How We Began

Activities

We aim to provide a well balanced and stimulating curriculum in line with the Birth to 3 guidelines, 3-5 curriculum and a Curriculum for excellence, and to assess and evaluate each children’s progress on a regular basis. We desire to provide children with Active Learning experiences. We support the children in providing for spontaneous play, planned and purposeful play, investigating and exploring opportunities, event and life experiences and focused learning and teaching.

Activities Activities Activities

Sand, Water & Play
Our toddlers enjoy this play as they have the opportunity to learn new mathematical skills such as pouring, flow of water, capacity, weight and volume. They also have opportunities to develop social skills such as sharing ideas, taking turns and playing together. These types of activities also give opportunities for developing good descriptive language.

Art Activities
Children are introduces to more materials and equipment which help to develop their co-ordination and confidence. We provide our toddlers with opportunities to explore using chunky crayons, pens, pencils, brushes and sponges. During messy play, for example, play dough/clay, the toddlers use rolling pins and cutters and when glueing, they are introduced to natural materials like cork, buttons, sequins and glitter. These added materials will build on concentration and all round development.

Stories, Poetry and Rhymes
Our story area is available throughout the day for quiet times and there is also time available for group stories. Our toddlers are introduced to "real" books, moving from hard baby books, to learn how to look after books. This area introduces the children to new vocabulary, sounds and knowledge of the world. We introduce rhymes to build on memory skills. We also use books, poetry and rhymes in conjunction with topics and themes. The Nursery makes effective use of Story and Poem sacks which the children are able to share with their parents.

Physical Play & Development
Our garden areas are a great opportunity for the toddlers to develop gross motor skills, balance, co-ordination and other physical skills. Social skills are also developed, for example sharing, taking turns and playing co-operatively with others. We also organize outings to local areas and places of interest, which teaches the children social skills outside the nursery, for example, basic road safety and appropriate behaviour. This also enables the children to gain knowledge of the world around them.

Music, Movement, Singing & Dance
Our toddlers now take a more active part in this area as they are mobile and can communicate better. We encourage them to learn new simple songs with actions and movement to various types of music. The children often combine singing and dancing with their role play which demonstrates that their confidence and memory skills are developing.

Construction & Games
These activities offer our toddlers opportunities for fine motor development, hand eye co-ordination and use of creativity and imagination. Children explore the equipment (Lego, blocks, poly m, stickle bricks) to find out how to build and construct models. Communications and language skills also link in with these activities and build on confidence and self esteem.

Small World Play
During this play we include doll's house, zoo, dentist and doctors to give opportunities to explore various roles or any fears of anxieties. We find these are good activities to build on the toddlers' personal, emotional social development and for them to discover and act out various scenarios. Sometimes this form of play spills over into drama and role play.

Drama & Role Play
Our toddlers begin to explore further and enjoy dressing up and taking on different roles (usually it is the "mummy and daddy" role in the house corner). This area develops their confidence, communication and language skills, emotions and feelings. The children can also relate to this area through home links, which we believe is also very important.

Topics & Themes
We cover basic topics and themes with the toddlers to build on their knowledge and understanding of the world. Wall displays, window displays and table displays are all used to display the children's knowledge and art work. The themes which we tend to cover are weather, seasons, shapes, colours, animals, farm, zoo, pets, journeys and many more, depending on the children's interests at the time.

Toilet Training
Our staff work closely with parents and children in this area, as we believe that all children are individual when it comes to this time, we believe toilet training to be a huge part of our toddlers' personal, emotional and social development and can sometimes be a sensitive matter. Our staff are always on hand to discuss this with parents to try and keep the continuity between home and nursery, so to minimise disruption to the child's routine.