A typical child’s day in the nursery

When I arrive at nursery I hang my coat up on my peg and change into my indoor nursery shoes. I then find my name card on the board in the corridor and put it on the name board in the playroom. I say goodbye to my parents and hello to my friends and carers.

Breakfast is between 8am and 9am; I can usually choose between cereal, toast, eggs and cheese and can have either milk or water to drink. If I have already eaten breakfast at home, I can go and play with my friends.

During the morning I take part in craft and focus activities. I can help myself to the craft trolley so that I can make or draw something, or do some cutting and sticking. There is always lots of different equipment out for me to play with and learn from.

I can go outside to play in the garden area where I am able to build up my muscles by playing on the big equipment including the climbing frame, bikes and balancing beam. If I want to, I can even go up onto the roof garden with my friends to find bugs and make ‘mud pies’ in our mud kitchen.

I can learn to mark make by using the paints, crayons and pencils, or learn to match colours and shapes with the small world equipment. I use my imagination through fantasy and role play and learn to recognise numbers and count through stories and singing.

One of my favourite activities is the malleable activity, where I get very messy whilst learning about texture and explore using my senses. My key person is always asking me “which is the biggest bucket?” and “which holds the most water?” You would think they would know that! The babies love the malleable too; my baby sister sometimes even eats it.

It is very busy at the Arc so I eat every 2 hours to keep my energy up, snack is at 10am. I wash my hands and then can help myself to fruit, milk or water which I share with my friends. I like to cut up my own fruit and pour my drink myself.

After snack I carry on playing with my friends and when we’re finished I listen to a story and sing songs with my friends, before washing my hands and sitting down for lunch at 12pm. I serve up my own food from the dishes, while talking to friends about what we have been doing and what we would like to do in the afternoon.

After lunch I get to help choose some of the equipment my friends and I would like to play with. We can always play inside or outside. Some of my friends get tired after lunch so they go to the sleep area which is nice and quiet so they can have a rest.

At 2pm its snack time again, it’s nice and warm today so my friends and I are taking the teddies outside to have a teddy bears picnic. If we have gone to the park over snack time, or we are out exploring the local area we will take a snack with us.

At 4pm I help my friends and carers to tidy up ready for tea time, sometimes I even get to help make it. After tea I get to play some more with the equipment I have chosen and during this time some of the parents and carers arrive – we all try to guess who’s going home first!

I love it when my grown up comes to pick me up as I get to tell them all about what I have been doing at nursery and show them my creations from the day.

As part of our weekly routine we have some extracurricular activities, these include music and movement and yoga for both rooms and sports club for the rainbow room children.