Moonbeams
This is our baby and toddler room, we have one practitioner to three babies so that we can ensure all the children get the outstanding care, attention and opportunities we strive to provide. The children in Moonbeams are aged from 6 months to around 24 months, moving on to the next room when they are ready for the transition. We always ensure that the activities and resources are available continuously throughout the day and are age and developmentally appropriate. Our aim in Moonbeams is for the children learn that the Nursery is a safe space where they are valued and nurtured, as this is usually their first experience of being away from their parents. We follow the children’s own individual routines and adapt as they naturally change. The room itself is beautifully spacious with three rooms for the children to explore with climbing equipment, a calm and cosy area for stories and sensory exploration, an area that lends itself for art activities and messy play along with spaces for imaginative play. In Moonbeams children are usually just starting their weaning journey and we believe that meal times should be a calm and joyful experience, we are happy to follow what you are doing at home. The whole team ensures that the room creates a welcoming, homely and calming environment for our children giving them the best start in their nursery journey.
Little Stars
Little Stars is located on the first floor of the nursery and is able to accommodate up to 24 children usually between the age of around 18months to 3 years depending on their developmental readiness. We regularly move the room around and rotate our resources to keep things fun and exciting. We also have a smaller side room which accommodates our quiet area this room is used for stories and quieter activities as well as transforming into a quiet sensory room perfect for smaller group work. When our children are approaching 3 years old or are developmentally ready, they will move up to Sunshine Corner, we try to keep children in their ‘year group’ as much as possible but as every child is different occasionally, they may move up earlier or slightly after their peers. If spaces are limited some children may miss Sunshine Corner and go straight down to Pre-school.
Sunshine Corner
In Sunshine corner, as the children’s vocabulary grows so does their independence and their ability to take more care of their own personnel needs. Children start to form real relationships with their peers, learning to add a narrative to their play in the home corner as they learn to share and make special bonds with their friends. We help children to learn about theirs and other emotions through wellbeing sessions, to learn how to be a good friend.
With a dedicated art room and messy corner, children are encouraged to explore texture and create their own master pieces of artwork to their own design. We encourage children to explore the world around them though visits to our forest school and walks around the local area. Through planned activities and following the children’s interests we offer a wide range of activities throughout the day for children to expand their knowledge and take an active role in their learning.
Home learning
We highly encourage parents to get involved with everything we do at nursery and to take home one of our home learning packs that are available daily. We also love to see what you have been up to at home so welcome any observations to be posted onto Famly. All staff are more than happy to discuss home learning with you and let you know the best activities to support your child's development.
Outdoor time
Our children spend as much time outside as possible; the children can ask to go outside whenever they please and we do our absolute best to accommodate that. The children enjoy our newly refurbished garden and playground area, exploring the variety of resources that are available to them. We have a large sandpit which proves very popular with our children, we have a range of climbing apparatus and a large mud kitchen in which we enjoy making mud pies and also growing our own vegetables and flowers too. We love to explore in all weathers so we all ensure the children are dressed appropriately for the weather. We have lots of resources out there for them to explore the outside world through gross motor skills. In our soft playground they enjoy developing their skills using the bikes, cars, and scooters. As well as building in our large construction area, with real wood. Often, we find children building obstacle courses to improve balance.
Outings
We regularly get out and about around the town to explore the world around us, we give the children the opportunity to tell us where they would like to go. We love to visit places such as the market, the chickens at Herbert's Farm, the duck pond, library and the various parks we have around town. We have large buggies to accommodate our smaller children and walkodiles for the children who are more confident to walk. We also regularly have access to our minibus – this is driven by Dave and the children absolutely love all the different places we visit. Each place we visit has been risk assessed beforehand to ensure it is suitable for our children. These visits include parks in surrounding villages, plane spotting at the viewing area in Elsenham, Scotsdales, Audley End, local farms to name a few. We of course let parents know beforehand where we are going and take our nursery mobile phone with us so we can be contacted at any time.
Forest School- Little Stars & Sunshine Corner
As often as possible we like to visit our forest school with our trained forest school Leader Dave. Here the children get the opportunity to use tools such as hammers, saws, and potato peelers, to create their own dens, and wooden master pieces. For more information see our extra curricular activities page.