Giraffe Room
3-4 Year Olds
Our Giraffe Room is a purpose-built pre-school room, which offers morning and afternoon sessions for our 3-4 year olds. We are open for pre-school from 9:00 am until 12:00 pm for our morning session and 12:00 pm until 3:00 pm for our afternoon pre-school session, Monday to Friday during term time.
We operate a lunch club facility for afternoon pre-school children, which begins at the start of our session at 12:00 pm. Our lunch club facility runs for approximately 45 minutes during this session, and our children bring a packed lunch from home. Our lunch club facility can also be added onto a morning pre-school session with the collection of children from parents/carers at 1:00 pm. Drinking water is available at all times throughout the sessions and is also provided at the lunch club.
We operate on a ratio of 1:6 staff to children in our Giraffe Room for our 3 and 4-year-olds (Statutory Government ratio requirements 1:8). We are able to accommodate up to 19 children in each Giraffe Room session and are registered with Ofsted to take up to a maximum of 48 Early Years children on site at any one time across our Panda Room 1-2 years, Zebra Room 2-3 years and Giraffe Room 3-4 years combined.
All About Us
Our Giraffe Room is led by Marisa. We adhere to the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and operate a Key Person System in partnership with our parents and carers to build positive and trusting relationships from the start. Each family is offered a Home Visit before starting to meet their Key Person to support settling in, as well as gain a shared understanding of each child’s individual needs and interests. Our Giraffe Room team will regularly observe and plan next steps to support their key children’s Learning and Development against ‘Birth to Five matters’ using our online Parenta Footsteps observation platform and upload regularly for parents and carers.
For our 3 and 4-year-olds, we continue to embed our children’s prime areas of learning and development and begin to prepare our children’s ‘School Readiness,’ promoting independence skills and with a stronger focus on specific areas of learning and development, including early Literacy and Math skills and play and learning experiences linked to the world around us and being creative through expressive arts.
Each child’s progress is recorded and tracked each term, and towards the end of their time with us in pre-school, we begin supporting our children’s transitions in preparation for school.
A typical morning in the Giraffe room would involve small group focused activities, which may include counting, sharing story books together, cooking activities, early phonics sessions, as well as many free-flow physical and creative play opportunities.
Learning Through Play
In the Giraffe Room, we operate free flow, so the children can play both indoors and outdoors.
Examples of our role play areas in our Giraffe Room include: The Gruffalo’s café, a Dentist, a hair salon, an Ice Cream shop, as well as a traditional home corner, which all have dress up clothes and hats and a selection of books, small world play, visuals and props to support imaginary play.
We provide large and small construction activities, including a selection of outdoor wooden and foam building bricks, Duplo, Mobilo, a selection of puzzle boards, a malleable area for play dough, cooking activities and tuff tray activities set up with materials including rice, sand, water and ice. A selection of painting resources and arts and crafts is also made available, and children have access to self-select activity drawers.
Outdoor Fun
Our outside area is set up with sand and water play, loose parts play with tyres and planks, ride-ons, climbing and slide equipment, a paint easel, a planting and gardening area, a bench for outdoor reading, an outdoor mud kitchen, a playhouse and a chalkboard area. Our children also have access to our Forest garden area for free-flow play when not being used for focused activities.
During each session, our children are provided with a nutritious snack and a choice of milk or water to drink. This is provided by a rolling snack bar, which is run for approximately 30-45 minutes during the morning and afternoon sessions and is really beneficial for our children’s social skills and physical development. Our children are encouraged to practice good hand hygiene by washing hands before snack, making choices from a selection of fruit and/or vegetable sticks, dips and a carbohydrate option, as well as begin to learn independence skills with fruit preparation, placing their rubbish in a bin and washing their own plates and cups in a bowl of warm soapy water to help wash up afterwards.
What Do We Get Up To?
Towards the end of each session, a bell is rung, and children are encouraged to tidy toys away and join a short circle time together to finish each session, joining in stories and rhyme-based games and activities, as well as opportunities to join in conversations and share in their own experiences and achievements.
We are proud to deliver focused group sessions for our Giraffe Room children, which include our weekly ‘ Lift Off to Language for 3-4’s sessions, our Forest School Programme, Healthy Movers in the local community and small group Early Phonics learning. We also have open Forest School sessions throughout the week. (Please see Forest School, Lift Off to Language and Healthy Movers for further details).
Snack Time
A typical morning or afternoon snack in Zebra and Giraffe Room:
A cracker with dairy-free spread, sliced apple and a portion of banana. Milk or water is provided for a drink. Other variations include: breadsticks with dip and fruit, pitta bread, hummus and fruit, etc.
What To Bring
We ask parents to provide a small rucksack or drawstring bag with nappies, wipes, nappy creams and comforters if needed and a change of clothes, including socks and underwear, for toilet training and in case of wet play. Please provide a named warm/weather-proof coat and a pair of wellington boots for Forest School activities.
In the warmer Summer months, we encourage parents to send their children with a named sun hat and sun cream. We encourage parents not to send their children in open-toe footwear or laces where possible. If your child attends lunch club, we ask that you provide a named lunch bag with a packed lunch for your child.
Please note, to protect our children and staff with severe allergies, we are a NUT-FREE setting and all of our children’s lunch bags are checked daily for nut products before entering the room for lunch club.
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