Dandelion Nursery Daily Routine

Dandelion Education LTD An award-winning Forest School Nursery in Norfolk, England, UK for ages 2-8. Flexi-ed program Dandelion DEN. Philosophy for Children / Outdoor education / Led by teachers / unbeatable ratios / covid secure / Ofsted outstanding / Essex / north Norfolk / Norwich /

At Dandelion we offer a myriad of activities for children to play, learn, imagine and explore! As well as unbeatable ratios and providing brunch, Dandelion offers cooking, phonics, risk assessment, philosophy session, tool work and yoga. Our rich forest school setting allows children to explore their environments and play with nature.

A day in the life of a Dandelion..

8 am - 9 am

Arrivals

Arrivals & greetings, this teaches language skills, socials and emotional development and partnership with families
Name Cookies, which helps with reading their name, and numbers.
Settling baskets, to meet children’s interests, to support entry thereby supporting separation and transitioning.

8 am - 10.30 am

On offer: Adult-led or child led activities.

Adult-led activities include:

Risk assessment, forming part of our risk assessment, this helps to be risk aware, not risk averse children, it also teaches, maths, reading, writing, communication, physical development, independence and executive functioning skills.

Cooking, children prepare and cook warm brunch with an adult. This teaches science eg changing matters, maths, reading, writing for a purpose, communication and teamwork.

Tool Work, children can choose to design and create models and toys on the adult supervised tool table. Dependent on level of ability this may be 1-1 or independently

10.30 am

Fire Circle

The daily fire circle consists of: a welcome song, mystery box (philosophy skill building game); story, the same story is read each day for a set number of days so that children are immersed in text which supports higher reading skills); handwashing song which includes mindful breathing; eating warm; healthy brunch (brunch is linked to the overview eg making homemade bread when reading Little Red Hen.) The daily fire circle session also promotes reading, writing, maths, philosophy skill building, communication skills, story language, self care skills.

11 am (ish)

STEM

At this time each day, children may take part in the STEM (Science, technology, engineering, maths) session. This is an adult initiated activity focused on science/ maths/ engineering/ maths. This is often an adult led experiment /investigation. It also covers speaking and listening, reading and writing and physical development.

11 am

Children can choose to take part in adult-led or child-led free play activities

From this time, children have a free choice of activities (see above) or self directed play with peers/adults. These activities include: role play, climbing, reading with an adult, painting, digging, tool table, rolling snack, problem solving, using swings and hammocks, construction in the construction area (with real bricks, wheels, planks of wood etc), water area (large movable pipes, water, buckets etc etc.)

11.30 am

Yoga

This adult-led session is free for children to take part in and offers mindfulness, physical development, creativity, team skills, listening skills, and calmness.

12 pm

Pick up time

12.30 pm

Lunch

with Philosophy session

Each lunchtime all children participate in the daily philosophy session. Philosophy supports children to develop higher order thinking skills, meta cognition, and nurtures the development of respectful and tolerant conversations.

During lunch, we discuss food types food types and health, along with teaching an awareness of the food chain and food origins. Eating together as a social skill e.g. waiting until everyone is sitting down before starting.

1.15 pm

Phonics

For our phonics session, the children are differentiated into 2 or 3 groups working on phase one and two. The session begins with our Dandelion phonics song using Letters and Sounds, and Read, Write INC. We introduce skills such as graphemes, phonemes, oral segmentation of phonemes, oral blending of phonemes mark making, correct formation of graphemes, and foundation reading and writing skills including rhyme and rhythm and mark making.

2 pm - close

Children can choose to take part in a range of activities

From this time, children have a free choice of activities (see above) or self directed play with peers/adults. These activities include: role play, climbing, reading with an adult, painting, digging, tool table, rolling snack, problem solving, using swings and hammocks, constructing in the construction area (with real bricks, wheels, planks of wood etc), water area (large movable pipes, water play, buckets etc.)

4.30 pm Aylsham & 5.30 pm Eaton / Wymondham