Tactile Experiences

This involves sand, water, dough, clay, slime and finger paint. Various play media are provided with these activities to enhance the child’s learning opportunities.

The above activities stimulate:

Muscular Strength

Hand-eye co-ordination

Language Development

Understanding of basic maths and science concepts (conservation, volume, size, floating, sinking.)

Use of imagination.

Development of social skills (sharing and conversation).

Arts and Crafts

These activities include painting, collage, chalking, drawing as well as topic related artwork. All these activities develop the child’s:

Manual Dexterity

Pencil Grip and Control for Good Handwriting Skills

Concentration Span

Encourage Artistic Imagination

Music

Singing, playing musical instruments and listening to different styles of music are all available and used with all age groups to develop rhythm, memory and musical awareness that aid the ability to learn to read.

Role Play

These activities include the home corner, which can change into a shop, a hospital, a doctor’s surgery or an office at any given time. Dressing up clothes are always available to enhance the play.

These activities can help the children act out and therefore understand aspects of life which may be puzzling them, or pretend to be someone else. This will support emotional development, imagination, communication and social skills. We also aim to include literacy and mathematical materials within the play situation.

Small World Activities

These activities give children the opportunity to:

Make choices.

Plan, organise and take part in a given situation.

To develop new words and language skills.

To manipulate small objects and increase hand-eye co-ordination. To form mathematical concepts especially grading and sorting.

To encounter life in miniature and create worlds of their own.

Construction Toys

The children can choose from a wide range of construction toys giving them the opportunity to:

Experience the satisfaction of building something of their own.

Tackle technical problems such as balance and bridging gaps.

Improve hand-eye co-ordination and manual skills by manipulating small items.

Extending mathematical understanding of estimation, matching and grading.

Developing language skills and extending vocabulary.

Books and Stories

We feel that books are a very special and valuable resource to be shared with the children. We have a wide selection of books that we share with the children at set circle times. As well as reading to individual children on request.

Cooking and Baking

Cooking and baking allows the children to develop the mathematical and scientific concepts of measuring, differences in volume and weight, expansion and visual changes due to heat as well as sensory and language development. We also use the medium of food to compliment topic work, such as acknowledging festivals throughout the year.

Pre-School Preparation

As part of the preparation for primary school, those leaving to go to school will have special activities to allow them to develop confidence and strategies to take responsibility for their own environment, belongings and actions, to make their transition to school as smooth as possible.

Outside Play

A wide variety of play activities are offered to encourage the children to develop the skills of:

Balance

Spacial awareness - Judgement of direction, speed and distance.

Strength and stamina.

Confidence in their own skill, strength and judgement necessary for all future activities.

Gardening activities to help children understand the concepts of teamwork, waiting, patience and nurturing as well as eating the produce. All outside play on both the hard surface and in the garden are strictly supervised to allow the children maximum opportunity with maximum safety.