Learning at Jellybeans Childcare

To play is to learn and grow

Our Montessori curriculum is creative and it comprises all the Early Years Foundation Stage areas of learning, British Values, and modern citizenship (cultural capital) and is informed by my (Rachel's) career as an artist and curator.

Every day we create adult-led ‘invitations to play' for the children to explore. These invitations are based upon the socio- cultural British calendar and involve Montessori materials from our indoor and outdoor classrooms.

Everyone worked hard at decorating their creations in our Sandcastle Competition, using starfish, driftwood, shells and sandcastle flags.

For our Fairy Tale theme, we read Three Little Pigs and asked the children to build houses out of pet bedding straw and also paper straws. 'I'll huff and puff and blow your house down!'

We re-created blue, sparkly ocean- themed elements of Julia Donaldson's The Singing Mermaid using pipe cleaners, milk bottle tops, pompoms and pearl garlands for the children to thread, scoop, pinch and sort.

A rustic Teddy Bear's Picnic For National Picnic Month and Love Parks Week. The children dressed up for the occasion and brought their teddies in for tin can tombola, hula hoop and parachute games.

We used pinecones, sticks, wood rings, plastic bones, vegetables and eggs, and tea set items to create a Gruffalo 'Owl Cafe'. The children enjoyed weighing various food items on our vintage scales and we talked about shape, size and measure.

As part of our On the Farm programme, we hosted a Live Petting Zoo in our garden and the children enjoyed holding and feeding the rabbit, tortoise and chicks. The turkey was huge!

Our method

As a Montessori setting, it is the child’s critical thinking, their agency; the relation between the child and their objects/materials, and the relation between the different children, that is important in play at Jellybeans. Our play happens in one mixed age group of children, just as Dr. Montessori advocated, meaning that ideas, play techniques and behaviours are modelled across the group.

'Play is the work of the child' Dr Maria Montessori (1870-1952). Play is an aesthetic concern. And if play is work, real work surely needs the right tools. At Jellybeans, as per Dr. Montessori's model, we consider the utility of play materials; incorporating daily tasks into play, building responsibility for tools (toys), and encouraging open-ended exploration to develop the children’s critical and creative development.

In line with the Montessori prepared environment, we keep our inside and outside classrooms neutral - not too many posters, noise, plastic toys or distracting clutter.

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