May 2024
Month in Pictures
Chef’s Corner
Creamy Tuna Pasta
Recipe:
1 Can of Tuna
Juice of half a lemon
1 Cup of Macaroni
2 Cloves of Garlic (chopped)
1 Cup of Cauliflower (chopped)
1 Cup of Kale
2 Tbsp Cream cheese
2 Tbsp Chopped basil
2 Tbsp Pesto
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Tomato Puree
Method:
Chop the ingredients. In a nonstick pan sauté the kale and cauliflower with olive oil and garlic for 5-6 minutes, cover with a lid.
Meanwhile, mix the tuna with the lemon juice.
Next add the pasta to the pan with about 1 cup of water, stirring in the tomato puree, pesto, garlic and tuna.
Stir in the cream cheese and add more water if needed, re-cover and cook for 5 minutes.
Stir in the basil and cook for a further minute
Serve and enjoy
Car Park
As you know the car park can get very busy and it has been particularly difficult recently getting in and out of the car park at peak times. Can you ensure you are allowing cars to exit the car park before trying to enter and if there is a queue to get in rather than blocking the road could we suggest that you pop round the corner to the side roads that allow for 4 hour parking whilst you drop off.
Please also only park in designated car parking spaces.
The peak times tend to be around 8.30am and 5.15pm if you have some flexibility to avoid these times or alternatively walk to the nursery that would be helpful as well. Thank you for your support and understanding.
Soccer Aid
Created in 2006 Soccer Aid for UNICEF helps to bring people together to help children around the world have the best possible start in life. At Weston during the week following the official soccer Aid match on 9th June we will be taking part in our own sports themed events across the nursery including a football match against our friends at our Grosvenor site.
We would love for you to help us raise much needed funds for children less fortunate than ourselves, we have our own dedicated just giving page and you will see some posters near the office with a QR code. Snapdragons Nurseries is fundraising for UNICEF UK (justgiving.com)
Sing & Sign
Some of our nursery team recently took part sing and sign training to help us enhance communication between our youngest children using simple keyword signing alongside normal speech. By introducing some extra gestures at this time it helps to support and extend babies developing communication skills.
Let us know if your little one has been teaching you some of the songs at home.
For more information head over to the sing and sign website: Sing and Sign
Outdoor Fun
With the warmer weather, the children have been making the most of being outside and taking part in some outdoor activities.
Pre-school enjoyed setting up an obstacle course in the garden. They added different challenges, and worked their way around the garden.
Toddlers looked around the garden and spent time choosing some different flowers. They then mixed them together to make scented potions with coloured water.
Sharing Library
Take a look at our new Sharing Library!
Please help yourself to a book from the box or one of the new book bags, with resources from some favourite books of ours at nursery.
The book bags are an extension of learning, giving an oppotunity for the children to delevelp language, make their mark and join in with the story telling.
Swap Sessions
We have had to update our guidance for swaps for our funded children due to the funding expansion which started from April this year. With the volumes of children receiving funding increasing significantly as this was rolled out to eligible families, we need to ensure that any swaps, which are at nursery discretion, are as manageable as possible. We therefore have been told that all sessions for funded children (regardless of where the funding is allocated in the week) can only be swapped within the same week. I hope you can appreciate that with funding soon being an option for some children from 9 months upwards it would be completely unmanageable for us to ensure that swaps are being allocated correctly on our system and that funding is still applied correctly to ensure the correct hours of funding are applied each week.
Any children not in receipt of funding our swap sessions still need to take place within the same calendar month for invoicing purposes.
I appreciate that this will be disappointing, but to ensure that we can offer the funding to as many families as possible, we believe this to be the best approach to ensure that funding allocation remains correct and as manageable as we can.
Nominate your Superstar
We love to hear from our families across Snapdragons about excellent service they have received. If someone at the nursery has impressed you, please fill in their details below and submit to the nursery. We run a rewards scheme for our teams and they can earn gifts by receiving nominations!
