This area allows the children to choose their own resources and activities to play with. It gives them confidence to make their own choices and to speak about their interests and opinions. We have toys such as cars, dinosaurs and puzzles in the self-selection area. The children are also able to choose within the following areas too. Here the children are free to explore and experiment with paint, collage, glue and other resources. They can explore colour and texture and develop their mark making skills and communication as they describe what they are creating.

This is a very popular area. The children respond well to favourite stories and often act out or retell the story. It is also a quiet area and where children can just sit and look at a book. The children's pre-reading skills start in this area as they learn to hold a book correctly, turn the pages and even begin to recognise letters. Staff happily sit in the book corner with the children and read books throughout the day that children choose. Here children can explore and play with playdough, flour, gloop, pasta and many other things. As well as having fun playing, children can develop good mark making skills from these activities. Drawing circles, lines and sometimes even letters. Often children when young don’t want to come to the mark making table but will happily join in with these activities.

Children’s biggest role models are their parents and carers and so there is always a ‘home corner’ set up. We also regularly set up other role play areas including a shop, doctors, vets and café. These are very popular with the children and help in developing their social skills. There is also plenty of opportunity for mark making here with shopping lists, menus, tickets doctors’ charts etc. The children love exploring all the natural resources such as pine cones, shells, pebbles etc. There are magnifying glasses for getting up close to things and we include topics such as growth and life cycles. This links in nicely with our nature walks.