22 Street Lane Nursery - February 2023 Newsletter

Newsletter February

Play • Discovery • Growth

February Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to our February newsletter, and as always, a warm greeting to all the new families who have recently joined us. It was so lovely to see all the children back after the New Year and hearing about everything that happened over the Christmas break! We kicked off January with our Lunar New Year celebrations, which featured a very tasty Chinese feast cooked by Chris, which was followed up with lots of fun activities for Burns Night. We have a very busy month planned for the children, including some themed days for both Valentine’s Day and Pancake Day! To find out more, please read on...

February Newsletter STAFF NEWS

Congratulations Shamyla! We would like to say a huge congratulations to Shamyla, who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Zaki Abdullah Waqas, who was born on 13th January weighing 7lb 8oz. Both Shamyla and Zaki are doing really well and we can't wait to see them!

Welcome back Michaela We would like to welcome back Michaela Johnson, who will be working in all the rooms as part of our Bank Staff team! Michaela has previously worked at the nursery whilst studying, and we are looking forward to welcoming her back. "Having worked in Early Childhood Education for over 10 years, I have cultivated my passion for supporting children in their early learning journey. I have gained experience working across different cultures in Australia, Singapore, Germany and now the UK. I have worked for 22 Street Lane Nursery while completing my BA in Teaching and Education and have recently completed an MSc in Psychology in Education, specialising in Positive Psychology. I am excited to continue to support the practitioners and team in their endeavours to encourage learning through play and exploration whilst cultivating the children's natural curiosity and thirst for learning."

Fire Marshall Training On Saturday 21st January, some of the team attended a Fire Marshall training session. This involved learning about how to minimise the risk of a fire, what to do if there was a fire, and how to use a fire extinguisher.

February Newsletter NEWS

Country of the Month, February – Russia Throughout February, we will be exploring the country of Russia. The children will be learning all about Russia, including sandy and frozen deserts, tall mountains, giant marshes and pine forests. We will be exploring Russia’s wildlife and its rare animals including Asiatic black bears, snow leopards, polar bears, and small rabbit-like mammals called Pikas! Did you know that Russia is the world's largest country, and it occupies one-tenth of all land on earth? If anyone has any resources to support our Country of the Month, we would be most grateful.

Lunar New Year Celebrations / Country of the Month – China

The children had lots of fun celebrating the Lunar New Year, taking part in a variety of activities related to China. The children explored themed tuff trays filled with colourful rice and noodles, as well as taking part in dragon dancing and making their very own Chinese drums! Chris cooked up a Chinese feast for the children, which including sweet 'n' sour chicken, egg fried rice and crispy duck pancakes. The Cygnets and Swans even had a go out using chopsticks!

February Newsletter NEWS

Burns Night Activities The children’s had lots of celebrating ‘Burns Night’. They painted pictures of the Scottish flag, explored Burns Night inspired tuff trays and enjoyed a traditional lunch of ‘Neeps and Tatties!’. The Swans also worked together to make some lovely homemade potato cakes to try out!

National Storytelling Week: 30th January - 3rd February This week is ‘National Story Telling Week’, so in support of this we will be posting a bedtime story every day for you to enjoy with your child at home. If your child has a favourite story, then they are welcome to bring this in to share with their class. Please ensure that their book is labelled with their name.

Children’s Mental Health Week: 6th-10th February The theme for this year's Children’s Mental Health Week is ‘Let's Connect’. So the children will be connecting with their friends through group games and activities, such as creating their own family trees. The children will also be connecting with nature through continuing our bird-watching theme, as well as exploring the outdoors in different ways.

February Newsletter Valentine’s Day: Tuesday 14th February

Love is most definitely in the air at 22 Street Lane, and we have some lovely Valentine’s Day activities planned for the children! The children will be encouraged to speak about who they love and why, as well as share photos of their special people on Tapestry. The children are also welcome to come to the nursery dressed in red or pink!

February Newsletter Pancake Day / Shrove Tuesday: Tuesday 21st February Chris will be cooking up a feast of delicious pancakes in celebration of Pancake Day this month, which is always a very popular celebration at 22 Street Lane! The children will be able to choose their own healthy toppings and take part in pancake races. Traditionally, Pancake Day is the time that people use up their leftover sugary foods before starting their fast for Lent. Did you also know that in other countries, this time is referred to as ‘Mardi Gras’, which translates as ‘Fat Tuesday’.

February Newsletter

Dish of the Month

Carrot and Lentil Soup

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

• 2 tsp of cumin seeds • A pinch of chilli flakes • 2 tbsp of olive oil • 600g of carrots, washed and coarsely grated • 140g of split red lentils • 1L of hot vegetable stock • 125ml of milk • Plain yogurt and naan bread, to serve

Method

1. Heat a large saucepan and dry-fry the two tsp of cumin seeds and a pinch of chilli flakes for 1 minute, or until they start to jump around the pan and release their aromas. 2. Scoop out about half with a spoon and set aside. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil, 600g of coarsely grated carrots, 140g of split red lentils, 1L of hot vegetable stock and 125ml of milk to the pan and bring to a boil. 3. Simmer for 15 minutes, until the lentils have swollen and softened. 4. Whizz the soup with a stick blender or in a food processor until smooth (or leave it chunky if you prefer). 5. Season to taste and finish with a dollop of plain yogurt and a sprinkling of the reserved toasted spices. Serve with warmed naan bread.

February Newsletter Chicklets Room News This month, we have welcomed lots of new Chicklets into the room, and they have already begun joining in all our activities. We look forward to our journey together through the rest of the year! With such cold weather, the Chicklets have been wrapping up extra warm and heading out into the garden, where they have explored lots of natural resources like mud painting and crunching the fallen leaves. We have also taken this opportunity to challenge their physical development on the push-along bikes and the steps! We have started introducing light sensory sessions where the Chicklets get to explore different sensory toys, like light-up batons and fibre optics. Not only that, but we played some of the Chicklet's favourite nursery rhymes and have a boogie along. As always, the Chicklets have loved exploring lots of different messy play activities, including coloured rice play for Lunar New Year and shaving foam for Burns Night. We can’t wait to see what February brings!

CHICKLETS ROOM

February Newsletter

Ducklings Room News

The Ducklings have loved taking part in our weekly sensory sessions; we have explored the light-up resources as well as lying down on our backs to admire our light projection on the ceiling. To continue this interest further, the Ducklings took part in Monthly Home Learning Challenges where the children were invited to make their own sensory bottles at home. The children have experienced some trips out in our local community. Firstly, we took a trip on the bus to the library. The Ducklings waited very patiently for the bus at the bus stop, when the bus arrived, we were all so excited! We had so much fun on the bus and enjoyed taking the tickets from the driver. On our journey, we pointed to different things such as a ‘Tree’ and ‘Flowers’. When we arrived at the library, we chose some books to bring back to the nursery to share with our friends. The Ducklings also took a trip to the local charity shop! We explored the different shops looking for cultural and diverse items we can bring back to the Ducklings Room for us to explore. We found an African drum, some traditional Indian bangles and an Aztec bag! Everyone enjoyed celebrating Lunar New Year, where we explored different activities including rice, shaving foam and flour! The children also enjoyed making Chinese savoury pancakes. We used our fine motor skills to chop the vegetables such as peppers, Chinese cabbage and spring onions. We enjoyed mixing the ingredients together with a big spoon and having a go at cracking the eggs.

DUCKLINGS ROOM

February Newsletter Goslings Room News

What a great start to 2023 it has been in the Goslings Room! We have been enjoying looking at what the children have been up to during the holidays using our scrapbooks! Thank you for all of your contributions. As we celebrated Lunar New Year, the Goslings enjoyed experimenting with all things Asia, such as chopsticks, making fans and exploring noodles and rice. We also have been enjoying tuft trays filled with red-coloured pasta and lentils alongside red-coloured playdough. The Goslings have shown a real interest in dressing up over the past few weeks, and they have particularly enjoyed pretending to be chefs and making each other yummy food! Alongside this, they also showed an interest in teeth brushing. The Goslings have kindly shared their very own pictures of brushing their teeth before bed and posting it on Tapestry! During our daily activities, they have enjoyed brushing the babies' and dollies' teeth very precisely and have done an excellent job in teaching each other! Alongside dressing up, the Goslings have also enjoyed getting messy. They have started to use all their senses, such as feeling the different textures of the resources, such as cold paint with pasta shells and foam. As you may have seen on Tapestry, we have started a Home Learning Bag which is all about Pom Pom! We will be going down the register and will be sending Pom Pom with his bag to each child every week, so you can share your exciting adventures. Lastly, the Goslings team look forward to creating more memories with the children in the coming year.

GOSLINGS ROOM

February Newsletter Cygnets Room News

To start off the month, we welcomed all our children and families back from the Christmas break. The children enjoyed telling us what they have been up to, as well as sharing some pictures with the staff and their friends. To celebrate Lunar New Year, we have had lots of lovely activities for the children to take part in. The Cygnets got very creative making bunny ears, as it is the Year of the Rabbit. We also made a dragon so the children could create their own lion dance, as well as making some lanterns using lots of different creative materials. The children also took part in a baking activity where we made vegetable dumplings. The Cygnets did a fantastic job at cutting all the vegetables and placed them into the pastry. We also had some exciting noodle messy play, where the children used tongs and chopsticks to explore. We also had a rice tuff tray shaped like a tangerine to represent good fortune, the children used red pockets, pots, and pans to explore the rice. A big interest in the room recently has been dinosaurs, so we have had lots of activities for the children to explore around this. We had a large-scale painting activity for everyone to enjoy, where they could make big footprints using the large dinosaurs, as well as using their hands and feet to create marks. We then made some dinosaur eggs from recycled materials and went on a hunt around the Big Garden to find them.

CYGNETS ROOM

Swans Room News February Newsletter

What a fabulous January we have had in the Swans Room this month. We started the month celebrating the New Year and have been thinking about what we want to get better at this year. We have already begun to learn the sounds of different letters and really wowed the grown-ups with our listening skills. We've also been thinking a lot about how to keep ourselves healthy, particularly our teeth. The children thought about how important our teeth are and how can keep them clean. Throughout the month, we celebrated Lunar New Year in style! We enjoyed decorating our room with red lanterns to bring good luck, as well as reading the story of the Zodiac and learning about the Year of the Rabbit. We also worked together as a team to create our own 'Do Nothing Machine', after reading the book. The children enjoyed working together to paint, create and attach all the parts. We think our 'Do Nothing Machine' was awesome! The children also celebrated Burns Night by learning about Robert Burns and the traditional Burns Night meal of haggis, neeps and tatties. We got to make our own potato cakes and had a Burns Night feast for lunch. This month we also supported The Big Birdwatch. We looked at different types of birds you might find in England and thought about how we could look after them. We made different types of bird feeders to put up in our garden and in Roundhay Park. What a fabulous start to 2023, we cannot wait to see what the rest of this year brings!

SWANS ROOM

February Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Tuesday 14 th February Valentine’s Day Celebrations Tuesday 21 st February Shrove Tuesday / Pancake Day Wednesday 1 st March St. David’s Day Thursday 2 nd March World Book Day W/C Monday 13 th March Mothering Sunday Tea Party Friday 17 th March St. Patrick’s Day

February Newsletter

*ATTENTION* Important Information - Please Read

Car Park Please can we kindly ask that parents ensure they are only parking in a single car parking bay. As you are aware, we have very limited space, and it is very busy a peak times. Thank you for your support. HMRC Additional Funding Code (3- & 4-year-olds - 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 co operation. 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. Drop Off and Collection Can we kindly remind you that we open at 7.30 am and close at 6.00 pm and any parents who pick up after this time will be charged.

CONTACT US 0333 043 22 22

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