e?We have explored all sorts of vehicles and gone on to discuss a range of different reasons to use different types of transport, including going on holiday, which many of our children and families have been doing recently. We have looked at postcards sent to us by staff and children and have started to talk about where we are going on holiday and what we do on holiday. We plan to explore this further this month.
Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this interest will be:
Making post cards and posting them in the nursery post box.
Making some beach pictures using sand.
Reading books about going on holiday.
Setting up a travel agents.
Talking about what types of clothes we need to take for holidays.
Making packing lists for holiday suitcases.
Making tie dyed tops that we can buy on our holiday beach
What you could do to support your children at home:
If you are planning a holiday, talk to your child about it too. Talk about how you are going to get there, why you chose to go there, what will be there, who else will be there, what you will need to pack, if you need passports, tickets, etc.
Read some stories about holidays. At nursery we are going to be reading:
Schnitzel Von- Crumb~ Forget me Not, by Linley Dodd.
If you go on holiday, post us a post card so we can talk about where you have gone.
Collect some travel catalogues and look through the pages and talk about places you would like to visit one day together.
Talk about some of the places you have been on holiday together. Look at some photos of your holidays.
Look at a map of the world and link holiday destinations to the map and where you live. Use the link to talk about why you need to go on a boat, plane, car or train to get there.
What are we doing in Seahorses for June?
The seahorses children are loving learning about animals and listening to the team make animal noises for the different animals, pointing at animals, singing songs with animals like ‘Old MacDonald’, reading books with animals in them, so we plan to keeping this going for June or until the interest moves into another direction.
What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
Provide plenty of books with animals in them.
Name animals and make the noises that go with them.
Old MacDonald had a farm will join the room with a variety of animals.
Make some artwork on the shapes of familiar pets such and dogs and cats.
Provide lots of opportunity with the small world animals.
Put the animals in the sand, water, slime for some extended exploration.
What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Go to the library and get some books out on animals, including some with real life pictures.
If you have pets at home, bring photos of them into the nursery so the children can relate to their pet and have a nice sense of home in the nursery.
Sing Old MacDonald had a Farm. While the babies won’t sing along with you, you should get a wriggle and smiles of enjoyment because they love hearing you sing. Some of them may hum or make noises with you.
Make sure you name animals when you see them. Children often pick up dog and cat (or variations of them) when they are learning to talk. Dog spotting on walks is also often a favourite activity for older babies.
Buy or borrow some little small world animals for them to play with and investigate. Play with them; naming, making noises or moving them.
If you work part time and have a child friendly dog, you could bring it into the nursery for the children to look at on one of your days off.
What are we doing in Starfish for June?
During June, we will be having a focus on colours.
Some of our starfish children are starting to name colours. Some of them have an understanding of the differences in colour, the names of colours and can point to colours that are the same. Others are just starting to say the names of some colours and notice that the same item can come in many colours.
Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
Introducing colours into our circle times; talking about the colours of lego- red, blue green yellow.
Painting with red, blue, green and yellow with increased opportunities to talk about the colours they are using.
Additional opportunities for building with Mobilo, Links, Duplo, Mega Blocks while talking about and matching up colours.
Talking about the colours of animals and different patches of animals.
An increased focus on colours through everyday conversations with the children.
Having ‘colour’ days. E.g. red day. Where children can wear a certain colour, the water play will be coloured, play dough will be coloured.
Baking with icing of certain colours.
Some ideas to support your children at home:
Go to the library and get out a book on colours
Talk about colours in your everyday conversations.
Watch vehicles go past and talk about the colours of the cars, buses, etc.
Name the colours of your children’s clothes as they get ready.
Do some painting at home and talk about colours.
Take a walk around your garden or go to a park and talk about the colours of the flowers, trees, plants, etc.
