Nursery Help Please!

[evn1985]

Hi,

I'm new to teaching nursery this year ,and not sure if i'm doing it right.Would anyone mind telling me the routine of their nursery session please.Thanks in advance!

Vicky x

[katekit]

Our children come in (9am) and go to the areas where they want to play, adults lead a focus activity that the children can join if they wish. (The longer the children are in the more they know about coming to focus activities). We vary the way we do snack, some times a snack bar, sometimes altogether depending on what is happening. The children do the tidying up. The school playtime is 10.30 and we share the outside area with Reception, we can go out en masse when we like. We come in about 11.10, get ready for lunch and then have a carpet session for 10-15 mins. lunch is 11.30. A.M. children go home after lunch at 12 and P.M. children come at 12.15, they all play out with 3 T.A. (dinner ladies) and we start working again at 12.45. Depending on the weather we stay out or come in and it's the same routine, sometimes one adut comes in so the children can choose inside or outside activities. We have 2 sessions of PE a week in the hall (a.m and P.M), we go to Wake up Shake up with the whole school, we do a short stay in W S assembly and today we had our FS Mass in the hall. We have another carpet session at the end of the day. Carpet sessions cover maths, phonics, story etc. We have 17 full time children.

[Guest]

Hi

 

I work with 2-5's and our children arrive at 9.00, we have a focussed activity out already based on a combination of our observations of the children's interests, which is currently space, and our learning intentions - so for example today we have space words (moon, stars etc...)out on the table with tracing paper to encourage some of the children to write who are beginning to form letters as well as paint brushes and a large sheet of paper to paint a large 'earth' for our space display - the children can choose to come to this activity or free-play. This activity could be a letters and sounds, creative or numeracy activity or we may have a planned activity that starts a little later on. We open the door to our outside area at 9.15 when all the children have arrived . We have a cafe snack time which starts at around 10.30 (ideally and if we had space, I would have a rolling snack out all morning) This usually finishes at around 11-11.15 and we then have tidy-up time and go out into the park or the schools outdoor classroom and come in at 11.45 for a whole group story (we try to encourage all to listen but we do not force) when parent come in to pick up some of the children. The ones remaining then have lunch club til 1.00 when some go home. The afternoon continues in a similar theme to the morning and then we finish at 3.00.

 

Hope this helps

 

S

[Guest]

It's interesting to hear about other people's approaches to the nursery routine. I'm also new to nursery and I'm constantly wondering whether I'm doing the best thing for the children. I've basically carried on with the same routine that the previous teacher used, but I'm not sure that it works for me. The children come in at the start of the session and go to the carpet area to do some singing with one of the TAs. We then do the register, sing the days of the week song, find the right picture for the weather chart and look at the visual timetable. We then have a combination of child-initiated and adult-focused learning throughout the session. I've introduced a 'plan do review' approach to allow the children to think about their own learning, but I'm worried that the planning time means the children are sitting down for too long at the start of the session. Also, we currently have our milk and fruit as a whole class, but I'm not sure this is the right thing to do either as some of the children struggle to sit still for more than a couple of minutes. The previous teacher used to read a story while the children all sat together for milk and fruit, but this again means the children have to sit and listen and some of them aren't ready for this yet. Another option I've thought about is a continuous snack approach, although every time I've suggested this to the two TAs I work with, they've been very sceptical. Apparently it didn't work when the previous teacher tried it last year.

 

Any ideas? I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing, and I'm not confident that I am at the moment.

 

(Sorry for hijacking the thread by the way! )

[Guest]

Our nursery session runs roughly like this-

children arrive at 8-30am or 12-15pm and spend may be half an hour accessing the activities as a settling in period.

we then have our welcome song, register and picture timetime as a whole group.

snack is at a table during the session (self selection where the children put their name in a basket so we know they have visited)

after registration it is child initiated/adult led activities till group time

we split the children into 3 key person groups for a focused activity eg. letters and sounds, a story related to our topic etc.

we continue with child initiated/adult led till tidy up time

tidy up time (the children are allocated areas to tidy which we alternate regularly, they have their photo displayed in that area)

milk time and a story or singing as a whole group before home

we also have free flow during the session and try to fit in some exercise time indoors where possible eg. sticky kids or boogie beebies

hope this is useful

[Guest]

after registration it is child initiated/adult led activities till group time

we split the children into 3 key person groups for a focused activity eg. letters and sounds, a story related to our topic etc.

we continue with child initiated/adult led till tidy up time

Do you tidy up before group time, or leave everything as it is so the children can go back to what they were doing after group time? I started by having a whole class snack halfway through the session, then more CI time, but I found that tidying up twice didn't work. However, I'd actually like to ditch the whole class snack and have a 'snack bar' system running throughout the session...

 

tidy up time (the children are allocated areas to tidy which we alternate regularly, they have their photo displayed in that area)

What a good idea! Tidy-up time can be quite chaotic for us, and we end up with children wandering around and not helping. A more structured approach might work better.

 

Thanks for sharing

[Guest]

We generally just leave the nursery if it's not too bad to do group time.

However if we think an area is getting too messy we will ask those playing in there at the time to tidy up a bit first. Otherwise it can look as though we have been burgled

A snack table is a new addition as we too used to have whole group snack time. This is working really well and is generally finished half away through the session anyway. It needed policing to begin with but the children are soon getting the hang of it.

As for tidy up time that was the very reason our nursery teacher changed it. We do have to remind some of the children where they should be at tidy up time and some still need encouragement but it is working much better. We tidy up to the Wombles song and at the end if some areas still need attention those children responsible for that area help an adult to finish off before milk.

[Guest]

A snack table is a new addition as we too used to have whole group snack time. This is working really well and is generally finished half away through the session anyway. It needed policing to begin with but the children are soon getting the hang of it.

I've suggested a snack table to the TAs I work with, but they're very sceptical. I'm new to nursery this year, and apparently the snack table didn't work when the previous teacher tried it. However, I don't feel that a whole class snack time is working either. It feels as if the children are sitting down for too long and becoming unsettled. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but I'd like to try a new approach to see how it works. I just need to convince the TAs!

Do your children now access the snack table independently? How long did it take for you to be able to leave it unattended by an adult? Also, how do you make sure that each child only has one carton of milk and one piece of fruit? The TAs' main concern seems to be that some children last year ended up eating much more fruit than they should have done!

 

As for tidy up time that was the very reason our nursery teacher changed it. We do have to remind some of the children where they should be at tidy up time and some still need encouragement but it is working much better. We tidy up to the Wombles song and at the end if some areas still need attention those children responsible for that area help an adult to finish off before milk.

Thank you for sharing some great ideas

[nickylear]

Do your children now access the snack table independently?

 

(Not sure if the quote thing has worked!!!!! sorry if not)

 

 

We have a cafe in our nursery and the pupils now access this area independently. It's worked well since day one, we had an adult present for the first few weeks as a participant to model.

 

The children all know to wash their hands & are able to choose fruit, milk or water. We do have set times (9.30 - 10:15 ish) & we made an open/close sign with the children so they know when the area is open.

 

The children now need very little supervision, the other day they even decided to take the café outside. (One pupil asked if it was ok & they organized themselves) As you can see from the pic, they did a very good job.

 

It's worked really well, it's a great opportunity to promote independence, and talk, it would be a shame if you couldn't convince your co-workers to give it another go.

 

Good Luck