Areas of Learning
Communication and Language
Through play, the children develop strong skills in communicating, I ensure we have lots of opportunities for developing language skills for example, talking about crunchy leaves, smooth conkers, rough conker shells on walks in the Autumn, going on ‘spotting and listening’ walks to listen out for birds, water running, vehicles, planes and spotting signs, numbers. We listen to and join in to music & singing, encouraging actions as well as words. We use musical instruments, ‘choosing cards’, singing in the garden to offer a wide range of learning experiences. I read a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books, using story sacks, our themes, everyday favourites to ensure the children are building and maintaining a love of books, learning vocabulary across the ages.
Children are encouraged to listen to each other, to ask questions and gain confidence in speaking out. There are sofas where children can sit and chat. Toy telephones are used in role play chats with Mummy and Daddy and with each other. We sit together at meal-times and chat about our day, the food we are eating, plans for tomorrow etc. I ask questions based on the information parents have provided via our WhatsApp family groups and give simple instructions such as ‘please get your coat’, ‘roll the ball’, or more complicated 2-step instructions for older children. For younger children, we play peek-a-boo games, I repeat the sounds they make, I talk about what I am doing and name objects and pictures in book.
Physical Development
Activities which promote both fine and gross motor skills are included in our day. I encourage children to use construction toys (bricks, duplo, stickle bricks, tracks ...) to create structures which are relevant to their interest, for example ‘a house for a comfort soft toy’, ‘aeroplane’. Artwork creations encourage children to cut safely with scissors, scrumple tissue between their fingers, use dextrous fingers to remove stickers. Posting, threading and pegging activities are offered to help develop fine motor skills. Messy play materials such as playdough, cornflour, water and sand are provided to encourage children to cut, roll, smooth, pour ....
Tummy time is encouraged for babies as well as opportunity to stand/cruise. Our table top activities are done at one of our play tables to minimise time spent in highchairs, aiding core strength, stability and balance. We have daily music and movement sessions both inside and outside, we have starting doing some Cosmic Yoga recently too.
In outdoor play we create obstacle courses, have running races, throw balls at targets, balance on a line, play ‘Mr Crocodile’, ‘Bean’ and ‘Gingerbread Man’ games, as well as using all the garden/playground equipment available – slide, seesaw, little buggies, trolleys, football, tunnel, tent..... I have clothes for all weather so all children can join in regardless of the weather.
We visit the park to gain confidence in using bigger equipment – climbing ladders, steps, climbing frames, learning to use a swing ….. We go to the ‘steep hill’ to challenge our bodies, climbing up and then having lots of laughs running back down. At the woods, children help each other to make dens, they walk along logs, carry logs to add to dens or make pretend campfires, we make marks on the sandy ground with sticks. We talk about and do activities relating to choosing healthy food options and the importance of doing exercise.
Personal, social and emotional
Within this safe and secure environment, children are encouraged to express themselves, to share, to take it in turns with indoor and outdoor resources, to make friends and to help one another, as well as to make cards and gifts for others at special occasions. Our story sacks and nursery rhyme ‘choosing cards’ have provided opportunity for learning about sharing as children take it in turns to hold props, to choose a song. We extend that further with Orchard Toy type games which involve taking turns.
I have role play toys (eg. doctor’s set, kitchen) available to encourage this area of development but my favourites are those games the children create themselves, currently lots of bag packing for bus/train trips, holidays, flights. A book featuring ‘teddy’s expressions’ is a great way to chat about feelings – happy, sad, angry etc, recently added to with a teddy expressions puzzle, wall chart and ‘mood stars’. We have started to do some Cosmic Yoga and I am doing some research on other forms of mindfulness to help with self-regulation.
I help the children to respect others and achieve appropriate behaviour through lots of praise and encouragement. We sing a ‘tidy up time’ song to encourage everyone to join in with tidying, making it fun rather than a chore. Children are prepared for change with tailored settling sessions for new children as well as discussion and stories about moving onto new settings. New settings are provided with transition reports so they know the children’s key interests, stage of development and our next steps.
Children learn about sense of self, learning about their body and promoting personal interests. We talk about oral health, healthy food options; preparing pizza with heathy toppings, sugar-free banana cakes and crumbles. We talk about the importance of fruit and vegetables. They are encouraged to use a spoon, fork and knife and to collect their own shoes/coats, then as they progress, put on their shoes, zip up their coats etc. I work with parents to support toilet training when children are ready and all children begin to learn to wash hands from when they start with me.
Literacy
Children are encouraged to mark-make every day both indoors and outside. I have extensive resources with crayons, pens, paints, pencils, glue, chalk and a wide range of materials for collages. Playdough, gloop, sand are provided to enable children to experiment and mark-make from a very young age. Drawing boards are available in the playroom for mark-making there too. We do lots of activities to strengthen our muscles ready for writing – tongs, scoops, sprayers, tweezers, threading, posting, tearing ...
As children develop, they are encouraged to hold a pencil with thumb + fingers, to make circles + lines with gross movements and with pencils, and to give names to the marks they make. We talk about the sounds in words and play games such as ‘I spy’ and clapping syllables; using Phase 1 Letters and Sounds to give me lots of simple game ideas. We create cards for Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day and I have printed shopping lists, menus, recipes to stimulate writing ideas in the role play area. Recent drawing boards in the playroom encourage this too.
Books are always available for children to look at themselves or for me to read. I point out the words as I read to demonstrate that the words are written in print and read from left to right. I use story sacks, puppets and props to help bring the story to life. I have a text-rich environment with posters and signs as well as an ‘I am here’ chart for the children to add their names.
Mathematics
Research has shown that puzzles and jigsaws help to develop a child’s Mathematical brain. I also believe they are very important for developing a child’s concentration, encouraging them to keep on trying, invaluable when they get to school. I therefore have a large range of mathematical toys to span the early years age range - shape sorters, peg puzzles, 2-piece to 48-piece jigsaws, tangrams, colour-matching puzzles, matching pairs, number puzzles, games (snap, snakes and ladder, Orchard Toy games). We use resources to make repeating patterns, and to develop special reasoning skills, fitting Blokus pieces together with no gaps for example. We do baking, using mathematical language, counting out items, looking at the numbers on the scale, talking about a half, a quarter as we add an ingredient.
Children develop their numeracy skills through play as well, for example, for younger children, counting the conkers we have collected and, for an older child, sharing objects out, ordering them by size, taking one or more away and asking them how many are left. We measure the sunflower plants we have grown, use positional language such as inside/under, look at shapes in the environment, use weighing scales, count legs on an octopus, starfish and spider and put a caterpillar made of numbered circles in the right order. We sing songs that involve counting, colour and shape, talk about time – before/after, number of sleeps until…, old/new and make marks to count objects.
Understanding of the World
The children ask lots of questions which I encourage to develop their understanding of the world and how things work. For example, "I played in the ice outside today, where did it come from" led to a discussion about water turning to ice and then watching some ice from the freezer melting. Whilst drawing a rainbow picture, "you get a rainbow when it is sunny and rainy at the same time", knowledge gained from a previous conversation.
We visit the local area to link in with the theme of the month eg. seeing the fire station, visiting the fish shop and wood, buying seeds at the garden centre, collecting sticks, leaves and conkers etc. We have a vegetable garden to plant seeds and watch them growing as well as growing sunflowers to take home. We look at similarities and differences in the natural world around us – leaves, flowers, types of birds, trees ... We hunt for bugs, looking under logs, on tree trunks, on flowers and talk about their importance eg. bees pollinating flowers, making honey.
Role play is encouraged with toy kitchen equipment, tools, a doctors set ... Children make up their own games using these resources for example, organising a pretend party or picnic, repairing Sally's radiators, using toy screws to stop the "leak" and using the items from the doctor's set appropriately. I have a range of small-world toys to further stimulate children’s learning – farm, doll’s house, buses, dinosaurs, trucks, cars, trains. I have resources with knobs, levers and dials so that children can develop these skills.
I also provide a range of resources to develop the children's understanding of the wider world. The resources I have represent our diverse society, including the protected characteristics, and puzzles, jigsaws, books, posters, maps and themed activities promote those from other cultures. We celebrate a range of festivals, for example Chinese New Year, Diwali, Christmas and Easter.
We use books and technology to extend our knowledge, for example looking up dinosaur names in a book, finding out the sound a zebra makes or a word in another language. I promote 'sustainability', talking to children about caring for the environment, about the recycling we do - glass, card, paper, plastic, bags etc.
Expressive Arts and Design
I offer the children lots of opportunities to express themselves both inside and outside. We put the music on and dance, sing and play instruments, we play with puppets making up our own stories and acting out those in books. Role play areas and dressing up clothes promote make-believe play with children building stories based on their personal experiences and knowledge. Drawing boards are accessible in the role play area to encourage mark-making.
Children are encouraged to create their own masterpieces – collages, drawings, paintings using the wide range of resources available, most within sight/reach on the windowsill (pens, pencils, crayons, stickers, paints, playdough….) as well as to experiment with different mediums such as sand, gloop, water... We talk about colour mixing, textures, smells, what we see, what we hear etc.
Each week we also have a themed piece of artwork which can be adapted to any age, very much about the experience not the end product. For example, a ‘melted snowman’ picture gives a baby the opportunity for sensory play feeling the foam/glue mixture in their hands, a toddler to pick resources to create a snowman, talking about the one we made in the garden, encouraging their recollection, counting buttons/eyes and for an older child to use scissors and their choice of resources to cut out a nose, eyes, buttons, a hat.
