What does learning look like in Early Years and which skills can I help with?
During your child’s time in Early Years, you’ll know that we like to work with our parents closely and value your contributions because we know that parents can be the most powerful educators of all.
We are proud that as a setting, we can support children develop essential life skills and work alongside you at home to get the best outcomes for all children. This is especially the case during school closure, holidays and weekends!
You will be doing SO much to help your child develop just by interacting with them and probably don’t ever take the time to sit back and think about how important the ‘everyday’ opportunities are and the value these can add to your child’s development.
If you’ve found yourself here, it’s probably because you are interested in finding out what is expected and how you can help your child become ready to learn in school.
We’ve put together some really worthwhile, easy, low fuss activities that are essential at this stage in your child’s development and your child can master with your help and encouragement.
You’ll see real progress that will have huge impact in supporting your child during their school days. We hope you enjoy using these suggestions.
Please remember they are not ‘tick box’ style activities but things that you can build into your days and weeks as your children grow and will take lots of time to master completely.
All children master skills at different stages just as babies do with babbling, sitting, crawling! No two children’s journeys compare so please appreciate what your child can do and what they perhaps need more help with, chance for you to show them and practise.
The ideas are some of the most valuable building blocks to life and often overlooked, they are very predominant in Early Years settings so take a moment and look through the information listed if you want ideas of ways to support your child to make progress and continue to develop at home.
Well done too if you find you’ve already mastered some of these skills with your child!
Support from the Derbyshire Ready for school team
There are lots of helpful resources on the Derbyshire County Council website, including 10 keys to unlocking school readiness.
The Derbyshire Ready for school team have provided useful worksheets to aid in making sure your child is ready for school life.
How else can I help?
There are other ways you can get involved and help too….
We are always grateful of donations and the collection of items the children can be involved in. If you see anything whilst out and about, have links to local businesses or have an overhaul at home and think it something could be useful in school then let us know or collect it and keep it safe!
We love to receive shells, pinecones, large chunky sticks and conkers – in the past have been lucky enough to receive some donations of books, unused paper packs and boxes with lids.
Some more ideas below…
Artificial lawn cut offs, carpet cut offs, large crates/boxes/tubes, log sections, unwanted picture frames (we will remove the glass!) artificial plants and flowers, kitchen ingredients for messy play wet (tins, jars and bottles, pots or packets to mix) and dry (pasta, beans, herbs, spices, rice, ready to mix mash etc) experimenting (melting and setting) and dough (flour, salt, food colouring, flavouring) old metal or plastic containers, pans, kitchen utensils, wellies that have become too small.
There’s lots of things that may appear to be useless to you, but we’d love in school as they are fit for the activities we play and explore!
We are also interested in hearing from you if you have a role in the community, or perhaps a skill that could be shared with the children.
We like to invite visitors into the setting to capture the children’s imagination and provide them with real life experiences. Let us know and we will be in touch when we can link this to an interest of the children, time of year or topic.
Ideas to encourage mark making:
Get busy writing and mark making in flour, salt or shaving foam.
This is a great activity to support your child’s fine motor development. You could use any objects found inside or outside your home, sequins, stones, pebbles, string, ribbon, buttons, stamps etc. Rice is especially challenging!
Ideas to develop your child’s physical strength:
- Pegging washing out on clothes maidens and washing lines, even along fences so your child can reach.
- Use kitchen utensils to play with….
- Mix soapy water.
- Scoop and balance items you have at home – milk lids, dry pasta pieces, small potatoes, plastic balls for outside play etc.
- Use tongs too to move things around.
- Stretching up and down fence panels, sheds, patios, space on house to make marks with old decorating brushes and rollers with water.
- Use shoe laces to thread cut up straws, pasta pieces or in and out of natural items such as leaves!
- Practise catching balls.
- Hopping on one foot or balancing on one foot.
- Balancing on one foot – make this fun by counting how long, doing in shadows or whilst being tickled!
- Reaching things from the floor without using hands to rise up.
- Squeeze out sponges in the bath or whilst washing your bike/car/doll outside! Flannels are great for a twisting action!
Ideas to develop problem solving:
Shoes – putting on shoes is a great way of helping your child compare sizes. See if your child can make the link between the length of their feet and the size of their shoe. You could also talk about who has the biggest shoes in the family and who has the smallest shoes.
Cups and jugs – Pouring a drink is a good skill for your child to master, but it is also a way for them to experience measuring. Using a small jug, point out the difference in water level before and after they have poured water into their cup. You could also ask your children to pour you half a glass of water.
Cooking – Children can learn a wide range of skills and concepts from being involved in preparing food. For a simple start, see if your child can pass things based on length and weight, for example, a couple of the heaviest potatoes or three of the shortest carrots. You could also show you child a set of measuring spoons, or spoons of different sizes, or show how scales are used to measure ingredients precisely.
On a walk or when you leave your home there are endless opportunities for measurement. You could, for example, see who can spot the smallest car in the road, the largest building, or the tallest person. You could also guess how many strides it will take to reach a certain point or have a ‘slow race’ in which the person who walks the slowest wins!
Shower and bath time – Children are usually fascinated by playing with water. Having containers for your child to fill up and empty is a great way for them to learn about volume and capacity. Once your child has finished just enjoying the process, ask a few questions, such as ‘Which one holds the most?’ or ‘How many spongefuls of water do you need to fill up the cup?’
Counting and number recognition with nature
- Collect some cardboard tubes or you can use yoghurt pots etc.
- Number them with your child. Let them go and collect things from garden or when out on a walk. Put the right amount in the container.
- Can you extend this activity and add two containers together? How many altogether.
- You could use one big pot then sort the items into different groups by colour, shape, size, type.
Activities to support your child with Self care:
Good handwashing, toilet flushing and self-wiping practise.
Practise getting dressed and undressed with a range of clothes – show your child how to tackle buttons, buckles, zips, press studs and over time let them take control of this.
Using a knife and fork to eat a meal sat at a table. Show your child how to go about ‘cutting’ food as this is a tricky skill. They can probably manage softer foods to begin with.
Drink from an open cup rather than a bottle or beaker.
How to feel when they need to clean their face, after mealtimes as such or when their nose needs blowing. Rather than automatically cleaning them up, take time to use a mirror to show them and allow them to do it them self by using a wipe, flannel or tissue. In time, you’ll be able to prompt them with ‘does your face feel clean or messy?’
How to twist, tear, open packets such as for crisps and yoghurts or to open straws and puncture cartons. Show them but let your child have a go.
Eating a whole piece of fruit as opposed to a cut-up piece so they get used to how it looks at snack time and at lunch times.
Regular and healthy oral hygiene – talk about brushing teeth, healthy diets and the need to not put anything in our mouths because of germs and safety. It’s important we discourage toys and resources being put into mouths whilst with us in school to stop the spread of germs and stop risk of choking so we often talk about ways to keep themselves and everyone safe.
Using a jug to pour a cup ‘half full’ so not overly full and difficult to lift without spilling.
What to do if they create a mess at the table/on the floor using clothes or dustpans and brushes.
Talk about staying safe as we often do in school and that it is important to listen at home:
- near roads (holding hands, walking not running)
- in shops (near strangers, not touching items on shelves incase of breakages, wet floor signs)
- at swimming pools/beaches
- the park (near dog poo, rubbish, on large equipment)
- in the home (near medicines/equipment such as pans, candles)
- in a car (wearing seat belts, sitting still and quietly)
- using technology safely rules (near a responsible person in family, what to do if they are worried by things they have viewed)
Encourage your child to find their own belongings when going out and put away when arriving home.
Encourage your child to clear their plate and cup after a meal.
We often talk to the children about becoming ‘independent’ meaning to do something trying for themselves and ‘persistence’ by explaining sometimes we have to keep practising of trying to do something.
We use different types of voices in school at different times of the day and in different areas for example when passing the office, we must be quiet. You can practise this at home too….
Talk about situation you might use
- No voice or talking
- Whispering – cinema/library
- Talking voice when inside – whilst reading a book together, in a shop
- A louder voice when talking to an audience or in a large space – shouting across the garden
- emergency voice – extremely loud when you need to alert someone to a problem and lots of other people might hear.
We talk about how it feels for the listener to hear the different types and how it feels for the speaker. We use this to label the types of voices we use daily too!
Stories and Books
Mix up letters from your child’s name and encourage them to put them in order. Make sure you use a capital letter to start the name and lowercase letters to complete. If you know your child can already read words, you can repeat with other words. You might not need to write them yourself – you could cut them from packaging with your child or involve an older sibling!
Everyday words
Show your child the ‘date’ everyday paying attention to the day to teach them about order, pattern and how to recognise days of the week when written.
Recognise labels on packaging, in shops and logos on signs.
Singing and rhymes
Sing songs that help children to practise rhythm, make sense of words and explore sounds…
We love these ones…
- ‘One man went to mow’
- ‘Ten green bottles’
- ‘Five little speckled frogs’
- ‘There were ten in the bed’
- ‘5 little ducks’
- ‘5 little monkeys swinging in a tree’
www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-songs-index
Stories
Go on iplayer to watch Julia Donaldson’s stories or read aloud yourself if you have a copy….
- The gruffalo
- Stick man
- The snail and the whale
- What the ladybird heard
We love telling the same stories over and over some which are….
- We’re going on a bear hunt
- Owl Babies
- Handa’s surprise
These are also available in a video version online if you don’t have the book.
If you are thinking of ordering any books then these are some recommended to us by us!
Ideas to develop turn taking, waiting and sharing:
Play games such as snakes and ladders, dominoes and snap to encourage turn taking.
Take turns sharing a tablet/laptop between yourself, the child and sibling.
You could use a timer on a device or a simple clock to help them understand the concept of when their ‘turn’ is due to use a toy. In school we like sand timers as they are visual!
Play hop scotch together or with a sibling.
Offer a selection of food on a tray around the home, waiting and taking turns….who is next? “Who will get the chocolate biscuit, who will get the apple pie” and how it feels if you don’t get the item you’d like.
Supervised pouring drinks for other people in the house hold listening to how much and which type they would like.
Share a packet of biscuits or sweets for a treat between yourselves in the family. You could even have a ‘teddy bears’ picnic for cuddly toys and dolls. Do they all have equal? How could you go about sharing the last piece/bar/slice fairly?
Share outdoor equipment with adults or siblings in the house….
10 bounces of the ball then pass it on or one lap of the patio on a bike then the next person’s turn.
Take turns when going out in the car or walking to sit by/hold hands with other siblings.
Make playdough using a simple recipe and take turns to add in the ingredients, mix, then share out evenly. There are lots of recipes online such as at ‘The Imagination Tree’ We use the one below most days in school!
- 2 cups plain flour (all purpose)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (baby oil and coconut oil work too)
- 1/2 cup salt
- 1 to 1.5 cups water (adding in increments until it feels just right)
- Something to give colour, flavour or texture – try food colouring, paint, spices, essential oils, food essence.