Maths plays a part in so many activities, from counting out the cutlery, glasses and plates for lunchtime to pairing up wellies when we tidy up. When we notice a child needs extra help, we plan activities to support them. If they are already confident in maths, we look to challenge them further.
Where we start
What’s the most important number to a child? Their age! So that’s where we start. We sing number rhymes and action songs to help children learn, and encourage them to share number songs they sing at home.
Counting and quantities
We encourage children to understand that everything can be counted – from jumps and hops in the garden and pieces of fruit at snack time, to the number of stairs to the nappy changing unit. We point out numbers all around us, such as on the clock or on road signs. Once children are aware of numbers, we help them to understand that they represent a quantity.
Exploring shape and measures
Children can explore 2D and 3D shapes using a range of construction toys and blocks to learn what different shapes look and feel like. Cooking and following recipes offer opportunities to measure quantities and use a timer, and children enjoy comparing different lengths and heights in their own play with tape measures.
You can read more about how we teach maths in our curriculum document. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
Above all, we want to make reading and stories fun for children so they’re motivated to find out more about words and books. As well as reading factual and fiction books, we tell our own stories and encourage the children to share and act out their own – often using small characters, puppets or anything they have to hand! Singing is a big part of the day too, and we often make up songs on the spot with the children.
Where we start
As always, we start with what the children are interested in and that’s often their own name! Later we start to connect letters with the sounds they make, before putting them together to form words. Listening to, and joining in with, songs and rhymes is all part of the process too – playing with words in different contexts helps children understand how they sound and flow.
Finding words wherever they appear
Writing doesn’t just appear in books, of course. As part of the children’s play, we introduce them to signs and labels, instructions, road names, text messages, café menus… the list is endless. While reading, we look at how words are read from left to right and top to bottom, and may track the words with our fingers to see how particular words are written: large words often mean you say them loudly!
How about books?
The pictures in a book are just as important as the writing, and often give us a clue as to what the words say. We spend time talking to the children about what the characters may be saying and wondering what might happen next. We have core books that we read frequently and tell in different ways, often with props and actions, so the children come to know them very well.
You can read more about how we teach reading in our curriculum document. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
We value everything a child produces, from the very first marks they proudly show us. Children are exposed to writing throughout the day at nursery in a way that’s meaningful for them, for example seeing our name cards. Clipboards, notebooks, white boards, felt pens, chalks and pencils are everywhere for children to experiment with. When they come to writing with a pencil, we encourage them to hold it in a way that’s comfortable and effective. We don’t suggest tracing over letters as children don’t always learn to form letters correctly that way.
Where we start
Children need to first develop various physical skills and muscles before we expect them to ‘write’, so we give them lots of opportunities to climb, push, pull, swing and use a range of different tools. Writing is a sensory as well as a physical experience, and to encourage them to develop the muscles in their hands and wrists, they spend time manipulating playdough and clay, threading, sewing, singing finger songs, and using tools such as scissors or a knife to prepare a snack.
It’s not just pens and paper…
Children start to experiment with making marks before giving them a meaning. They may use paint and water on a garden fence, chalk on the ground to make circles to jump in, or a stick in the mud. These marks gradually take on a meaning and children realise that writing is all around us – in books, on signs, on the register, on electronic devices.
How we make it meaningful
As adults, we need a reason to want to do something, and children are the same. They enjoy trying to write their own name, particularly that magical initial letter, so that’s often where we start. They may write an order in a role play café, write down a story they have made up, name something they have made so they can take it home, or give a message to someone. They also see adults writing in the nursery, and we talk to them about what we’re doing and why.
You can read more about how we teach writing in our curriculum document.
If you have any questions, please get in touch.