Kindergarten One (3-5 year old's)
Kindergarten One is our final stage before children move on to school and is thoughtfully designed to feel like a home-from-home environment. Calm, welcoming and familiar, this space supports children to feel a strong sense of belonging, because at Explorosity, we believe children thrive best when they feel part of something, not placed within it.
Children in Kindergarten One are supported by a low adult-to-child ratio of 1:8, often a 1:5 ratio, allowing adults to know each child deeply and respond thoughtfully to their individual needs. This ensures children feel seen, heard and supported as they grow in independence, confidence and responsibility. Within this secure environment, children are encouraged to manage their own belongings, care for shared spaces and take on meaningful roles that help them understand their place within a community.
Language and communication sit at the heart of learning in Kindergarten One. Children are supported to express ideas clearly, ask thoughtful questions, reflect on experiences and engage in meaningful discussions with peers and adults. Through stories, projects and shared thinking, children develop the language skills needed to reason, negotiate and advocate for themselves - essential foundations for school and beyond.
Emotional regulation and social understanding continue to be prioritised. Adults guide children to recognise emotions, resolve conflicts respectfully and support one another with empathy. Reflection is part of everyday practice, helping children consider what went well, what was challenging and how they might approach things differently next time. By the time children leave Kindergarten One, they do so feeling confident, capable and secure - ready for their next stage in learning.
Early Literacy is very important in our setting. We aim for children to be exposed to a 'rich diet' of literature such as stories, rhymes, poems through to simple signs and notes throughout the environment.
We hope to inspire in our children a love and a passion for reading and literature as in the words of Dr. Suess:
"The more you read, the more you'll know, the more you know, the more places you'll go".
Our home-like environment creates a sense of 'Hygge'. Hygge pronounced hue-gah is a Danish and Norwegian word used for a mood of coziness and comfortable conviviality with feelings of well being and contentment.
Throughout our environment, we have a variation in lighting, soft furnishings, real plants, and flowers to create scents, lots of spaces for children to snuggle up and be comfortable. We have weaved methods, mirrors, books, and prompts also through our environment to provide children with tools and opportunities to manage their feelings and behaviour with guidance and direction from our team.
Outdoor Environment
Our environment is just beautiful and stimulating on the inside. Our children have ' free flow' access to the outdoor environment throughout the year!
Our children benefit from a challenging and stimulating outdoor environment. We have streams operated by the children using pumps, we have a large natural-looking sandpit, builders yards, growing opportunities, and of course loose parts areas where our children can create whatever their minds can think of.
Our highly qualified and trained team, use their excellent knowledge of child development and their children to extend children's learning and provide stimulating and challenging opportunities.
How to help your child at home ...
As a parent you are your child's first educator.
Learning to Read and Write
A question we are often asked by parents in our Kindergarten is if we can teach their children to write their names and read simple words.
Each child's learning is individual and tailored to their needs. Explorosity Education uses the department for education document 'letters and sounds', phase one throughout the setting. However, before your child is ready to formally 'write', there are lots of different aspects they need to build up to this. This ensures that your child is developing and learning the knowledge and transferable skills to enable them to become confident readers and writers.
Here at Explorosity, we utilise children's interests to help them explore writing. They are provided with lots of activities and physical play to develop the muscles from the shoulder to the fingertips - all these are crucial before a child can 'write'. We also provide mark making activities through sensory play.
Our environment is rich in literature and our team utilise every opportunity to ensure that children are exposed to a wide variety of vocabulary relative to their interests and learning. Our team regularly read and create stories with our children opening them up to new worlds and ideas.
To support your child at home, the most important thing you can do is read to and with your child. We will provide you each month with a rhyme to share with your child and activities you can do to support this.
Numbers and Counting
Numbers are everywhere. To help your child count and recognise numerals, build it into your everyday vocabulary and dialogue with your little one.
For example, you might count the stairs as you take them to bed, look out for numbers in the environment such as on price tags or number plates. This is helping children to ascribe meaning to how numbers are used. You may give children reason to count, for example, sharing out snacks with family members.
Be patient with your little one. If you think about a field of tall grass. If you run through that grass one time you will barely be able to see where you ran. If you ran backward and forwards multiple times you'd create a pathway. This is how children's brains develop - to create that pathway of knowledge in the brain, children need to be exposed to positive and exciting learning opportunities regularly to make pathways in their learning.
The more time you spend, for example counting for a purpose with your child, the better they will become at recognizing numerals, be able to sequence numbers, and use numbers accurately in play and learning.
Our Pioneer Provision
We have identified a small number of children in our Kindergarten One room who are demonstrating skills and abilities typically seen a little higher than we usually see in nursery provision.
In response, we are introducing a 12-week pilot provision called the Pioneer Provision. This will be delivered by Amber Whatley in small group sessions throughout the week and is designed to further support and challenge children who are ready to develop these skills.
If we feel that your child would benefit from taking part in this provision, we will be in touch with you over the next week to discuss this further.
While Pioneer Provision offers enrichment in early literacy, number, and thinking skills, children's emotional well-being, confidence, and relationships remain at the heart of the programme. At ages 3-4, strong PSE skills are the foundation for all learning. For this reason, every Pionner Provision session is carefully designed to support children not only in what they learn, but in how they feel, interact, and grow as individuals.