Special Activities

Music is taught weekly to all of the children. While songs and finger play classics are taught in the classroom, children go to our specialized music room for weekly lessons. Here the children are exposed to instruments including the piano, drums, xylophone, guitar, percussion and more. Plus, the children are introduced to music concepts such as rhythm, timing, sheet music, and singing. Studies show that music enhances children’s learning by boosting their brain power, improving their memory, building their confidence, teaching them patience and discipline, it helps them be create and gives them an outlet for self expression. Children LOVE to sing and dance and play instruments, and our music teacher helps foster this.

Children of all ages are exposed to Arabic with our native-speaking Arabic teacher through songs, games, picture cards and coloring. Young children’s minds are sponges for learning, especially languages. Studies show that a multi-lingual brain is quicker at processing information and resolving conflicts. Confidence and resilience are both developed and strengthened.

We are incredibly lucky to live in such a multicultural country where children grow up surrounded by a multitude of languages. Learning a foreign language is a wonderful opportunity for students to broaden their view of the world. Research has shown that children who learn multiple languages have increased critical thinking skills and creativity and often outscore their peers in verbal and mathematical tests, indicating that learning foreign languages is a cognitive activity not just a linguistic one.

Children learn about dance and movement with our dance teacher in our very own dance studio. This helps develop their gross motor skills, strengthens their bodies and teaches them rhythm and balance. They gain confidence in their abilities through dance, develop patience, resilience, listening skills and concentration and become more agile.

We all have to eat and studies show that when children are involved in the process they are more willing to try new things. And, we’re able to sneak in science lessons, too! During Intro to Cooking, the teachers work with the children to make basic, fun recipes that they can also eat. Cooking helps build their confidence, teaches them about nutrition, teaches them to follow step-by-step instructions and can help build their resilience.

StepUp Nursery^TM has a large outdoor tiled water play area which we turn into a fun-filled aquatic adventure once a week. The children put on their swimsuits and splash away in baby pools, play with water toys and get all wet safely under their teachers’ supervision.

By playing with toys in the water the children are learning things like cause and effect (when the water is poured in the cup what happens? How does the water make the ball move?); they are learning to share; they are developing an understanding of special awareness; it provides an early introduction to science (What floats? What sinks?); hand and eye coordination improves; it’s a tactile and sensory activity; it promotes movement of their bodies.

Each week the children visit our Library for Story Time and to also pick out books to look at themselves. Reading daily with children helps them build their literacy skills necessary to become proficient readers and learners in Primary school. It helps strengthen their under-standing of words; helps them learn a language; provides a foundation for identifying letters, numbers and colours; helps with recognizing and understanding space and measure (big and small, up or down, inside or outside); provides them with information about themselves and others in a community (family, workers, community helpers, people of other ethnicities/religions); and can be soothing. Looking at books, listening to stories and ultimately learning to read on their own is a huge confidence builder for children. It also develops their resilience – it takes effort, practice and time to learn to read. This also strengthens young minds.

Our Indoor Soft Play Gym is visited throughout the week by all the children. It provides a cool, soft place for the children to explore their surroundings and learn about balance, climbing, self-exploration in a safe environment, special relations, building confidence and self-awareness, learn sharing and taking turns, helps them with their listening and attention, and gets them moving. Their confidence, agility, resilience and strength all grow through participation in this activity.

Each class goes to the library weekly and each child is given an opportunity to speak in front of their class about themselves.  Holding a microphone, we begin with simply saying “Hello.” Then, each week, more is added as the children get more comfortable speaking in front of their peer group. Such an exercise strengthens their confidence, self-awareness, develops empathy for others, they learn sharing and taking turns, it helps them with their listening and attention, builds their resilience and builds their courage which strengthens them.

We believe that leadership skills are learnt from a young age. Not everyone is born a leader but most can be prepared for it. To encourage this, our leadership class will help our students develop their confidence and leadership abilities. Each week we will have one of our students act as a classroom peer mentor. The mentor will be responsible for helping lead activities, encouraging their classmates and running small errands for the teacher. We believe we are helping to build a future generation of leaders!

At StepUp Nursery, we already use mathematics in our everyday activities and we teach our children numeracy from a young age. However we believe that focused mathematical classes in the early years can set the building blocks for the entire academic career. During the Early Years, children are capable of learning and taking things in at a remarkable rate. All of our classes will be age specific and teachers will be teaching concepts such as numeracy to specific mathematical circle times.

Each week we have a Welcome Monitor who greets the parents and students as they arrive at the school. The aim is to make them feel like they have a level of importance and encourage them to interact with their peers and elders. It is never too early to encourage children to stand up in front of people and perform. Performance doesn’t have to be learning lines for a play, or dance moves; it can be as simple as shaking hands and smiling at their peers/elders. The more we encourage young children to recognise their worth the greater the likelihood that their self-confidence will increase and the more likely they will be to become confident in their own skin.

During the cooler months each week our students get the opportunity to visit our garden. We grow vegetables, plants and flowers during the term and ask our students to tend to them each week. Along with the fun of getting dirty, gardening helps children learn valuable lessons about patience as they wait for their vegetables, plants and flowers to grow and responsibility as they see how necessary their care and attention is to the garden.

We strongly believe that babies and children learn and develop through play, but especially through unstructured, exploratory play. Our messy activities are designed to allow young children to make their own discoveries using their senses, curiosity and knowledge.

At StepUp Nursery we believe that there is no better place to start developing environmental awareness than within our classrooms, thus we teach our students the 3 R’s from a very young age – REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.

We have a dedicated area where we take our recycling which is included in our schedule each week. During this time, our teachers not only promote sustainability but also ensure the children understand the processes and why we are doing them. We then use these collected items to create artwork throughout the week!

We have found sand play to have a big impact on a child’s interaction, coordination, and artistic creation.

Sand is a fascinating material for young children as it can be molded, or left soft, it can flow or it can be solid, offering endless possibilities for a child’s imagination.

Our teachers encourage memory games, where students bury animals and objects and then go back to find them. This helps both with cognitive development and hand eye coordination.

Our playground is more than just a fun place for your child to spend free time. Our equipment is designed to help children develop important skills.

Whilst outside, our teacher’s organise obstacle courses where the children climb, crawl, swing and slide.

These are ideal for teaching children how to follow and change rules, share, and take turns.

The playground is also a place for social interactions where your child will learn to practice conversation and vocabulary and pick up on social cues like body language and tone of voice.

Our bike track area is always a big hit with our students.

Ride-on toys help to build gross motor skills by encouraging the use of large muscle groups, as children engage their leg muscles to push themselves along or move the pedals.

Fine motor skills also come into play with our toy cars.

Manipulating steering wheels or handlebars requires children to use smaller muscles and teaches coordination between the hands, arms, legs, and feet.

Mud kitchens provide great outdoor learning spaces for young children. Learners enjoy getting hands on playing with mud and water, while also developing important physical, social and emotional skills. The kitchen style environment promotes role play amongst children and it’s not uncommon to see them taking on the role of a chef in a restaurant or mum or dad cooking at home. By taking on these roles, children are developing their social skills and heightening emotional understanding. It encourages children to talk about what they’re doing, and often the excitement of being outside and involved in messy play gets young learners feeling even more confident about speaking and sharing their thoughts.