A Typical Day at Daisy Chains
The
day begins with the staff arriving early to set up the hall with various
activity stations based around the themes and topic of the week/term.
They discuss and plan for the morning ahead while setting up the hall.
The
doors open at 9.30am where the children and parents are greeted by a member of
staff at the door. Everyone is welcomed
into the main hall where pre-school is held and all of the activities are laid
out. The children come in and take their
name card from the entrance table, which last year (2008/09) was a tracing of
their hand, cut out, painted and laminated along with a picture of
themselves. This is then placed it on
the friendship circle. This shows that
they are here and who is at pre-school that day, then they go off for some free
play while waiting for everyone to arrive and settle in.
Once
everyone has arrived and parents have left, except the parent helpers for the
morning, the children are invited to come over to the home corner for circle
time where they sit down on the mat and say “hello” to everyone by singing the “Time to Say Hello” song.
After everyone has sung hello, the
staff and children will discuss the activities planned for the day ahead. Sometimes, a discussion may follow about what
happened the day before (not all children attend every day) and asking the
children about what they have seen or been doing in relation the topic of the
week while not at pre-school; or perhaps talking about a child's return from
holiday, or anything else this wish to talk about.
Circle time usually takes anything
between five and ten minutes and then the children are able to go off and
play. The play time is mainly
unstructured, they can play with whatever they like however, they are encouraged
to take part in more structured activities such as making gifts for special
occasions such as Easter, Mothers Day, Fathers Day and Christmas.
Below is an outline session
programme for the day:
9.30 Open Doors
9.40– 9.45am Circle
Time
9.45 – 10.50am Free
Play Time
- Floor Mat
- Sand/water
- Creative Play
- Physical Play
- Communication,
Language and Literature (book of the week)
- Problem Solving,
Reasoning, Numeracy
10.50 – 11.05am Tidy
Up Time and then Hand Washing
11.05– 11.20am Snack
Time
11.20 – 11.45am Outside
Play
11.50 Story
Time
12.00pm Home
Time
A more in-depth session programme
can be found on the entrance table.
To make it easier for the children
to make decisions on what they are wanting to play with during the session, the
hall is divided into different areas of learning or activity stations and the
toys and games are laid out: creativity
corner where there is a craft table for drawing and making things, as well as
an area for dressing up and role playing; a construction zone such as lego,
stickle bricks; an area for role playing with playmobil, the wooden track
train, Happy Land, cars, etc and a quiet corner where circle time is held and
for stories. There are also plenty of
other activities on offer such as numeracy and problem solving games which are
easily accessible from the wheelie storage drawers in the hall.
We also have a laptop which is out
at every session to help the children build up their IT skills along with
co-ordination and thinking skills. The
types of games on offer are usually building type games such as Bob the
Builder.
The staff also runs a “cooking
school” which is run on a rota basis once a week. All children have an
opportunity and are encouraged to take part in baking healthy snacks which are
usually often eaten at snack time. Or if there is a special occasion such
as Easter, appropriate recipes such as Easter cookies are made and taken home
to parents.
During the summer months, water
based and sand activities are set up outside on the patio to encourage the
children to go out and play. We also
have a set of tricycles which are also brought out. On occasions the tricycles may be taken up to
the overflow car park behind the village hall, usually during the play time
after their snack.
Activities are changed weekly so the
children do not become bored with playing with the same toys.
The children play for around an hour
or so when they are encouraged to help tidy up all of the toys in “tidy up
time” to give them a sense of responsibility. Once the hall has been tidied up, the children come over to the home
corner and sit down and have a few quiet moments looking at the books. The staff will then nominate a couple of
helpers to set up the tables with the plates, cups and name cards for snack
time. The remainder of the children are
called up individually to go to the toilet and wash their hands.
Snack Time:
Daisy Chains offer a snack to the
children around mid-morning which is included in the pre-school fees.
Snacks are prepared by the parent helper guided by a list of healthy foods
compiled by the staff. We do encourage a healthy eating regime so has a
programme of healthy snack options such as fruit as well as a drink of milk or
water is prepared on a fortnightly rota basis.
Outdoor Play:
Once snack time is over, the
children are taken outside by the staff up to the tarmac playground behind the village
hall, weather permitting. It is a safe
area for the children to run around as it is quite a distance from the road.
The staff will instigate games and
activities such as chalk drawing on the tarmac, playing with balls, pedalling
the tricycles, running and chasing games. They spend about 20 minutes playing
and then the children are collected up and they come back into the hall for a
story and perhaps a song just before being collected by their parents/carers.
Alternatively, they may play games
in the patio area just outside the village hall. If the weather is wet, they will do physical
activities in the hall.
During the summer months, weather
permitting of course, stories are read to the children outside on the patio
just before they are collected at 12pm by their parents/carers.
Special Visits: Occasionally, we will have special
visits from the Police, The Firemen or other local activities of interest. Even one of the Dads’ who is a farmer brought
his tractor into pre-school when one of the topics of the term was "On the Farm".
Recently in June 2009, we had a
visit from the Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue team. Mark Taylor from Cambridgeshire Fire and
Rescue came and spoke to the children about fire safety and what happens when
they play with matches and what to do if the smoke alarm goes off in their
homes. He also brought in a Fireman's
outfit which one of the staff tried on. The children and the adults can see how much gear the firemen have to
wear in order to protect themselves from fire and smoke. Also two of the children dressed up in the
children's firemen's suits.
An appliance was also brought in and
the children had a go at holding the hose and having a go at pretending to put
out a fire.
School Outings:
During the summer months, we will
take the children out on a summer excursion. This year, the children visited the Saffron Walden museum.
In May 2008, we took the children to
Wicken Fen, just north of Cambridge where they learnt about Fenland wildlife
and went off bug hunting and pond dipping.
Themes, Topics and Activities:
The
themes and topics for each half term is prepared by Sue, our Pre-School Leader
in advance of each new half term.
To
see what the children have been doing over the past year, please go to our
themes and activities page.
