Reflections Nursery - The Fire Monster

Children develop their own theories so they can make sense of the world and they explore these theories with their friends. At Reflections we listen to their ideas and take them seriously and we help facilitate their research. Their work tends to turn into long-term projects which we support over many months, deepening their learning and provoking new ideas. We give the children lots of time to think about and reflect on their learning and plan the next steps.

We draw our inspiration from the pre-schools of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy. These schools are world famous for providing children with the very best in childcare and education. We also draw much inspiration from the forest nurseries of Denmark, world-renowned for their wonderful outdoor work with young children. We work too with the Early Years Foundation Stage - the national guidance for working with children from birth to five. So we give children the opportunity to develop across as many areas of learning as possible.

Our Reggio-inspired approach has led to many projects that have developed from the children’s ideas and observations and supported by thoughtful and caring staff. Here you can see an online portfolio of just a selection of these child-led projects.

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This story began when a two year old boy called Max looked into the stove outdoors and said, ‘There's a monster in the fire

Each year Reflections Nursery has a focus on a language of expression and during 2014/15 the focus was ‘Storying’ – the use of narrative by children aged 6 months to 5 years in their play and investigations.

In the story the children, all under 3 years old, have created their own mythology to explore some very big ideas: fear & friendship; safety & danger; appearance & disappearance, knowledge & mystery. The Fire Monster is a story with universal themes and will appeal to all young children… and anyone who once went looking for monsters…

For orders outside of the UK please email Hannah@reflectionsnurseries.co.uk with your order so we can calculate the overseas postage cost.