The
children in Dolphins have been showing an interest in the extremes of weather
we have had over the last few months, and now that the festive season is over,
we can focus and extend this interest.
This month Dolphins will be looking at a range of different “opposites”.
The activities this month will
be based around
The Early Years Foundation Stage
(EYFS) areas of learning:
Prime areas:
PSED: Can play in a group, extending and elaborating
play ideas. PD: Show control in holding and using jugs to
pour, hammers, books and mark making tools. C&L Developing an understanding of simple concepts (eg.
Big/little).
Specific areas:
L: Ascribe meaning to marks that they see in
different places. M: Beginning to categorise
objects according to properties such as shape or size. UW: Talk about why things happen and how things work; notices
detailed features of objects in their environment. EA&D: Experiments with
blocks, colours and marks.
Some of the activities we will
be doing this month to support this will be:
·
Experiments to explain different opposites. Marie Claire will be conducting a range of
different experiments with the children such as sink or float, heavy or light,
noisy or quiet, short or long.
·
Opposites
in the weather. Abongi will support children to make weather
pictures using a variety of materials.
She will also be introducing the children to a new ‘opposites’ song.
·
Big
Vs. Small opposites. Victoria will be explaining things that vary
in size within their groups, such as big vehicles vs. small vehicles, big
buildings vs. small buildings, big animals vs. small animals.
·
Body
Opposites. Emma
will be looking at the differences in our appearances. She will provide a range of materials so that
children will be able to make ‘people’.
She will then encourage children to notice the differences in eye
colour, hair length and colour and differences in the body shapes.
·
Weight.
Christine will be using scales to weigh items and talk about things
being heavy or light. She will be
looking at the numbers on the scales and encourage children to learn the
meaning of the numbers in relation to weight, eg. 5kg is heavier than 1kg etc.
·
Length.
Matthew will be taking children outside to use the tape measure to
measure the height of things in our outside environment such as trees, fences,
cars and talk about how short/ tall things are.
·
How
tall. The team will be measuring the height of all
the children and will make a large display to visualise the variances between
all their heights and ages.
What you could do to support your children at home:
·
Get the scales out! Get the weighing scales out
and get everyone on. Ask your child to
call out the number the needle’s pointing to, write it down and compare the
numbers. You can do the same when
baking, or even when un-packing the shopping, weigh the different sized
packets.
·
Using measurement words, such as heavy, light, big,
small etc. when out and about. Ask your child if they think the bus is heavier
or lighter than the car, if the tree is taller or smaller than the bus.
