Crocodiles

The room

When children are ready, at around the age of two and half years, children will move from our Monkey group up to our Crocodile room.

 

Development

Within the Crocodile room we offer adult led activities and respond to child-initiated activities to support the children’s development in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage (2021). This is influenced by observing and interacting with children as they pursue their own interests through in the moment planning  made throughout the week and by information provided by the parents through informal chats during pick up or drop off times.

Children at this age can quickly develop physical, emotional and learning needs, the Crocodiles gives a focus to the types of activities that children will experience in the pre-school rooms, and ultimately provides an easier and comfortable transition to pre-school.

During the day, our Crocodiles have access to a rich environment within several differing areas of the room. We provide a continuous provision of sand, water, messy play, block play and also a quiet area for reading stories and relaxing and a home corner. All of our resources and activity areas are appropriate for the age group and designed to promote and stimulate your child’s development, learning and independence.

Our Crocodiles are always on the go and really benefit from large and small physical play. We offer free flow play from the room to the garden on a daily basis.

 

Around the age of 2 / 2.5 years children’s language skills develop at a very fast rate. To support children’s communication & language development we provide them with group sessions on a daily basis. For children who need extra support with their language we have a dedicated communication and language lead practitioner who can spend targeted one to one support time.

Our Crocodile room can also provide integrated 2-year reviews (for children that have not received one in the hippo room) in conjunction with your health visitor. Many children have their review at around 2.5 years with the local health team. This is a time for you, your child’s health visitor and your child’s key worker discuss your child’s development both at home and nursery.

We can also support children aged two and three years, who receive funding for childcare under the flying start funding scheme or three-year-old government funding offered by the local authority. If you would like any more information please ask.

However independent and active our Crocodiles are, they will sometimes need a rest or just a cuddle, our practitioners are always on hand to provide this and we have a sleep area for this group of children.

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We work closely with other local pre-schools / nurseries in the area and encourage parents to pass our monthly diary which tracks progress and targets to the other settings. This then allows us to all work collaboratively on your child’s development.

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Parent feedback

Daily diaries are completed and sent home at the end of each day. This information for parents includes sleep times, meals and snacks, drinks, nappy changes, potty information and what the children have been doing during the day.

 

Key person

Each child will be allocated their own “Key person”. This person will act as the crucial link between home and nursery and aid the settling in process by building a positive and trusting relationship for child and parents.

 

Nutrition
The children in this group have access to water throughout the day and eat lunch in the room with their peers and teachers. They also have a snack table offering fruit and other healthy options to the children at set times during the day.

 

A typical day in Crocodiles
The key areas worked on are:

• Social skills: encourage children to play alongside each other and share toys and resources.

• Communication and Language: encourage young children to link sounds together to form words and sentences.

• Physical development: encourage children to be more independent and move freely between indoors and outdoors.

• Literacy: encourage children to respond to picture books and stories read to them.

• Number: beginning to show understanding for number both written and verbally.

• Expressive arts and design: express self through physical action and sound.

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Crocodile daily routine 2024

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