Welcome to Our Rooms
At Little Explorers Hythe we are very lucky to have extensive space for our children to play, learn and develop. The nursery is divided into three main rooms; The Explorers (for children aged 3 months to 2.5 years old), The Investigators (for children aged 2.5 to 5 years) and The Adventurers (for children aged 2.5 - 5). We have worked hard to develop each of our rooms to really cater for the needs of the various age groups. Throughout the nursery, you will notice that we have a very natural feel and use real life materials and resources where ever we can. We are very fortunate to have a sensory room which all ages benefit from.
Explorers
This room is split across two separate rooms, we have our Little Explorers and our Big Explorers. These rooms cater for our youngest children who are between the age of 3 months and 2.5 years old. You will see from the pictures that we have lots of fabulous resources to our keep children busy during their time with us. It's vitally important that our nursery represents a home environment, wherever possible, so that children feel safe and secure whilst with us. You will notice that we have lots of twinkly lights, cosy areas, toys which are easily accessible and real life resources. Our children particularly like to use the 'real' metal tea sets as they love the sounds they can make when they bang them together.
Investigators
This rooms consists of children aged from 2.5 to 5 years old. As we also have some of the oldest children in this room, it is highly important to us that we ensure we are teaching these children the essential skills to prepare them for the best start at school. This is reflected by our passion in developing their independence.
These children have a large, well resourced room which is always accessible throughout the day. These resources provide plenty of opportunity for the children to develop essential lifelong skills. This really helps to promote independence as it gives the children the freedom and independence in selecting what to play with, as well as encouraging them to share and take turns with their friends.
In this room, the children have a designated 'Messy Area' for all things creative. In this area they have access to sand, water, paint and equipment to make their own playdoh! We also have our home corner where we introduce the children to using real crockery. We teach children how to use these real items in their play and how to look after delicate resources - very occasionally we will get a breakage but that's all part of the learning!!
The children enjoy having free flow to the garden, which again gives them the independence of choosing to play indoors or outdoors.
The Investigators also look after our pet Giant African Land Snails 'Bertie and Doris'.
Adventurers
This is our second room which includes children from 2.5 to 5 years old. Again, getting our oldest children ready to start school is of utmost importance to us. We pride ourselves on preparing our children for the very best start possible at school. In the Adventurers room, these children also develop the skills to become independent learners.
Some examples of ways in which we develop our children's independence is during our snack time. The children help themselves to the food and drinks they would like. They use knives to cut up their fruit, tongs to serve the food, jugs of milk/water which they pour for themselves and they sometimes even do their own washing up.
These children also have access to all of the resources throughout the day, including self service play dough station where they have they can independently follow a simple recipe, and a never ending box of junk modelling for the children to create their own wonderful masterpieces! They also have access to paint and sand within their room.
The Adventurers children have large patio doors which lead out into the garden. This means that they free flow play between inside and outside.
Sensory Room
All of our children have access to our fantastic sensory room. This is a great place to relax and play calmly. We have some great resources which include a large colour changing ball pool, a giant bubble tube, fibre optic strand lighting, light up tables/cubes/eggs, torches and much more! (This room is currently being used as additional baby space until 2023.)
Garden
Our beautifully landscaped garden is a huge surprise for most people who look around our nursery. We have a spacious garden which has recently been completely renovated. Ofsted recently said "The highly impressive, and constantly evolving, outside play spaces give children daily opportunity to exercise and practise their physical skills."
A few of the areas that are used most often are; the mud kitchen, our giant sandpit, the digging/gravel construction area and a separate area for our under twos (although they often like to play with the older children). We also encourage the children to grow plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables which they enjoy eating. We have a pet tortoise, called Austin, who can often be found wandering around the garden. We provide children with waterproof suits and wellies as they go out in all weathers.