Learning & Development
What will my child do in the Early Years at Millbrook preschool?
During this stage of their learning, your child will be mainly learning through play-based activities. Our daily routines and continuous provision will support children in developing early literacy and maths skills, learning about the world around them and learning social skills. Our activities will be based on following your child’s interests, building on what they know and are excited about. We also have some adult led activities that will introduce your child to a variety of topics.
The importance of play
Play is the work of children, it is how they learn to communicate, develop an understanding of how things work, develop a love of literacy and maths, discover the world around them and develop resilience and confidence.
The Early Years Foundation Stage
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a curriculum for children from birth to 5-years-old. This is broken down into three prime aspects and four specific areas of learning. The three prime aspects of learning are:
Personal, social, and emotional development
We support your child’s progress in this area by celebrating what makes them unique, building on their strengths and valuing their work of play in preschool.
We provide opportunities for turn taking, understanding feelings, taking appropriate risks, and building resilience, and use language to describe their emotions.
Communication.
Communication is a key focus in preschool, as a communication friendly setting we aim to build a solid vocabulary bank with our 5 a day vocab flowers, embedding and extending language development based on each child’s individual needs. Our daily routines include spending lots of time-sharing rhymes, songs, stories, and playing games to develop their speaking and listening skills.
Physical development
Children will be given daily opportunities both indoors and outdoors to develop this area, this includes activities for mark making, building, balancing, cutting, dancing, running and lots of play!
We do a daily mile walk enjoying the vibrant nature of the village and do outdoor yoga and dancing in the local area.
Literacy
We love literacy at preschool and aim to share that love with your child. Books open the world to children of knowledge and imagination. We have a book of the week which we read daily and embed and extend on the children’s understanding each time, we link play, sensory and crafts to books to help develop a deeper understanding.
We are members of the mini library and have our own preschool lending library for you to enjoy books at home with your child.
Mathematics
Maths is everywhere, at preschool we have a holistic approach to maths so it’s part of every session, this could be comparing sizes in construction, looking for patterns in nature, seeing numbers in the environment, lots of counting songs and games, as well as using maths for our self-service snack time.
Understanding the world
We celebrate your child, our community and festivals, celebrations, and the wonder of the world with your children. We do this by dressing up, cooking, creating, and taking trips. We have taken trips to zoos, aquariums, on trains, buses, and boats! We show care for our environment with beach cleans and recycling. We celebrate members of our community with intergenerational visits.
We meet people from different professions such as teachers, construction workers, authors, and shopkeepers and even a town crier.
Expressive arts
Our continuous provisions allow children the independence to be as creative as they choose, that could be with paints and pens or creating their own band with music and dance. By being creative with arts children get to,
- working with different materials, textures
- finding out about shape, quantity, and volume
- creating imaginative worlds
- Build on stories they have heard.
- Use mathematical language
- and even developing motor skills and strength for writing!
How can I help my child at home?
Play, laugh, sing, and enjoy your time together! Talk name everything for your children, repeat back what they say to you and add an extra word to build up language.
Do not be afraid of maths! it is everywhere, point out numbers, colours, shapes, and patterns as you walk to and from preschool, play shops and count out pennies! use mathematical language such as taller, longer etc
Go for walks, splash in puddles, run and dance.
READ! Your child’s world is expanded through stories, we have a lending library so please take books as often as you wish.
Celebrate! Tell your child what makes them special, tell them about you, what you like and what you do, let them help you with chores, take them to the shops. banks and towns, there is a big world out there that children could miss now the world is mainly online.
Sit and draw, create and sing together, mess can wash off clothes but memories last a lifetime.