Mealtimes
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All food will be freshly cooked at nursery. Menus have been carefully planned to meet the nutritional requirements of children and guidance from the Children's Food Trust has guided menu planning. Menus will be published in due course.
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Mealtimes are an important time of day for children. Within the baby room the mealtime routine will be dictated by the individual needs of the babies themselves. Some babies may be fed in highchairs whilst others may sit at a table to eat. Some babies may still be bottle fed or feeding mothers may choose to come in to nursery to breast feed.
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Within the toddler room children will eat in their key groups with their key practitioners, the same applies with children in preschool.
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Preschool children will be expected to serve themselves from choices made available on their tables. Staff will support children to make healthy choices, e.g., to choose a balanced meal consisting of carbohydrates, protein and vegetables. Children in the preschool will eat from china plates and drink from glasses at all mealtimes, unless a risk assessments informs us otherwise. Toddlers and babies will use plastic plates and beakers.
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Ofsted registered full day care nursery
The Learning Environment
The indoor and outdoor learning environments at Mill House have been carefully designed to ensure that children have access to all areas of learning, including: Creative play, role play, small world play, construction, sand and water play, malleable play (play dough, salt dough, clay etc), science and nature, literacy (including a phonics programme), numeracy, puzzle play, games, cooking, and garden play. Our setting is developing a 'cinema' where we plan to screen a carefully selected range of theme based educational DVDs and other suitable programmes. It is important to note that mainstream DVDs (Disney etc) will not be screened.
The environments promote free-flow in order that children may select from the wide range of resources which are available to them. Practitioners support children to make choices throughout their time at nursery; resources are stored at child height to encourage children to make choices and to encourage independent learning. All learning is supported by practitioners who are qualified in the field of early years education.
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All children are capable of making choices, from babies who are having 'tummy time' and who can express an interest in the toys placed in close proximity to them, to toddlers who can choose between messy play and role play, to preschoolers who can choose between outdoor play to baking to caring for the nursery vegetable patch.
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Our well planned and exciting learning environments ensure that children's individual needs and interests are met and that every learning opportunity is seized by the child. At Mill House children spend their days engaged in meaningful play which takes place within a meaningful and predictable daily routine.
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