great asset to 22 Street Lane Nursery as both Assistant Deputy Manager and Cygnets Room Leader and we wish her all the best in her new role. We will be very sad to see her leave! If Deirdre is your child’s key person, she will inform you of who will be taking over her role. Assistant Deputy Manager Congratulations to Sophie Connolly who has been promoted to Assistant Deputy Manager! Sophie is currently the Room Leader of our Chicklets Room and has been at 22 Street Lane since we opened in 2016. Sophie will continue to lead our Chicklets Room as well as supporting the management team! Cygnets Room Leader Congratulations to Hayley Fryer who will be naturally stepping up from Deputy Room Leader to leading the Cygnets Room! Hayley has been in the Cygnets Room for the past 2 years and knows the routine and children extremely well. Hayley has lots of lovely ideas that she would like to bring to the room and is looking forward to her new role. Cygnets Deputy Room Leader Congratulations to Charlotte Baker who will be supporting Hayley as Deputy Room Leader, Charlotte has previous experience in a leadership role and is looking forward to bringing her skills to the Cygnets Room! Well done Charlotte!

December Newsletter STAFF NEWS Meet Helaina Fitton Helaina has recently joined our Cygnets Room as an Apprentice Practitioner and is looking forward to getting to know you and your little ones!

“I am excited to be taking on my apprenticeship and working towards my Level 3 qualification whilst working with the staff and children. I thoroughly enjoy teaching children to learn new things and help them develop whilst also supporting them in building their confidence.” “I have a huge passion for Gymnastics which I have been committed to for several years now. I now also volunteer and help teach children at my local Club.”

Sabourn Care Home Visit We have recently made links with our local care home in Oakwood, Sabourn Care Home. The children are enjoying their weekly visits to spend some time with the elderly, last week they enjoyed Christmas crafts together including making a Christmas tree for the care home using both the children’s and adults’ handprints, which is now proudly on display in the care home! Elderly people benefit greatly from spending time with young children as they are often confined to the home because of poor mobility, health or cognitive impairment through dementia. It gives them a sense of purpose as the children relate to them without judgement and with ease and share their stories. Many of the residents have said that they look forward to being with the children more than anything else! We are looking forward to the residents spending some time in the nursery.

We have decided to make 22 Street Lane a glitter-free nursery! To help support our environment, we have banned glitter from 22 Street Lane Nursery! Did you know glitter is a Microplastic, and these are consumed by plankton, fish, and birds, which has a detrimental impact. Animals often die because of this build-up.

December Newsletter NEWS Nursery Rhyme Week 2019

We were very excited to participate in World Nursery Rhyme Week, which promotes the importance of nursery rhymes in early childhood development and education. Nursery rhymes help to develop literacy, numeracy and social, physical and emotional skills – they’re so much fun to sing and dance to! We had lots of fun through the week, and our wonderful practitioners set up some really exciting activities which were all themed around some of our favourite nursery rhymes. We baked some ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ shaped flapjacks, using our maths skills to measure out the ingredients! Then we enjoyed some ‘Incy, Wincy Spider’ themed activities, taking the children stage by stage through the rhyme – including playing in the blue gloopy ‘rain’ and painting their own spiders.

‘Children In Need’ Day 2019 Children and Staff were invited to come into nursery on Friday 15th November for our Crazy Hair Day to help fundraise for Children in Need, the BBC’s UK Corporate Charity which focus on children and young people who are disadvantaged, providing grants to projects supporting them. Everyone had a fantastic fun-filled day supporting Children In Need and we raised a total of £229.23! Thank for your support and generosity!

December Newsletter NEWS Stay and Read Day

The Swans have been enjoying hosting ‘Stay and Read’ sessions with parents as part of our mission to inspire a love for reading! The Swans have loved showing their parents lots of their favourite books and creating their own stories using story flashcards, even using a mixture of puppets and props to bring life to the stories! We’re excited for our next Stay and Read session very soon.

Leeds Baby Bank - We need your help This year we will be supporting Leeds Baby Bank and collecting items to show our support. Leeds Baby Bank Charity was set up in 2017 to support families in and around Leeds. If you would like to donate something, the list below gives some examples of items that they need. We would be so grateful for any donations, please bring these into nursery by the 20th December. • Baby Wipes • Nappies

• Toothpaste • Toothbrushes • Baby Lotion

• Mittens and Socks • Baby Hats • Baby Clothes Items • Baby Blanket • Books and Toys • Gift For Parents • Gift For Baby

• Nappy Sacks • Breast Pads • Cotton Wool

• Shampoo • Deodorant • Baby Bubble Bath • Shower Gel

• Maternity Towels • Baby Milk Formula

NMT 2019 Awards Ceremony Alex, Simon, Bec and Kate went down to London on Saturday 30th November to represent 22 Street Lane at the NMT Awards, where we were nominated for ‘Individual Nursery of the Year’. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a win this time, however, we are incredibly proud to have been nominated for such a prestigious award and want to congratulate all the team for their hard work and dedication that make our nursery the incredible provision it is!

December Newsletter CHRISTMAS ROUNDUP

Christmas Jumper Day - Friday 13th December This festive season we are spreading the Christmas cheer to those less fortunate than ours-elves, supporting ‘Save the Children’ with the official Christmas Jumper Day! The children are invited to wear their best festive frocks, joyful jumpers and other seasonal styles!

Christmas Dinner - Wednesday 18th December It’s not Christmas without our annual festive feast! Chris and Kim will be cooking up a delicious roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings (yes, including brussels sprouts!).

Christmas Party - Friday 20th December It’s time for our Christmas Party 2019! Children are invited to wear their festive party clothes, they can expect lots of games and festive fun!

Swans Nativity Play - Thursday 19th December We’re very excited for our Christmas Nativity with our Swans children which will be held at St Andrew’s Church in Roundhay. The rehearsals are well underway, and we must say, we definitely have superstars in the making! Please note that we have over 50 families due to attend, so we have limited the attendance to 2 people per child. Thank you!

Nursery closes at 12pm on Christmas Eve If your child is not going to be attending nursery on Christmas Eve, please can you let us know so we can plan accordingly. Children will be given lunch before we close early at 12pm! We welcome all our families back to nursery on Thursday 2nd January.

December Newsletter

Makaton Sign Language

As part of our team training day, we learned the basic signs of Makaton and how these can support the children in our setting. What is Makaton? Makaton is a language programme using signs and symbols to help people to communicate. It is designed to support spoken language and the signs and symbols are used with speech, in spoken word order. Who is Makaton for? Makaton is the UK's leading language programme for adults and children with learning or communication difficulties. It is also used by everyone who shares their lives, for example, parents and other family members, friends and carers, and education and health professionals. Makaton is used for teaching communication, language and literacy skills with children and adults who are at an early stage of communication and language development. This structured approach can also help people who are learning English as an additional language, helping them to communicate straightaway, whilst also supporting their learning. We will be teaching Makaton to the children at nursery and would like to share a sign with you every month!

Sign of the Month: No

Move your hand sidewards, away from your chest while saying ’No’

December Newsletter

Dish of the Month Filo Pastry Mince Pies

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

For The Mince Filling

Ingredients For The Pies

• 3 tart eating apples (such as Granny Smith), peeled, cored and cut into 1cm/½in chunks • 1 perfectly ripe pear, peeled, cored and cut into 1cm/½ inch chunks • 100g/3½oz raisins

• Vegetable oil, in a spray bottle • 12 sheets filo pastry • 1 egg, lightly beaten (or a little melted butter/vegetable oil) • 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out or 1 tsp vanilla extract • 200g/7oz low-fat Greek yogurt (optional) • 50g/1¾oz icing sugar, sifted • Icing sugar for dusting (optional)

• 100ml/3½fl oz apple juice • 75g/2¾oz dried cranberries • 2 tsp ground ginger • 2 tsp ground cinnamon • Pinch ground cloves

• Big pinch freshly grated nutmeg • 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out • 1 orange, zest only, finely grated • 1cm/½in piece fresh ginger, very finely chopped • A few twists cracked black pepper

Method 1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C(fan)/350F/Gas 4. Place a baking tray into the oven to heat up. (This will give extra bottom heat to the pies so that the bases cook through and are not soggy.) Grease a 12-hole muffin tin with a little spray oil and set aside. 2. Put all the mincemeat ingredients into a saucepan over a medium heat. Allow to cook gently, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes or until the apples begin to soften. Then remove from the heat and leave the mixture to infuse while you make the pies. 3. Lay the sheets of filo pastry out on top of each other and cut them in half across the width. Then cut each half in half again to give four stacks of about 12cm/4½in squares of filo. Keep any filo not being worked on under a damp tea towel so that it doesn’t dry out. 4. Line each hole of the muffin tin with three squares of filo. Take a square at a time and press it into the hole, each one slightly staggered from the previous, so the resulting pastry case edge looks like a star. Make sure to push the pastry down so it is in the ‘corners’ of each muffin hole. 5. After lining the tin, you should be left with 12 squares of filo. Which you can reserve under a damp tea towel for now. Spray each stack in the tin with a little oil and bake in the oven for five minutes until crisp and pale golden. Then, divide the filling evenly among the cases. 6. Next take the remaining squares of filo, scrunch each one up lightly and place one on top of each pie so that it looks like a scrunched-up tissue. Brush them lightly with beaten egg or melted butter. 7. Pop in the oven on the heated baking sheet for 8-10 minutes or until the pies are crisp and golden. Meanwhile, prepare the yogurt for serving. Gently mix together the yogurt, icing sugar and vanilla seeds or extract in a bowl. Cover and set aside in the fridge until ready to use. Once ready, remove the pies from the oven, dust with a little icing sugar and serve with a dollop of the yogurt.

December Newsletter Chicklets Room News

We would like to welcome our newest Chicklets who have joined the room and have already settled in very well. The Chicklets have been busy celebrating lots of different events. For Remembrance Sunday, we held a light session in the room with the babies in the shape of a poppy. The babies enjoyed watching the lights turn different colours as they moved them. The Chicklets also painted their own paper plate poppies which they then took home with them. We have also enjoyed celebrating Children In Need this month. The babies took part in lots of yellow and spotty themed messy play such as shredded paper and playdough. We made marks on the paper plates with yellow paint to make their own Pudsey bears. The Chicklets have been enjoying accessing the outdoors lots this month, getting ready to go outside and putting on their all-in-ones to keep them cosy in the chillier weather. They have enjoyed the autumn sensory leaf trays and feeling the different textures, also showing an interest in the rocking horse outdoors! We have been busy exploring the heuristic treasure basket resources in the room too, as they have liked banging the different metal objects together, so we will continue to fill these with different natural resources. We are looking at creating more treasure baskets for the heuristic areas and would love it if you would be able to donate any items towards these, such as curtain rings or jar lids.

CHICKLETS ROOM

December Newsletter

Ducklings Room News

This month in the Ducklings room, the children and staff have been having fun celebrating Children in Need by celebrating our Crazy Hair Day, and the ducklings also enjoyed some related messy play activities. In Ducklings we have also introduced a reading backpack where the children decide what book they want to take on an adventure outside each week! Our first chosen book for the adventure was ‘Ruby flew too!’. We placed our book in our backpack and ventured on our walk to Roundhay Park! Once we got there we sat down and listened to Ruby Flew Too! We spoke about the different animals in the book and sang ‘5 Little Ducks!’ Once we had finished our story, we ventured round the lake to find our own ‘Ruby ducks'. We found them standing and waiting in a line for us just like our story! We fed them some snacks and then came back to nursery. The Ducklings also enjoyed reading the Ruby flew too books independently and pointing to the animals they had seen in the book! Our next reading adventure outside was finding the Gruffalo! The Ducklings have also been celebrating Nursery Rhyme Week! We sang lots of our favourite nursery rhymes and also made different messy activities out of some of our favourite songs! We decided to make our own flapjacks of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' to celebrate one of our favourite nursery rhymes in the Ducklings room. All the children had a chance to mix the oats together in the bowl and each had their own individual spoon to encourage mixing! We added butter, oats and honey! All the children used their fine motor skills and had a turn at mix, mix, mixing! They mixed all the ingredients together and waited for our yummy flapjacks to cook in the oven!

DUCKLINGS ROOM

December Newsletter

Goslings Room News

This month in the Goslings we have been very busy celebrating a variety of events from Bonfire Night to Nursery Rhyme Week and Thanksgiving! We started off the month by celebrating bonfire night, to celebrate this, the Goslings made their very own fireworks using recyclable materials and paint. The Goslings then pretended to be fireworks themselves by crouching down to the ground, then jumping up shouting “BANG!”. The following week came Remembrance Day, when the Goslings created their own poppies by doing handprints and painting wooden sticks. The children really enjoyed using their hands to make beautiful pictures, so we continued this in Nursery Rhyme Week where the children created some incy wincy spiders! During Nursery Rhyme Week the Goslings loved singing both new and traditional nursery rhymes. We then extended this into the children’s play and set out different activities that link to the rhymes. This included incy wincy spider rice messy play, incy wincy play dough, ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ big and small colouring, gluing and sticking feathers to our ‘five little ducks’ and ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm ’ animal dress up. The Goslings have also had lots of fun celebrating our country of the month ‘America’, to do this we explored a different state each day. This included New York where we built our own tall buildings and created our own statue of liberty crowns by gluing and sticking with paper plates and painting it green! The children also explored the different animals in New York’s zoo. Another state celebrated was California where we pretended that we currently had hot weather and made our very own indoor beach!

GOSLINGS ROOM

December Newsletter

Cygnets Room News

We have had an extremely busy month in the Cygnets room, at the beginning of the month we enjoyed lots of Bonfire Night and Remembrance Day activities. We spent much time in the creative area, making a range of different crafts to take home to our parents. This month we did a lot of ‘Reggio’ inspired activities which the Cygnets thoroughly enjoyed. We went out into the garden in small groups and collected mud with our hands feeling the different textures before bringing it indoors to the creative area. We created our very own ‘mud textured’ pictures with what we found in the garden. We enjoyed splatting the mud on the paper and watching it change as it dried. This month we have also launched ‘Our Favourite Five’ books. We asked our parents what their child’s favourite books were and then once we got all the votes in and we chose the five most popular to become ‘Our Favourite Five’. The children have enjoyed reading the five books this month, in particular ‘Shark in The Park’! As the children showed a keen interest in this book, we supported them to make their own telescopes like Timothy Pope. We collected many natural resources in the garden to design them. The Cygnets have also enjoyed exploring our ‘Curiosity Case’ which has a range of items inside for the children to explore and use their imagination with.

CYGNETS ROOM

December Newsletter

Swans Room News

The Swans have been very busy throughout November and have enjoyed learning about lots of exciting things. We started the month by learning about Bonfire Night, with the children designing their own firework pictures using toilet roll tubes and lots of brightly coloured paint. We then learnt all about Remembrance Day on the 11th November, as we felt that it was important for the Swans to understand the importance of the day. We held a two- minute silence at 11am and the children all made their own poppy creations to take home. We then began learning all about nursery rhymes to celebrate World Nursery Rhyme Week! The children enjoyed singing lots of their favourite rhymes, whilst also learning some new nursery rhymes as well! I wonder if your child can remember a new Nursery Rhyme that they learnt? We also carried out a Humpty Dumpty egg experiment, in order to show how different materials can affect the egg breaking or staying solid. The Swans also designed their own teapots to use as a prop during ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ and enjoyed using a doctor’s kit to make Miss Polly’s dolly feel better. Finally, as always, we have been participating in lots of phonics and maths activities, including threading, practicing writing names, matching objects to numeral cards and many more. The Swans have had a fantastic and very busy month and are looking forward to lots more fun next month, especially as we continue preparing for Christmas, starting lots of fun Christmas crafts and practicing for our fantastic Nativity Show!

SWANS ROOM

December Newsletter

*ATTENTION* Important Information - Please Read

Car Park As you are aware, there are double yellow lines outside the nursery which have been put there for the safety of the children. Please can we ask that parents do not park on them, and also be mindful of parking over more than one space in the car park. As you can appreciate, we have very limited parking, and so the car park can become very busy. Drop Off and Collection Can we kindly remind you that we open at 7:30am and cannot accept children into the nursery before this time. We close at 6:00pm and any parents that pick up after this time will be charged. Thank you for your cooperation. High Temperatures & Fevers Please can we remind parents that children cannot attend nursery if they have a high temperature (over 38 ° C). If a child develops a temperature whilst at nursery, parents will be called to collect them, as supported by our policies and procedures. We can administer non- prescribed Calpol for a temperature, although we must first receive permission in writing. HMRC Additional Funding Code (3 & 4 year old - 30 hours) If you are eligible and in receipt of additional 3 & 4 year-old funding, look out for a prompt every three months from HMRC to reconfirm your details so that your eligibility can be re-assessed. If you do not do this, please note that we are unable to claim the funding on your behalf. Absence Please note that we are unable to swap days or offer an alternative day if your child is absent from nursery. We are now extremely busy, and it is impossible for us to do this for all children. This is stated in our terms and conditions. Thank you for your cooperation. Christmas Closure This nursery will close at 12pm on Tuesday 24th December (Christmas Eve) and will re-open on Thursday 2nd January. If your child will NOT be attending on Christmas Eve, please can you notify us so that we can plan staff accordingly.

December Newsletter

*ATTENTION* Important Information - Please Read

Parents Suggestions We continue to welcome all feedback from parents. If you would like to make a suggestion, then please post this in our ‘Parents Suggestion Box’ which is based on reception. Alternatively, you can speak to a member of staff. 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. Contacting the Nursery Please can we kindly ask parents to try and only call the nursery rooms if necessary. It can be very difficult for the staff to keep coming to the phones when they are trying to look after the children and take appropriate breaks. Please note if ever we have a concern, we would always call so please be assured that they are having a good day unless we call you. Thank you for your understanding. Wipes Please note that although we provide nappies as part of our offering, wipes are not included in this. It has been noted that lots of children are coming to nursery without nappy wipes. Can we kindly remind parents to ensure that there is always a supply available for your child. Your child’s key person will remind you when they are running low. Moving forwards, we will be charging £15.00 per month to any parents that fails to bring wipes. Winter Clothing With the cold months ahead, please can you ensure that your child has appropriate clothing labelled with their name to play outside. Children can play out and explore in all weathers, but a warm coat, waterproof trousers, hats, gloves and scarves would be most suitable for Winter. Could we please suggest that your child have 2-piece outdoor waterproofs if they are toilet trained, as it can be tricky for them to get them on and off.

December Newsletter

Upcoming Events Make A Diary Note

Monday 9th December Swans Festive Elf Zoo Lab Visit

Friday 13th December Christmas Jumper Day Wednesday 18th December 22SLN Christmas Dinner Thursday 19th December Swans Christmas Nativity Friday 20th December 22SLN Christmas Party Tuesday 24th December Nursery Closing at 12pm for Christmas Thursday 2nd January Nursery RE-OPENS for the New Year!

December Newsletter

2020 Events Calendar *Dates subject to change - Please check the website for the latest calendar

Nursery RE-OPENS for the New Year!

Thursday 2nd

Friday 24th Burns Night Celebrations W/C Monday 27th Chinese New Year Celebrations All Month Winter Wonderland Celebrations

January

Friday 14th

Valentines Day Celebrations Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day!)

February

Tuesday 25th

Friday 2nd

St David’s Day World Book Day

Thursday 5th Monday 9th

March

Holi Colour Festival W/C Monday 16th Mothering Sunday Tea Party Tuesday 17th St Patrick’s Day

Wednesday 8th Easter Bonnet Parade & Egg Hunt Friday 10th Good Friday, Nursery CLOSED Monday 13th Bank Holiday, Nursery CLOSED Tuesday 14th Visakhi Celebrations Thursday 23rd St. George’s Day

April

May Bank Holiday, Nursery CLOSED

Friday 8th

May

W/C Monday 18th Eid Celebrations Monday 25th

Spring Bank Holiday, Nursery CLOSED

December Newsletter

Wednesday 3rd Team Training Day, Nursery CLOSED W/C Monday 15th Father’s Day Picnic Monday 22nd

June

Chicklets, Goslings and Swans Parents Evening Ducklings and Cygnets Parents Evening

Monday 29th

Friday 3rd

Swans Graduation Ceremony

July

W/C Monday 13th Beach Party Week

W/C Monday 10th Carnival Week Monday 31st

August

Bank Holiday, Nursery CLOSED

Friday 18th Friday 25th

Rosh Hashanah Celebrations

September

Macmillan Bake Sale

W/C Monday 5th Grandparent’s Tea Party Week Thursday 29th Halloween Fancy Dress Day Friday 30th

October

Team Training Day, Nursery CLOSED

Thursday 5th Friday 13th Monday 16th Monday 23rd

Bonfire Activities/Remembrance Sunday

Diwali Celebrations

November

Chicklets, Goslings and Swans Parents Evening Ducklings and Cygnets Parents Evening

TBA

Children In Need Day

Friday 11th

Christmas Jumper Day

TBA

Swans Christmas Play/Concert 22SLN Christmas Dinner/Party

December

Tuesday 22nd Thursday 24th

Nursery Closing at 12pm for Christmas

CONTACT US 0333 043 22 22

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