22 Street Lane Nursery - March 2020 Newsletter

Newsletter March

Play • Discovery • Growth

March Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to our March newsletter and as always, welcome to the new families that have joined us recently! We are super excited for March, with Spring approaching and lots of festivities and celebrations ahead including Holi, World Book Day and St Patrick's Day! We will be celebrating Ireland as our Country of the Month, learning about St Patrick's Day and celebrating Irish traditions such as Irish dancing and listening to Irish music! February was a lovely month, with lots of Valentine’s Day activities to celebrate our loved ones. We also took trips into the community to visit the shop, florist and even had a visit from a doctor to teach us about their role and how they help poorly people! To find out more please read on!

March Newsletter STAFF NEWS

New Bank Staff - Lydia Ellis We would like to welcome Lydia to the 22SLN Team who will be working as bank staff. Lydia will be working across all of our rooms in the nursery to cover staff holidays, sickness and to provide additional support. Lydia is currently studying Children and Families at Leeds Beckett University. We look forward to welcoming Lydia to the team!

“I am currently studying part-time for a BA (Hons) degree in ‘Working with Children, Young People and Families’ at Leeds Beckett University, and have over 4 years’ experience working with young children in different primary schools and nursery settings. I also spent a short time teaching in a school over in Uganda last summer, it was an eye-opening experience and it was great to see the importance of education across the world. In my spare time I enjoy going to the cinema, cooking and spending time with friends and family. I also now volunteer in a community centre as a youth worker.I look forward to joining the 22 Street Lane Nursery team and will aim to work together with the rest of the staff in our mission to give every child the best possible start in life!”

NoodleNow! Staff Training Package We have recently purchased a training package called ‘NoodleNow!’ so that the staff can continue their professional development and undertake training of their interest throughout the year. Many of the staff are well on the way completing courses such as Safeguarding, Biting, Behaviour Management and many more!

October Team Training Day - Change of Date We have decided to change the October Team Training day which is currently Friday 30th October to Thursday 20th October. This is because the with the Early May Bank Holiday falling a Friday this year along with Good Friday, we realise that the Friday children will be affected more than others. Please Note: Our Summer training day is on Wednesday 3rd June Thank you for your understanding.

March Newsletter NEWS

Country of the Month - Ireland Throughout March will be celebrating Ireland as our Country of the Month! We will be learning about St Patrick’s Day and other Irish traditions such as Irish dancing and listening to Irish music! If you have any resources to support us, then we would be most grateful!

World Book Day – Thursday 5th March On Thursday 5th March we will be celebrating World Book Day! Children are welcome to dress as their favorite book character.

Holi Festival – Monday 9th March

St Patrick’s Day – Tuesday 17th March On Tuesday 17th March we will be celebrating the Irish cultural celebration ‘St Patrick’s Day’, to help us celebrate, please wear lots of lucky green!

The festival of colours, Holi, is the most vibrant of all Hindu festivals. On Monday 9th March, the children are invited to wear colourful clothes to nursery, the brighter the better!

March Newsletter

NEWS

Parent First Aid Class Thanks to all the parents who attended our parent First Aid Class on Saturday 22nd February, we hope that you found it useful. If you would like to provide any feedback, please email Alex at alexandra@22streetlanenursery.co.uk or add a post to Tapestry. Thank you for your support.

An Egg-citing Special Delivery On Monday 30th March, we will be having a special delivery from The Happy Chick Company who will be delivering us a dozen eggs! he Happy Chick Company offers ethical chick hatching experiences for Nurseries and schools. Specialist chick hatching equipment is provided and set up in advance. The children will have the opportunity to watch the eggs hatch and then care for the chicks during their stay with us at the nursery.

We love our new water wall! There has been lots of excitement in our nursery garden as the children have been testing out their new water wall!

March Newsletter February’s Country of the Month, France Throughout February, the children have been exploring our Country of the Month ‘France’ taking part in lots of French inspired activities. The children have visited different parts of France and have learned about the capital Paris and its iconic landmark the Eiffel Tower We explored the French flag and recreated this using different materials. We also sampled the French cuisine including a variety of French cheese, croissants and pastries…yum!

Mother’s Day Tea Party We would like to invite all the mummies, grandmas, aunts and carers to our Mother’s Day Tea Party! To reserve your space, please email Alex at alexandra@22streetlanenursery.co.uk Please note that due to space, we can only permit on family member per child. Thank you.

Room Date

Time

Swans

Monday 16th March

3-4pm

Goslings

Tuesday 17th March

3-4pm

Ducklings

Wednesday 18th March

3-4pm

Cygnets

Thursday 19th March

3-4pm

Chicklets

Friday 20th March

3-4pm

March Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers You will all be aware of the spread of Coronavirus, and in order to protect the children, staff and other visitors to nursery we would request you read the letter attached to this email and action any precautionary measures set out within it. Should you have any further questions, please contact a member of our management team or consult the latest government advice from ‘www.gov.uk’. We thank you for your cooperation with this matter.

Many Thanks, 22 Street Lane Nursery Management Team

March Newsletter

Chinese New Year Celebrations The children had a fantastic time celebrating Chinese New Year, which signifies the beginning of the ‘Year of the Rat’! The children took part in many activities such as dragon dancing, making Chinese lanterns, rice and noodle play and learning how to use chopsticks!

March Newsletter

Valentine’s Day At 22 Street Lane Nursery Love has most definitely been in the air here at 22SLN! The children have adored celebrating Valentine’s Day this year, enjoying lots of love themed activities together! With a romantic meal set up in the home corner, messy play featuring rose petals and shades of red and pink along with lots of crafts, it’s been a wonderful celebration. The Goslings even baked their own strawberry and oat valentines’ muffins to take home for their loved ones! ❤

March Newsletter

Dish of the Month

Sweet Potato Coconut Soup

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

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp pomace oil • 1 onion, peeled and finely chopped • 1 garlic clove, crushed

• 1 piece of fresh ginger, peeled • 1 tbsp chopped lemongrass • 1 pint vegetable stock • 1 x 400ml tin coconut milk • 3 medium sized sweet potatoes, peeled and diced • Salt and freshly ground black pepper • 2 limes, zest and juice • 1/2 of a red chilli chopped

Method 1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion, garlic, chilli and ginger for about 5 minutes until tender. 2. Add the sweet potatoes and lemongrass and cook for a further 3 minutes. 3. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender. 4. Cool the soup slightly, then liquidise with the coconut milk and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. 5. Heat through without allowing the soup to boil and add the lime juice. 6. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the lime zest and fresh coriander.

March Newsletter Chicklets Room News

The Chicklets have had a fun filled February and have been busy celebrating Valentine’s Day at the start of the month. The babies made a lovely craft for their parents for Valentine’s Day which they all took home with them. The Chicklets enjoyed having a sensory light session for Valentine’s Day and enjoyed watching the blocks change to different colours, along with a variety of messy play activities such as exploring pink paint and flour, playdough and shaving foam. This month, the Chicklets have all showed an interest in books and have been choosing the different books to look at from the bookshelf. This month, we introduced a home learning challenge where parents share the little ones’ favourite books. From this, we have been setting up a variety of sensory activities, such as a large-scale colours messy play session where the children made marks and mixed the different colours together. We also created a tuff tray based on the book “A Shark in the Park” for the babies to explore. We have been accessing the outdoor environment every day this month, the babies have enjoyed going on lots of walks to Roundhay Park to say hello to the Swans and have also visited the Secret Garden! The babies have also been exploring the different activities outdoors such as the mud kitchen and the mini obstacle course. The children are becoming more confident in our Tiny Dancers session now and are beginning to join in with the actions with the nursery rhymes. The babies love accessing the little drums they are given and enjoy shaking the shakers to make music.

CHICKLETS ROOM

March Newsletter

Ducklings Room News

The Ducklings have had such a wonderful month! We started the month by making our own fruit Valentine's wands in time for Valentine’s day, we used butternut squash, apples and pears. The Ducklings used their fine motor skills to use the love heart cutters to make shapes to represent love hearts. Once we cut the fruits up, we threaded them onto skewers and enjoyed eating them with our friends as a yummy snack. We also had fun exploring lots of Valentine’s messy play activities including paint and playdough. We explored the colours red, pink and purple, and had lots of fun mixing the colours together to see what other colours we could create! We also enjoyed giving meaning to the marks we made as we used different resources to create love heart shapes and marks on our paper. This month we have also been focusing on textures and how different textures feel when we touch them. We created an ‘animal texture’ tuff tray where the Ducklings got to explore the feel of grass, oats, flour and rice. We spoke about how all the different textures felt such as ‘soft’, ‘hard’ and ‘prickly’, we then made marks with the animal figures in the different textures.

DUCKLINGS ROOM

March Newsletter

Goslings Room News

This month the Goslings have shown a particular interest in Dinosaurs! This began at breakfast one morning when a child wanted to share her yummy breakfast smoothie with a toy dinosaur. To follow this interest, we set up a large tray with dinosaurs, cups and water so that the children could pretend to give the dinosaurs some breakfast too, then all went to the garden to find some tasty leaves for the dinosaurs to snack on! The next day we added the dinosaurs to some green play dough and the children used the dinosaur’s feet to make prints in the dough! Another interest has been the farm animals! One child had been to the farm, so we extended this into our messy play and set up a farm with cornflakes, oats and shredded paper. The children enjoyed practicing the different animal sounds while singing 'Old MacDonald' and pretending to feed the little animals. Many of the Goslings have currently been interested in playing ‘shops’, telling us “I’m shopping!”. To follow this interest, we took some of the Goslings children to our local shop where we went to find some baguette and French cheeses, as our Country of the Month is France! The children worked together to pull the shopping baskets around the shop. Once they had found the items needed, they put them in the baskets and took them to the till, taking turns giving the man behind the till to pay for the items. We then took the baguette and cheeses back to nursery for the children to try for a snack!

GOSLINGS ROOM

March Newsletter

Cygnets Room News

The Cygnets have enjoyed a busy and exciting February celebrating our Country of the Month, France, and lots of Valentines festivities, followed by a flower themed week! We enjoyed creating lots of beautiful crafts and gifts for our loved ones, including ‘puff paint’ (shaving foam, glue and paint), salt dough ornaments and shortbread biscuits. The Cygnets have exploring a variety of textures in the messy tray including making a ‘love potion’ by squeezing oranges, limes and lemons, then using our mortar and pestle to mix flower petals with the juices. We have enjoyed exploring colours, mixing two colours together to make a different colour, and together with cornflour we made orange gloop! The Cygnets explored new mark making techniques with flour, oats and sand on trays, using sticks and brushes to create shapes. Some of the Cygnets had a trip to the Florist to look at the variety of beautiful flowers and even brought some back to show their friends at nursery. We then used these flowers in our creative activities and tuff tray exploration including frozen flowers and flower paint printing. We have also been planting our own bulbs and will be watering them regularly waiting for them to grow into beautiful flowers! We have also been learning about the importance of washing our hands properly, also learning a new song called ‘Washing Your Hands’ which we have been singing before mealtimes! The Cygnets practiced washing their hands, rubbing them together and in in between their fingers. We washed the germs off the gloves which was great fun, pumping the soap and seeing all the germs washing away.

CYGNETS ROOM

March Newsletter

Swans Room News

The Swans have been very busy throughout February and have enjoyed learning about lots of exciting things! We started the month by focusing on love, discussing who is special in each of our lives, and why we love them. The children enjoyed drawing images of their family and friends, telling everyone something they love about each person in their picture. We then celebrated Valentine’s Day the following week, with the children making some healthy Valentines biscuits and choosing someone to share the treat with! We also made our very own healthy strawberry jam, Valentine’s Day cards, completing heart collages and making hearts out of playdough. We have also been focusing on our Book of the Month ‘Handa’s Surprise’, as the children have shown lots of interest in learning about where Akeyo and Handa are from, where Africa is on the world map and how it may have some similarities and differences to us living in the UK. We have been looking at the various fruits within the story and re-enacting the story by balancing a fruit basket on our heads and walking very carefully. Finally, as always, we have been participating in lots of other phonics and maths activities, including threading, practicing writing names, matching objects to numeral cards and many more. We have also introduced a rhyming game, where the children are given a flashcard and have to find the correct matching rhyming flashcard before a timer runs out! The Swans have had a fantastic and very busy month and are looking forward to lots more fun next month!

SWANS ROOM

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. 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. Winter Clothing With the bitter months ahead, please can you make sure that your child has appropriate clothing for outdoor play. Ideally, they need a waterproof coat/ all In one with a hood, warm clothing, wellies, scarves, hats and gloves (preferably threaded through their coat). Please can you ensure that your child’s clothing is labelled. Severe Weather It is highly likely that we will have some snow throughout the winter, if this is the case, please call the nursery to see if we are open before setting off. We will always do our best to open, however in extreme cases we may need to close due to staffing etc. We will always communicate this to you via Tapestry as early as we can.

March 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. 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. Birthday Cakes/Treats We are kindly asking parents not to bring in birthday cake or sweet treats. Instead, we will have a pretend cake in each room where we will still sing happy birthday to the children and they can blow out the candles, we will also have a little disco. This way, the children are not taking cake home all the time and the children who cannot have due to allergies etc are not feeling left out. If parents do want to bring something in, they can bring in stickers.

March Newsletter

Upcoming Events Make A Diary Note

Monday 2nd March St. David’s Day Thursday 5th March World Book Day Monday 9th March Holi Colour Festival

W/C Monday 16th March Mothering Sunday Tea Party Tuesday 17th March St. Patrick’s Day Friday 10th April Good Friday, Nursery CLOSED Monday 13th April Bank Holiday, Nursery CLOSED

CONTACT US 0333 043 22 22

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