At Clober Nursery we ensure that the children have their ideas and choices within their learning development and a chance to share their thoughts in child led activities, expressing their creative development. 

 In this area they have free use of preparing the activity and collecting resources that are required for that day. This can be a range of materials that they are able to experience using such as paints, recycling materials, pens, chalks, collage resources.

The children also get experience in music, dance and movement. Building on their fine and gross motor skills as well as listening and following out instructions.

The children have a wide variety of equipment to play with outside to develop role play skills and gross motor skills - riding bikes and balancing, construction areas, prams, water play, mud kitchen, chute, sand play and more.

The children enjoy their time outside and it’s nice to just listen to their stories.

It is important that the children get outside to play each day which is good for their health and wellbeing and to support their immune system.

In the nursery environment children have the opportunity to experience a range of sensory activities with natural resources i.e. playing with gloop, play dough, shaving foam, jelly etc.

Through these activities children develop their curiosity and senses i.e. they can smell or can feel the texture of messy stuff.

Additionally these activities have the opportunity to develop their language and social skill too.

The children are given daily opportunities to develop their creativity both within the nursery and in our outdoor area.

Resources are available for painting, drawing and model making and the children are encouraged to use their imagination and problem solving skills.

In our outdoor area materials such as sticks, pebbles, shells and other natural materials are provided. The children can also search out the playground 
to discover other materials which could be used in their creations.

Together with the children and some wonderful parents and grandparent helpers we are building an exciting area for the children to come and explore all the wonders of the outdoor area. We have been working hard over the winter months planting spring bulbs and building our wild flower garden area.

The children have even used some of the fallen leaves and other materials from outside to create some beautiful art work. We have been taking care of the birds in our garden and have made some bird feeders mixing lots of seeds and hanging them from our trees.

We have been learning about how to use tools safely and are working on building our fence, so that we can watch our flowers grow. We are all really excited to see what beautiful colours might pop through in the Spring.

Imaginative play allows children the opportunity to express themselves and their ideas through role play.

Children develop their creativity and imagination through different types of role play experiences.

The imaginative area is changed on a fortnightly basis and the children are consulted on what they would like it to be.

The nursery mud kitchen is a great cross curricular resource enjoyed by the children.

Mud, water, stones and cooking utensils are accessible at all times and the children collect natural resources from around our outdoor play area such as leaves and sticks.

The role playing that takes place in this area develops both social and emotional skills.

The children have been taking part in a 9 week programme of Music Machine.

They have been learning all about how to look after and play musical instruments and they have been finding out about the different names of the note family and their resting names.

They have also been learning about the sounds which they make and they are now able to play a tune by reading different notes.

The children also loved using Donald Drum to tap out the beat to a variety of words.

The children have taken part in our PAThS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Skills) programme. The programme supports children in their understanding of positive and negative feelings and appropriate ways to manage them.

We use puppets, stories and songs in ‘Circle Time’ for children to learn in interesting ways. We have found that PAThS promotes our Children’s Charter of positive behaviour and the children’s voice embodies our ethos of our Rights Respecting School.

The children take turns of having extra responsibility in the playroom with Snack Helpers, Door Greeters or Star Tidiers. This encourages our children to become responsible citizens.

Play on Pedals is a 9 week course which aims to help children develop their confidence and improve their ability in riding a pedal bike by initially teaching them how to properly ride a balance bike.

In conjunction with parents, staff will assess the stage the children are at and how they can be brought forward in their cycling abilities. Staff will also provide parent information sessions to outline the programme, answer any questions, recruit parent helpers and provide activities which can be mirrored at home.

The 9 week programme consists of:

Week 1: Naming the parts of the bike

Week 2: Securing the helmets

Week3: Braking

Week 4: Gliding

Week 5: Steering

Week 6: Mounting and dismounting

Week 7: Balance and control

Week 8: Slow speed control

Week 9: Pedalling

At the end of the 9th week, children may or may not be able to pedal their bikes, however they will all receive a certificate for all their hard work and staff would ask that parents continue to support children in their cycling abilities.

The children learn about different aspects of safety every term.

We visit hygiene and toilet routines every term where children learn about keeping their bodies healthy and the importance of washing hands.

In the first term the children learn about road safety. We read Ziggy books, had Mr Chapman the lollipop man visit the children to practice crossing the road and we went on a road safety walk around the local area with some of our mummies and daddies.

In the second term we focus on Stranger Danger. We read the story about Oh Lila rabbit, who leaves the forest without a grown up. Then we had two policemen visit the nursery to talk about Stranger Danger and we were learning our addresses. We also had people from supermarkets to talk about uniforms and safe adults and what we should do if we get lost.

We have been discussing our bodies after looking at how much we've grown on our group height charts. The ‘Doctor measuring Height’ jigsaw was out and we also used the height measure in the medical room of the school. We looked at an image of a skeleton and discussed how the bones in the body grow a tiny bit at a time. The children all knew that our/the skeletons are made of bones but had questions about how they heal and which ones are strong. To look at the skeleton in more detail we used straws to make a simple skeleton inside a body silhouette. As we did this we talked as a group outside about how our bones need us to drink water (and milk), we need them to move and that our body needs to rest sometimes.

We also looked at weight, and weighed ourselves on scales after feeling how heavy 1kg of potatoes was.

The children were interested in the diagram jigsaw showing different parts of the body. We looked at a large diagram of the major organs and a book that had been brought in. I designed activities and experiments to explore the functions of these organs. We talked about where the lungs were. How we breathe in to the lungs, they get bigger and as we breath out the air is leaving the lungs. Some helped to make a pretend lung with an ice-cube bag and a straw. How the bag has little areas inside it. This allowed for experimentation to see the inflation and deflation. We talked again about our lungs getting full of air as we breathe in.

For the Heart we had a pump and tubes in the water tray and in basins to ‘move blood around’ or ‘pump blood to toe’s and fingers and every part of us’. Sometimes talking about the blood in our veins and sometimes feeling for our heartbeat or pulse. During ‘Wake and Shake’ time in the Leopard room we felt how out heart beat got faster after exercise.

We repeated exploration of where organs were inside our bodies and what those organs do, in very simple terms. Drawing pictures and enjoying the challenge of the life size body organs game.

We have access to a  room in the school that can be accessed by the Nursery Staff and children.  It is a small room with brightly coloured soft furnishings and is equipped, with a variety of resources to suit children’s age and stage of development.

This space offers a quieter environment where we can provide stories, cooking and games.     

The room is a calming quiet environment which provides a secure area away from the busyness of the Nursery setting in which the children can develop their learning further.