Dec
2017
Visit 5
This morning was stressful in terms of arriving at the nursery due to traffic and slow service however I made it to the nursery on time although the briefing had already started. As we were preparing the resources for the children before they started their day at nursery, a few of the staff members were laughing with me saying things like ‘oh I saw you and thought it was Friday, I was getting happy for a minute’… since I was at the nursery on a Thursday.
I was then asked if I wanted to spend the afternoon in the affiliate pre-school for children aged 2-3 as they are understaffed which I had actually planned on asking about, I said yes.
I read the focuses for the week, there was a particular emphasis on play with play-dough and mark-making play (sticking, building). One of the key workers said that we need to make the play-dough which I was surprised about as I thought it was ready made. She then explained that the play-dough was actual dough, made of flour, salt, oil, food colouring and hot water. I then headed over to the kitchen and started mixing the ingredients making a dough. Upon understanding this, I was very impressed as it is not only fun for the children but also regards the children health and safety as if they were to swallow/eat the dough it wouldn’t be too dangerous. I was told the salt was added to prevent the children from eating it but was then told that some children actually like the taste of the salt. Later on in the day, I actually saw a child putting the dough into his mouth and told him to refrain from doing so.
Later in the morning, I was by the children’s snack table which is a corner in the nursery where children have toast, water and milk. I spent time with some children who wanted to eat and drink. They could only do so before 10:30 as lunch started at 11:30. There was an issue later on though as some more children wanted toast, so I plugged the toaster in and forgot to unplug it despite it being turned off. The deputy head saw this and almost scolded me for leaving the toaster plugged in which I understood as although the plug was out of reach, it is still a safeguarding issue. This made me feel slightly embarrassed and silly as this was the first time I had made a mistake on my placement; I didn’t want to disappoint.
After this, it was lunch time for the children and I. After lunch, T showed me over to the preschool which is about a minutes walk from the nursery where I recognised the practitioners as they attend the briefings in the nursery in the morning rather than at their site. Everyone seemed very friendly, but I was warned that this setting is likely to be slower-paced compared to the nursery.
As I met some of the children, I found it slightly harder to interact with them. Although the ages between the nursery and preschool children is relatively small, the level of language that the 3-4 years old’s in the nursery had was a lot more advanced as the 2-3 year old’s in the preschool did not yet have the ability to interact at this level. In terms of communicating verbally, it was harder for me to understand what some of the children were trying to say however it was endearing to see that some children had no trouble sitting on my lap, indicating they wanted a story read to them or holding my hand to take me to something they wanted but was out of reach.
There were three parts to this particular preschool. One of these parts was the main nursery where block-play, pretend play, play-dough and story time occurred. There was a door that lead to another room where heuristic play took place; the children could freely move from room to room. The third part of the nursery was the outdoor area/garden which we later went to as we waited for the rain to ease up a little. Generally, it was really interesting to see how both settings highly emphasised and encouraged the concept of free-flow play perhaps giving the children a sense of independence and autonomy.
Themes: Transitions into Preschool, Free-flow Play, Autonomy, Relationships, Partnerships, Safe-guarding