Features

Learning & Development: Planning for under-threes - Room to grow

Babies are the stars of the show in a room approach at Rainbow Nursery, Middlestone Moor, where staff plan experiences with a highly individual touch. Karen Crawford and Sheila Gardiner explain it all.

Our staff plan experiences for babies based on the children's individual learning journeys. Included in the observation and planning for these journeys are the 'room stories' produced by the Education Development Service, County Durham, and contained in their document Learning Together.

The document examines the whole learning environment and covers both 'key experiences' in the room and 'additional focus experiences' stemming from individual children's interests. These are presented as Room Story 1 and Room Story 2 (see boxes below).

We have adapted and displayed some of the Room Story documentation to enable practitioners and parents to identify babies' interests, and we plan further learning experiences and opportunities from these.

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