Directors : Mrs. Bhavana Jashnani ; Mrs. Samara Jagwanee Principal: Mrs.

Arati Nanavati

Issue 1 – August 2019 Hello Parents,

It’s a pleasure to have the new bundles of joy with us at Serra in the
new academic year and see them settled in the environment, while it
is also overwhelming to see our previous batch children take a leap
Table of Content
to higher classes.

We began the year with a five days, extensive training session with
School Head’s Note………………….1
our Co Founder, Mr. Anshul Arora, the VP Head Operations Ms.
Child’s Immunity ..………………..…..3 Rakhi Singh and the Curriculum Coordinator , Ms. Dhara Sanghvi.
Event Report…………..………………5 Teachers spent time brushing up our teaching philosophy and taking
notes on the upgraded curriculum and techniques of conducting
New Additions this year………………6
learning engagements with children across all the levels as per the
guidance of Eton House, Singapore.
Teacher’s Talk
We were glad to welcome our enthusiastic parents on the Orientation
Pre-Nursery……………………………7
Day for the year 2019 - 20. It helps us to be in sync with each other
Pre – Nursery Photo Gallery ………..8 and work together in the best interest of each and every child, right
Nursery ……………………………..9 from day one of the school.

K1…..………………………. ……….11 We as an ISO Certified Preschool with our partnering with Eton
K2……………………………………..12 House, Singapore, maintain teachers and staff with adequate
qualification and experience. No compromise is done at the cost
Child Care……………………………13
when it comes to quality and facilities offered to our blooming stars.
Children’s Voices –K1………………14 We need to take utmost care of safety, health and hygiene at each
Children’s Voices – K2 …………….15 and every corner of the school.
This also means we need full cooperation of parents for us to
implement simple and easy rules for children.
To start with a few:
1. Let’s show family passes at the gate. It’s for the child’s safety.
2. Please go through the notices and acknowledge
communications via emails, from class teachers – emails,
overviews, notes and newsletters.
3. Abide by the school timing and kindly pick and drop the children
on time.
4. Send healthy meals in their snack boxes.
5. Attend the special days and events at school.
Children across all classes follow an approach inspired by the Reggio
Approach of learning where in the facilitators encourage them to lead
the class and choose their activities for the day. Enquiry of a particular
topic is done in a playful fun way, while the goal is set at the back of the
mind of the teacher. Children are exposed to age appropriate
equipments and manipulatives to make their learning better. Real life
examples are placed for them to make a connect between home and
school. Children explore every class and corner of the school over the
day, to get the best out of the rich environment. They learn to make
friends and share their belongings in the course through the day.

Having said that, teachers make constant efforts to bring out the best in
each child by encouraging them to participate in the various activities
based on the six areas of development – Numeracy, Literacy,
Knowledge and Understanding of the world, Physical Development,
Creative Development and Personal, Social, Emotional Skills. All these
six areas together shall lead to a holistic development of the children.

Apart from the curriculum, children have specific days and time slots to
explore activities once in a week :

• Lego Room
• ICT curriculum for K1 and K2,
• Story/Puppet Theatre Time in the Performing art area,
• Music and Movement sessions with Navya Teacher
• Japanese with Riya Teacher
• Outdoor sports

Specific tasks based on the age and understanding of the children are
taken up class wise. Like - Special assembly for K1 and K2 helps them
express themselves in front of a big crowd. Teachers take up
newspaper reading in small groups and encourage them to come with
interesting news clips.

At the end of it, a fresh and hot meal from Santra didi is just perfect to
keep them healthy in the cold rainy season.
Child’s Immunity during Preschool Years:

It's the time of year where you wonder if your child will ever be healthy again. They get sick over
and over and over. Is there a time to worry that colds and other infections are becoming too
frequent?

How Many Colds Per Year Is Normal for Children?

Some children seem to always have the sniffles. They get one cold after another after another.
And many parents wonder, "Isn't my child having too many colds? Is there something wrong
with their immune system?" The truth is, children start to get colds after about six months of age
when the immunity they received from their mom fades and they have to build up their own
immune system.

Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers get about seven to eight colds a year. And during school
age, they average five to six colds a year. Teenagers finally reach an adult level of four colds a
year.

And in addition to colds, children get the lovely diarrhea illnesses, with or without vomiting, two
to three times a year. Some children tend to get high fevers with most of their colds or they
have a sensitive tummy and develop diarrhea with the cold symptoms.

Why Does My Child Get So Many Colds?

The main reason your child is getting all those infections is that he or she is being exposed to
new viruses all the time. The viruses are everywhere no matter how much you sanitize and
clean. There are at least 200 different cold viruses and they're getting tricky, mutating all the
time.

Your child's body will build up defenses or immunity against these viruses when he or she is
exposed to them but this takes time. It takes many years to build up immunity to viruses. Your
child will be exposed to more if he or she attends daycare or preschool. Older brothers and
sisters are also great vectors to bring home a virus from school.

Colds are more common in large families as the virus makes its rounds through house and
back again. The rate of colds triples in the winter and rainy season. Not because of the cold air,
but because people tend to spend more time in crowded areas indoors together breathing re-
circulated air.

Your child will muddle through just like every other child and the long-term outlook is good. The
number of colds will decrease over the years as your child's body builds up a good antibodies
supply to the various viruses. This means that by the time they are in the middle of elementary
school, their bodies will know how to fight these viruses pretty darn well.
Is It a Cold or Allergies?
If your child is over two, sneezes a lot, rubs their nose all the time and has a clear runny nose that lasts
over a month and doesn't have a fever, your child may actually have allergies. This is especially true if
these symptoms occur during pollen season, meaning the spring and the fall. But depending on what the
allergy is to, they can have symptoms any time of the year. And your pediatrician can help you figure this
out. Allergies are much easier to treat than the frequent colds because medications can help control the
symptoms.

Quite often, parents wonder if a child is sick because they lack vitamins of because it's cold outside. Colds
are not caused by a poor diet or the lack of vitamins. They are not caused by bad weather, air conditioners,
or wet feet or hair, or even from playing outside without a coat on. Having all these colds is an unavoidable
part of growing up. Colds can't be prevented, no matter what you see on TV or read on the Internet. They
help build up your child's immune system.

So how can I take care of my child with all these viruses that they get? First, look at your child's general
health. If your child is vigorous and gaining weight, you don't have to worry about their health. Your child is
no sicker than the average child of their age. Children get over colds by themselves. And although you can
reduce the symptoms, you can't shorten the course of each cold.

When Should I Send My Child Back to School After a Cold?

Next, send your child back to school only once the child has fully recovered. The child already low on
immunity, if sent to school, would pass on the infection as well as feel cranky and dull all through the hours
spent at school. Its best to let the child rest and kept warm under the supervision of the parents and elders
at home.

There are no instant cures of recurrent colds or other viral illnesses. Antibiotics are not helpful unless your
child has develops complications such as an ear infection, sinus infection, or pneumonia. Having your
child's tonsils removed is not helpful because colds are not caused by bad tonsils. Again, while it's hard in
the short term, the best time to have these infections and develop immunity is during childhood.

So stay calm and do not worry! Let the children fumble as they grow!!

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UPCOMING EVENTS and SPECIAL DAYS in August:

• International Friendship Day in Childcare Fri, 2nd

• Serra NIBM 8th Anniversary Celebration 5th - 8th
• 1st Culmination Day 2018-19 5th – 8th
• Rakhi Thali Making workshop Tue, 13th
• Independence Day celebration Thur, 15th
• World Photography Day Mon, 19th
• Janamashtmi Celebration Fri, 23rd

HOLIDAYS in August
• Term end break – Friday, 9th
• Bakri Eid – Monday, 12th
• Independence Day\Raksha Bandhan – Thursday, 15th
New additions this academic year:
We are happy to announce the kick start of the Toddler Program from
the 15th of July 2019, as we welcome 6 little babies with their parents
and grandparents paying visit at Serra, NIBM thrice a week for a fun
filled engaging hour of age appropriate stimulating activities keeping
their holistic development in mind.

The sessions are conducted by our Director Mrs. Samara Jagwanee,

who has specialised in child psychology and has been in the education
field since the past 15 years is all charged up with all her expertise and
energy to give her best to the children.
The curriculum that is backed by the Eton House, Singapore, is
specially designed to prepare toddlers for the pre-schooler phase. It
gives the opportunity to the children to explore a variety of specially
designed learning toys and aids that can help them develop physical,
intellectual and creative aspects of growing. It encourages the children
to be involved in collaborative play, develop a value of sharing and
caring along with imbibing the importance of schedule and discipline.
Eventually the children will become independent, develop imaginative
thinking , develop motor skills and eye hand coordination.
Parents get a chance to be a part of the initial learning journey of their
child. Going forward, it gives an assurance to the child that parents are
around and it becomes easier to wean them off for a smooth transition
to the Preschool stage.

Another feather to our hat this year is the association with Ms. Navya
Somanna, who has been coming to Serra NIBM, as the Music and
Movement Teacher once in a week across all grades.
She has been teaching story telling, dramatics and music for over 15
years in different schools across Chennai, Mumbai, Mysore and Pune.
She is trained in Hindustani classical, Music Together and Playback
theatre.
We are glad to have her for the current academic session enriching
children with the art of music.

We are happy to have Ms. Ramandeep Kaur as the new childcare

supervisor for the afternoon slot. Ramandeep has been a trained
Helen o Grady Facilitator with various schools and her passion for
being around with children has brought her to Serra. With an upgraded
childcare curriculum, she along with Sumaiya teacher has introduced
daily study circle with children in the childcare. ICT Curriculum is
helping the older children coming from different schools to cope up
with Maths and English grammar skills. A beautiful blend of children of
various age group playing and spending the day together while
performing various activities over the day is something parents admire
and continue to believe in our philosophy.
 EVENT REPORT
The Big Event for the month was ‘The International Mud Day.’

Parents and children came in great numbers. It was a grand event for our new joiners and
they were as excited as us and made the most of the fun filled Saturday morning. The
activities were all mud based to encourage the children understand the essence of being
close to nature and make it a friend.

Children rolled through the muddy slide to fall into the water pool. Bug hunting out of a
muddy puddle was great fun. Serra Mud Kitchen was a super hit pretend play setup where
in children were engrossed in cooking mud pies and baking cake while others were serving
tea and washing vessels.

Serra children always in for creative stuff, were as innovative as even making mud donuts
and added toppings to their mud pizza.

They painted their T- shirts and made mud objects before they could decorate their own
Mud Day Certificates. Mud science kept the children zapped with a few interesting
experiments.

To top up the fun, children relished the hot chocolate while parents didn’t mind the hot
kanda bhajis offered to them.

It was a pleasure to have our alumni come back to us as a long lost family and we all were
overjoyed with the reunion.

Thank you so much parents to participate with enthusiasm and make every moment for our
children so special.
 PRE- NURSERY
A&B

A warm welcome to our PRECIOUS TOTS for their first journey

towards education. It has been two months but our Pre-Nursery
babies have taken us by surprise by following class routine and
making new friends in class. Tears are now gradually changing into
smiles.
We explored, our first unit – MY SENSES. In this unit, our children
were introduced to the various parts of the body, its care and
hygiene through rhymes (Head And Shoulders, If You Are Happy
And You Know It etc) stories (Head To Toe and Hands Are Not For
Hitting), fun games and creative work (CD face).
Under this Unit, our children have explored the sense of Hearing
(loud and soft sounds) and Smell (fragrance and odour) through a
sensorial corner displayed in class. Enjoying circle time with
Creating musical shakers and junk orchestra from various vessels Mommies
has helped them to identify how do we hear from our ears. Our
class was filled with lingering fragrance as children tried their
hands on scented dough and paint and that was the sense of smell
that they experienced. Children explored the concept of sense of
sight by different activities where they explored the light table with
sand and window blocks. They were amazed to see the reflection!
In Numeracy, we have introduced the shape Circle through
activities like bottle cap painting and pattern walk over a circle print
on the floor with glitter tape. Primary colours Blue ,Yellow and
Red was introduced in class. It surely made our day bright seeing
our babies come dressed in red clothes! They identified red colour
objects all around the class that were deliberately kept for re
enforcement of the colour they have learnt.
Pre-mathematical concepts like Up/Down, In/Out, Wet/Dry were
done and are repeated each day for children to retain and apply on
Daddy and doughnut day
a daily basis.
Along with this we had celebrations like
“Daddy and Doughnut Day” as well as “Tana Bata-A Japanese
festival”. Thankyou parents for your participation and encouraging
children by spending quality time with them at school.
So this is only the beginning of a beautiful story, with each day
unfolding a new experience and learning for our tots and us as
facilitators…
Looking forward to see you all on the Culmination Day, for a
complete hour of classroom activities with the children.

Celebrating Tana bata festival

Pre Nursery Photo Gallery
 NURSERY A & B

Dear parents,

A warm welcome to our precious children and parents as we all

begin our journey together in the Nursery class. We, the teachers of
Nursery, are thrilled as we take our gems to explore this wondrous ride
and enhance their learning.
We began this session with the unit – I BELONG. Through this
unit, the class explored their core environment of home and school. A
school tour, classroom visits, getting to know the teachers, staff and
pets at school was a fun experience… After all, SERRA is their Our Daddy chef’s garnish yummy
SECOND HOME! donuts
Home connections were made as the children enthusiastically
shared the pictures of their family members, their homes and different
rooms in their house, their friends and the helper’s at home. Thank
You cards were made by the class to appreciate the time and effort
invested by their helpers.
The class was taken for a joyride around the neighbourhood!!
Their joy knew no bounds as they recognized and related to the places
known by them. We are now collaboratively working on a
Neighbourhood project as a re visitation of the concept done. Twinnies and us!
We explored the numbers 1, 2 and 3 through pattern walk, dough
play, rhymes and games such as hopscotch. Colours ‘Red’ (shades of
Red) and ‘Blue’ and Shapes ‘Circle’ and ‘Triangle’ were explored by
the class. Seriation activities for comparative concepts like Wet/ Dry,
Hard/ Soft and Big/ Medium/ Small was very exciting. We tried our
hands on measuring too – the length of our whiteboard is longer than
that of our classroom mirror!!
We have explored the letters Aa, Bb, Cc and Dd and their
sounds. Pattern writing (standing and sleeping lines) and Rainbow
Visit to our neighbourhood
writing worksheets of the letters are encouraging the children to
practice their writing skills. Stories such as, ‘The Thirsty Crow,
Goldilocks And The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, Pete The
Cat And His Four Groovy Buttons and Musicians Of Bremen were
enjoyed by the children through puppet shows and dramatization.
Show and Tell every Friday, is helping the children in enhancing their
confidence and vocabulary.
Culinary skills of our little chef’s were experienced as they made
refreshing Lemonade, Mashed Potato and The yummiest Fruit Salad.
D says d...d..d... DOG!
 We celebrated events such as Dad and Donut Date. It was a
pleasure to see the enthusiasm shown by our fathers as they made
delicious donut’s with their children at school. International Yoga
Day had our children participate with great energy. Tanabata – a
Japanese star festival, was celebrated in-house with our parents
participating in games and activities with great zeal while our stars in
class sang Kira Kira Hikaru - the Japanese version of twinkle twinkle
little star. International Mud Day saw children enjoying different mud
activities with their parents and getting a hands-on experience with
Mother Nature. We love Messy painting

A heartfelt gratitude to Mrs & Mr Palekar (Reyansh’s mom and

dad from class Nursery A) for coming to school with their adorable
twins and Mrs. Chinoy (Arshan’s mom from class Nursery B) for
coming to school with her joyful baby for the ‘Baby Visit’ theme and
talking to our class about the needs and care required towards little
babies. A special thank you to Mrs. Kumar (Eshan’s mom from class
Nursery A) for bringing ‘Tarot’, their pet dog to school, as we explored ‘Baby Zayn visits our class
the letter ‘Dd’ in class.

We would like to extend our appreciation to our parents for

the resources and pictures that were sent to us on time for the class
activities and concepts.

Warm Regards, We create our own art

Nursery Team.

Visit to our neighbourhood- Dorabjee’s

supermarket
 KINDERGARTEN 1

Dear Parents,

After a long summer break we all were excited to come back to

school , our new class, and to meet our children. It took a week to
settle in as children got into the new routine where they learned to
keep their snack boxes, water bottles in the basket , bags and
journals in their respective places.

Children were excited to see the various corners like literacy, Encouraging children to find letters in the
numeracy, discovery and a writing corner. newspaper.

During circle time we learnt about different people who come

together to make a school, their responsibilities and responsibilities
of children at school as part of knowledge and understanding of
the world. At the reading corner they explore to read their names
and high frequency words. Children have also made the essential
agreements for the class like ‘Wait for your chance till other’s are
through.; K1 having fun during International Yoga Day.

Children were excited to learn more about Unit 1- “My school”.

They went around and took a school tour to see and explore
different areas and rooms. Our children captured lovely pictures of
different area of school and also noted down the activities of
school staff.

During the course of learning, children are also given leadership

tasks and star charts are maintained to understand the importance Social bonding during class tea party.
of coming together as a K1 Team.

Formal writing of the letters and numbers in the journals is

something which children are working towards accomplishing their
writing skills. During reading program children have started reading
CVC word readers and we started with the Vowel ‘i’.

Children are progressing during Japanese sessions once a week

in school.

We thank all the parent for cooperating with us and Aaryaveer’s Children enjoying and relishing fresh
parent for sharing organic fruits with our children. organic juicy mangoes.
 KINDERGARTEN 2

Dear Parents,

Children were back after a break and were geared up to resume this
session with enthusiasm!! We resumed the year with a revisit of the
Literacy and Numeracy skills established last year! Once that was
accomplished our main focus was on taking the curriculum ahead.

A set of new sight were introduced. Children are reading and writing
words with Consonant blends, end blends, CVC words with the short
Getting our Passports ready to travel around
sound of letter ‘a’. An added feature to our writing skills was Diary
the world
writing. Each child maintains a Diary and keeps it updated with
events of their choice! Newspapers are bought to class as children
hunt for familiar words to read. The excitement to read the words
related to the topic of Inquiry was fun as they are now familiar and
updated on what is happening in not only our country but globally
too!! The ICC World Cup further helped in enhancing children’s
knowledge about countries and their geographical location on the
map. Children also explored writing a few words about countries
introduced. International Cuisine day saw children explore and
Let’s taste some international cuisine
prepare dishes of Australia, Japan and China. Tanabata a Japanese
festival had children writing there wishes for the wishing tree. They
made fans with numbers written in Japanese and used them for the
dance they performed with so much poise and grace!!

ICT: The ICT curriculum is being explored as children now are

familiar using the I-pads. They use them to research on various
countries, to create picture collages on the seven wonders of the
world and to reinforce numeracy concepts.
Asking Siri for all that we don’t
Hindi: Children are identifying and reading their names, vocabulary know
related to the unit of Inquiry. They are identifying numbers up to
10.Children are working hard on accomplishing writing of a few
consonants in their journals!

We would like to thank the moms of Ara, Kazanya, Alireza, Zakariya

and Meira’s parents for participating with our children for Culinary
Day! We look forward to more such participation from our Serra
friends for our upcoming events in August.

Warm regards from Team K2 Newspaper reading

 CHILDCARE

Dear Parents,

A warm welcome to the new beginning of the Childcare. As we end

this month with our 2 units that’s “Healthy Me” and “Colours and
Shapes” in which children learnt about all time food and some time,
and also about how to keep our body clean and maintain hygiene.
They also explored art and craft through different mediums.
Children were seen eagerly waited for circle time as basic concepts
like shapes, colours and numbers are covered. Above all children are
given time and attention to express themselves and feel pampered.

Teacher talks of nutritive values of healthy food while children have

their lunch. Few babies take a nap while the older children are busy
with creative activities or story time after lunch.

Few activities covered are free hand drawing, painting, writing. We

have also included study circle time in which the older children are
guided to do Maths and other subjects.

Evening milk and fruit is relished by all children before they begin
with art and craft activity.

After a busy day of reading , writing and creative activities children

need some time to be on their own. Here they are given a choice to
do outdoor activities or board games as “ All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy!”

Last but not the least yummy snacks are relished by children before
they freshen up and pack their bags for the day. Looking forward to
see you all on the 2nd of August as child care children are going to
have some fun enacting stories and some fireless cooking.
Children’s Voices - K1 – My school

Kiyansh Vivaahn

Aryan Prem
Children’s Voices – K2 - wishes for the Tana Bata
Japanese Festival

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