Pre-school
The focus in our Pre-school group is to provide a curriculum of planned experiences based on different aspects of children's develoment and learning.
The Pre-school group
Age group: 4 to 5 years old (approximately)
Staff-child ratio: 1:8
Maximum: 20 children
Daily routine
An important part of the Nursery routine is encouraging children to build a sense of independence and self esteem.
Children are encouraged to make decisions about where and how they will play.
They are encouraged to assist with various tasks such as preparing snacks, laying the table for lunch or setting up and tidying play areas.
Good hygiene is encouraged through routine hand and face washing, teeth brushing and hair combing.
Activities
The focus in our pre-school group is to provide a curriculum of planned experiences based on different aspects of children's development and learning.
A variety of activities are available to the children during the course of the day, either planned experiences based on a child's recent interest or spontaneous play events that the children create for themselves.
In both cases the children explore, experience and learn at their own pace with adults facilitating throughout the process.
Their learning is guided by a government initiative, the "The Curriculum for Excellence" framework, which aims to ensure that all the children and young people of Scotland develop the attributes, knowledge and skills they will need if they are to flourish in life, learning and work, now and in the future.
Learning
In pre-school we would hope for the children to attain literacy and numeracy skills.
We take advantage of opportunities to incorporate counting, sorting, estimating and other early maths skills with the children such as table setting, calendar, time, cooking.
Children enhance their language skills through various media in the room (books, poems, songs, charts) as well as through daily interaction with peers and adults.
Letter recognition, letter sounds, name recognition/writing and early writing are all seen as valuable steps for helping children to see themselves as confident children ready for the challenge of moving on to school.
Facilities
Our pre-school area consists of three playrooms covering all aspects of learning through play.
The children are able to move freely throughout all the different play areas during the day.
This article was published on May 13, 2009