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Activities, learning, courses and trips
Playroom and outside activities aim to enable the maximum opportunity for play and development. We also offer optional courses and trips to offer variety in your child's learning experience.
Activities
We encourage the children to take part in a wide range of activities, both indoor and outdoor, suitable for their age and development.
Playtime activities include:
- painting, gluing and drawing
- imaginative play, such as sand play or house play
- stories and reading
- construction blocks and dough
- jigsaws and educational games
- supervised computer access
- music and singing
- cooking and baking
We consider the garden to be an extra supervised playroom available to the children throughout the day.
Social skills are practised at snack and meal time, and whilst playing sharing or collaborative games. They also take turns to be server to their friends at snack and lunch time.
Good hygiene is encouraged through routine hand and face washing, teeth brushing and hair combing.
Learning
To help the children gain literacy and numeracy skills, we take advantage of opportunities to incorporate counting, sorting, estimating and other early maths skills, for example in table setting, reading the calendar, telling the time or measuring cooking ingredients.
Letter recognition, letter sounds, name recognition and early writing are developed through story time, reading, games, posters and charts.
Language skills are improved by using the various media in the playrooms - books, poems, songs, charts - and through daily interaction with the other children and adults.
Our young children learn in a safe and stimulating environment with confident and trusting adults following the national guideline "Pre-Birth to Three: supporting our youngest children", We use this document to tailor your child's needs as they learn about themselves and the world around them. The three main features are: relationships, responsive care and respect.
Our three to five year-olds are supported by "The Curriculum for Excellence" which encourages children to realise their potential for a successful future. The four features of this curriculum are: successful learners, confident indivicuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.
Courses
Several times per year we take the opportunity to run specialist courses for the children, such as Movement & Learning, Cookery or Spanish.
These optional courses are tutored by approved external teachers, and parents are given advance notice of details and costs.
Outings
From time to time we will take a group of children on an educational day trip, such as to Deep Sea World, East Links Farm or Dynamic Earth.
We also promote links with the local community by making visits to the Police Station, a Nursing Home and the Fire Station.
These optional trips are fully staffed and parents are given advance notice of details and costs.
This article was published on Apr 15, 2013