Caterpillar Nursery
Welcome to our wonderful, exciting and highly sought after two year old provision. This is our 7th hugely successful year of running our Caterpillar Nursery for 2 year old children. It’s no surprise that our 2 year old Nursery has gone from strength to strength especially with the experienced staff we have running the room. From the minute you step into the room you are immersed in a caring, friendly and safe environment, carefully and purposefully organised for our youngest learners.
Caterpillar Nursery
Our Caterpillar Nursery is for children aged between 2 and 3 years old. Mrs Short is our very experienced room leader, she has led the wonderful, stimulating and bespoke provision for 7 years. Mrs Short works with Miss Carr, who is also extremely adept in knowing exactly what the children need and how to support children’s learning and development further. Mrs Henry is our EYFS lead and Mrs Morris is our 2 Year Old Lead.
What we offer…
We have been extremely fortunate in Pelton to purchase brand new purpose built furniture for our 2 year old children in our very own new room. Not only that but we also have daily access to a soft play room where we work on our gross motor movements, a large shared nursery garden and Schools’ own woodland area where we participate in forest schools. The children also enjoy regular visits to our ‘Snug’ where they will take part in carefully planned sensory activities linked to our topic or personal interests. The environment has already proved to be such a huge success and we are so grateful for our new set up. We worked hard to create a very relaxing peaceful home from home environment yet ensuring huge learning potential was available. With staffing ratios at 1:6 our interactions with the children are meaningful, purposeful and hugely beneficial for the overall holistic development of our children. We support early speech and interactions with peers in a positive and rewarding way. The fun and enjoyment had by all can be seen in our photographs!
Our Skilled and Experienced Staff…
Our Caterpillar Room staff know our children and families very well. They quickly develop meaningful, caring relationships with all pupils and personalise the care, curriculum and learning experiences for all. They are extremely at skilled planning and adapting our provision and learning experiences to meet the individual needs and abilities of our pupils, and are continuously working with our children ‘in the moment’ to extend and develop the children’s play and ideas. We work closely with the children’s interests and are quick to respond and equip the environment accordingly to ensure each child is catered for and learning is personalised. Staff offer a range of ‘I wonder’ moments as well as posing careful questions to extend and further learning
‘Rhymes and Routines of the Day’
The children in our Caterpillar Nursery enjoy a range of exciting and carefully planned activities focused around our carefully planned curriculum as well as their own individual needs, interests and abilities. The focus of the day continues to be on ‘Learning through Play’, with a routine that incorporates adult led activities and builds on children’s developing knowledge and curiosity. Over the course of a week children will be involved in a range of activities and learning experiences including: cookery activities, messy play, music and movement, forest walks, soft play sessions, toddles, outdoor activities, arts and crafts, singing and rhyme time, story time as well as snack time sessions.
Parents are offered the following nursery sessions;
- 5 morning sessions 8.30am until 11.30am
- 5 afternoon sessions 12 noon until 3pm
- 2.5 days (Monday, Tuesday 8.30 until 3pm and Wednesday morning 8.30 – 11.30am)
- 2.5 days (Wednesday afternoon 12 noon until 3pm and Thursday and Friday 8.30 until 3pm)
School lunches can be ordered or Packed lunches can be brought in for full day sessions. (We have leaflets for healthy lunch ideas if anyone would like one please don’t hesitate to ask).
Curriculum
Our Early Years curriculum is carefully planned to make sure that all children thrive and achieve. In the Two Year Old Provision we will focus on the Three Prime areas. These areas are crucial for a child’s learning and development. These three prime areas are:
- Personal, social and emotional development;
- Communication and language;
- Physical development
We aim to support each child to identify their own sense of identity and self – worth, as well as focusing on each and every child’s individual needs and interests. Good early years, education from a young age, can help to boost child development and that is why we are offering families a chance to get a head start for their children.
Caterpillar Room Curriculum map 2023-2024
Children are most engaged when they are undertaking activities that are child initiated and based on children’s current interests. When children show high levels of involvement, that is when there is progress and development occurring – when the brain is at its most active.
By providing an open ended and enabling environment supported by skillful staff we are able to seize the moment when a child shows a level of interest and curiosity. We can then draw out and extend these moments.
Our 2 year old curriculum is planned carefully to ensure children engage with a range of themes. Each week, our 2 year old room has an overarching theme in which they will explore a carefully chosen text and planned activities to enhance their learning.
Top 25 activities for our 2 year old children:
Here are our top twenty five experiences which children have during their time with us at Pelton EY’s:
- Mud walking and footprint making
- Go camping …make a den
- Wear a cape (super hero style)
- Fly a paper aeroplane
- Spread your bread with a tasty topper
- Feel sand beneath your toes
- Waterproofs on and dance in the rain
- Go for welly walks and run wild (with hot chocolate in the woods)
- Something special about boxes
- Something special about splashing and puddles
- Jump into a ball pool
- Echo echo echo … Who has the loudest yell (over in the forest)
- Fly a flag
- Climb a mountain (the slide)
- Blow a dandelion clock
- Sail a boat
- Thigh high in long grass
- Feel falling snow on your tongue
- run through crisp autumn leaves
- scoop up and throw autumn leaves in the air
- Smell a rose
- Hide and seek with the dinosaurs
- Spread paint on your hands and feet
- Hose pipe and paddling pool fun
- Dance to music
Parental Partnership
Partnership between parents and carers is key. Having strong parent partnerships has many benefits for your child’s development. Parents are a child’s first and enduring educators. When parents and practitioners work together the results have a positive impact on the child’s development and learning. Our Caterpillar Room staff strive to develop positive relationships with all parents/carers. We offer and open door policy and are always here to chat to parents/carers. We give regular and on-going updates about your child and welcome continuous communications between home and nursery.
We use Class Dojo to communicate with our parents. We provide a ‘weekly round up’ via class dojo, showing parents/carers all of the exciting learning experiences their child has been involved with throughout the week. We also share key information, dates and upcoming events.
We hold regular ‘stay and play’ sessions where we invite parents to join us during a morning/afternoon play session. We use this as an opportunity to further strengthen our relationships with parents, offer an insight into the learning and play experiences being offered as well as offering parents play-based learning ideas they can continue at home.
Further support…
We pride ourselves on our excellent relationships that we form with the children and this helps the children to settle quickly into the Nursery. Our eagerness to develop strong relationships with the children also helps us to identify any additional needs quickly and coordinate any additional or specialist services that may be required.
2 Year Old Progress Check
All 2 year old children who attend our setting will have a developmental check between their second and third birthday. It will happen jointly with parents/carers, the child’s key person and often their health visitor. The check helps the child’s key person to focus on the child’s progress. It will also help parents/carers with ideas to support their child at home. In our setting parents/carers will receive a written report about how their child is learning and developing.
