Our nursery environment and facilities enable your child to explore, develop and learn. Our Baby, Toddler and Preschool spaces are specially designed and equipped especially with them in mind. You’ll see many familiar homely items such as bookcases, tables, chairs, and sofas just much smaller than you are used to!
We consider the spaces around your child to be like their third teacher, joining you as parents and us as educators in guiding them through their learning. And you’ll notice how we use our garden area as an outdoor classroom too, full of features to support their play and learning. Our Baby, Toddler and Preschool rooms are perfect for the ages of children that spend their time in them.
We keep many aspects of our nursery environments consistent as we know your child will benefit greatly from this. With core resources, enriching toys, games and creative materials, that are always at hand for your child to play with. However, it is not unusual for parts of our nurseries to become unique adventure places where your child’s imagination can run free!
Babies Environment
The Baby Room is where our youngest children enjoy their day. The room is large and bright for little ones to crawl, roll, shuffle toddle and explore. There is a dedicated sensory area with equipment to stimulate the babies senses along with a range of toys encouraging the children’s further development in all areas. An attractive and relaxing dedicated sleeping room awaits our tired children with the temperature constantly monitored to ensure the babies are comfortable at all times. In addition the babies have their own dedicated changing facilities, wet kitchen and outside play area. Your child’s key person will take care of all your child’s personal needs whenever possible reinforcing the primary areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage focusing on “Positive Relationships” building a bond between your child and key person, which continues during your child’s time at Monkey Puzzle. We operate a 1:3 ratio in the Baby Room.
Tweenies Environment
The Tweenies zone is for children 1-2 years with the day structured around their changing interests. The Tweenies room is well appointed with outstanding levels of equipment, the room follows the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage framework and encourages learning through play. There are various dedicated areas in the Tweenies zone offering different activities, there is the ‘Story Corner’ where Tweenies sit in a group and are read stories. A sand and water play area, a construction area to develop coordination and a messy play area for painting and generally getting messy. Tweenies also benefit from a staffing ratio of one member of staff looking after no more than three children. The Tweenies also have supervised access to the garden.
Toddlers Environment
The Toddler zone also benefits from a number of dedicated areas, as in Tweenies, the Toddlers have creative areas, a reading corner, circle time and a home area corner. As this is the time when the majority of children start ‘toilet training’, the toddlers room is equipped with brightly decorated childrens’ toilets, encouraging independence. The garden is fully equipped with an impact absorbing surface and lots of outside equipment designed to encourage coordination and balance.
Preschool Environment
Our Pre-School children follow the ‘early years foundation stage’ preparing them for their eventual move to school. This is a far more structured routine, with children working in small groups and learning to concentrate for longer periods of time. They also become far more independent, pouring their own drinks, serving their own food, laying the table and learning how to use a computer. Topics covered are based on the following seven areas of learning: physical development, personal, social and emotional development, communication and language, Literacy, Expressive Arts and Designs, Understanding of the world and mathematics.
Our pre-schoolers have their own ‘Science Lab’ – here they will be encouraged to learn, explore, discover and enjoy the natural world, habitats, science and on a daily basis begin to understand about the world around them and what FUN it can be!
Craft / Dining and Kitchen
We locally source as many of our ingredients as possible and freshly prepare 2 meals a day for our children. From the dining and craft area they can see through a specially installed glass wall into our kitchen and watch in wonder as chef prepares their meals. We often encourage them to learn about where food comes from, nutrition and healthy eating. Being able to see chef in action is a great aid to their learning.
Our Garden
We have a dedicated baby area where they can safely crawl, sit and listen to stories, explore and at the same time find a shady place under one of our 2 UV weatherproof sail shades. Our toddlers and pre-schoolers have ‘free flow’ access to the play area which is equipped with a safety absorbing surface. We have balance bikes, dens, a mud -kitchen and cafe, a race track with a road safety crossing and a fantastic sand pit, again sited under a big red UV sail shade. Perhaps our piece de resistance is our hen / chicken coop. We have 4 lovely hens whom the children adore and are fascinated to see them feeding, clucking and discovering where eggs really do come from!