September and early October is a big time of
change for us at the nursery and particularly in Dolphin’s where we have seen
our special pre-schoolers head off to their schools and a new rising group of
pre-schoolers itching to take their places. It’s a social reshuffle and with
that brings the need for a strong focus on our four rules in Dolphins; Be Kind, Inside Voices, Tidy Up and Walk Inside. They underpin a calm
environment and a platform to build respectful friendships. This month, we will
particularly be looking at working together and making new friendships.
The activities this month will be based around the Early Years
Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
Prime areas:PSED: Making new friendships. PD: Working in partnership with others to tackle pair and group games, such as large scale construction, obstacle courses. C&L Working on ‘using words’ to express needs, wants and ideas.
Specific areas:
L: Referring to the rules and making the link between the written rule and the images. M: Working in partnerships to solve problems; puzzles, measuring, etc. UW: Being aware of how things change, growing up and moving on to new challenges and environments. EA&D: Collaborating with peers on joint creative projects such as dance, junk modelling, and large scale art.
Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support
this will be:
·
Large scale junk modelling. Marie-Claire will be supporting the children
in making some large scale models out of cardboard boxes, recycled materials,
etc.
·
Parachute games. Matt will be supporting the children to use
the parachute in collaborative ways to reach a joint goal.
·
Playdough hearts for friendship. Christine H will be making salt dough hearts
with the children to hand out to special friends and people who help them.
·
Team work. Shilpi will be focussing on team games with the children that
require listening, responding and working together; passing balls, statues,
hide and seek, etc.
·
Creating a ‘sharing book’. Laura Z will be working with the children to
make a book on sharing. She will invite examples from children of good sharing,
working together and friendships to share with the group.
·
Preschool circle times. Manjit and Jenny will be having ‘active
circle times’ in preschool using parachutes, building things together, and
working on a joint project that requires participation from everyone. Puppetry,
picture cards, books all representing feelings, friendships and working
together will introduce preschool for the year.
What you could do to support
your children at home:
· Talk to your children about the importance of friendships, working together and helping
people to get a task done. Talk about your own friendships and why they are
good friendships.
· Take
some books out of the library on friendships and feelings. Talk through feelings and how they can impact
on friendships.
· Remind
your children to ‘use their words’. When children start to get physical in expressing their
frustrations, we ask them to ‘stop’ and then to ‘use their words’. Then we give
them words to use in the different situations. Keep this up at home. The more
they are reminded, the closer they get to automatically doing it.
· Reinforce
our nursery rules at home.
They apply everywhere and the more they are embedded, the more effective they
are for supporting lifelong learning. Our nursery rules are at the top.
