What does your two year old do at nursery?

[tattycoram]

I'm just wondering as I've just moved my two year old ds from one nursery to another, and while the first was somewhat chaotic, what I liked about it was that it always had two or three activity tables with really fun stuff like making playdough, cutting, or playing with water and corn flour, then a water table or a sand table and a home corner and an easel with paints. The children could choose what they wanted to do.

The one he is at now is for 2 year olds til school age and it oesn't seem nearly so much fun. This morning for example, they had some bricks and some drawing, and they seemed to have the same activities when I was in there on Friday.

So I'm just wondering if I'm being super fussy.

What do your two year olds do as activities at nursery?

And finally - they have a circle time in the morning where they are expected to sit for half an hour. Some of the time is spent singing which is fine, but some of it seems to be talking about their weekends, and my ds seems a bit little to be sitting down for half an hour at a time. Is this normal too?

bump

At ds's nursery they have access to lots of toys they can play with. They are encouraged to put them away when finished with them. Circle time lasts 10-15mins maximum. They do lots of different activities and usually (except in really bad weather) have continuous access to the playground as well as the inside which has a sandpit and water pllay in it.

They also have constant acees to dressing up clothes and role playing toys etc.

Ds is 4 and has been there since he WAS 3

I work with two year olds. We have a short circle time after breakfast that lasts about 10 minuits saying hello to everyone, and singing about the weather and the days of the week. This morning we had out cooked spagetti, the pirate ship, painting and also the ball pool the indoor climbing frame and the home corner which they always have access to. We have a circle time before lunch, which is normally singing and storys. Then its pretty simmilar after lunch, but with diffrent activitys obviously! We also go outside a couple of times during the day. The activitys should be based on the childrens intrests, but even if they want the same things every day there should be a balance between child and adult initiated activitys so there should be some veriety. Do they not display thier planning so you can see exactly what they have done during the day?

I've been there quite a bit over the past few days as I am settling ds in. It's complicated by the fact that it says it is Montessori, though it doesn't seem to be registered with the Montessori body (name of which I can't remember but I searched its website a couple of days ago). I would never have sought out a Montessori nursery, but we had a disaster with another nursery last week and had to move ds in a hurry and this one has a very good ofsted report and very nice and engaged staff.

Sorry, should have said that in the first place. However, the activities that are don't seem to be Montessori ones, (afaik "pure" Montessori nurseries don't have home corners and dressing up) and they seem to do their Montessori "work" at set times of hte day.

I've just remembered, they all had to line up while waiting to go outside, which made me very .

Any more stories of other nurseries? It's really really helpful to have something to compare it too.

I've worked with 2 year olds in nurseries, and I think lining up to go outside is quite typical. 30 minutes circle time is very long though, and talking about their weekends seems more appropriate for a pre-school class of 3/4 yos. 10-15 minutes is about all the sitting still a 2 year old can manage in one go imo.

I wouldn't have more than two activities out at one time tbh, maybe duplo and trains for example, but children always have access to books/homecorner/dressing up too. I let the children choose which boxes to get out though, so maybe the kids chose bricks both days? A art/craft activities happen every day too, and are different every day.

Thanks, this is really helping to clarify things in my mind.

Anymore?