PERSONAL, SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for others; to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups; and to have confidence in their own abilities

1. Self confidence & Self awareness
2. Managing feelings & behaviour
3. Making relationships

Activity Ideas Include:

• Activities to encourage children to make their own choices
• Sharing games and turn taking
• Listening to others and respecting their views
• Learn to respect all other people regardless of their age, gender, culture or beliefs
• Sharing news
• Sitting still and learning to concentrate
• Responding to their experiences and learning to share their feelings
• Encouraging independence in dressing and undressing
• Encouraging independence in toileting and teaching good hygiene routines
• Making friends (at the variety of groups we visit each morning)
• Understanding right from wrong
• Learning to share and respect the property of others

LITERACY

Encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest.

1. Reading
2. Writing

Activity Ideas Include:

• Alliteration games
• Books 
• Initial sounds games – phonics
• Letter shapes – in the air, on paper, outside with chalk, at an easel, in/with play dough, in salt/sand
• Poems/poetry/ Rhyming games
• Print in the environment – shops, labels, computer, books
• Signs – words in displays, labels on toy boxes
• Songs and rhymes
• Story telling – with and without puppets and other resources
• Writing – pencils, crayons, paper, labels, name writing, captions
• Letters and sounds
• Making up our own stories, acting out familiar or own stories
• Using a range of mark making objects – pens, pencils, paint, chalk
• Writing in sand/salt

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive, to develop their co-ordination, control, and movement. Helped to understand the importance of physical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food

1. Moving & handling
2. Self care 

Activity Ideas Include:

• Jigsaws
• Cooking
• Drawing
• Cutting and sticking, collage
• Sand and water play
• Slides
• See-saw
• Trikes, bikes and ride-ons
• Ball pit and play balls
• Musical instruments
• Footballs, small balls, bean bags
• Hoops
• Trampoline
• Multi skills
• Obstacle course
• Tunnels and play houses

COMMUNICATION

Involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; todevelop their confidence and skills in expressing  themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations.

1. Listening & Attention
2. Understanding
3. Speaking

Activity Ideas Include:

• Books, both fiction and non-fiction.
• Visits to local library.
• Nursery rhymes and poetry.
• Recognition of sounds initially using alphabet tray and floor jigsaws.
• Linking sounds to names of letters in alphabet using flashcards and matching games. This will be linked to the sound children are doing at Nursery.
• Simple spelling puzzles.
• Finger puppets, glove puppets, puppet theatre.
• Recognition of and writing name.
• Tracing.
• Activities to help pencil control and handwriting eg lacing, threading.

EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND DESIGN

Involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.

1. Exploring using media & material
2. Being imaginative

Activity Ideas Include:

• Collages
• Colour mixing and experiments
• Colouring sheets
• Construction and tools
• Dancing
• Glue and tape – joining things together, taking them apart
• Imaginative/pretend – role play, dressing up clothes
• Malleable and messy play – sand, water, play dough, etc
• Music – CDs, radio, creating with instruments
• Outings to gain experiences that can be used to develop imagination
• Painting
• Rhythm and rhyme
• Sensory learning
• Singing songs and rhymes
• Small world resources – dolls house, little people, farm, under the sea, zoo, trains, cars, insects
• textures

MATHEMATICS

Providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and measure.

1. Numbers
2. Shape, space and measure

Activity Ideas Include:

• Cooking – weights, measures, time, capacity
• Counting and numbers
• Jigsaws – shapes and sizes
• Matching and sorting
• Money – shopping, café
• Number activities, games, books, jigsaws
• Number rhymes – counting forwards and backwards
• Positional language – up, down, over, under, through, behind, in front
• Quantity language – heavy, light, more, less
• Sequencing – colours, shapes, sizes, numbers
• Shapes – stencils, pictures, freehand, play dough
• Size – big, small, bigger, smaller, emptying, filling
• Sorting – size, shape, colour, weight
• Time – visual timetable
• Weight – heavy, light – sand and water play

UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD

Involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people and places.

1. Technology
2. The world
3. People & communities

Activity Ideas Include:

• Environmental awareness – recycling, walks in the woods, map making
• Equality and disability awareness – small world people, dolls house
• Experimenting – cooking, finding out how things work
• Festivals from around the world – themes for over 3’s
• ICT – computer, dance mat, toys that do something (make noises, flaps to open)
• Matching games
• Messy play – sand, water, gloop, play dough, foam
• Model making
• Nature and the natural world – plants, animals
• Relationships and friendships
• Role play – home and community influences in pretend play
• Seasons – time and changes, weather
• World around us themes