Melissa

About Me

I have been working in early years education since 2008 and I adore my job. It is more than a vocation for me, I am invested in each child and want them to have the best experiences and make wonderful early memories because childhood goes so quickly and it is the foundation for a possitive personal, social and emotional health throughout the rest of their lives.

I enjoy cooking, baking, gardening, foraging and walks with my family and I love animals. These passions are evident in the lovely activities children experience such as nature walks where we collect leaves, acorns, conkers to use as crafting materials, lovely displays and mathematics!

Children help me to prepare fruit salads, wash the vegetables that come straight from an organic farm. We cook bread and pizzas, make smoothies and bake cookies and cakes and even make homade jam from the fruits we pick from around the farm.

We have two beautiful cats that have grown up with young children and two rabbits that the children really enjoy feeding treats too and watch running and jumping about in their rabbit run on the grass.
The newest addition too our family is Lola, our Chihuahua/Pomeranian puppy. Now 12 months old and she’s a big hit with the children.
She does bark a lot at strangers and newcomers will find her very noisy at first? but once she knows you she will love you always and is just a bundle of fun.

Children help me to plant seeds, water the garden and plant vegetables so they get a really good understanding of the natural world and how to take care of it.

I have a great range of books covering topics on first words, dinosaurs, space, kindness, emotions, seasons, farming, counting, colours, professions, potty training plus so many more including julia Donaldson collection, Mr men collection and lots of lovely well known titles like I wrote to the zoo, spot the dog…… sharing stories is so important for building bonds and getting children to love books that help with that early language and communication.

We love messy play here at the barn, some examples of tuff tray fun themes are muddy farms, sensory spaghetti rainbow, oats with pots pans and scoops of all sizes, diggers and stones ans boulders, story themed tuff trays like 3 little pigs, going on a bear hunt, stick man and Goldilocks. And nursery rhyme themes like 3 little ducks, 5 current buns and 5 little speckle frogs. And so many more.

We have a big variety of construction toys from mega blocks and duplo, to Lego, wooden construction, kenex, clic clack sticks, sticky bricks, wooden blocks, connecting school counters.

We love play dough, water and sand play and always have something exiting to do in the garden.

I’m a firm believer in fresh air being great for good health and foundations set for physical activity so we go for walks most days. I love a good puddle suit and pair of wellington boots! Puddle jumping is fun. We go for regular walks to the local convenience stores, plant and pet shop and playgrounds. Now my car is insured for business purposes I’m exited to try out the local playgroups and bigger parks too! Getting out in the community ans seeing different people and professions teaches children about the wider world and we can take what we have learned and introduce those topics into our role play with dress up, kitchens, shops, doctors, hairdressers, police and fire brigades etc.