The Caterpillar Room is our pre-school room for 3 to 5 year olds. The ratio changes to 1:8 in this room, and the children are encouraged to become more independent in many areas such as hygiene, meal times and dressing/undressing.
As with all of our rooms, the Caterpillar room has a door leading directly to outside space, making sure outdoor play and exercise fits easily into our daily routines. Each room has convenient toilet and/or nappy changing facilities within/adjacent the room, and the baby room also benefits from its own kitchen area. All rooms have a range of resources, toys, games and activities to suit the age and stage of the children within the room.
Pre-planned toys and activities are set out throughout the room covering all areas of learning on a daily basis. The choice does not stop here however, and children can choose any toys from the self-selection drawers in each of the rooms at any point throughout the day. These are clearly labelled with pictures of the toys that are in the drawers.
The rooms are systematically laid out so that the learning spaces are clear to the children, ensuring for example that there is a reading area, a construction area, a mark making and writing area, a role play area, a sand and water area, a place to enjoy malleable materials, somewhere to be creative and messy, an investigation area and a maths area. Some of these resources will change daily, some will change weekly and they will alter from one room to the next to reflect the ages of the children. We are always looking for ways in which we can develop and extend what children can already do and already know, as well as helping them to build confidence, positive behaviour routines and good relationships with their peers and staff members.