A week in the life of Manaccan Pre-School
Here at Manaccan Pre-school we love to keep the children happy, active and engaged and we follow the Early Years foundation Stage. As set out to ensure that all children receive a quality experience in their Pre-school care which supports their development and learning.
To give you a picture of how we implement this at our Pre-school here is a diary of a typical day and week at the Pre-school
By Sarah Bastian
Monday
9am - We open the doors and welcome the children into Pre-School. Each child has his or her own coat peg and this is an opportunity too to say hello to parents and carers and take on board an comments they have about their children. Today C’s mum tells me she’s been feeling shy and concerned about another boy in the class, so we discuss how we’ll keep a careful watch over them and try to encourage them to play well together.
9:30 - The children sit down on carpet, to chat. We start off by calling out the register to see who’s here today. This is our chance to have one to one contact with all of the children and to make sure they seem happy and settled. I also tell the children what we have out today to play with. Today we have play dough (home made, by Michele!) the sand and water tray is in the outside play area, we also have a table set up for the children to make collages. The role-play area is all about the zoo today as our theme for this half term is animals.
9:45 - It’s a little rainy today so we do some activities inside. As per the EYFS guidelines we follow a policy of child led play, they are so imaginative and far more engaged if they can follow their own interests and moods to choose which activities to do. Some of the children have chosen to go outside and play in the outside area with our new toy garage this morning. Others are fascinated by our new goldfish, and are happily drawing pictures of them by the new tank.
10:25 It’s tidy up time. We can’t make it quite as fun as Mary Poppins did but we try!
10:40 - We sit on the carpet for songs today, sometimes we do a number activity instead -- it’s incredible how quickly the children learn when you come up with a game they love. Today we’re doing a little combination of both by thinking of songs with numbers in them.
10:45 - 11:15 - snack time! Each morning an allotted parent brings in snack, which always includes fruit or vegetables following our healthy eating policy. Today it is home made bread with jam (made by one of the dads) and bananas, apples and raisins.
11: 15 to 11: 45 - We go outside to the garden and its time for free play. In our garden we have a willow tepee and some wooden musical instruments, which the children love, especially the gong! We also have a slide and climbing frame. Most of the children just love running around though! Today it’s just free play, but sometimes we’ll enjoy an activity, such as looking at the wormery, or playing a game.
11:45 - All the children line up and come inside for a story or song. Today we’re telling the story of the three bears, with funny voices…
12pm Home time. For the past five minutes parents and carers have been quietly arriving by the exit and one by one we get the children’s coats and bags and take them outside to meet whoever is picking them up. We use this time to have a very brief chat about how the child got on, discuss anything that the child has especially loved, or which we feel the parent might want to know about. If something needs full discussion we have a system where parents can arrange time after a playgroup and come in for a proper talk, or just to have a full discussion about how their child is getting on and look at their ‘What I’ve learned’ file, where we tick off all the new things children have demonstrated in terms of development. Today we have a chat with C’s mum. C and the little boy have had a really lovely time playing today, and at one point were giving each other a little cuddle and playing cowboys together. C seems very happy, and so does her mum.
Tuesday
Anna a yoga teacher is running an hour-long Yogabugs class during the session today, a child-friendly yoga session in the main school hall, which the children love. The parents and children who aren’t in today’s Playgroup session also come along.
Wednesday
Vicki, our volunteer gardener is coming in for a few days this week to take the children out to do some gardening in the polytunnel -- a kind of greenhouse where the children grow everything from sweet peas to tomatoes and carrots.
Thursday
Today we have a special visitor, Saffa, an Egyptian lady has come in to tell us all about life in her country. She’s a friend of the Playgroup teachers and is wonderful with the children. They sit for an hour listening to her stories of the pyramids and camels and we take some photos and make up a lovely display board of all the things we talked about.
Friday
A support assistant from the local Children’s Centre comes in today and talks to us about heuristic play. It’s something we’ve covered a little in our training, which basically means allowing the children to lead their own play and experiment with interesting objects on the floor, without us interfering too much. It’s particularly important for two and young three year olds to have time to play like this, and chatting to Debbie, we come up with a few ideas on ways to implement this into the daily routine.
