Since opening our doors on 8th January, we’ve welcomed children of all ages (0 – 5 years) into the setting. The children have settled exceptionally well due, in part, to a system of dedicated Key Workers.
The role of our Key Workers is to ensure that every child forms positive relationships with other children from day one. They achieve this through a mix of play, structured and unstructured learning experiences. But beyond helping them to settle in and feel confident in their new environment, Key Workers ensure that children are both happy and challenged during their time at nursery. They ensure that children are trying new activities, having exciting experiences, developing their communication skills and ultimately, that they love learning.
At YMCA Day Nursery we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum and staff use this to plan exciting, fun and engaging activities and learning opportunities for all children. So far we have celebrated Valentine’s Day, where we made a valentines builders tray full of pink, red and white objects that the children explored. They really enjoyed blowing the red petals around the tray and then around the room.
The pre-school room children have really enjoyed playing with animals, so staff have made lots of different builders trays for them to explore using different resources such as materials and paper. There has also been a keen interest in books from our pre-schoolers too, so staff took them to the local library to explore. This was so popular it’s going to become a regular feature of life at YMCA Day Nursery, helping us to encourage children’s early literacy skills and interest in reading.
The baby room have been exploring lots of loose objects and messy play. Messy play is very beneficial for babies so they can use their senses to explore things they may not necessarily explore at home. A favourite was the cars in flour, the babies rolled the cars to make marks and then used their fingers to feel and pick up the flour.