Activities
Our aim is for all children to experience learning that is engaging and builds success for life
At Laffey Family Day Care we believe in play based learning in early childhood. Children should be children and simply learn through fun and activity. To enable this, children need to experience a variety of types of play every day. This means every day we try and make sure children have a chance to be creative, constructive (and often destructive), musical, active and cooperative with other children. We particularly try to provide opportunities for children to participate in activities they have themselves shown an interest in. Each week we consider the interests and skills children have been demonstrating and try to plan activities that will help build on these. However, some days don't go as planned and we shift and change the activities to suit the children's mood and behaviour. Small children are unpredictable at the best of times so we have found flexibility in planning to be of major importance. Some days are just meant for building pillow forts and rolling on the floor.
One thing we offer that not all care situations do is Science! Most days the children participate in some kind of science activity or demonstration (many involving bi-carb soda and vinegar). We like to use these activities to practice taking turns, being aware of others and our surroundings and following instructions, and the children absolutely love them.
We also believe it is very important for children to learn how to participate in self-play, individually and with others. Don't be concerned if you pop in and the kids are playing by themselves. This is an important skill (though we promise they don't do it all day) besides chances are we are watching closely to see how they are interacting and identifying skills we will need to help them build later on!
Outdoor time is very popular with children and we try to get out as much as we can when it is not too hot. This means in summer we are generally out of doors first thing in the morning, whereas in winter we can go out before lunch and also late afternoon. Due to our climate we can generally do water play all year round!
We do have a fairly standard daily routine for meal times. We shift and change them a bit to suit the nap times of our children - and to suit their appetites which change daily.
8:30am fruit break
10:30am morning tea
1:30pm lunch
3:30pm afternoon tea
Constructive Play
We've got lego and mega block, train sets, cardboard cubbies and giant box blocks. We have a sand pit and gardens to dig and build in - we even have a digger and a truck. we rotate these around so children keep their interest
Creative Play
Drawing, painting (in all forms from finger and feet painting to bubble paint) , sculpting (play-doh), cutting any art and craft we can think of to get them involved, successful...but without choking hazards!
Active Play
Chasies and tickle time get a good show in our day care. Cuddles and kisses seem to be a fantastic incentive for moving about. We also do dancing, active peek-a-boo and play with balls and in ball pits..
Musical Play
Miss Tania sings every day. and she likes to play her Ukulele too. However some days we also sing along to Peter Combe or dance to the wiggles. We also have a number of musical toys for the children to engage with.
Cooperative Play
Puzzles, play kitchens, science, cooking, reading books, building towers are all examples of games we use to learn and practice cooperative play. Getting the children to interact with one another is easy but also important to us.