Immersive Learning - Bouncy Bear Childcare

We believe the children focus best on their learning when they are fully immersed in it. For this reason we try to approach the learning goals in different ways throughout the setting and within the local community.

We provide healthy nutritious meals, made on site, which reflect current themes of learning such as Chinese food during Chinese New Year, traditional Welsh food on St David’s Day or homemade soup made including vegetables, beans or herbs grown in the nursery.

We try to get the children outside to visit different parts of their local community such as trips to the Garden Centre when learning about growing plants. We organise visits to stimulate learning such as visits from the Community Police during our People Who Help Us learning. We also plan exciting experiences for the children such as watching chicks hatch from eggs during our Nature and life cycles topic.

These outings, visits and events all help children to focus on their learning and over the years we have seen their absolute excitement and wonder during these special times, which enhances their learning and their determination to communicate their feelings and observations to others. They become passionate about their learning and this is reflected in numerous ways not only during the special event but long afterwards, at home and in the setting.

We provide a variety of resources such as Story Sacks and Books which can be borrowed from us to continue children’s learning at home. We offer you free interactive workshops which focus on different areas of children’s learning and development. We also suggest ways in the Newsletter and your child’s Learning Journal of how you can support their learning at home.

We believe this holistic approach to learning and development helps children to make the best individual progress. We want children to feel excited about learning and motivated to be a lifelong learner.

Example of Immersive Learning: Plants

Children looked at plants in books and talked about their different features.
Children went to the local park to look at different plants and spot the features they had talked about in the setting.
Children went on an outing to the local Garden Centre to see a wider variety of plants and practise using plant vocabulary such as stem, leaf, petal and root.
Children visited the local florist, Bloomin Lovely, where the florists kindly showed the children different types of flowers and talked about their features. The children used different senses such as smell and touch to interact with the plants.
Children used the interactive whiteboard to do an activity where they labelled parts of the plant.
Children looked at seeds, described them and planted them in the garden. We talked about what plants need to grow.
Children were given sunflower seeds to take home as part of their home learning to support their learning in the setting.
Children went back to the original book on plants and recapped their learning experiences using their new found knowledge from first hand experiences and their new vocabulary.
Children were given the opportunity to create their own plants using paper, pens, crayons, mixed media, play dough, ICT paint etc.