Southville Centre

The Leighton Room has space for up to 24 children aged 2 – 3, all year round. This room has big windows making it light and airy, yet still has a snug and cosy feel to it. The room has a wide range of resources for the children to play with, and different areas set up to encourage children to independently make choices during their play. The children will experience a fun and enjoyable time here in the Leighton Room, with a flexible routine that focuses on what the children need and want.

Each section of our room is set up to support the areas of the EYFS curriculum. We encourage children to explore independently; drawers are labelled with words and photos for children to use freely and resources are set out at child level.

Children enjoy regular circle times where we listen to stories, use Makaton, and join in singing songs. We have developed a calming sensory room that is utilised also as a sleep room; our children love to spend time relaxing in here. Our children enjoy exploring the creative space using a range of media and materials and we are lucky to have our very own garden that enables children to free-flow outside during the day.

Throughout the week, we take observations of the children to celebrate the milestones and progress that they are making in their individual journeys. Child led play or small group times are planned around our children’s interests and development and we encourage lots of free play as a way to discover what it is that really excites them.

Leighton Room children are confident, happy and enjoy all peer and adult interactions.

See what the Leighton Room have been up to this month:

September 2024

This month our Leighton Room children have been enjoying a range of Julia Donaldson stories to celebrate Julia Donaldson week. Their favourite story was ‘The Gruffalo’ and they had lots of fun and giggles dressing up as Gruffalo and Mouse from the story.

The children have taken an interest in the change of weather, and following on from this we set up activities where they could paint with leaves and pine cones and look at autumnal colours. This led on to supporting children with recognising colour change when they mix two colours together.

We have also been supporting children with toilet training and we have been reading lots of stories around the topic to help support their understanding and transition. It has been a success and we are so proud of these leaps in development – well done Leighton Room!

August 2024

During August, the Leighton Room crew have been collecting the fruit and veg from the garden and cutting it up for their snack. We have had tomatoes, sugar snap peas and strawberries. We’ve all been loving the hot weather and our children have been coming in their swimmers to enjoy lots of water play.

The children have enjoyed making balloons for the Balloon Fiesta using lots of sparkle and colourful materials. They have also been watching the Olympics at home so we reflected this by making our own gold medals at preschool.

July 2024

This month we have been exploring lots! We have explored the football and Wimbledon through messy play which included gluing and sticking as well as painting.
We planned a bug hunt in the garden and used different resources to help us spot the bugs and insects. The children really enjoyed using the binoculars to help support their play.

We have also been exploring nature in the form of painting by using flowers and printing them to see what marks they make on paper. To celebrate The Harbour Festival, the children made boats and loved setting them sail on the water and watching them float.