• Painting & Drawing
• Craft Work
• Water Play 
• Sand Play
• Malleable Materials
• Junk & Collage
• Small World Play
• Puzzles and Board Games
• Floor Play
• Role play Corner

• Sensory Play
• Gardening & Outdoor Fun
• Indoor Play – Parish Hall

• Movement ‘Learn to Move’ Programme/Helping Young Children with a Steady Beat
• Music, Songs, Rhymes, Instruments
• Books and Stories
• Nature & Interest Table
• Numeracy Development, Problem Solving with Crispin the Crow, musical number rhymes with the Beat Babies
• The Outdoor classroom – providing different experiences for play through learning
• Garden play

PAINTING & DRAWING

Children are encouraged to express themselves through paint, choosing their own colours and the amount they do.  We have easels, large sheets of paper and plenty of paintbrushes, fingers, hands etc!  The children are not shown how to paint, they are allowed to develop their own methods and learn from their experiences over a period of time.

Most children find painting a very exciting experience and quickly learn to appreciate colour and patterns, which they may begin to transfer to ones that we, as adults, recognise.  The development into recognisable forms is not an important factor in painting at pre-school, this will come naturally from the ages of about 4-5 years.  Colour and imagination are foremost in their development at this period in their lives.

CRAFT WORK

Children learn many skills through arts and crafts.  There is a huge range of different materials that can be used to practice cutting and sticking, as well as developing hand control.  Craft work stimulates children’s imagination and creativity, as well as develop their thinking skills in how best to use the materials they have.

WATER PLAY

Plastic aprons are provided (so don’t expect soggy children at pick up time).  Water has a dual role, both soothing children and allowing a safe outlet for aggression.  Not only is there the fascination of playing with water, watching it pour, drip and splash, but also used together with sand, children can learn a lot about weight and volume (under the eye of a watchful member of staff).

SAND

Another soothing remedial exercise if poured dry through fingers, or mixed with water and moulded, squeezed, or controlled by various methods and made into something beautifully imaginative.  Mum doesn’t have to clean up the mess afterwards either!

MALLEABLE MATERIALS 

Squeeze it, bash it, flatten it, roll it, cut it, shape it and let imagination run wild.  Children love to explore all the possibilities of shaping and forming dough and clay.  They develop their sense of touch, manipulative dexterity and small motor skills.

JUNK AND COLLAGE

It may be junk to us, but just wait till they bring you their rocket ship, boat, dinosaur, fairy, star…..They have so much fun experimenting with paste, scissors, glue and textures.  Collage is a clever method of creating forms as well as encouraging practical skills.

SMALL WORLD PLAY

Playing within a miniature world enables a child through imagination and pretend play; to make sense of the world they live in.  This type of play encourages a child to talk out loud; an important stage in learning to think clearly. 

PUZZLES AND BOARD GAMES

Help to refine manipulative skills, improve hand-eye coordination and strengthen the hand and arm muscles to allow for much finer hand control and delicate finger movements.  Puzzles and board games enable a child to develop both physical skills and important new thinking skills.

ROLEPLAY CORNER

An area is set aside as a pretend house, shop, office, vets, etc, with dolls, a kitchen, a till, dressing up clothes etc.  Children can play ‘mummy’s and daddy’s, ‘shopkeeper’, ‘doctor’, ‘fire fighters’, ‘a pilot’ and more, letting their imagination develop through play.

SENSORY PLAY

‘At the beach’, ‘Spaghetti Art’ or making ‘Shaving Foam Cakes’, supports children’s development across the 6 areas of learning.  This type of play encourages children to develop a narrative to go alongside their play.

GETTING READY TO LEARN HOME BUSY BAGS and BIG BEDTIME READ

We will provide children with a Home Busy Bag of practical activities (Term 2) for your child that will help them develop their fine motor skills, numeracy and language development…..they are great fun and the children love them!  We also provide five story books for fun reading during the day or as part of their bedtime routine!

OUTDOOR PLAY

Our direct outdoor space may be small, but this area can be used every day by the children in rotating groups. This means that all children get to have outdoor play and fresh air every day (unless extreme weathers) and children benefit from a range of play areas including construction, sand, art easel and mud kitchen. This provides children with a variety of play experiences and promotes friendships within small groups.

OUTDOOR PLAY – Garden

Children have access to a garden space beside the Scout Hall.  This natural area will enable children to move more freely to develop their gross motor movements and maintain good mental wellbeing in the fresh air in all weathers.

INDOOR PLAY – Parish Centre Hall

Let them run off steam.  Children love the feeling of simply running, climbing, jumping, throwing, balancing and even catching.  They will strengthen muscles develop their mental alertness and their general health.

MOVEMENT TO MUSIC AND SIMPLE GAMES

Broadening children’s knowledge of different types of music and rhythm, increasing their confidence to feel the music and move their bodies to the beat.  Lots of excitement (and development of listening skills).  Through the use of The Beat Baby Programme, we help children develop beat awareness, as our young children are given opportunities to engage in singing, dancing, rapping and playing with instruments. 

MUSIC, SONGS, RHYMES, INSTRUMENTS

Soothing, exciting, strange, telling a story, sparking the imagination.  Music every day at pre-school.  Singing songs and rhymes, tapping out beats, playing simple instruments and experimenting with sound.  What Fun!  Learning to listen and simple enjoyment.

BOOKS and STORIES

We have interesting, imaginative and educational books on our bookshelf.  Your child can pick them up, learn how to handle them properly, listen to them being read, learn to tell the story through pictures, fantasy and fact, and develop an enjoyment for the written word.  They may even start to try and read on their own.  We have a regular ‘story’ slot every session.

NATURE & INTEREST TABLES

The outdoor world comes indoors; leaves, bark, seeds (plastic bugs!) and magnifying glasses – wow! Learn about types of leaf, textures, colours, how many legs different insects have?

NATURE & INTEREST TABLES

The outdoor world comes indoors; leaves, bark, seeds (plastic bugs!) and magnifying glasses – wow! Learn about types of leaf, textures, colours, how many legs different insects have?

NUMERACY DEVELOPMENT

Wiggle, Jiggle, Count.  This programme uses music to make early number work both irresistible and memorable.  Count forwards and backwards, learn about ordinal number and counting in pairs as children wiggle, jiggle and dance with the Beat Babies.  Children learn to count up to 10 in a fun and multi-sensory approach.  

Problem Solving with Crispin the Crow…this mischievous crow captures children’s fascination as he collects activities in his bag linked to our themes.  The aim of using Crispin is to encourage children to use their problem solving skills and develop early mathematical language.

EMERGENT WRITING

We provide children with the means to develop their emergent writing skills through the provision of assorted pens and pencils, paper, notebooks, chalk, wipe boards etc.  They are encouraged to work independently; only when they are ready, we help them to form letters to spell their name.