Home From Home: The Importance of Home Corners In Early Years Settings
Lisa McKie is an Early Years specialist who has been running Sunflowers Preschool Playgroup, a setting in Gloucestershire for children aged 1.5 to 5 years, for 20 years. Here, Lisa tells us why she believes that play kitchens and other home corner imaginative play toys belong in every nursery.
For many parents, settling into nursery or preschool can feel like a big emotional step, especially if a child is shy, very young, or learning English as an additional language. Lisa explains why something as simple as a play kitchen can make a powerful difference to how children feel, connect and belong in their Early Years setting. If you’re concerned about your child settling into an Early Years setting, have a look at our blog post about what parents wish they’d known before their child started nursery.
Why are play kitchens important in Early Years settings?
“A play kitchen is crucial in every Early Years setting”
The home corner is so useful in the Autumn term, when we focus on getting new children settled. Our aims are simple: for the child to be able to leave their parent at the gate and understand that they are coming back, and to help them to feel settled and confident in their own space. To do this, we keep things as basic as possible when they first start: we lead them into the home corner.
How do home corners help children settle at nursery and preschool?
We might say to a new child, ‘Shall we make a cup of tea?’ They can see us adults behaving in a similar way to how their own families behave at home. New children can see that we are normal people. They relax and slip in details about their lives: they might say, ‘My mum drinks coffee,’ and then we can ask what they had for breakfast, ask them to make some breakfast and then we can slip into natural conversation. The home corner is a safe, familiar environment for almost every child.
Why is uninterrupted, child-led play so important for young children?
All of the learning and development we cover at Sunflowers is done without the children even noticing. They are just playing, planting, listening to stories, doing crafts and so on. We focus on three prime areas of learning with children aged up to three: communication and language, physical development and personal, social and emotional development. You see all of the prime areas of learning at work in the play kitchen: they're pouring, they're mixing, and they're creating, using their own imaginations, and then they're also using their own language to share conversations.
How does imaginative play support communication, confidence and social skills?
“Children gain confidence when they do things they’ve seen grown ups do.”
Children tend to share their language well in the home corner: child to child, quietly and kindly. You might hear a two year old saying, ‘I’m mixing,’ and these little moments of conversation helps build their inner self confidence and self esteem. These little interactions really build confidence in small children.
When the older children use the kitchen, they work together. A confident child might say to a quieter one, ‘Why don’t you put some cups on the table while I cook tea?’ It brings everyone together, so no one is left out.
“This is how the magic happens.”
There is always a kitchen set up. It’s fascinating seeing how different cohorts use it. Sometimes, there is a pressure to turn it into something else, theme it, or rotate small groups of children through it. But at Sunflowers, age groups are mixed and we have a lot of free play. I love giving children a chance to get into their flow. We like to leave them to play and watch without disturbing them. That’s where the magic happens.
My colleague Jules ended up in the home corner yesterday because there were a lot of little ones in there. She helped them set up a birthday party. They baked cake together – and lots of the children know what to do, because they’ve seen it at home. There are some children who don’t do anything like that at home too, so she was showing them what they need and encouraging them to join in too. Then they all started singing spontaneously. There were so many learning moments in that one burst of play.
How do home corners support children’s emotional wellbeing?
Three year olds especially can get quite emotional. Sometimes, they just fall down and start crying – we all feel a bit like that sometimes! But at that age, they can’t cope in the same way. And this is why we create this very safe, familiar environment for them. We say, ‘Do you want to come and sit over here?’ and they feel comfortable among adults they have learned to trust.
How can home corners support children learning English as an additional language?
This year, two new children joined us who are only just starting to learn English – there’s no English spoken at home. It was hard for them to settle; there was lots of crying. But as soon as the home corner was quiet, they were in there, laughing and chatting. They have made so much progress.
Real-life learning: how children use play kitchens in practice
“Here’s how the children at Sunflowers used the Tender Leaf kitchen…”
When a new home corner appeared overnight, the children were so excited! There was so much play and conversation in that area. The toys are perfect sizes for children to feel. They loved all the extra details, like the soap dispenser that you can press – it wasn’t long until it was being used as a weapon! The knives are used to carefully chop food into different shapes.
The tongs have been popular – one little two year old said, “These are chopsticks!” which led to lots of chatter about Asian food. You can get a really good sense of a child from this sort of chat.
The smoothie maker is a big hit! It gets filled to the brim with everything. Some of the children have them at home and they put the lid on and make the noise. But even if they haven’t seen them before, they just love filling it up. The ice cubes can be used for all sorts of things, too.
Two of the older boys turned the kitchen into a barber shop, using tongs as scissors and a spatula as clippers. It was absolutely brilliant and totally spontaneous – they set it up all by themselves. As adults, we have to be careful not to look too hard because it stops that natural play.
We add all sorts of other toys and objects to the home corner to extend play and learning: dolls always end up there. We add books, magazines and menus to introduce literacy into an environment that children can make sense of. One might read a book while another makes their dinner, like they might do at home. There is so much sorting, counting, talking about ingredients in the kitchen too which is brilliant for early maths. Sometimes, we add water so they can do proper washing up!
For many young children, feeling settled starts with familiarity. Home corners offer a gentle bridge between home and nursery – a space where children can play out what they know, make sense of new experiences and begin to feel that they belong.
Home Kitchen. Fruity Blender Launderette
