| Homerton Early Years Centre – Weekly Bulletin
20th March 2024
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| Dates for your diary:
Wednesday 27th March – Easter Raffle – cash only £1.00 per ticket Thursday 28th March – Last Day of Spring Term Tuesday 2nd – Friday 5th April – Holiday Club is running Monday 15th April – Summer Term begins
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| Reminders and Requests:
Easter Raffle Please bring some money on Wednesday 27th March if you would like the chance of winning one of our fantastic Easter Raffle prizes. A big thank you to Tracey, for wrapping them all so beautifully for us, and to all of you for donating items for them.
Birthday sharing suggestion for the class If your child has a birthday here and you would like them to celebrate with something special from home, then perhaps you would like to buy a book as a gift for the whole class to share, or bring in a more exotic fruit for the children to try as a treat. We are a health promoting school so these suggestions are just ideas to help to reduce additional sugar levels in young children.
Information link for parents to access services and advice – there is lots of useful information on this site so do have a look https://i3parenthub.org/about-us/
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| Message from the Head Teacher:
Dear Parents
Thank you to all of you who came to this morning’s Eggstravaganza which luckily wasn’t too rainy. I hope everyone enjoyed it and learnt something about lifecycles and creatures that do, or don’t, lay eggs. We are hoping that once the weather warms up the frogs will be laying some real frog spawn in our pond. We have spotted frogs and newts in the pond recently. All the photos today are from the Eggstravaganza so please do take a look at them at the end of the bulletin.
Today is also the start of the Persian Spring festival of Nowruz. I am attaching some information about this festival, which Miriam’s Mum from the Nest has kindly provided. We love having parents coming in to celebrate festivals with us, and children and staff learn so much from this. Please speak to class staff if you would like to come in and talk about a particular cultural event, or share a story in your language with your child’s class.
Happy Nowruz Nowruz means ‘new day’ in Persian and is the most important festival of new year in Iran. It is also celebrated in a number of other countries across the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, the Balkans and East Africa, and dates back at least 3,000 years. Nowruz marks the spring equinox, when night and day are of equal length. This is usually around 21st March. It’s the day when winter changes into spring in the northern hemisphere, and it feels like a new beginning. People prepare for Nowruz by providing a special table in their homes, where they place small dishes holding seven symbolic foods and spices. The names of these foods all start with the letter ‘s’ in Persian and so the table is called the ‘seven s’s’ (haft-seen). The dishes generally contain wheat or bean sprouts (sabze), vinegar (serke), apples (sib), garlic (sir), a wheat-based pudding called samanu, a red spice called sumac, and senjed, a kind of wild olive which is common in the region. Other symbolic objects can include goldfish, painted eggs, candles and a mirror. The seven s’s symbolise life, love, health and prosperity.
Next week is the last week of term and we will be celebrating Easter with the children by singing some songs about eggs, chicks, frogs and bunnies as well as trying hot cross buns. This event is just for children and will take place during their session on Wednesday. Please do bring some money with you on Wednesday to buy a raffle ticket, the raffle will be drawn on the day and tickets are £1.00 each. We are hoping to buy some more equipment for our sensory room with the funds that we raise as well as using it towards some summer events for the children. Sharon, Tracey’s sister has also knitted us a beautiful clown and we are doing a guess the name competition, so please do join in with if you would like to – it is £1.00 per guess.
Many of our Irish families will have celebrated St Patrick’s Day on Sunday 17th March. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. Molly, Bernie’s niece, is coming in this afternoon to do an Irish dancing demonstration for the children, so a big thank you to her and I shall include some pictures of the event in next week’s bulletin. |
| Medical Update: Nothing in particular to report this week. |
| Some of our Learning this week
The photos below are all from the Eggstravaganza today – I hope you and your children all enjoyed learning about different animals and who does, or doesn’t, lay eggs. A big thank you to all the staff for all their hard work putting this event together.
Where do penguins live and do they lay eggs?
Compare the size of the hen and Ostrich egg – which is bigger?
Pretend Frog spawn made with tapioca
Chalk art creating eggs and patterns on the paving
Are these dinosaur eggs real?
Exploring the ice
Guess what is in the mystery egg?
Naming the clown
Using non-fiction books to find out information on snakes and snails
Making our own playdough eggs
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With Best wishes from us all at Homerton and a very happy Spring.
Alex
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