At Child’s Play ELC, every day is an adventure for your child where they can play, learn and explore new things. You have probably heard lots of stories about how they get to feed Diamond, go to the beach or build castles in our rooms. As parents ourselves, we know some of you may be wondering what a typical day at Child’s Play ELC looks like.
Here are some insights into what a typical day looks like from our Lead Educator, Beckk Cairns.
Indoor-Outdoor Environment
We are unlike other childcare centres because we have opted to create open facilities where your child can play indoors or outdoors at any given time. We chose this environment particularly because it encourages and enhances a child’s natural curiosity. This allows our children to play and develop lifelong skills.
An indoor-outdoor environment has also shown to benefit a child’s:
- Motor functions
- Muscle development
- Problem-solving skills
- Ability to socialise
- Decision-making skills
The Day’s Activities
Each and every day your child has the opportunity to try new things. This is not by coincidence as every day our educators come in before the sessions and set up new activities for your child to participate in. In some of the older rooms, we encourage the children to help us set it up as a way for them to get interested and excited about the day’s upcoming activities.
These activities are often prepared for during our dedicated planning time so we don’t take away from your child’s education and care.
All of our activities are designed around our play-based curriculums and offer our children lots of open-ended experiences to play and explore. These activities are often based on our children’s interests and knowledge but have an element of flexibility so we can go with the flow and adapt to every child’s needs.
“Offering open-ended experiences is great because what one child may learn from a play-based experience, another child might learn something else.” Beckk Cairns
These activities allow your child to develop necessary skills but also allow them to achieve goals through play and consider different ways to learn.
Not just at childcare!
At Child’s Play ELC, we make an effort to help your child use these skills beyond our classrooms, which is why we take them on regular excursions. In fact, our Torquay families went on an excursion in March to Serendipity Sanctuary where at the end of the day, children were building wallaby houses, digging for bugs and challenging themselves to climb trees.
Naptime
Naptime will look different depending on the room, as each room has sleep routines tailored to your child’s age and development.
- In our nursery room, it is often darker and sleep music is going for most of the day as our children take naps at different times and will have 2-3 naps per day.
- In our toddler rooms, we usually offer naptime after lunch. Children often have comforters to sleep with and our educators will rub their backs or rock them while sleep music plays.
- In our kinder rooms, naptime often changes to quiet time where we practice meditation, play dead fish or participate in activities that let our bodies rest.
Meals at Child’s Play
Mealtimes at Child’s Play are about coming together and eating as a family. You will notice some rooms where all of our children sit and eat together and other rooms where there is an eating table set up so children can choose to play or eat. Both setups help your child socialise and become comfortable eating at childcare.
One of our unique offerings at Child’s Play ELC is during mealtimes for children over 2, we arrange for the children to self-serve their meals. We believe this allows children to feel empowered as they are choosing when to eat and what amount they are comfortable eating.
“We have found our children aren’t as overwhelmed eating meals as they are when they have a massive bowl of food placed in front of them.” Beckk Cairns
During mealtimes, our educators will sit with the children and role model by eating the food. More importantly, our educators engage in discussion with the children about what foods they like, what is in the food and why it is good for you. This not only breaks down barriers about food but provides our children with some knowledge and basic healthy eating habits.
Get in touch with our team
Child’s Play ELC are community-driven childcare centres and we pride ourselves on providing real-world experiences and the highest quality care for our families. Every day is a new adventure for our children and our educators and we invite you to join us. If you would like to know more or are looking to enrol your child, please get in touch with our team of educators.
