SamSam offers international childcare in Amstelveen, at the location Amstelveen Stadshart. A unique, multilingual, childcare centre where families from all over the world meet. At this location, we speak both English and Dutch at the groups. Respect for the child’s talents and the way a child develops are important principles of our pedagogical ideas. We give every opportunity to play with paint, felt-tip pens, free materials, clay, paste, paper, materials from nature or, for example, wood. For older babies and toddlers, we provide our independent pedagogical approach, plenty of creative challenge and fine outdoor play moments.
We wish every child to have a SamSam!
Groups international childcare Amstelveen
Baby group(10 weeks – 18 months)
The baby group is set up for children between 10 weeks and 18 months. In this phase, children go through important developments and we offer them space to look out into the world in peace. But they can also crawl or take their first steps when they are ready. There is a large playpen for young babies in the group where they can safely move around and explore.
For the crawling and walking babies, there are climbing and clambering materials, a challenging kitchen corner, and daily changing corners with, for example, building materials, balls, dolls, nature materials and other open-ended materials that stimulate the senses.
Babies have a natural need to explore the world through their senses. They discover the world around them by tasting, looking, listening, smelling and feeling. Therefore, the baby groups do not work with themes, but sensomotor activities are offered here. When the baby is stimulated with different textures, sights, sounds, smells and tastes, neural connections between brain cells will develop and this develops intelligence. An environment that does not stimulate the senses creates fewer neural connections than an environment rich in sensory stimuli. Everything the baby hears, sees, touches, smells or tastes provides a foundation for future learning.
In the baby group, a maximum of 12 children are cared for by three pedagogical staff members.
Toddler group (18 months – 3 years)
The toddler group is a spacious and bright group, furnished with various play corners. Such as a home corner, construction corner, creative corner, nature corner, stage and a chill corner. With the different corners, we meet children’s different interests and needs.
Daily activities are organised based on the monthly theme in line with the children’s interests. Free play is also an important part of the day, with staff facilitating a challenging play area and coaching the children.
External activities are also organised regularly, with someone visiting the location for music activities, toddler dance and nature experience activities. We change the range of activities regularly to give children as many experiences as possible.
In the groups, we encourage the children’s independence to promote autonomy and development. For example, the groups are designed so that the children can pick up materials themselves, help set the table, dress and undress themselves or learn to stand up for themselves to another child.
Connected to the group is the surprisingly large and green roof garden, where the children can explore, move around and expend their energy every day. Experiencing nature is a big part of SamSam’s way of working. The green nature roof garden is equipped with various corners; with a sandbox, vegetable garden, climbing equipment and picnic tables where children can eat and drink outside in the summer.
The toddler group accommodates a maximum of 16 children with three staff members.
Vertical group (0-4 years)
The spacious bright group is equipped for both babies and toddlers. There is a large playpen where the young babies can play and discover in peace and quiet.
The rest of the group is furnished with challenging play corners such as; a construction corner, home corner, theme corner and music and reading corner. Depending on the children’s needs, the corners change regularly to meet children’s needs and interests.
We try to use sustainable and open-ended materials as much as possible. These are materials that encourage creativity and imagination. With these materials, children can think for themselves; what it is, what they want to do with it and what can be done with it. Natural materials such as; wooden discs, pine cones, stones, etc. lend themselves well to this.
In the vertical group we pay a lot of attention to the development of independence and autonomy. For example, children learn to dress and undress themselves, drink from an open ‘real’ porcelain cup, make their own choices of activities they want to do, or learn to solve small conflicts under the guidance of staff members.
The vertical group is directly connected to the spacious green roof garden. This makes it extra easy to quickly go outside and enjoy the spacious garden.
The special thing about the vertical group is that children spend 4 years together in the group, together with the permanent staff. In the vertical groups, children learn extra with and from each other. The younger children learn from the older children and vice versa, the older children learn to help take care of the younger children and develop skills as patience and finding the right kind of words to approach another child.
In the vertical group, we accommodate a maximum of 16 children, with three staff members.
Pre-school group (3 – 4 years old)
At the Junior+ group, we offer challenging care for older toddlers. In this spacious and bright group, the older toddlers are challenged with different play corners and activities. The junior group has a house corner, reading corner, stage with dressing up corner, construction corner, care corner, number and letter corner and creative corner where children can work with creative materials themselves.
There is also a cupboard with open-ended materials that encourage creativity and imagination. These include natural building blocks, wooden discs, wooden rings, magnets and so on. The corners can change depending on the children’s needs.
There is a cosy dining area with small tables where the children eat together in small groups. Here, the children learn to set the table themselves, serving food, eat and drink from real porcelain crockery and practise cutting fruit themselves or spreading a cracker under supervision.
Different activities are offered during the day, depending on the children’s needs and the activity theme. When doing so, the staff look at what is important to the children. For example, themes such as ‘this is me’, art, professions. The group regularly goes on outings to the library and the Cobra museum. The activity themes provide depth in play.
Connected to the group is the green outdoor garden. Here the children can explore and exercise in the fresh air every day. Experiencing nature is an important part of the SamSam approach. For instance, we take care of the plants inside and outside, we investigate which animals and insects we see outside and we read books about nature and the world around us.
Staff regularly visit the site to provide activities such as nature experiences, toddler dance and music lessons. All to give our children as many experiences as possible.
In the Junior+ group, we accommodate a maximum of 16 children with two staff members.