22 Street Lane Nursery - March 2024 Newsletter

Newsletter March Play • Discovery • Growth

March Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to our March newsletter, and as always, a very big welcome to the new families who have joined us recently. The children have had a very busy month with a lot to celebrate and many fun-filled days themed around the Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day and Pancake Day! We will be kicking off March by celebrating St. David’s Day and World Book Day! Later on in the month, we will be celebrating Comic Relief, Mother’s Day, the festival of colour ‘Holi’ and St. Patrick's Day! With spring fast approaching, we look forward to the warmer months and lighter nights, as well as enjoying more outdoor activities. The children have already started to plant various flowers and vegetables, and are excited to watch them grow! To find out more, please read on...

March Newsletter STAFF NEWS

Congratulations to Hermime! We would like to say a huge congratulations to Hermime who has gained her Level 3 Early Years Educator qualification. Hermime has worked so hard over the past 18 months and is so deserving of this, well done Hermime!

Congratulations to Emily! Emily is excited to share that she is expecting her own bundle of joy which is expected on 3rd September! We are all so happy for Emily and sure that she’ll make an amazing mummy.

Welcome to Maria Hernandez De La Rosa - Nursery Assistant We would like to give a warm welcome to Maria, who is joining our team as a Nursery Assistant and will be potentially working towards her Level 3 qualification. “I am very passionate about caring for children and helping them develop into their full potential. I love to attend childcare courses so I can learn everything about keeping children safe and being the best Nursery Assistant possible! In my spare time I like practicing all kind of sports and spending time with my family.”

March Newsletter NEWS

Celebrating St. David’s Day Happy St. David’s Day! Today we honoured Saint David at the nursery, who is the patron Saint of Wales. We have been celebrating the Welsh culture throughout the week by crafting the daffodil which is the Welsh symbol, as well as making traditional Welsh cakes! The children have enjoyed a traditional Welsh stew for lunch and explored themed tuff trays and made their very own Welsh dragons!

Country of the Month: March 2024 - Ireland Throughout March we will be celebrating Ireland as our Country of the Month.

Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle because it is so green and rains for a good chunk of the year. The children will be learning about the Harp, which is the national symbol of Ireland and traditional Celtic music which features fiddles, tin whistles and harps, and who can resist giving Irish Dancing a go!

March Newsletter NEWS

Lunar New Year Celebrations The children explored a variety of activities in support of the Lunar New Year! The younger children explored rice and noodles using their different senses, whilst the older children made Chinese lanterns and had a go at writing in Cantonese! Oli and Kim also cooked up a Chinese feast, which the children thoroughly enjoyed. The Cygnets and Swans children used chopsticks to eat their meal, and since then, the children have been using chopsticks to eat other meals too!

Shrove Tuesday / Pancake Day Festivities The children celebrated ‘Pancake Day’ by eating lots of yummy pancakes! The children cut up the fruit and chose their favourite toppings. Some of the children took part in pancake races, pancake tossing and made their own pancakes from playdough. The younger children explored ‘pancake batter’ through flour and water messy play! We hope that the parents enjoyed Oli’s pancakes too!

March Newsletter NEWS

Valentine's Day Celebrations Love was most definitely in the air on Valentine’s Day! The children spoke about who was special to them and why, as well as taking part in Valentine's activities!

Random Acts of Kindness Day In support of ‘Random of Acts of Kindness Day’, each room planned and activity. These included giving out flowers and cookies in the community, litter picking and sending cards around the nursery!

Parent First Aid Courses We would like to offer you the opportunity come and attend a 2 hour Baby and Child First Aid Training evening here at nursery on Thursday 28th March from 7-9pm. The evening is hosted by Mini First Aid and the class covers topics such as CPR, Choking, Bumps, Burns, Breaks, Bleeding, Febrile Seizures and Meningitis & Sepsis Awareness. Mini First Aid partner with the First Aid Industry Body, Children’s Burns Trust, Meningitis Research Foundation & Sepsis Trust for the latest in medical research updates to support teaching.

The cost of the class is £30 per person. There are 12 spaces available for the course. Please comment below or email us if you would like to be booked on. Spaces will be offered on a first come first served basis, but we will open up another date if more spaces are needed. To check our availability, please email Bec at bec@22streetlanenursery.co.uk

March Newsletter NEWS World Book Day - Thursday 7th March We will be celebrating World Book Day and the magic of lots of different stories on Thursday 7th March. The children are invited to dress as their favourite book characters and bring their favourite book along with them to the nursery. Each room will also be arranging their own fun activities to celebrate the day!

World Wildlife Day - Monday 4th March World Wildlife Day is held every year at the start of March and aims to raise awareness of the unique ways our world is brought together by the wildlife living in it. Organised by the United Nations, the day helps people to learn, while spreading the message about areas that are under threat, with tips on what we - as humans - can do to help. We will be teaching the children about important wildlife such as bees.

St Patrick's Day - Thursday 14th March We will be celebrating St Patrick's Day by creating shamrocks and exploring all things Irish! Oli and Kim will be cooking an Irish feast, and all children are welcome to wear green.

March Newsletter NEWS

Red Nose Day - Friday 15th March Red Nose Day is back this March! It’s that time of year when incredible cake-bakers, joke-makers, telly-watchers, Red Nose buyers and laugh-til-you-cryers, do something to fight poverty through humour and fun, for communities here in the UK and around the world. To support and help raise money for Comic Relief, we are inviting the children to wear their clothes back to front!

Global Recycling Day - Monday 18th March We will be learning about the importance of recycling and how this looks after our planet! We will be looking at ways in which we can recycle further in the nursery and at home.

Holi Festival - Monday 25th March What is Holi? - Holi is a Hindu festival that celebrates spring, love, and new life. Some families hold religious ceremonies, but for many Holi is more a time for fun. It's a colourful festival, with dancing, singing and throwing of powder paint and coloured water. Holi is also known as the 'Festival of Colours'. To mark this occasion, the children are invited to wear bright coloured clothes, the brighter the better!

Car Park Closed: Friday 15th - Wednesday 20th March Please note that we will be starting work on a new resin car park this month. Work will begin on Friday 15 th March and take three days, however, the surface will take several days to settle, so the car park will remain closed until Wednesday 20 th March

March Newsletter

Dish of the Month

Mixed Vegetable Savoury Rice

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

• 1 onion • 3 mushrooms • 1/2 red pepper • 1 tomato

• 1 x 10ml spoon oil • 150g long grain rice • 1 x 5ml spoon vegetable stock powder or cube • 550ml boiling water • 50g peas • 1 x 10ml spoon curry powder • 1 x 10ml spoon turmeric

• 2g fennel and cumin seeds • Any other chosen vegetables • 50g fresh coriander

Method

1. Prepare the vegetables, then peel and chop the onion and mushrooms. 2. Finely dice your pepper and roughly cut your tomato. 3. Fry your onion until it's nicely caramelised. add your other vegetables cook until soft. 4. Add your rice, stock and spices, and feel free to add any other spices you'd like. Then simmer until rice is cooked. 5. Finish the rice with the peas in the last stages and add finely diced chopped coriander. This dish is fantastic with marinated soy chicken, as well as tofu or salmon if you want to get your protein boost. It's also great with turmeric-seasoned scrambled egg.

March Newsletter Mother’s Day Stay and Play: Monday 4 th - Friday 15 th March

We would like to invite someone special to attend our Mother's Day Stay and Play which will be held over two sessions for each room from 3pm to 4pm. Due to space in the room, we can only accommodate a limited number of people per session, details of this and the dates for each room can be found in the chart to the right. Spaces will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. If you’d like to attend, please speak to Alex or Shosh at the Reception Desk, who will book your slot and advise which spaces are remaining.

Wednesday 6th March 10 Mummies Thursday 14th March 10 Mummies

Chicklets

Thursday 7th March Friday 15th March Friday 8th March Monday 11th March Monday 4th March Tuesday 12th March Tuesday 5th March

12 Mummies 11 Mummies 11 Mummies 12 Mummies 20 Mummies 20 Mummies

Ducklings

Goslings

Cygnets

22 Mummies Wednesday 13th March 21 Mummies

Swans

March Newsletter Easter Bonnet Competition: Wednesday 27th March On Wednesday 27th March, we will be holding our annual Easter Bonnet Parade and Egg Hunt. The children are welcome to bring their decorated bonnets from Monday 25th March to Wednesday 27th March. 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. The nursery will also be closed on Friday 29th March and Monday 1st April for Good Friday and Easter Monday, respectively.

March Newsletter Chicklets Room News February has been full of love here in the Chicklets Room!

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with lots of themed messy play activities - we even painted our mummies and daddies a Valentine’s Day card to tell them how much we care about them. The Chicklets were also spreading the love with their friends; practicing gentle hands and giving our friends cuddles. A big interest in the Chicklets Room has been noises. The children have been exploring lots of different ways to make noise, including through our sensory bottles, sprinkling rice and tearing tinfoil! We will continue to explore this throughout March by exploring different messy play and using sticks to bang on metal objects. As a lot of the Chicklets are beginning to start taking independent steps now, we are all going to be working hard on our physical development. The children love Song Time, so this will help us to practice big movements like stomps and marches up on our feet. We are also going to be spending lots of time challenging ourselves on the climbing frame inside and on the steps outside to build our confidence in manoeuvring across different surfaces. We can’t wait to see what March brings!

CHICKLETS ROOM

March Newsletter

Ducklings Room News

The Ducklings have had a fantastic February! Last month we celebrated Random Acts of Kindness Day, where the Ducklings were busy baking some cookies to hand out to our lovely community. All the Ducklings used their fine motor skills to mix all the ingredients together and took turns in the process, which encouraged sharing. We then took some of our Ducklings out on a walk to deliver cookies to people in our community. We visited the local care home, charity shop volunteers, the postman and people walking on the street to give them a special treat. The Ducklings have taken a massive interest in animals lately at nursery, following on from this we have set up multiple activities for the children to investigate and explore. We spoke about the different animals; they sounds they make and continued to read books about them. We explored the different sensory trays using the animals to ‘stomp, stomp’. We then celebrated Valentine’s Day on the 14th February. All the Ducklings made Valentine’s fruit wands with some of our favourite fruit. The Ducklings took turns using their fine motor skills to cut out heart shaped pieces of fruit and designed their wands! We all had a chance at trying the different fruits and some of them had funny tastes. We have been exploring a lot of textures in the Ducklings Room through sensory exploration and messy play. The Ducklings enjoy feeling the different textures, experiment mixing them together and using their fingers to explore, we spoke about how different textures feel, rough, smooth and wet.

DUCKLINGS ROOM

March Newsletter Goslings Room News

The Goslings have been very busy over the past few weeks, we kicked February off by enjoying Valentine’s Day. To celebrate the day of love, the Goslings enjoyed decorating heart shapes using all things red and pink. This includes making cards for the ones we love the most! They also went around the nursery to give flowers to all the teachers to celebrate ‘Random Acts of Kindness Day’. With the weather getting milder, we have busy taking trips to our local charity shops on Street Lane! The Goslings were very excited to walk to the shops and explore what things they could find for the nursery. We bought a new drum alongside jigsaw puzzles, which were a great find. We also have been taking trips to Roundhay Park to feed the swans and ducks. Throughout the year, we will be offering more new experiences to the children which will spark their curiosity. To celebrate Shrove Tuesday, the Goslings enjoyed yummy pancakes with delicious fruit with their lunch. We also made out very own pancakes inspired by nature, using leaves from the garden and purple coloured rice to use as sprinkles on our playdough pancakes! Lastly, the Goslings have shown lots of interest in baking as of lately, we have been baking biscuits, loafs and more. They have really enjoyed taking part in the activities and have been waiting their turn, and following instructions.

GOSLINGS ROOM

March Newsletter Cygnets Room News

To celebrate Lunar New Year, they Cygnets enjoyed making a dragon using lots of recycled materials. They also love exploring Asian cutlery ‘chopsticks’ in the messy play tuff trays and they even challenged themselves to use chopsticks during lunch time. We also wrote some Lunar New Year couplets with Chinese words, which the Cygnets did well in copying some words, such as wishing people good fortune in the New Year and wishing people health throughout the year. For the Random Acts of Kindness Day, the Cygnets made some note cards with the special messages on and sent it around the nursery for all the staff to say thank you. Some of the Cygnets also went out in our community to send some flowers to our local shop and people around the community. Some of the children took part in litter picking in Roundhay Park, which they really enjoyed it. They all learned to be kind to everyone. A big interest in the Cygnets recently has been looking after babies, as some of our Cygnets are going to be a big brother or sister soon. We had plenty of activities related to this topic and we also had a new home learning bag - Cindy the Cygnet. The Cygnets are excited to meet her and started to take it home and look after her. With the weather become milder, we are looking forward to doing some planting in our garden where we have already started to put the new soil in the planter. We can’t wait to explore gardening with the Cygnets during the Spring!

CYGNETS ROOM

Swans Room News March Newsletter

The Swans have been so busy throughout February and had so much fun! Everyone had a great time celebrating Pancake Day. The children enjoyed exploring the tuff tray, as well as making some pancakes of their own in the role play area. The Swans then designed pancakes in the creative area using a variety of different materials. We had some yummy pancakes for pudding and loved trying all of the toppings, especially some very sour lemon. The Swans ended the day by reading 'The Runaway Pancake'. We then celebrated Valentine’s Day. We spoke to the children about who they love and some of the children brought in roses and flowers to give to some of their friends. The Swans enjoyed exploring some Valentine’s Day themed tuff trays, where they were making perfume and potions with petals and water. The children enjoyed a Valentine’s Day disco where some of the children did some slow dances with their friends. The Swans children have shown a massive interest towards playing hairdressers and working at the nail salon. We decided to dedicate a day called ‘Timeout Tuesday Spa.’ The children enjoyed relaxing and soaking their feet in the foot spa before moving on to the nail bar where they could choose from lots of colours to have their nails done. The children finished the day with some yoga and some refreshing lemon water. Towards the end of the month, we started to prepare our garden for the spring by adding some soil into our planters and adding some seeds so we can see some beautiful flowers grow as we come into spring.

SWANS ROOM

March Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Thursday 7 th March World Book Day

W/C Monday 11 th March Mother’s Day Stay and Play Friday 15 th March Red Nose Day Monday 25 th March Holi Colour Festival Wednesday 27 th March Easter Bonnet and Egg Hunt

Friday 29 th March & Monday 1 st April Good Friday & Easter Monday, Nursery Closed

March 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. 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. Sun Cream and Sunhats With the warmer months upon us, please can you ensure that your child has appropriate clothing for warm weather including sun cream and a sun hat. We would recommend that you provide sun cream which is factor 50 and at least a 4-star UVA rating. If you could please label your child’s sun cream and hat with their name, it would be helpful.

March Newsletter

*ATTENTION* Important Information - Please Read 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.

CONTACT US 0333 043 22 22

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