Our Favourite Activities in Early Years

Helicopter stories

Every week we take part in helicopter stories, this is where the children write their own stories. These are scribed by an adult before all the children help to bring their stories to life by acting them out:

“Helicopter stories is tried, tested and proven to have a significant impact on children’s literacy and communication skills, their confidence and social and emotional development.” Trisha Lee

Dough Disco

What is dough disco?

Dough disco involves moulding play dough in time to music and performing different actions such as rolling it into a ball, flattening it, putting each individual finger into the dough, rolling it into a sausage and squeezing it.

Why do dough disco?

This activity helps to strengthen children’s fine motor muscles to enable them to develop their pencil grip which in turn will help to develop their writing skills. But most of all it’s fun!

What do you need to do a dough disco?

• Music – any song will do! We have had Abba, Frozen, Musicals and TV themes to name a few of our favourites.
• Dough – You can buy pots of dough or make your own with your child. See the recipe below.
• A set of moves – These can be done in any order and you don’t need to include them all.

What are the dough disco moves?

• squeeze it
• roll it into a ball
• roll it into a sausage
• poke it
• flatten it
• pinch it

Here’s a simple recipe for you to make play dough at home:

Ingredients

• 1 cup of plain flour
• Half a cup of salt
• 2 teaspoons of Cream of Tartar
• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 1 cup of water
• Food colouring (optional)

Instructions:

1. Mix all of the ingredients together in a saucepan. Stir the mixture over a low heat until it comes away from the sides of the pan.
2. Tip the dough out and leave it to cool slightly.
3. Store the play dough in an air-tight container or plastic bag and let your child use it every day (it should keep for about a week).

Here is a link to a video that shows how to do dough disco:  http://www.viewpure.com/qnpILg6I6Nk?start=0&end=0

Squiggle Whilst You Wiggle

Squiggle whilst you Wiggle is a kinaesthetic approach to stimulate early writing. It encourages children to focus on making large scale movements to music. The children then mirror these movements using pens on paper. It is the first stage in handwriting practice delivered in a super fun, lively way and it has been shown to increase handwriting confidence and progress.

 http://www.viewpure.com/ptFAL-eSvxU?start=0&end=0

Scribble and Drawing Club

Scribble club in Nursery is an amazing way to explore early drawing and mark making through scribbling.  The children invent their own magical adventures and take us to many magical places such as treasure island where the pirates are hunting for all the jewels or to unicorn world where unicorns and mermaids play together.

In Reception the children explore drawing club through the magic of stories.  They are immersed in new vocabulary and are inspired to draw pictures and messages based on stories such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Not Now Bernard and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

Talking Time

We know how important talking is in EYFS. We try to ignite children’s interest and encourage them to talk, inspired by objects brought in from home or by staff. They enjoy sharing their special things and hearing about others’ treasures which sparks great conversation.

In Reception we have a toy who takes turns to visit each child at home and the children love to recount what adventures they have had together.