Babies – Daisy Ducks
Nursery Care for Children Aged 6 Weeks – 2 Years
Small World is an important aspect of children’s play. It helps in many areas of development. This area also offers the opportunity for children to build on their communication and language skills. Children will expand their vocabulary, understanding and imagination as they create stories based around the resources provided.
Home Corner is a comfortable home-from-home experience for the children. It allows them to create and act out their own stories using their own experiences from their home life. This area can also help them develop their social, communication and language skills.
The Reading Area is an important area in our baby room. Reading to young infants contributes hugely to the development of their brains. It also encourages them to enjoy reading, which helps as they develop. When you read to babies, it can also help with their speech development.
We often dismiss children’s early doodles and scribbles, but actually they are ‘Mark-Making‘. This is the first step a child takes towards writing. As well as enabling a child to learn how to write, mark-making can benefit a child physically and also help to develop their imagination and creative skills.
Sand & Water Play promotes physical development in young children. A child’s muscle skills develop as they squeeze, dig, pour, scoop and clean up. Hand-eye coordination and muscle control improve as children learn to manipulate sand accessories, as well as improving social skills whilst playing with other children.
Sensory Play encourages processes within a child’s brain. It teaches them to solve problems using the senses; their eyes (sight), ears (sound), nose (smell), mouth (taste) and hands (touch). We have a range of treasure baskets full of different textures and scents, plus some sensory bottles that create different interesting sounds.
In the first three months of eye development, new born babies can only focus about 8-12 inches from their face and they see only black, white and grey. Due to the fact that we accept children from the age of six weeks, we have created a Black & White Area to support this.
Toddlers – Daffy Ducks
Nursery Care for Children Aged 2-3 Years
Children can create and act out their own narratives using the Small World. This allows them to gain communication and language skills and can also encourage friendships by playing in small groups. This area is also our construction area, where children can use their imagination to create their own buildings.
We have lots of resources in our Maths Area to help children develop fine motor skills. We have threading activities, jigsaws, shapes and sorters for children to use in order to begin to learn and recognise their numbers.
Our Creative Area is fully equipped with lots of resources for the children to choose independently. These include paint, junk modelling, paper and crayons so the children can draw some fantastic pictures from their own imagination for our displays or to send home.
We have a cosy Carpet Area where the children can sit and relax or look at a book. The carpet area is also used for structured carpet time twice a day. In the afternoon this area is closed off so our toddlers can have a little nap.
Our Real-Life Area allows children to share their real-life experiences such as making dinner or putting the babies to bed. They can recreate actions they have witnessed at home with their family. The dress up rail enables children to share experiences of different job roles such as people who help us and our community.
The Malleable Area promotes fine motor skills and strengthens little fingers. This area is available to children all day and the children can access this area freely.
In our Song & Rhyme Area children can create different sounds through musical instruments or they can sit and relax with one of our sensory baskets full of different textures and scents.
Pre-School – Donald Ducks
Nursery Care for Children Aged 3-5 Years
Our Literacy Area encourages children to develop their fine motor skills. It can also help them learn how to hold a pencil in specific grasps, from the palmar grasp to pincer grasp, allowing them to form the letters of their name.
The Home Corner Area allows children to share their real-life experiences such as making dinner or looking after babies. The dress up rail in this area enables children to share experiences of different job roles such as doctors, builders and chefs.
Children can create and act out their own narratives in the Small World & Construction Area. This allows them to gain communication and language skills and can also encourage friendships by playing in small groups. This area is also our construction area.
In our Maths Area we have a range of resources for the children to develop their understanding with numbers and shapes. We also have lots of different magnetic resources so the children can make different shapes or learn what connects to each other.
In our Sand & Water Area the children are able to independently choose the toys they would like to play with. They are also able to mix the two together creating different textures and experiment with the changes. The malleable table provides messy play such as play dough.
We have a cosy Carpet Area where the children can sit and relax or look at a book. The carpet area is also used for structured carpet time two-to-three times a day.
Pre-School – Jemima Puddle Ducks
Nursery Care for Children Aged 3-5 Years
Our Jemima puddle ducks room is the last stage in nursery before children go off to big school this is the room that focuses more on independence and school children need for school, it has the same areas as the Donald duck room and routine but a bigger focus on transition ready for you little on moving on to the next stage in their lives.
Shared Areas
Soft Play Area
We have a very inviting soft play room where children can go for a calm space or to let out some energy on our soft play equipment or have a bounce on our trampoline.
The nature of soft play sets involving different blocks and pieces encourages children to move about through hopping, jumping and leaping – supporting playing whilst exercising.
During soft playtime, young children will be interacting with their peers through different activities – whether that is running, climbing, building or role playing. This type of interaction encourages team work and helps develop crucial social skills.
Outside Play Area
We have a very large open playground that is split into four sections; two astroturf areas for babies and two large open spaces for toddlers and pre-school.
We have continuous provision that mirror indoors such as sand, water, construction and role play areas. We have a large bug hotel used for investigating wildlife with the children.
We have a garden area where we plant seasonal flowers and seasonal vegetables and the children are encouraged to care for this area and talk about growth and decay.
Outside we have a focus on gross motor skills as the children have more space to be able to move around freely. We go out in all weathers.
Sensory Room
We have an amazing new sensory room where all children can explore their senses or go into for a calm space. We have four cupboards in the rooms with a range of toys and activities to stimulate each sense of touch, smell, sight and sound.
Also in the sensory room we have a dark den, light up tubes and table, treasure baskets and a hammock, ensuring the room is suitable for all ages throughout nursery.
The room has many benefits for all children including:
- A multi-sensory room can engage children who can learn through play by following bright lights, pressing buttons to change colours or sounds
- Provides a calming, relaxing, stress-free environment (important for children’s emotional health)
- Aids communication and movement
- Develop new skills for all children especially those with complex needs
- Allow children to discover some or all of the 5 senses: Sight, Touch, Hear, Taste and Smell
- On the outside of the room we have a sensory display board which has useful information gathered by our SENCOS Emma and Ebony when they have attended different workshops such as occupational therapy.
