22 Street Lane Nursery - March 2019 Newsletter

March Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to our March newsletter and as always, greetings to all our new families that have recently joined us. The busiest time of the year approaches with festivals and special days aplenty this month, and we’re very excited to be celebrating them all with the children. First up will be St David’s Day on the 1st of March where we will all be learning about Wales, but soon after that will be Shrove Tuesday on the 5th of March, better known as Pancake Day! Then there’s World Book Day on the 7th of March which we have great fun with every year as we get to share the world of reading and brilliant stories with the little ones. After that, on the 15th of March it’s Ireland’s turn to be celebrated as it is St. Patrick’s Day – we can’t wait to see everyone dressed up in green and learning all kinds of things about Irish culture. Towards the end of the month is the Hindi Holi festival, on the 20th of March, where we will get to enjoy the fun of colour even more, and then finally on the 31st of March will be Mothering Sunday or Mother’s Day but there will be plenty of activities taking place leading up to this so read on to find out more about this. There’s lots of opportunities for dressing up and getting involved according to the themes taking place throughout this month so make sure you keep an eye on our social media feeds for information about these. If any grown-ups have any ideas or resources that might support the children with our planned activities this month, we would be delighted to hear from you.

March Newsletter

Country of the Month: WALES

Throughout March, we will be exploring the country Wales to tie in with St David’s day. We will be painting daffodils from observation and making our own leek and potato soup! We will be creating the Welsh flag using red, green and white, and learning how to say some simple words in the Welsh language - A big thank you to Kate Sayers for lending us her Welsh decorations! Did you know? Wales is believed to have more castles per square mile than anywhere else in the world.

Staff News: Employee of the Month goes to…

Congratulations to this month’s winners:

Amy Whiting

Rosie Agar

Sadie Bray

We really do value your opinion and need your continued help to recognise the amazing work that our staff undertake each day. If you would like to nominate a member of staff for Employee of the Month, please click on the link below and help pick next month’s winner: www.22streetlanenursery.co.uk/employee-of-the-month-vote/

STAFF NEWS March Newsletter

Charlotte Johnson Sadly, we will be saying goodbye to Charlotte from our Ducklings room on Friday 7 th March. Charlotte has been a huge asset to the nursery and will be very much missed. Charlotte is leaving to start a new career in BAE systems applied intelligence; her job role is a security operations centre services desk analyst. We wish her the best of luck!

Holly Craven Sadly, Holly Craven will be leaving our Ducklings room on Friday 15 th March as she has been offered a Nursery Manager’s role at Rainbow’s Nursery. Thank you Holly for all your hard work, you will be missed!

NEW STARTER: Cameron Marshall We would like to introduce you to Cameron who will be joining 22 Street Lane Nursery on a work placement from March 11th at 10am - 2pm. Cameron’s mentor will be Paul and he will be working mostly in the Swans room. He is a 21-year-old with autism who is currently undertaking a supported internship course with Mencap; they are supporting him to fulfil his chosen career path of working in a nursery.

Cameron lives at home with his mum, dad, and family pet bulldog, Biscuit. He likes computer games and has a keen interest in aviation and military naval history. Cameron is a very kind and caring individual (often described as a ‘gentle giant’), and is considered to be very well mannered. He is really looking forward to starting his work placement at the nursery.

March Newsletter

We kicked off February by celebrating Chinese New Year - the Year of The Pig. The children took part in many Chinese-inspired activities such as rice and noodle play, dragon dancing, and mask and lantern making. A big thank-you to one of our long standing parents, Adam Myers, owner of Mans Market. Adam has helped the Nursery celebrate Chinese New Year in style over the last 2 years by supplying the children with some amazing Chinese food tasters. We all enjoyed a selection of prawn crackers, spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken, rice, and noodles. Another great Chinese New Year here at 22, a special occasion for all our children to take part in.

March Newsletter

VALENTINE’S DAY AT 22 STREET LANE The children had a wonderful time learning about Valentine’s Day! We discussed who is special to us and how we can be kind to other people. The children took part in a variety of love-inspired activities, including making a card for someone special, making valentines’ biscuits and heart-shaped fruit skewers. We also learned how to make the colour pink by mixing white and red.

NEWS March Newsletter

Shrove Tuesday On Tuesday 5 th March we will be celebrating Shrove Tuesday with the children. We will be making our own pancakes and choosing our favourite healthy toppings - yum! We will also be reading the The Runaway Pancake story together, which will be followed by pancake races in the garden…we are hoping that they don’t run away!

St Patrick’s Day Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! On Friday the 15 th March we will be celebrating St Patrick’s Day and so all children are welcome to wear green ! We will be exploring this colour with green playdough, shamrock sprigs, and painting with potatoes. Other activities will include searching for gold in the sand and having a go at Irish dancing!

Holi Festival Holi is a Hindu festival that marks the arrival of Spring, known widely as the festival of colour, and is often associated with coloured powder that people throw at each other for good fortune! To celebrate Holi, each room has chosen a colour to dress in, on Wednesday 20 th March:

Chicklets: YELLOW and PINK Ducklings: RED and PURPLE Goslings: YELLOW and GREEN Cygnets: BLUE and WHITE Swans: BLUE and ORANGE

Mother’s Day The children would like to invite all our lovely mummies to the nursery for a stay and play afternoon. The children have some lovely activities that they would love to share with you, along with some delicious treats! The times and dates are as follows:

Chicklets: Monday 25 th March, 3-4pm Ducklings: Tuesday 26 th March, 3-4pm Goslings: Wednesday 27 th March, 3-4pm Cygnets: Thursday 28 th March, 3-4pm Swans: Friday 29 th March, 3-4pm

Please RSVP to Alex at alexandra@22streetlanenursery.co.uk (Please note that we can only permit one parent/carer per child).

March Newsletter

Chicklets In the past month the Chicklets have enjoyed exploring the outdoor environment: riding on the bikes, and climbing up and down the stairs with support, enhancing their physical development. They have also enjoyed exploring the sand outside with the buckets and spades - we changed the consistency from dry to wet so the children could explore different textures! Some of the Chicklets have really found their voice recently and are beginning to use words such as ‘coat’, ‘hat’, and ‘shoes’ whilst we have been getting ready to go outdoors. The Chicklets have shown a big interest in cars; to support this interest we have set up different car tracks for the children to explore with a variety of vehicles. The children enjoy pushing the cars up and down the ramp and also looking at the vehicle book. When exploring cars, we have encouraged the children to imitate the sounds the car makes, such as "brum brum", whilst some of the children say "car" and "digger". Messy play is always a favourite in the Chicklets room. The children have been enjoying exploring different types of messy play this month ranging from rice noodles to coloured rice and water. A favourite of the last few weeks has been shredded paper. The Chicklets have enjoyed sprinkling the shredded paper and finding hidden toys beneath it in the tray!

CHICKLETS

March Newsletter

Ducklings Throughout February the ducklings have been exploring their new room layout. We created a construction area based on the children’s interest in building towers. The children have been mixing their literacy skills with their physical development and mathematics skills, as we explored the construction area set-up with a Three Little Pigs theme! The children love using the props and masks to mimic scenes from the Three Little Pigs ’ story; we have also been using our new resources to explore different ways to build. Alongside this we have developed the sensory area to include a mixture of heuristic and open-ended resources, as well as their favourite sand and water resources! The children have been digging for hidden objects and creating their own games with paper, sand, water and a variety of other messy play materials. Finally, we have continued our cooking sessions as the children have loved creating and even tasting their own pancakes, fruit wands, smoothies and pizzas. This continues to expand their interests in food and in trying different tastes and textures. We have found that some children have enjoyed eating what they have made, when previously they may not have tried it before!

DUCKLINGS

March Newsletter Goslings

The Goslings have had a fabulous February month, packed with many fantastic fun-filled activities. We have taken part in a variety of baking activities, including making spring rolls to celebrate Chinese New Year (the children helped scoop the filling onto a pastry sheet and rolled it up to make a spring roll!) Following this successful activity, we decided to bake some healthy shortbread biscuits; the children helped by mixing the ingredients together and then used the cutters to create heart- shaped cookies. As our Goslings love pretend play, we decided to enhance the roleplay zone by swapping over the cosy area to allow more space for freedom and imagination. We have also changed our small world/construction and heuristic area, giving the children more opportunities to explore. We continue to set up the areas artfully around the children's interest and we have noticed that children are displaying a high level of engagement during their play. If your child has a interest at home, please do let us know! We have introduced the story of the Three Little Pigs where the children have enjoyed dressing up and making houses in the construction area. We have also enjoyed a trip to Roundhay park where the children loved seeing the swans and ducks, and tucked into a picnic overlooking the lake.

GOSLINGS I

March Newsletter

Cygnets Throughout February we have been focusing on healthy eating. The children have been preparing their own healthy snacks including cutting up their own fruit and cheese. We have been discussing which foods are good for us such as fruits and vegetables, and foods we shouldn’t eat too much of, such as sugary snacks. As a home learning activity the children designed their own healthy eating plates and showed them to their friends at circle time. We must say, there were some fabulously creative ideas and the children were extremely proud of their work! We have particularly focused on numbers and shapes this past month, matching a correct number of objects to numerals as well as sorting shapes, and ordering them by size. We had lots of fun in the snow too and in conjunction with this, looked at the different animals that live in the Arctic, as well as building towers with ice blocks, and looking at our footprints on the ground. The Cygnets have also taken part in many group activities, as we encourage the children to work as a team, to help one another, and share resources. We have been completing jigsaws, playing with the parachute, singing songs using props, and building towers.

CYGNETS

March Newsletter

Swans The Swans have been very busy throughout February and have enjoyed participating in many activities linked to various celebrations. We have also been focusing on phonics Throughout the month, looking over all the sounds we have learned and have tried to

blend and segment them together, starting with reading and writing simple words. We have continued this learning through lots of sensory trays with different materials such as pasta, noodles, shaving foam, salt and even coloured sand; challenging the Swans to write their names and other shapes or letters independently. We have also taken part in several creative activities linked to our themes, including making dragons for Chinese New Year, making pig pictures to celebrate the Year of the Pig, and many Valentine’s Day crafts! Baking has been another exciting part of the month for the Swans: the children really enjoyed making some heart-shaped honey and oat biscuits which they could then take home! The children really enjoyed looking at the ingredients we needed to make the biscuits, and measuring independently using digital weighing scales. We enjoyed our science taster class with Amy last Monday and everyone showed lots of interest in carrying out experiments, finding out how and why things happen. This past week we have therefore decided to begin our science theme, where the children will be participating in lots of fun science experiments. Firstly, we have been looking at objects from our Nursery and discussing if they would float or sink. The children then made their own predictions using a checklist and we tested their predictions using the water tray. When we had finished the experiment, we then placed the objects into the correct box and counted how many objects floated or sank overall. We have also really enjoyed making our own slime, talking about how we made it and what it felt like! We are now very busy in continuing our learning all about science and are looking forward to learning all about space and the solar system over the next couple of weeks. If anyone has any books or resources to support this, we would be most grateful!

Swans

March Newsletter

Recipe of the Month

Ingredients

• 125g/4½ oz wholemeal flour • 2 free-range eggs • 300ml/½ pint skimmed milk or soya milk as a dairy-free option • 1 tsp olive oil • Mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries and blueberries) • 4 tbsp low-fat Greek yoghurt or soya yoghurt as a dairy-free option

Healthy Pancakes

Method 1. Place the flour in the bowl. Beat the eggs, milk and oil together, then slowly add to the flour. Stir the mixture until a smooth batter forms. Leave to stand for 20 minutes, then stir again.

2. Drizzle the olive oil in the pan. When the oil is hot, add 2 tablespoons of the pancake mixture and shake the pan so that it spreads. Cook the pancake for 2 minutes, or until the underside is lightly browned. Turn over and cook the other side for a further minute.

3. Keep the pancake warm while you cook the rest. The mixture should make 8 pancakes in all. Divide the pancakes between 4 plates. Top the pancakes with the mixed berries, yoghurt, and dust with icing sugar before serving.

March 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. 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. Winter Clothing 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. Thank you for your support.

March Newsletter ~ Housekeeping

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. 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. Drop Off and Collection Can we kindly remind you that we open at 7.30 a.m. and cannot accept children into the nursery before this time. We close at 6.00 p.m. and any parents that pick up after this time will be charged. Thank-you for your cooperation. 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.

CONTACT: 03330 43 22 22 info@22str eetlanenur ser y.co.uk 22 Str eet Lane, Roundhay, Leeds, LS8 2ET

ONLINE: www.22str eetlanenur ser y.co.uk