What are we doing in Sea Turtles in February

The children in Sea Turtles have been showing their sensitive caring sides with their friends. This month we will be supporting the children to build friendships, through sharing, gentle touching and caring for others and encouraging their positive behaviour.

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

Prime areas:

PSED: Show an interest in the activities and respond differently to children and adults. PD: Explore objects by picking up and touching them. C&L Develop the ability to follow others body language.

Specific areas:

L:Enjoy looking at books and other printed material with familiar people. M:Begin to recognise big things and small things in meaningful context. UW: Enjoy pictures and stories about themselves, their families and other people.  EA&D: Begin to move to music, listen to rhymes, and join in with rhymes and songs 

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be: 

·         Sharing and caring circle time. Sarah will be making a special treasure basket of items that are special to the children that they have brought from home for them to explore and share with each other.

·         Friendship collage. Alice will be working with the children to make a large friendship collage using photos of the children playing and being caring towards each other.

·         Caring Flash cards. Cristina C will make flash cards with different caring actions on them for the children to copy.

·         Sensory play. Laura will support the children in exploring soft touching, exploring words and adding meaning to actions

·         Puppet time. Afia will be doing puppet circle times encouraging the children to play with the puppets to promote sharing, gentle touching and friendships.

·         Story time. Christina G will be sharing books with the children about sharing and playing together. 

What you could do to support your children at home: 

·         Talk to your little ones. Talk to your little ones about the importance of sharing things, invite a friend over for a play date, sit with them and role model and encourage sharing.

·         Read stories. Sit together and look at books and read stories about sharing and caring.

·         Use positive reinforcement. Always give praise both verbally and through expression and body language when your child shares or is caring towards others.

 

What are we doing in Dolphins in February?

The Dolphin children have shown an interest in talking about vegetables and why it’s important to eat them, So this month we will be exploring how to keep healthy which includes what we should eat, why we need to exercise and keep active and the importance of cleaning ourselves.

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

Prime areas:

PSED: Begin to express own preferences of what vegetables and fruit to eat. PD: Start to observe the effect of activity on their bodies. C&L Begin to understand the use of objects.

Specific areas:

L: To show an interest in illustrations and print in books and the environment. M: To understand the order and sequences of hygiene routines. UW: To enjoy joining in with nursery customs and routines EA&D: Manipulate materials to make dinner plates and healthy eating posters.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:

·         Oral hygiene. Manjit will support the children in understanding the importance of cleaning our teeth, through discussions and role play.

·         Healthy eating poster. Shilpi will  be talking about healthy food and the importance of eating healthily   and will be assisting the children to create a healthy eating poster

·         Good food /bad food. Christine will be supporting the children to learn about good food and bad food and how they work, using books and games.

·         Healthy eating dinner plates. Matt will assist the children to create their own healthy eating dinner plate by talking about what food is good for you and cutting out pictures of healthy food to stick on to a paper plate.

·         Hand Washing. Marie Claire will be helping the children to learn how to clean their hands properly by carrying out a glitter experiment to demonstrate effective hand washing.

  

What you could do to support your children at home:

·         Make brushing teeth fun. Download an app such as BrushDJ or play a CD of their favourite songs and help them brush their teeth to music adding in a little hip wiggle here and there.

·         Take a trip to the supermarket. Take a visit to the supermarket together and get them to choose some fruit and vegetables they would like to try.

·         Get them involved. Get your child to help you cook a simple meal. Getting them involved in the making process will encourage them to eat what they have made.