Children's Wellbeing | Our Health Hub | Meadow View Childcare
What Makes Us Special
At Meadow View Day Nursery and Pre-School, we love to ensure that are children are happy and healthy for the best chance of positive development. Browse through some ways we achieve this…
Stop rushing
Our lives are often very busy, and our children’s lives can often be busy too. We need to help children find the time to rest and experience moments of stillness. At Meadow View we have created paces inside and out for your child to lay back and relax or daydream? You can also use yoga and mindfulness with young children. Both of these practices help children to find stillness. We use a outside service called yoga mites.
Being creative
Creativity is an essential part of wellbeing. We need to give children the space to be creative and join in the process with them. Find times to sing and dance with children, this can be a joyful experience. Give children the opportunity to experiment with a wide range of materials and mark-making tools. Creativity should be about enjoying the activity and not about having a finished product.
Join in
Children have a passion for learning and discovering. They need adults around them who want to learn and explore with them. I believe one of our roles as practitioners is to be a co-explorer and adventurer with children. Children are great at becoming fascinated by something – this might be the snail and sticks you see on the road as you are walking to the shops, or it might be a keen interest in dinosaurs. As adults we can express our own interests and delight our children by learning alongside them, allowing their natural interests to shape our daily activities. We have various curiosity areas for the children to explore.
Playing outside
Research shows that children have a need to be outside, taking opportunities to explore, discover, climb and run. Make sure you involve children in using your outdoor space by asking them to help create obstacle courses for one another, asking them to think about what tools and resources they will need. Or you could provide materials for the children to make dens outdoors. Could they have a picnic in their den? Another idea is to ask older children to help make a treasure hunt and map for the younger children. Ask them to draw the map and plan out the route. They can also think about what the treasure will be.
Use emotional language
We need to help children understand their feelings and using emotional language will help give them the vocabulary they need to understand their own feelings, as well as other people’s. Even when children are babies we can start talking about their feelings. For example, when a baby is crying to be fed, we can say: “It’s okay, I know you are feeling hungry. I am going to feed you now.” When a toddler is crying because their parent has left them at nursery, we can say: “I can see that you are really sad that Mummy has gone. She will be back later but I am here for you now.”
Stop rushing
Our lives are often very busy, and our children’s lives can often be busy too. We need to help children find the time to rest and experience moments of stillness. At Meadow View we have created paces inside and out for your child to lay back and relax or daydream? You can also use yoga and mindfulness with young children. Both of these practices help children to find stillness. We use a outside service called yoga mites.
Being creative
Creativity is an essential part of wellbeing. We need to give children the space to be creative and join in the process with them. Find times to sing and dance with children, this can be a joyful experience. Give children the opportunity to experiment with a wide range of materials and mark-making tools. Creativity should be about enjoying the activity and not about having a finished product.
Join in
Children have a passion for learning and discovering. They need adults around them who want to learn and explore with them. I believe one of our roles as practitioners is to be a co-explorer and adventurer with children. Children are great at becoming fascinated by something – this might be the snail and sticks you see on the road as you are walking to the shops, or it might be a keen interest in dinosaurs. As adults we can express our own interests and delight our children by learning alongside them, allowing their natural interests to shape our daily activities. We have various curiosity areas for the children to explore.
Playing outside
Research shows that children have a need to be outside, taking opportunities to explore, discover, climb and run. Make sure you involve children in using your outdoor space by asking them to help create obstacle courses for one another, asking them to think about what tools and resources they will need. Or you could provide materials for the children to make dens outdoors. Could they have a picnic in their den? Another idea is to ask older children to help make a treasure hunt and map for the younger children. Ask them to draw the map and plan out the route. They can also think about what the treasure will be.
Use emotional language
We need to help children understand their feelings and using emotional language will help give them the vocabulary they need to understand their own feelings, as well as other people’s. Even when children are babies we can start talking about their feelings. For example, when a baby is crying to be fed, we can say: “It’s okay, I know you are feeling hungry. I am going to feed you now.” When a toddler is crying because their parent has left them at nursery, we can say: “I can see that you are really sad that Mummy has gone. She will be back later but I am here for you now.”
Stop rushing
Our lives are often very busy, and our children’s lives can often be busy too. We need to help children find the time to rest and experience moments of stillness. At Meadow View we have created paces inside and out for your child to lay back and relax or daydream? You can also use yoga and mindfulness with young children. Both of these practices help children to find stillness. We use a outside service called yoga mites.
A Positive Approach To Healthy Diets
At Meadow View we believe that it is extremely important to promote a healthy lifestyle.
We recognise the positive effects of drinking water, good nutrition and exercise on children’s well-being and the importance this has on their development.
We provide freshly prepared home cooked food which encourages the children to make healthy choices and experience a broad range of different foods and tastes.
Our designated cook caters for special diets including children who require a separate menu due to medical, cultural or for allergy reasons. We provide alternative food to meet all dietary requirements.
We aim to ensure that everything the children eat is of the best quality, our menus are nutritionally balanced and above all the children enjoy their food. Lunch time here is the hub of the day!
We include food as part of the curriculum, ensuring that children have opportunities to be able to contribute in cooking.
Benefits of Outdoor Play
“Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances.”
— Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage
The chance to connect with the natural world; first hand experiences of life and growth; endless opportunities for creativity and imagination; improved fitness and physical development – the countless benefits of outdoor play have a real positive impact on children’s lives.
There has been much research on the subject of the benefits of outdoor play. Helen Bilton, an Educational Advisor and author of ‘Playing Outside’ describes the three main benefits as she sees them:
Firstly, outside is a natural environment for children. There is a freedom associated with the space which cannot be replicated inside. If children feel at home in a particular space it seems natural to teach them in that area; education should not be a chore but an enjoyable worthwhile occupation. Children playing and learning in an outdoor environment appear more active, absorbed, motivated and purposeful, and develop a more positive attitude to learning.
Secondly, the environment where we work and play affects our emotions. Children will often be less inhibited outside, and more willing to join in with activities, talk and come out of their shells. In overcrowded spaces children's behaviour can change, some can become more aggressive, while others become more solitary (Bates 1986).
Thirdly, outdoors is the perfect place to learn through movement, which is one of the four vehicles through which children can learn, the others being play, talk and sensory experiences. All of these happen more naturally outside, but with so much space and so many opportunities to move in different ways, the setting supports learning through movement particularly well.
Firstly, outside is a natural environment for children. There is a freedom associated with the space which cannot be replicated inside. If children feel at home in a particular space it seems natural to teach them in that area; education should not be a chore but an enjoyable worthwhile occupation. Children playing and learning in an outdoor environment appear more active, absorbed, motivated and purposeful, and develop a more positive attitude to learning.
Secondly, the environment where we work and play affects our emotions. Children will often be less inhibited outside, and more willing to join in with activities, talk and come out of their shells. In overcrowded spaces children's behaviour can change, some can become more aggressive, while others become more solitary (Bates 1986).
Thirdly, outdoors is the perfect place to learn through movement, which is one of the four vehicles through which children can learn, the others being play, talk and sensory experiences. All of these happen more naturally outside, but with so much space and so many opportunities to move in different ways, the setting supports learning through movement particularly well.
Firstly, outside is a natural environment for children. There is a freedom associated with the space which cannot be replicated inside. If children feel at home in a particular space it seems natural to teach them in that area; education should not be a chore but an enjoyable worthwhile occupation. Children playing and learning in an outdoor environment appear more active, absorbed, motivated and purposeful, and develop a more positive attitude to learning.
Secondly, the environment where we work and play affects our emotions. Children will often be less inhibited outside, and more willing to join in with activities, talk and come out of their shells. In overcrowded spaces children's behaviour can change, some can become more aggressive, while others become more solitary (Bates 1986).
Thirdly, outdoors is the perfect place to learn through movement, which is one of the four vehicles through which children can learn, the others being play, talk and sensory experiences. All of these happen more naturally outside, but with so much space and so many opportunities to move in different ways, the setting supports learning through movement particularly well.
The health benefits
There are also clear health benefits associated with outdoor learning. Children need daily exercise, vigorous enough to get them out of breath with their hearts and lungs working hard. NHS guidelines say that children under 5 need three hours exercise a day and that it should be with a mixture of bone strengthening, muscle building and cardiovascular. At Meadow View, we ensure that through activities such as running, climbing, digging, these needs are more than met every day.
Exercise also improves children’s emotional health, allowing for relaxation and calmness and a heightened sense of well being (Armstrong 1996). Exercise is clearly an essential component of children’s physical and emotional development, and one of the significant benefits of choosing an outdoor nursery for your child.
And there are other health benefits from simply being outdoors. Research published recently by England’s chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies found that there has been a rise in cases of rickets in children. This is from lack of exposure to sunlight leading to vitamin D deficiency — not something you will need to worry about, if your child comes with us Into The Woods!
Characteristics of effective learning
This part of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum describes children’s attitudes to learning and ‘how’ they learn rather than ‘what’ they learn. If positive habits are formed in their early years, children will be able to apply these learning styles throughout their lives.