Welcome to Jolly Pirates Pre-school.

Inside our classroom In Jolly Pirates we have lots of exciting areas for you to come and explore. This is our floor play area. In this area we play with lots of different toys. We can build train tracks, tiny town tracks or duplo towers. We can also make the cars go around the track on our mat.

This is our sensory corner. Within our sensory corner we have musical instruments and lots of different materials and resources. Including colour items and a theme tuff tray. A wide range of resources are based within this tray to explore our monthly theme.

This is our Jolly Pirates loft. It has an upstairs and downstairs. This is our role play area. Each month the upstairs and downstairs are turned into theme related areas e.g. travel agents, kitchen, garden centre, Chinese kitchen and space station.

This is our art and creative areas. We have a table for the junk art station; at junk art we can create items using boxes, plastic milk cartons, plastic bottles, tissue paper, ribbons and textured materials. We also have our large easel which can be used for drawing, painting and it can also be used as a whiteboard or a large blackboard to draw with chalk. At the side of the art area there are trays of resources to select from e.g. stencils, pencils, crayons, glue, scissors, coloured card and paper. The open doorway leads into the children’s toilets.

This is one of our Jolly Pirates bathrooms; we have 3 toilet facilities your child can use. We learn to go to the toilet during session, including washing and drying our hands. When snack is ready we have to take turns going to the bathrooms to wash our hands before we eat. The toilet facilities are all child level and your child can access them at any time during the sessions.

This is our sand and water area; in this area we have a sand tray and a water tray. In between the trays we have our resource racks which hold different resources to use in the trays e.g. jugs, funnels, fish, pebbles, buckets and spades. Aprons are provided for use when engaging in water play.

This is one of our table top areas. At table top we can play with the Lego, animals, dinosaurs, multicultural figures, group games and jigsaws. We have our resource boxes between the tables for the children to select resources to play and learn with.

This is our cosy corner area. Within the cosy corner area, there are books to choose from for individual and group stories. The children also care for any class pets in this area e.g. goldfish. In our cosy corner area we have four relaxing reading chairs for the children to browse through books. We also have our colour table. This colour table changes each month relating to our colour of the month. We find items from Jolly Pirates and children can also bring in items this colour from home.

Jolly Pirates have snack everyday during session. This is our snack area where the children will be having our healthy snacks. We follow the ‘Healthy Breaks for Pre-schools’ guidelines from the Department of Health. In this area your child will try new foods and also experience food tasting throughout the year. We have 6 spaces at snack. Snack is placed on the side table with a number card beside it. We have to take turns and count the number cards to see how much we can have. We use symbols at snack for the children to use, they learn to put their symbol in the box when they have snack. These symbols match the sign in/ sign out symbols. This will be introduced and explained in September.

When you come to Jolly Pirates you will be given a belongings box with your name and picture on it. In this box you can leave each day your spare clothes bag, Wellington boots and your child’s coat. Some notes and items your child may have created may be placed within the box so please empty the box at the end of each session as other children throughout the day can be using it.

Outside our classroom Outside we have our track that goes around our tarmac area; we can use this with our tractors and cars. Outdoors we also have chalk boards, large connect four, music board and construction area. Our picnic table can be used to play on also.

We also have a planting area behind our multi coloured fence. In our ‘house’ we can role play with different areas similar to our loft. For example we can turn it into a restaurant or a house. We also have our hopscotch in the space at the middle of our track to play on and to learn our numbers.

This is the front of our Jolly Pirates classroom. We have our parent’s notice board here. We have a blue door and when it opens you can come in to start your day.

This is another outdoor area for Jolly Pirates. In this outdoor space we have a climbing frame which includes rope ladders, a rope wall, a walking rope, wooden climbing beams and tyre climbers/ swings. Also in this garden we bring out some physical equipment and games from our physical boxes e.g. parachute, bean bags and stepping stones. In the bottom corner we also have a planting area, number tree and a scarecrow which we dress each month to relate to our theme. There are some chairs available for the children to sit and read outdoors as well. In the smaller garden next to this we have a small climbing frame with a bridge and a slide that the children can use.

At the back of our climbing frame garden we have a purpose built mud kitchen. This is great for some outdoor ‘messy’ learning. The children may get a little mucky from time to time but the learning is invaluable. The mud kitchen and it’s resource opportunities can link into all of the curriculum areas.