Buzzy Bees
Welcome to the Buzzy Bee class! The class is made up of mainly 3 and 4 year olds, with some older 2 year olds. Our classroom is the first you come across from the entrance into the nursery garden. One side of the classroom is full of windows with a perfect view of the nursery garden for the children to look out upon as they play in the classroom. In the Buzzy Bee room we have a cookery area, equipped with child sized resources and outfits.
The position of our classroom means we have the furthest to walk to our Woodland Garden for woodland days – this makes the journey across the main nursery garden feel more like an adventure for the day! Although we might be the furthest from the Woodland Garden we are the closest to the library, this makes it easy for spontaneous quiet story times.
In the Buzzy Bees we have a window through into the Caverstede room, which gives the children opportunity to look into the variety of groups that happen through family services.
As with all the classrooms we have divided up the areas using shelving, so children have direct and easy access to the resources available to support their independent play. We tend to have many resources that stay the same, so that children can return to their activities over a period of time and revisit their favourite activities. However, we also add resources that may be of interest to the children, such as wedding outfits, or hairdressing equipment in the home corner.
All children have their own pigeon hole and a designated coat peg. Upon arrival we encourage children to find their peg and put all their belongings away. The pigeon holes can be checked by parents at the beginning or end of a session, for letters or leaflets.
Information for parents can be found in a variety of places including the parents notice board inside the classroom, letters and leaflets in their child’s pigeon hole, and on the whiteboard outside of the classroom door.
The children in the Buzzy Bees have settled really well. Many of those who are returning children have come back in September as though they’ve never been away, even those moving from Ladybirds. Those new to Caverstede have become used to their new routine and classroom and are doing really well. Some days can still be a little tricky for some of them but they are feeling comfortable with the adults in the room and are happy to seek reassurance when and if they need it. The ‘Owl Babies’ story has been a useful story as it talks about mummy owl coming back so this has helped with our children settling into nursery
We have started to introduce group times at the beginning of the day and a large group time when getting ready for lunch. At these times the children are singing the ‘hello song’ amongst other songs you’ll see on our knowledge organiser and other familiar nursery rhymes. We also talk about the days of the week and count how many children are in the group that day, giving daily opportunities to singing, counting and talking about the day and weather.
The children have really enjoyed exploring the new hospital area in the outdoor area where many of the adults have been taken, operated on, bandaged up and made to feel a whole lot better! We have also had a mini ‘pop-up shop’ role play for a few days which the children embraced, taking it in turns to be shop assistants, customers, and most of all they enjoyed handling the money and doing their shopping!
We are supporting the children with their sharing and turn taking, doing this through role modelling, and supporting children on how to ask and wait for a turn. We know that this can be really difficult stage for the children and this will be something we will be working on throughout the year. Also we are supporting them with their independent skills, encouraging them to have a go at putting on their own coats/hoodies as well as their own shoes. This is something you could help encourage at home too.