Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Supporting children within the setting to develop within this Prime Area of learning continues to be a big focus for us. Children of this age can struggle to understand sharing and taking turns and often need adults to help with this. We encourage the children to say "Please can I have a turn next?" Using sand timers can help as a visual tool, so children can see that when the sand runs through, their turn is coming next.

We took part in Children's Mental Health Week and our text was 'A Jar Full of Happiness.' We thought about what makes us feel happy and the things and people that are important to us. We then created our own jars of happiness. 

We also listened to different pieces of music and thought about how it made us feel, we engaged in mark-making as we did this. 

Communication, Language and Literacy

This term, we have continued to have a weekly story focus. Our books have been carefully planned to link to our themes but also to provide rich opportunities for language development and children to hear and learn new vocabulary.

For Shrove Tuesday, we had a pancake snack, choosing our favourite healthy toppings and linked this to maths as well as learning a new Poem from The Poetry Basket collection.

It was World Book Day. We joined in with a live author event and heard the story of Ten Tiny Squirrels. Then the author taught us how to draw a bear. The children showed fantastic concentration during this session.

We know that children's drawings enable them to put pen to paper and begin to develop confidence in giving meaning to their marks. We have linked our key texts to Tales toolkit and created story maps.

Physical Development

Children have access to a wide range of physical opportunities whilst they are at nursery. These include both fine and gross motor activities. They take part in a physical development session with Mr Bolton, our sports coach each week too.

We visit the hall for physical games and also ring games and music and movement.

The children enjoy accessing the adventure play area outside. These opportunities enable them to develop their co-ordination, balance, spatial awareness and move in a variety of ways. This is all crucial so they develop core strength as well as control in their arms, hands and fingers to become efficient writers.

Following our assessments of their drawing skills and pen grips this term, we shared the technique of nip, flip and grip with families to help remind children how to hold mark-making tools.

Mathematical Development

Some key areas we have focused on this term include;

Pattern

Sorting

Positional Language

Language related to size

Subitising 1-3, identifying more and fewer, using our fingers to represent amounts

Matching simple shapes

Understanding of the World

We returned to school in January and explored the ice and snow. We used our key texts to link to our learning about Winter and different habitats. We learned more about birds and made them some food to help them during the winter.

We moved on to think about different places, again using our key texts to support our learning such as We're going on a bear hunt and The three billy goats gruff. Vocabulary was reinforced through these such as river, meadow, forest, grass, bridge. We all enjoyed a sensory version of the bear hunt story in the woodland.

Some children went on a local visit to Pets At Home. We observed the animals in the store, talking about their enclosures and habitats.

We decorated our home corner for Eid and shared stories about the celebration.

As the seasons changed, we found out about Springtime, we noticed our horse chestnut tree changing in the garden, buds on the branches, snowdrops and hyacinths too. 

We fnished the term observing frog spawn change into tadpoles and we continue to check the tadpoles regularly to see how they grow.

Expressive Art and Design

This term, there have been many close links with Communication, Language and Literacy as we explored activities linked to our key texts. We have used different construction resources to build bridges linked to The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We also had props to re-tell the story. 

We're going on a bear hunt was also very popular and children loved the sensory story tray, using the characters to re-tell the events.

We have used our close observational skills to draw and paint daffodils and blossom. Children enjoyed using chalks on really large pieces of paper to create some detailed pictures. This links closely to physical development and literacy as they use their fine motor skills and develop control with mark-making.