Our ladybird Room is designed for children between the ages of 3 months to 2 years offering something exciting for every child. We offer a spacious room with calm lighting giving the children a wide range of areas to explore and develop their imagination with friends. Our room is a self-sufficient room which includes an enclosed area where we can prepare your children’s bottles and food safely.

All activities are planned in advance based on the children’s developmental needs, interests, cultural holidays and celebrations. We aim to include all the children and their unique selves in our planning process. Our activities are based around a theme inspired by our book and song of the week, this again is influenced by the children’s interests, the seasons and cultural celebrations.

Within our room we have our home corner which gives the feeling of a home away from home where the children can develop their pretend play and communication skills looking at their own family photos, pretending to cook some yummy food or caring for the baby dolls. Our book nook is a cosy space with a wide range of stories carefully selected to enhance children’s interests or focus. Children can independently access books at all times.

We understand the importance of sensory play for babies’ and their learning, so we incorporate a variety of different textures in our daily sensory trays offering new and fun learning opportunities for our children. We love all kinds of messy play from painting, foam, sand and gloop with the supervision of practitioners. We also provide food sensory trays such as custard, rice and yoghurt so our babies can explore through taste, smell and touch, after all a messy baby is a happy baby 🙂

Our room offers a cosy area which is perfect for children to relax in a calm space, this area can also be separated for our non-mobile younger babies to explore safely. The cosy space includes a black and white area, sensory toys mirrors and lights with soft mats perfect for tummy time.

We have a variety of sensory baskets accessible to all to independently explore or with their key person. We often swap the materials to keep them exciting to discover. For the older children we have family photos rotating on a projected wall. This gives them a sense of belonging and security when starting to recognise themselves and the special people.
Our cosy area is perfect for nap times, with black out blinds and a range of soft twinkly lights to create a lovely calm sleepy atmosphere to allow babies their important rest time.

We follow safer sleep guidelines at all times, with cots for children under 1 years old and firm flat floor mats for children over one. Each child has their own fitted sheet and cellular blanket which are kept in separate pockets. We use photos of themselves to begin identifying which bed is theirs. Children are never left to sleep alone and regular sleep checks are recorded.

Our baby garden is a safe and secure space with our own fire exit to allow for a safe evacuation using our fire evacuation cot.

We provide waterproof trousers and sheltered areas so we can explore in all weathers, giving shade in summer and protection from the rainy days.

The area is perfect for splashing around in our water tray and paddling pool or digging in the sand pit, whilst having plenty of room to crawl walk and run.

There is lots of physical challenge on our slide building confidence to climb.

The Outdoor kitchen is a popular addition supporting early pretend play.

Our cosy book tent reflects our love for books and supports the children’s love of cosy spaces.

Our younger babies explore the world using soft play mats to role, lay down and sit surrounded by familiar sensory toys and experiences.
Exploring outside is part of our daily routine and even at this young age we promote free flow access for all giving children the opportunity and freedom and choice to explore inside and outside.

We are lucky to be surrounded by so much to see and do in the local community.

We take little trips to explore our local community which we link into our current learning. A visit to the train station to wave at the drivers and to hear the new sounds of the trains, A teddy bears picnic in the park and a trip to the local shops are amongst the favourite.

Parent Partnership is crucial to our practice. We know that leaving your most precious babies with someone outside of your family can be a worrying time so we take every opportunity to send photos and updates to parents through our eyparent app.

Observations made of your children shows you the bonds they have made with staff and friends and what fun we have been up to each day.

We provide simple home learning activities found outside of our door along with our story and song of the week. This helps children to carry on the fun at home.

Ted is our room mascot and home learning bear. Each week he gets to spend time at a child’s house and our children have the important job of looking after Ted.

Key people will add activities into Ted’s bag which supports their next steps and a diary entry to complete to show all of the fun you have had.

Located within the Thomas Boughey Children's Centre, the Thomas Boughey Kindergarten is situated in the heart of Shelton’s community with good links to Hanley, Stoke, Etruria & Festival Park and close to Hanley Bus Station & Stoke Railway Station.

Address: College Road, Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 2DQ

Telephone: 01782 769591
Email: thomasboughey2010@gmail.com
Facebook: Thomas Boughey Kindergarten