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Sunshiners and Rainbows
The older toddlers, twos and threes are organised into two groups, the Sunshiners and Rainbows. These groups have two playrooms and their own specialist staff, equipment and toys.
The Sunshiners and Rainbows groups
Sunshiners age group: approximately 18 months - 2 years old
Sunshiners staff-child ratio: 1:3
Maximum: 6 children
Rainbows age group: 2 - 3 years old (approximately)
Rainbows staff-child ratio: 1:5
Maximum: 10 children
Daily routine
Sunshiners and Rainbows follow much the same daily routine, and participate in similar activities. However the staff-child ratio is different for the two groups.
Each day follows a familiar pattern to help the children feel secure, with play times, snack time, lunch and story time. Young children need time to learn, to use equipment and new materials at their own pace. A small group allows the children to gain independence more easily, and enables them to learn about making choices and sharing with others.
Activities
The toddlers' playrooms have toys and activities to encourage learning, and they can have supervised access to a computer for 5 minutes at a time.
Playtime activities include painting, water and sand play, house play, stories, construction blocks, jigsaws, baking, etc.
We consider the garden to be an extra supervised playroom available to your child throughout the day.
Social skills are practised at snack and meal time.
It is at this stage that we encourage toilet training to begin, depending on your child's stage of development - we work closely with parents to ensure that similar words and routines are used.
Our young childrens' learning is supported through a government initiative, the "Pre-Birth to Three" framework, which aims to work in partnership with the parents/carers to ensure that these young children are valued and celebrated, that they are seen as competent learners and learn through a safe and stimulating environment with confident and trusting adults.
Facilities
The toddlers use large playrooms upstairs in Number 81.
Nearby there are light and bright toilets with washbasins at toddler height to make toilet training easier.
This article was published on Apr 15, 2013