Why choose a nursery that doesn’t have toys?
All children love toys, but how much can they learn when playing with them? Most toys are made of plastic, have bright colours, flashing lights and sounds, and are made with one purpose in mind – to entertain. These toys can be overstimulating and restrict the requirement for children to use their imagination, because toys do all the thinking for us.
Plastic toys have all the same textures and all the same smells, not providing any sensory information. They do not require children to engage or think critically and limit their imagination.
Most toys end up being thrown out after short periods of time. This is when parents realise that they are not being played with, often ending up in landfills. In recent years there has been more of a focus on how plastic is damaging for the environment and how it contributes to global warming. Using natural resources inspires children to be life-long learners and helps to save our planet.
Having owned a nursery for ten years has given me the opportunity to experiment with many different environments. Over the 
years, we have had brightly coloured walls in playrooms stacked with toys and outdoor areas with access to an array of plastic climbing frames and slides. At the time the environment was pleasant, set up with the best intentions in mind, and the children enjoyed themselves for short periods of time. However, we would often see spells of upset, disruptive behaviour and general disengagement.
In 2016 we decided to adapt our approach and focus on a natural environment, with the intention to create a home from home setting – one which will allow the children to grow, develop, and learn through child led play. We introduced natural resources which focused on supporting children into becoming confident, critical thinkers, and to have a lifelong love for nature, health and wellbeing. We created reading areas and spaces for being creative, exploring and learning, gradually removing the ‘toys’ and introducing open ended resources in our playrooms.
Do you remember that Christmas morning when your child was more interested in the cardboard box than the expensive toy that came in it?
At Nature’s Little Learners we don’t have toys, but open-ended resources, which allow the children to be creative and use their imagination to its fullest. We aim to create endless learning opportunities which can stretch our children’s minds far beyond their limits, and natural objects are the perfect solution. Play time with world objects allow children to create their own ideas of what something can be used for, without simply being told how to use them, most of which can be found around our very own homes. Open ended approaches provide experiences that make learning that much more of a personal journey, with each thing having different smells and different feels, giving a child thousands of new things to explore
Try this at home!
Hand your kids a few things from anywhere around the house. Take a second to just watch and listen to where their imagination can take them.
Did you ever think a plain old simple pan could be the helmet an astronaut uses to breathe in outer space? Or that wooden spoon and biscuit tin would make such a great drum? Have you ever thought about using that empty toilet roll tube as an underground tunnel for your car to drive through? Or counting old curtain rings as we try to fit them onto the kitchen roll stand?
At Nature’s Little Learners we focus on continuous learning and development, and this isn’t just for children. It includes managers, our team of early years practitioners, and every other member of our Little Learners family. We aim to have the opportunity to take part in The Curiosity Approach accreditation throughout 2021, which will help us to gain a deeper understanding of the awe and wonder in our early year’s setting. We would like to raise our standards even higher and provide our team with a greater an understanding whilst sharing our best practices with other curiosity inspired settings.
Did you know reading even the simplest of sentences can teach a child hundreds of things about writing and speaking? Books teach children how to structure sentences, along with new words and vocabulary. Not only do they enhance a child’s intellectual development, but they also enhance their imagination too!
Do you remember having a book read to you or reading a book yourself when you were a child? The imaginative thoughts can whirl around in your head! Questions run through your mind! What’s going to happen next? You begin looking at the pictures and creating your own storyline before you even know what will happen at all. Imagination. It’s one of the most important things a person can have.
At Nature’s Little Learners we provide reading areas indoors and outdoors, embedding a love for books throughout the setting. We would love to help support children’s learning at home, and hope to provide story sacks for the children to enjoy with the family.
At Nature’s Little Learners, our natural and homely environment demonstrates a love for all our families. We focus on our care for all types of animals, whether they be farm, pet, wild, or anything else at all!
We aim to provide children with the opportunity to visualise animals that they would not necessarily see in everyday life. To inspire their curious minds to ask questions, research and role play, and, in turn, extend their learning to many other avenues – providing much more learning than what meets the eye. Research suggests that interaction with animals can improve a child’s social interaction by reducing anxiety and encouraging motivation and learning. Caring for animals teaches children to feel another being’s emotions and pain – empathy. And isn’t that one of the most important things a person can have?
Outdoor play
Not all children enjoy learning in enclosed spaces. It can have an impact on their emotional wellbeing, as they begin to feel less confident and anxious, which inevitably results in negative behaviour. The environment also has an impact on a child’s wellbeing, with children who have access to outdoor learning feeling calmer, allowing them to be active, motivated, and have a positive attitude to learning. At Nature’s Little Learners, we have formed an outdoor space that can be enjoyed by a child every day of the week. We believe that a structured ‘classroom’ environment is too fixed for children who are in their early years. And in its place, we allow children the freedom to flow from indoors to outdoors for most times of the day, preventing a child’s play and learning from being disrupted by rigid routines or mandatory activities.
Why not come and visit us to find out more?
Contact Sam or Kynnedy on:
Telephone: 07957156981 Email: [email protected]
Useful website links for further information about our approach to early years and childcare and help with fees:
*Sponsored Blog
