Play and activities
Our vision regarding play, toys and activities is characteristic of CompaNanny’s working method. We offer children passive toys as this activates their imagination and creativity. Passive toys make children active and explore. Our Nannies are trained in how to properly guide children in their play and adapt the activities to the child’s age. This way we provide them with the right challenges which keeps the energy level high.
How play stimulates your child’s development
With the aid of play, the Nannies enhance your child’s self-confidence and independence. Your child is encouraged to make choices and come up with solutions. We listen carefully to your child and respect their struggles. Children who are given the space to get somewhere via their own initiative and at their own pace feel strong. Dressing a doll without help will not only bring a smile to their face, it will also give them confidence.
Social-emotional skills are also trained with the aid of play. For example, your child learns to make contact with others, to recognise emotions and to deal with boundaries.
Passive toys make active children
Examples of passive toys are fabric patches, containers of various sizes and wooden blocks. When choosing toys, our Nannies ensure that your child’s development phase is taken into account. For example, we lay down items for the babies that they can easily grasp and lift. We often give toddlers ‘undefined materials’. These are everyday materials such as a box, bottle caps, empty kitchen rolls.
Your child’s experience is our priority. We believe the process is more important than the end result. When we offer children materials, they can decide for themselves what to do with them. One child uses their imagination to make something out of it, another prefers to look at it and feel it, while another wants to discover what happens when it is thrown.
Every play corner has a purpose
A play area has a great influence on the development of children. That is why, at CompaNanny, every play area in the group has a purpose. There are areas for building, for collecting, for climbing and clambering and a kitchen. Each group also has a relaxing area. When designing our interiors we always ensure a good balance between having sufficient challenges and not too many stimuli.
The Nannies arrange the toys in the areas in an appealing way several times a day. These ‘prepared spaces’ are tailored to the children’s needs and developmental stages. During the day, with the help of the children, the Nannies rearrange the group. By arranging the toys differently over and over again, we invite your child to play with renewed interest.
Fresh air energises!
Every day we go outside with the children. Because being outside is energising and it stimulates the production of Vitamin D. In addition to the physical benefits, there are also mental benefits to being outside. It increases creativity and stimulates the brain. We take the children’s age and developmental stages into account in the design of our gardens too. The babies have a separate and enclosed area in the garden, giving them plenty of room to lie, roll and crawl safely.
With the toddlers we regularly go to the forest to look for dandelions or to see how mushrooms grow. And with the After-School Care children we play live Stratego in the park, and have our own vegetable garden to take care of.
Pride in our gardens
Each CompaNanny has its own garden. And we are very proud of this because this means all the children can go outside every day. There is plenty of room for them to run around and play. Your child can play with our bicycles, balls, cones or wheelbarrows. And if your child likes to play with water or in the sandbox, we also have that covered. The After-School Care children can also make use of our own gardens. Where we often also use surrounding parks, playgrounds or adjacent schoolyards.
We ensure that your child is safe at all times. The children are always supervised, and our gardens are fenced. In addition to that, we provide sufficient shade, and we apply sunscreen to the children. Not only in summer, but in spring and autumn too.
