Quick advice before we get started.  You should make sure any resources you buy for the nursery are the following four things:

• Age-appropriate – you should have different toys and resources for the different age groups you will be caring for.  Babies, toddlers and pre-school
• Educational – they should serve a purpose in helping develop children.  Items that have multi-purpose are best
• Reliable – they should be of good quality; you do not want to have to keep replacing ‘cheap toys’.  Try not to get too much plastic and opt for natural products like wood
• Fun – they should be fun and engaging to help encourage children’s engagement

I will separate the resources to buy into different areas:

Your baby room, your toddler and preschool rooms, and your outdoor space.  I will also quickly list some things you can buy for your office, staff room, and kitchen and then list some places you can buy these items.

Your Baby Room

As mentioned in my previous video you will need a separate room for babies.  This enables you to set up areas specific for babies.

Some of the resources you will need include:

• cots,
• beds,
• chairs,
• low tables,
• baby seats,
• changing mats,
• aprons – we found some good cover-all aprons on Gompels
• sensory items and sensory toys,
• rattles,
• role-play items like a kitchen
• age-appropriate puzzles making sure they are large and easy for babies to grip to develop their fine motor skills
• cause and effect toys,
• water and sand play,
• messy play

You have to remember your baby room will be from ages 6 months or possibly younger until 2 years old.  So, you need to have resources that enable the physical development between these ages, for babies that are still lying, to those sitting, to crawling to standing and climbing to walking.   This means you need stuff at different levels.

Whilst they are still just sitting having a sensory basket and stuff they can grab and play with, within their immediate reach is essential.

You can attempt to make your own baby room resources to save money, for example, we made our own baby activity board and black and white tent area.

This should be enough to get you started in your baby room.

Your Toddler Room and Preschool Room

Moving onto your toddler and preschool room.  Some items you will need include:

• Arts and crafts – Paint, Chalk, pens, aprons, pencils, easel, scissors, paper, chalk, junk modelling resources (you can get junk modelling equipment from your local scrap store), glitter, play dough (make your own)
• Construction – building blocks, dublo/ lego blocks, stickle bricks
• Roleplay – dolls, kitchen area, pots and pans, cars, train tracks, animals, dressing up clothes
• Sand and water play – sand trays, sand, sand toys, water toys, sand hats
• Other items – ICT toys, computers, books, puzzles, musical instruments,

There are lots you can fill your toddler and preschool room with, just make sure they are age-appropriate.  Though, I always feel with adult supervision most toys are.

Outdoor Space

Finally, your outdoor space.

On the screen are examples of some nursery gardens.

The emphasis on the outside now is primarily on physical development and understanding the world.  So, you can fill your garden with lots of physical toys like bikes, balls, skipping ropes, tricycles, bikes, scooters, climbing frames, sand and water play, large paintbrushes, slides, see-saws.

As well as role-play and exploration items like a playhouse.

Though, keeping outside quite natural is important with planting and digging opportunities and potentially a mud kitchen.

This should give you an idea of some of the items you will need for your nursery.  As you grow you naturally add more things to your rooms and outdoor space.

Office, staff room and kitchen

Other items you will need to get for example for your office, staff room and kitchen are

• Kitchen – pots and pans, plates, cups, cutlery, cleaning supplies, bins, fridge, oven, freezer
• Office and staff room supplies – adult chairs, tables, desks, laptops, printers, tablets, stationery, shelves, filing cabinets, laminators, shredders

So, make sure you add this to your budget.

If you do need any help with your budgeting, we have a section on the starter course which has a downloadable document where you can input this information.  The course is usually £14.99, but you can get it for just £4.49 with the discount code youtube2.

Before we get into where to buy items, please take a moment to hit that like button it really helps support the channel, and if you want to see more videos make sure you hit that subscribe button and then the notifications bell to get informed when more videos come out.

Thank you.