01371 856 594
OUR ROOMS
ACORN ROOM
CHERRY TREE AND FERN ROOM
WILLOW TREE & BLOSSOM ROOM
OAK TREE
ROOM
Acorn Room/Baby Room
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Our baby room is a bright and bright open space with the wonderful addition of patio doors opening out directly from the main room onto the all-weather patio. The babies can explore the outside space safely with soft cushioning under foot as they start to explore when becoming more mobile. In the space there are tubs, filled tyres, soft foam bricks, sensory resources and much more. There is a separate cosy sleeping area just off the main baby room, with full sized cots in addition to small lower day beds and warm glowing twinkling lights. Sleepy babies can be soothed by classical music or ‘white noise’ playing in the background.
Within the room we have areas that are mirrored in all the rooms as the children progress up through the nursery, they will be familiar places. Such as a home corner with kitchen, small world animals, climbing slope alongside mirrored toys. Plenty of resources presented in baskets containing a variety of textures, colours, and shapes for little ones to choose and explore.
We spend lots of time getting to know your baby. We want them to feel secure and happy in their environment, building a trusting relationship with children and families is particularly important in the baby room. We pay close attention to babies’ routines, learning about their likes, dislikes, and comforts so that we can support them emotionally as well as physically. The baby room enjoys lots of Nursery rhymes, songs and simple stories embedded in our daily routines. These are at the heart of our provision because babies learn by hearing and listening to adult voices and sounds. They are particularly receptive to tone and rhythm.
Our babies love exploring! We carefully consider and provide resources such as Natural objects, objects which are interesting and tactile, light, and heavy, rough, and smooth as well as those that are familiar such as household items in interesting shapes and colours. Building blocks, metal, wooden and plastic rings, balls, books, and sensory materials all encourage babies to strengthen muscles in the fingers, hands, and arms.
In the Acorn room, babies can experience a variety of textures, sounds, sights, and smells that will encourage curiosity and development. This kind of exposure will teach babies about their environment, other children and adults around them and also help develop understanding of themselves and the world, building valuable motor skills and language. Messy play is one of our favourite things to do, and early mark making, or body painting forms an integral part of a child’s development. Messy play allows our children the opportunity to explore, discover, lead play and build the muscles needed to learn skills as they grow older. Mealtimes in the baby room provide lots of sensory & motor development opportunities too!
Cherry Tree And Fern Room
In our Cherry & Fern rooms the children our toddlers can enjoy the extra freedom and space provided where they can explore a home corner with kitchen, washing machine as well as a variety of colourful materials for dressing up. Lots of real objects such as pots and pans and scales are used to recreate the home away from home. Each room has a cosy, soft and warm inviting space for the children to explore a variety of books and enjoy story and song time. An array of open-ended, mind-expanding resources are arranged within sight and reach including wooden blocks, boxes, wooden pegs, tubes, and metal objects to allow the children to use their imagination alongside the curiosity space. Small world toys such as play people, puppets, farm/zoo animals help encourage the children’s imaginations and creativity with natural resources and pieces of material to add into their play. Fine motor skills are developed within the rooms through a wide range of resources such as puzzles, threading beads, shape sorters, wooden trains, and ICT toys to improve hand-eye coordination. Tactile resources such as playdough, sensory play, paint, and mark making activities support the development of fine motor coordination and dexterity for building strong muscle and cartilage in little fingers and hands for learning new skills in the years ahead.
Both Cherry and Fern rooms benefit from covered all weather patios which aids with free flow, during sunshine, rain, or snow. In their outside spaces there is sand and water play, and as we know that our toddlers never stop moving, plenty of opportunities for them to start mastering their gross motor movements and developing their physical skills further, becoming more confident on their feet and will quickly move on to balancing, rolling, dancing, running, jumping, and climbing. Opportunities to practise and develop these skills are encouraged by providing low climbing toys, large balls, and outdoor ride-on toys.
We love to sing and dance. Providing a range of music, instruments such as tambourines, xylophones, drums, and other simple musical instruments to encourage children’s creativity. Nursery rhymes, stories and songs play a major part in our day and using basic Makaton whilst we sing helps children participate, communicate, and feel valued. Children have lots of opportunities and support in making relationships, understanding feelings and emotions, sharing, taking turns, and making choices.
Willow Tree Room
The willow tree room is situated in a warm bright part of the new baby unit. It has a soft carpeted areas with rugs, as well as hard floor area for messy play, waterplay, and mealtimes.
Children will be busy communicating in the home corner, filled with items that would be found in every house to help inspire creativity, and are supported through sharing ideas and views during role play, imaginary games and acting out experiences. Practitioners model language and extend children's vocabulary through books, songs, stories and while the children are playing in interactions.
This room offers a wider time for mark making, equipped with all the resources needed to inspire pictures, and getting creative while progressing their fine motor skills while using and exploring a wide variety of media. They will be able to start forming the large circles and lines and as their vocabulary develops and expands, they will be able to describe and talk about what they have drawn, written, and made. Within the Willow room there begins the introductions to using tools safely. These can be child safe scissors to snip pieces of paper off large pieces or to start cutting around an item and use of knives during mealtimes.
Within the room are areas that have a range of items that the children can look at and explore, natural objects, construction and small world resources displayed in baskets around the room and within our curiosity corner. As we progress the fine motor skills from drawing and creating, we will use threading beads and counters alongside playdough to move those little fingers more and more getting ready for the next steps in their development.
The willow room has a cosy story corner with a wide range of interesting books. A variety of short stories, nursery rhymes and songs with basic help our children to feel included, accepted and involved. We love familiar favourites as well as new and different stories which capture the children’s attention. We make the stories as interesting as possible using different voices and sounds as we read, to maintain childrens focus and encourage them to engage. We give time for interaction and questioning of why and how, as their natural curiosity takes them into the story.
Growing independence and skills are a key focus within the Willow Room, where we are helping to prepare the children for the start of potting training and encouraging them to become more independent in skills such as putting on their shoes or boots for time outside and then taking them off again. Following on from this we can teach our children about the importance of washing hands and good hygiene practices.
Blossom Room
The Blossom room is situated in the 2-5’s unit. With a large patio door leading out into a designated garden space, it enjoys natural light and with child level windows looking out into the gardens which inspires conversations and interest in the natural world. The white and wooden furniture gives this room a spacious but soft warmth, with natural resources to encourage curiosity of texture, shape and colour. The Blossom room plays a special role in transitioning children from the baby unit smoothly and sensitively.
Exploring similar resources as the willow tree room, in the special mark making area, children can spend time experimenting with the marks that they make using paintbrushes, pencils, sticks, glue sticks, and scissors and progress forward holding tools with more control, confidence and safety. Writing skills are emerging and our children are starting to draw lines and circles. Children are developing expression of thoughts and feelings with and without added communication.
The blossom room also has its own role play area where children can be imaginative, collaborative and creative. We love to express ourselves! You will find us singing, dancing, make believing. Children are supported and encouraged to be empathetic and observant of other’s feelings and wishes. Our Story corner has an exciting choice of information and picture books, with scatter cushions which is made cosy with drapes and a soft rug. Children can choose from familiar favourites or something new and different and will be learning to stay focused for a short period of time, as an adult reads or they explore the pages independently.
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Our children enjoy learning how to be independent and are able to start making choices and decisions. The blossom is perfect for this kind of progression. We provide opportunities for children to voice thoughts and feelings and their choices come to the fore front of their learning.
In the blossom room we spend time developing skills that will be needed at the next stage, for example tipping and pouring from jugs in the water tray will help children become independent in pouring their own drinks for snack. By helping children to prepare and share snack, supporting them to make healthy choices about the food they eat and a choice of what they’d like to explore or play with, we are giving children desire to express and voice their own choices. This is a vital part of development and children’s opinions are given care and consideration.
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Alongside making choices comes a new level of independence within a child’s play. Within the blossom room, children have time to explore the environment around them and gain independence in their selfcare. Children will be potty trained or training in this room. Promoting good hygiene and toileting at the first instance of their experience is certainly one way this can be achieved, as well as pouring their own drinks at meal times, helping to give out plates and cutlery in addition to starting to attempt putting on and taking off their own clothing and shoes.
Oak Tree Room
The oak tree room which is the largest in the nursery has been organised into different learning areas. It has a clean, spacious feel with white and natural wooden furnishings. In an open side room, you will find a cosy library area with scatter cushions, ceiling drapes and twinkling lights where children can enjoy books and stories or some quiet time. Also adjacent to this room, is a separate cloak room for children to hang their personal items. Each child will have their own named tray for safekeeping of comforters, pictures and paintings and learning journey scrap book.
You will find a mark making area, role play area, science and discovery area (STEM), maths area, malleable materials, art area, and a protected construction and small world area. In each area, children can access and explore a whole variety of exciting resources in the company of friends and supportive adults. In the roleplay area, we have a working computer with educational programmes that children are able to access freely and enjoy together.
Leone, our EYFS leader provides children with a fun and educational maths or phonics focus during group time each day, encouraging participation of activities and games which move and exercise the mouth and tongue. This not only helps children to communicate effectively and broaden vocabulary, but also helps them to understand the sounds linked with letters to support them as they begin to read and write. This all helps with the formation of new sounds and to pronounce them correctly to aid with segmenting and blending which come in school.
We will be pulling funny faces, blowing, sucking, puffing out our cheeks, stretching our tongue and moving our jaws around. We love learning new rhymes, songs and stories to build an interest in different topics and knowledge of the world around us.
Children will need to develop strong fine motor skills to help them be independent at school and throughout life. In the oak tree room, we understand that children need to progress through a series of grips before being able to hold a pen or pencil in the correct way. Our malleable materials area (squash and squeeze) is designed for exactly that. Activities that help are building blocks, threading, weaving, play dough, pegging up things and puzzles too. Little hands need to be able to push, squeeze, squash, pat, pinch, climb and pull a variety of materials before using a pen/pencil effectively. We provide mark making in areas around the room, outside spaces and use play dough, moon sand and malleable materials to build up the muscles and cartilage in their wrists to progress on to writing and letter formation.
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Our children prepare their own snacks each morning, developing skills and independence and adopting a ‘have a go’ attitude. We encourage children to try different ways of doing things and enjoy responsibility. Using child friendly knives to cut a variety of fruit and vegetables and using hands to peel develops motor skills as well as teaching children how to use tools safely and why, understanding and following instructions for the safe use of equipment. Children are encouraged to acknowledge and take pride in what they have been able to accomplish, as well as gain understanding of healthy practices with regards to their choice of foods and a willingness to try new things when they have taken responsibility to prepare them.
We have lots of fun exploring and investigating, showing curiosity and predicting what the outcomes may be. Children show a natural curiosity about their environment, and we provide them with the opportunities to be inquisitive and understand that their own actions can affect the outcome, depending on what they do or change. This is an important process for children learning about themselves and the world around them. We spend time exploring likes and dislikes during circle times as well as participating in experiments, listening to others, thinking and using vocabulary to share ideas. Using a range of senses, we investigate and explore the inside and outside space we have shape hunts, nature hunts, talk about what we can hear, and explore in the mud kitchen.
