group times

[Guest]

Hi

As we are at the start of January and we have a new intake starting next week I have been thinking about the way we run our day and wondered how it compared to other settings. I feel that we often miss out on the joy of a story time and singing session each day as some days we have other things going on. At the moment the children come in at the beginning of the session and have free flow play for the majority of the session 2 and 1/2 hours inside and outside is open for approximately 2 hours, then we pack up 1/2 hour before the end of session for a group activity - which is linked to many areas of the curriculum and can include a story but not always time then we get together for 5/10 minutes at the end to have a singing session as we say goodbye.

 

The session has worked liked that since the change in the free entitlement and I just feel that the group sessions are not enough time for staff to really know their children and focus on what they can do or can't do. During a day I may be placed in one room and not see some of my children until the very end of the day as they have been in other rooms or outside.

 

My idea would be to have the group time session at the beginning of the session (after they have come in and settled as I wouldn't want to take away the time we are able to talk to parents when they drop off) this session would last for 15/20 minutes then free flow play for most of the session then another group time session where we could read a story in a small group for 15 minutes and join together as a larger group for 15 minutes for a good quality singing session.

 

How does this sound?? How does this compare to other settings?

 

Thanks for your help.

[Cait]

Welcome to the forum! Congratulations on your first post.

Reflecting on the way we do things is always a useful exercise. Has this been discussed in a staff meeting, and what were the thoughts of the others? I'd say it's very useful to have time with just your key group and we plan it into our routine at Preschool. We do ours after snack time and before the story/singing at the end. It's usually some sort of planned activity such as Letters and Sounds, construction or yoga and a great time for looking into those next steps that we've planned. It can be indoors or outdoors as we or the children choose.

I'd say go for it - you can give it a try and see how it goes

[Guest]

Thanks for that I discussed it in the staff meeting we had today and the thoughts were positive. We are going to try having a story session, in our key groups, at the beginning of the session so we can use the book as a focus for other activities throughout the setting then still have our normal group time session followed by singing. Hopefully it will work but as you said it is always good to reflect and practice can always change if it doesn't work.

 

Here's to a new term!