Choosing areas for your nursery or Early Years setting isn’t easy. There are, of course, plenty of companies and documents which tell you you MUST have a maths area or a construction area… but the truth is it’s entirely down to you!
Your curriculum and culture inform your choices. But when you begin to work through your curriculum you may feel that organising your resources that support mathematical teaching into one area makes sense. Sometimes you will naturally end up selecting generic provision areas and that’s absolutely fine.
But there are times when your culture and curriculum just make you think there might be a better way. So let me introduce you to… the lab!
Context:
I was working in an inner-city nursery class with a group of children with under-developed fine motor skills. I really wanted to support these whilst following the interests of the children. I had a group of boys who were VERY into mechanics, fixing objects etc. So, I decided to establish a lab with a range of items to pull apart and a series of tools to support these fine motor skills.
We had an incredible time, and this area stayed a very long time.
Lesson to be learned:
There are no rules around what resources and what areas you can provide. So long as children are safe, and these areas support your curriculum intent then you’re golden! (This is important if you are receiving advice as part of a trust or large nursery group – push back if you think it will be more impactful to provide something else.)
Other areas I’ve used with clients:
Wrestling area, Potion mixing station, dancing studio, storytelling stage, woodshed, factory, Argos shop, Football shop, Costa.
In my next post I’ll explore the difference between areas and zones and explore whether it’s time for us to blur the lines to make our provision work better for children.
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