We offer quality learning experience for children
We offer quality learning experience for children
We are thrilled to be developing a partnership with our neighbours at Frances Bolitho Care Home. An ‘Intergenerational Care Partnership’ means that we are lucky to be embarking on building relationships between the youngest and oldest generations in our care. We are very fortunate to be jointly owned by Cornwallis Care Services ltd and to share the same beautiful grounds, which has enabled this partnership to evolve.
Our children at Bolitho Nursery will be regularly visiting the residents at Frances Bolitho Care Home, this is the beating heart of our partnership. These visits will be in small groups so that the children and residents can build relationships and spend quality time together, creating lasting memories and moments of joy within each day.
The regular, small group visits, are the foundations of this partnership. Building on this we will also be creating our own community celebration events. These will be an opportunity for the care home staff and nursery staff to work together to create celebrations that will bring together our eldest and youngest generations to brighten each other’s day even more.
We are planning to celebrate the following events (So far!):
Take a peek at our hugely successful Queen’s Jubilee Garden Party for an example of our first celebration event that we invited the care home residents to enjoy alongside our families. We enjoyed a lot of delicious cakes donated to our Bake Off – congratulations again to the winners, dancing to music through the era’s, wearing our Queen’s crowns, having photos taken with the balloon arch and thrones, meeting our very own Queen Jane! and lots more. Click the link above to see all the photos!
There have been a few pioneering partnerships like this over the recent years, you may have seen one example on a popular tv series! Research so far, is showing the benefits to both children and the residents. For example residents are less prone to depression and have better physical health. They are also more likely to venture to the day room to join in with activities with the children rather than stay in their own rooms. There are also benefits to children from the partnerships such as increased confidence in new situations, developing their self esteem and developing their social and communication skills. Children benefit from the unique social experiences through playing alongside the residents and enjoying activities together.
From our perspective the most beneficial elements of this partnership is the play, learning, laughter and happiness. We hear the excited chatter as the children walk over to care home and then see the beaming smiles on everyones faces as they join together before the eruption of laughter as the play begins. Play is the heart of learning. Laughter is the heart of happiness. What better combination for the beginnings of a partnership!
Our nursery staff and the care staff are already sparking ideas off each other to create some exciting and very memorable experiences for the residents and children. Some of the activities already planned include:
Gardening Together; including a sunflower growing competition!
Arts and Crafts Activities; exploring paint, glitter, collaging, making cards and crowns.
Sensory Activities; Exploring the textures, sights and smells of activities such as play-dough, gloop and much more together!
Music and Movement; we all love a good boogie and what better way to brighten the residents day than for them to enjoy the enthusiastic (and often very loud!) singing from our children! Plus our children have been learning some super yoga moves that they want to share with the residents.
Physical Activities and Turn Taking Games; small group activities such as passing a balloon to each other, throwing bean bags at targets, rolling balls to each other, playing hoopla and much more!
Sharing books, stories, poems and rhymes together; whats your favourite rhyme? Is it the same as your parents or grandparents? Do you remember a song or rhyme they always used to sing to you or tell you? We are going to be sharing our favourites together and we are looking forward to learning some childhood rhymes from the residents and sharing some of our new songs with them too!
(Thank you to the residents and their families for giving consent for their photographs to be shared on our website, and thank you to our families for their consent to share images with the care home too)