Wednesday 1 September 2010

plans

What are we doing in Dolphins for September?
With the new dress ups for community roles in the home corner the children have a refreshed interest in taking on the roles of medical practitioners, vets, police, construction workers, etc. We plan to support and extend this interest further.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this interest will be:
S
mall groups going on an excursion to the local vet to learn about what they do there.
The local health visitor is coming in to talk to the children about healthy practices and her role in the community on the 28th September.
We will be inviting the local community support officers to come in and talk about stranger danger.
We plan to set the home corner up into doctors surgeries, vets and a police station to support the children’s learning.
We have new figures of people in community roles that will be put in the various areas of learning through small world to extend the interests.
A group of children will take an excursion to the library to take out some books on different roles in the community.
Discussions, small group work, crafts and games based around the role of people in the community.

What you could do to support your children at home:
P
oint out police cars, ambulances and fire engines on the road. Talk about the differences in them and try to notice the different sirens they make.
Talk with them about what they know about the different roles in the community and what they do. Doctor, nurse, police, vet, fire fighters, shop assistants, street sweepers, rubbish collector, builders, plumbers, etc.
Take the opportunity to talk about stranger danger and who in the community can help if you are lost and what words to use if someone you don’t know tries to pick you up ‘Stop, stranger, put me down!’

What are we doing in Seahorses this month?
During the month of September and October as well as our primary focus of settling in our new babies, we will be exploring some of the natural materials that come about from autumnal changes- conkers, leaves, twigs. We will be looking at warm clothes, boots, hats, gloves, etc.
Some of the activities wall the babies will be involved with this month are:
Exploring clothes for dressing up: hats, bags, scarves.
Doing some leaf printing.
Painting in autumnal colours.
Making up a treasure basket with autumn things.
Singing songs about getting ready for colder weather. E.g. Here We Go Round the Mulberry bush on a cold and frost morning. It’s raining, it’s pouring.
Going for a walk to the park to scrunch some leaves.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
T
ake your child on a walk to a point out all the fallen leaves.
Sit amongst some dried leaves and scrunch them together.
Go to Richmond Park and look at all the chestnuts, conkers, acorns, leaves falling. Watch the squirrels running about.
Go to the library and get out some books on weather and clothes.
Talk about what you are wearing: scarf, gloves, coat, boots.
Talk about what they are wearing too.

What are we doing in Starfish for September?
Toddlers love to explore and push boundaries and physical abilities and don’t always realise the impact of their actions on others. Frustrating as it is, this is a normal part of developing. This month, we are planning on having a focus on feelings and how our actions make other people feel both in positive ways and negative ways.
Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
D
emonstrating to children how they make us feel; cuddles make us happy, pushing makes us sad, hurting our friends makes them cry, etc.
Using emotion flash cards to support discussions about emotions. E.g. showing happy faces with the happy cards, sad faces with the sad cards, etc.
Lots of role modelling gentle touching, turn taking, waiting for others to finish with things.
Putting together different faces with faces cards and talking with the children about whether they are happy or not.
Lots of repetition of the words happy, sad, crying, not happy.
Lots of role modelling being gentle with our friends, kind tones and caring about each other.

What you could do to support your children at home:
T
alk to them about how they make you feel when they give you a cuddle, kiss, play with you nicely and when you have fun together.
Talk to them about how they make you feel if they hurt you, or don’t do the things that you need them to do.
Use key words such as happy, sad, not happy.
Role model to them actions you’d like them to do. Gentle playing, touching, tidying up, etc.
Get some books out of the library about caring for each other and emotions.
Redirect behaviour in positive ways showing them what you’d like to see them do, rather than focussing on what they need to stop.
Use words such as ‘Stop’ instead of ‘No’ as the word stop gives them an action to follow rather that no, which isn’t clear exactly what you want them to do.
Use positive language to redirect and give them an action to do. Such as ‘walking inside’ rather than ‘stop running’, or ‘gentle touching’ rather than ‘no hitting’.