At Mary Bassett we believe that young children learn best through play, and when they are happy, secure and having fun. In Year R your child will learn to be a powerful and independent learner; ready and equipped to enjoy the challenges of all their future years in school and beyond. They will learn to work together and treat each other with respect, to read and write, to play with mathematical concepts, to explore the world they live in, to keep fit and healthy and become well co-ordinated and be able to express themselves creatively. We foster development in these skills and concepts through delivering a Thematic Approach. Each term children will engage in topics which draw upon their interests and fascinations.

Rock Lobster and Shark Class follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (2012). The Curriculum is divided into two sections with a total of 7 areas of learning.

The Prime Areas...
* Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)
* Physical Development (PD)
* Communication and Language (CL)

The Specific Areas....
* Literacy
* Mathematics
* Understanding the World
* Expressive Arts and Design

More information on the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum can be found here

Below are some ideas of activities you could try at home relating to each area of learning:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development:

• Try playing some simple board or card games together or try working together to build a jigsaw puzzle.
• Encourage children to talk about their likes and dislikes in terms of activities they like and do not like to do. Encourage them to explain their thoughts and feelings or find a reason why we need to do things we don’t always like.
• Encourage children to be independent but to ask for help when needed. Encourage them to talk to familiar adults and children about activities they would like to do.
• Discuss different feelings – try acting out different emotions for children to identify.
• Discuss plans and routines and encourage children to talk about their daily activities.

Communication and Language:

• Initiate conversations with your child, ask questions and demonstrate how to be a good listener.
• Share rhymes, songs, books and stories. Talk about what is happening in the stories or rhymes. With a familiar rhyme or book, stop suddenly and ask your child to continue, or you could accidentally get the words ‘wrong’ and your child could correct you!
• When sharing stories together, talk about the story and the characters. Ask your child to explain events in stories.
• Model correct sentence structure and words – instead of over correcting your child, repeat words or sentences, e.g. if your child says “buyed an apple” say “Yes, you bought an apple.”
• Talk about your children’s interests and encourage them to learn and use new vocabulary.

Physical Development:

• As a family, try some different active activities! You could try; dancing, playing football, going for walks or riding a bike.
• Encourage children to try using different types of materials and simple tools. Provide playdough or salt dough to knead and make models, as well as beads to thread onto laces. You could also provide tools, such as child-safe scissors, paintbrushes, crayons, and child-safe knives and forks.
• Encourage your child to get dressed/ undressed independently and manage their own personal hygiene (such as washing their hands and brushing their teeth).
• Encourage your child to talk about healthy food choices. Go shopping with your child and talk about healthy foods and why a balanced diet is important.

Literacy:

• Share pleasure in reading with your child. Share books together and join a local library. Encourage your child to look at a range of different books such as, stories, poems, information books and comics. Talk about favourite stories and characters.
• Practise identifying letter sounds (phonics). Look for letters you see when you visit different places and demonstrate reading the words. Search for ‘Letters and Sounds’ to find out more information.
• Make word and letter sound cards for sounds or words your child finds tricky. Try saying them in funny voices to help practising them more fun!
• Encourage your child to explore writing using different materials such as pencils, chalk, crayons and pens. They could try writing letters into a tray of sand or flour using a finger or try painting letters onto a pavement using a paintbrush and water.
• Demonstrate different purposes for writing such as writing a shopping list, writing a greetings card or a postcard when on holiday. Encourage children to try writing for different purposes too and praise them for their efforts.

Mathematics

• Look for numbers when you visit different places. Talk about house numbers, car number plates, prices of goods in the supermarket, etc. Challenge children to identify the numbers and say which number is one more or one less than the ones they see.
• Play dice games with your child such as snakes and ladders.
• Talk about simple addition and subtraction in practical ways. Use toys or other items to demonstrate addition by counting on and subtraction by counting back.
• Look for 2D and 3D shapes around the house or when out and about and ask your child to describe them. Encourage the use of correct terms such as ‘sides’ and ‘corners’. Build models or pictures using empty packaging or paper shapes and talk about the shapes used.
• Compare size, weight and capacity. Get your child using words like ‘longer’, ‘shorter’, ‘taller’, ‘heavier’, ‘lighter’, ‘full’ and ‘empty’. Talk about things you see in the world around you, or create opportunities for comparison, perhaps by rolling playdough snakes (‘Can you make a longer/ shorter one?’) or pouring water into different cups during bath time.

Understanding the World:

• Talk about special events in your family, such as holidays, weddings, birthdays and celebrations. Maybe bring in a souvenir to show the class!
• Take a trip to a park and look at the plants, insects and animals.
• Explore different weather conditions and talk about seasonal changes in the world around you.
• Go on a technology treasure hunt at home! Talk to your child about how we make these things work and how to use them safely.
• Look at different types of technology when you’re out and about. They could explore using a camera to take photos on days out too.

Expressive Arts and Design:

• Try some different creative activities using a variety of different materials such as; making musical instrument models using empty packaging, collage activities to make pictures using wool or coloured paper and mix colours of paint to paint pictures.
• Encourage children to sing their favourite songs and listen to music.
• Try using some toys or make some puppets and create your own story!
• Try setting up a pretend shop, restaurant, hairdressers salon, workshop or classroom. Role play as customers and shopkeepers, etc. and create stories and scenes together.