Achieving ‘Quality’ in our Activities
All centres operated by Vista Coop are geared towards the holistic development of our children in a fun environment. Using the concept of emerging curriculum, we aim to achieve high quality learning outcomes.
Equipment
The following equipment can be found in each of our childcare centres:
Pretend Play:
- Dolls (including multi-ethnic)
- Dressing-up clothes (incl. uniforms, hats, capes)
- Shatterproof mirror
- Children’s kitchen
- Animal (farmyard, wild, ocean, zoo)
- Puppets
- Dinosaurs
Domestic Play:
- Utensil/cutlery sets
- Dinner sets
- Mini cooking sets
- Let’s pretend groceries
- Cleaning equipment for children
Physical Activities:
- Push and pull toys
- Ball pit
- Climbing frames
- Adventure gym system
- Mats
- Play slide
- Tunnel systems
- Tricycles/tractors etc.
- Different sized balls
Sand and Water:
- Sand and water trays and accessories (boats, measuring jugs, funnels, sand moulds, scoops, buckets, sieves etc)
- Play sand
Construction:
- Nesting and sorting toys
- Building bricks
- Wooden cubes
- Soft blocks
- Jigsaw bricks
Musical Instruments:
- Percussion (triangles, cymbals, tambourines, maracas, drums)
- Keyboards
- Cassette player
- Selection of instrumental music
Arts and Crafts:
- Wax crayons/pastels
- Colouring pencils/ drawing pens
- Watercolours
- Sponges/brushes
- Adhesives
- White and coloured paper
- Safety scissors/markers
- Clay
- Play dough
- Modelling materials and tools
- Selection of fabrics, threads, felt
- Palette knives
- Recycled materials
Listening, Reading and Communication:
- Age-appropriate books
- Plastic books/Cloth books/Picture books/ Broad books
- Big books/ Music books
- Nursery rhyme books and tapes
- Board games
Numeracy:
- Items for sorting and counting activities
- Measuring scoops
- Funnels
- Rulers
- Shapes
- Balances
- Children’s clock
It is aimed that such resources will continue to be present and utilized in all centres entrusted to us under this request for proposals.
Content based on the learning outcomes
Our qualified childcarers interact with the children through the range of activities designed to cater for their physical, social, intellectual and emotional needs. The approach chosen for our childcare provision is in line with the Reggio Emilia experience and thus there is no timetable of activities which is fixed in stone but these activities are more or less designed according to the needs of the child/ren together with the events that may have been happening in the centre, according to the season or the weather, for example. Importance is given to the actual twinning of these activities to the range of learning outcomes as set in an age-appropriate manner.
Timetable
The following is a basic timetable for 5 hours according to age group.
Babies: 0-18 months
With this age group, the carer interacts with the young child according to her/his needs and provides a lot of stimulus through multi-sensory activities and providing a lot of space. At such a tender age more time will be taken to see to the immediate needs of the child like feeding, changing nappies and sleeping than the older age group. However, a typical plan of activities would be:
- 15 mins: singing nursery rhymes combined with finger play and/or musical instruments
- 30 mins: providing a number of multi-sensory toys with different textures and sounds to observe, touch and choose for play
- 30 mins: playing with blocks, imitating animal sounds by using flash cards, playing with animal figurines, making simple puzzles
- 30-45 mins: outdoor play
As mentioned above, the rest of the time will be taken up by immediate needs, namely sleeping, feeding, nappy changing etc.
Toddlers 1: 18-24 months
The daily routine for this age group is as follows:
- 07:00: Free play
- 08:00: Breakfast/Structured activity
- 09:00: Circle time
- 09:20: Nappy Changing/Main activity
- 09:45: Outdoor activities/Main activity
- 10:45: Lunch
- 11:15: Nappy Changing
- 11:30: Nap time/ Relaxing activities (telling stories, puppets, books)
- 13:00: Snack/Nappy Changing
- 13:30: Free play
Preferably no eating outside time dedicated to breakfast and lunch, and no eating whilst running around. Nappy-changing and nap times according to child’s needs.
Toddlers 2: 24-36 months
The daily routine for this age group is as follows:
- 08:00/9:30: Breakfast
- 09:30/10:00: Main Activity
- 10:00/10:15: Circle time
- 10:15/10:30: Nappies/Potty
- 10:30/10:45: Structured Activities
- 10:45/11:30: Physical Activity
- 11:30/12:00: Lunch
- 12:00/12:15: Nappies/Potty
- 12:15/12:45: Structured activities
Structured activities include
- Threading
- Books
- Story telling
- Puzzles
- Painting
- Colouring
- Playdough
- Matching games
- Dressing up
- Cooking
- Sand play
- Water play
- Collages
- Dancing
- Playing musical instruments done with recycled materials
- Cutting with scissors
- Imaginative play (i.e. going shopping, cooking in the toy kitchen, taking care of dolls)