We believe children learn quickly and animatedly when they are able to follow their own joys and passions. We encourage our children to be independent learners and to believe in themselves and each other.
Children's communication and language skills underpin everything that they go on to achieve in their life, so we place a high value in encouraging our children to develop a love of books early on. We do this through fun and engaging story trays, role-play activities, costumes and repeat reading! Once children know a story well, they will often select the story to re-tell to themselves and their friends.
We also recognise just how important talking is to young children so we regularly set up activities to encourage children to engage with their peers and adults, developing relationships and their vocabulary.
Towards the end of the year, we begin to develop children's awareness of phonics through Read, Write Inc. in order to prepare the foundations for their Reception year. Early mathematics skills are also taught through a range of exciting songs and games, both adult and child initiated. These encourage counting, number recognition and an awareness of shape and measure.
We believe in following the interests of children so that they engage fully in their learning and we explore a range of themes and topics based on children’s interests. The children will develop listening and communication skills through a range of fun and lively phonics activities and will explore mathematics through play-based activities, nursery rhymes and counting games.
The summer term
In the Summer term, Nursery will be starting their new topic of 'Dig, Dig, Digging!' This is a very exciting time as we will make observations of plants and animals - we will be learning how to show care and concern for living things and the environment. We will be learning lots of new vocabulary relating to plants and begin to identify some similarities and differences in relation to living things. We will delve deeper into local history by exploring mines, local mining in the community and even exploring fossils! We will also expand on our map skills by creating simple maps and plans!