Autumn 

We understand the crucial role of the development of children’s communication and language skills and how it underpins all other areas of learning and development. 

In nursery, we read a wide range of books everyday. These include favourite and familiar stories, information books to introduce a new topic and books to support and extend an interest the children have shown. Through reading books, singing rhymes or reciting poems, we are able to extend the children’s vocabulary which they go on to use in their own play. The children also begin to recall what the book was about and practise their listening and attention skills.

Throughout ‘Freeflow’ we spend a lot of time chatting with the children. Not only does it allow us to listen to all of their wonderful experiences and ideas but gives us the opportunity to model correct sentence structures, tenses and pronunciation. They begin to learn to take turns to speak, and we support them in organising their thoughts. We encourage the use of a rich range of vocabulary and check their understanding through sensitive questioning.

This term our focus is on settling the children into nursery and forming good relationships with their peers and the adults in the class. We find some children prefer to play by themselves while others join others in their play quite quickly. We model inviting others to play, sharing and taking turns. As they develop a familiarity with the setting, we encourage more independence and responsibility as they carry out small tasks. 

Our topic in the first half of the term is 'Ourselves' where the children not only celebrate their uniqueness and learn to see themselves as valued individuals but learn about what makes their friends special too. They look at what they have in common as well what makes them different. We also begin to explore our emotions and help build the children's vocabulary so they are able to express how they may be feeling.

Songs and rhymes are a huge part of nursery life and the children really enjoy learning and joining in with new and familiar ones. 

Through this the children begin to develop their awareness of sounds and play games such as suggesting a new word to replace one in a familiar song, for example, “Twinkle twinkle big red car”.  It is lovely to hear the children singing their favourite songs while playing and exploring.

We know that enjoying books and reading stories from a very young age is crucial in their development. Not only does it introduce them to a rich vocabulary but ignites their imagination, develops their speech and introduces them to new concepts and the world around them.

When sharing books individually or reading a story to the class we encourage the children to join in with repetitive words or phrases. 

Children may notice some print, such as the first letter of their name, a bus or door number, or a familiar logo. 

In the autumn term we begin to learn some of the key concepts about print. That print has meaning and can have different purposes for example, Tesco is a sign for a supermarket and a menu is for choosing what you would like to eat. From day one, the children are learning to recognise their own name through self-registration and we encourage them to ‘have a go’ at labelling their own work.

We offer a variety of opportunities for the children to experiment with their early writing. For example, they might choose to chalk patterns onto the pavement, use water and a brush to draw large shapes, used a pad and a paper to take orders at the cafe or pens and sticky notes to label their models. 

It is important to note that all children develop at different rates. Some children are still experimenting with patterns and shapes whilst their fine motor skills are developing and others are able to draw detailed pictures or write the initial letter or indeed their full name. As in all learning areas, we look at the stage the child is at and help them reach their next step in development.

The children are supported in building on their knowledge of number shape, space and measure. We provide lots of opportunities to acquire and practise their skills whether it is making a cake in the mud kitchen or building a train in the construction area. 

This term we will help the children learn to subitise (to recognise how many objects there are in a small group of up to 5 or 6 items without needing to count). They will become more confident in sequencing numbers by singing number songs or counting in a game of hide and seek. They will begin to grasp the idea that when counting objects, the last number that they say is the total amount (cardinal principle). 

They will start to leart to work out who has ‘more or‘’fewer’ by using their fingers or objects to help them.

We will model making marks and writing numerals in games such as when creating a tally in a game of skittles or when creating a birthday badge for teddy that reads ‘I am 3’.  

We explore and talk about the shape and size of objects. For some children it may be learning the name of some 2D shapes or using the language big and small for others it may be they are ready to extend their knowledge and vocabulary to 3d shapes and begin to describe a shapes properties, for example, a triangle has 3 sides and 3 corners. 

We develop the children’s positional language during their play using words such as under, behind, on top, and next to. For example, “Triceratops is hiding under this enormous rock”.

The children begin to investigate measures such as the weight of different vegetables, the height of their friends and the capacity of a variety of water containers.