5 Ways to Enhance Your Mud Kitchen this Autumn
Autumn is a wonderful season, full of so many learning opportunities for children as they connect with nature. This blog posts explores 5 ways you can easily enhance your mud kitchen this autumn to make the most of the season. Autumn provides us with many treasures that can make it fun as we explore, play and learn in the mud kitchen.
Raising a Generation that is Emotionally Literate
“He is sad, because the happy one hit him. And there are sad clouds above him! Cos that is what sad feels like! Grey clouds above you!” John Aged 4 years.
Building on children’s curiosity of all things creepy crawly
National Insect Week 2023 is a fantastic week to celebrate in early years settings. Children are often curious, mystified and very interested in our creepy crawlies that we can find outside in our outdoor provisions. There are many ways that we can support and build upon children’s interests in everything insect related.
School Readiness Series: What is School Readiness?
With last week being the day that expectant parents across the UK find out what primary school their children had been accepted into the term ‘school readiness’ has come back into focus. ..
Ideas of ways your nursery can support Earth Day
Earth day is a day that gets celebrated around the world every year, and it is a great time for reflection and education about climate changes, environmental issues and looking after the planet that we live on…
Opportunities for scientific learning through cooking
Our third blog in our series for British Science Week 2023 is looking at how we can support scientific learning through participating in cooking and baking activities with children in the early years. Cooking with children is a great way of support scientific learning, from making observations, working collaboratively and developing their language skills…
What is Yoga Storytelling All About?
Yoga can be defined as much more than an exercise program, but it is a practice rooted in thousands of years of tradition that is about connecting your mind, body, spirit, and health together. As well as learning to tune into our bodies and minds in a busy world (Harper 2013)….
Our Ofsted Experience Hitchin House Day Nursery
I recently caught up with the wonderful Zoe Wright, Operations Director for Hitchin House Day Nursery. They have recently had an Ofsted inspection and she wanted to share their experience. And how her and her team managed the inspection on the day…
Supporting Storytelling Through Block Play in the Early Years
Children will go through different stages as they begin to use props to make up stories and add dialogue to their play…
Block Play and Mathematical Development in the Early Years
A classic early year’s example, often children explore building towers often setting the challenge to see who can build a tower taller than themselves. This instantly lends itself to some discussions about size…
Guest Blog: Persona Dolls and Their Impact
One child ran to get a tissue to kindly wipe Ollie's tears and nose, other children gently rubbed his back and gave him a hug, another went to get him a drink so poor Ollie had his first bath that evening too!
Physical Development and Block Play
Construction play is a firm staple of many early year’s settings, whether that be through Duplo, wooden blocks, Lego, large blocks, or community play blocks and everything else in between. We use a wide array of items to support children’s learning and development…
Part Two: Teaching Colours in the Early Years
Part two of our blog series that explores teaching colours in the early years. Find out more here.
Global Recycling Day
Will you as a setting be celebrating global recycling day with your children? This is a great opportunity to take stock and think about talking about recycling with young children…
Implementation of Finger Gym in Early Years Settings
Lasts weeks blog spoke about the intent and reasons behind why settings may choose to implement finger gym as part of their early years curriculum. This week we intend to unpack some of the ways that you may choose to implement finger gym within your setting.
The Intent Behind Finger Gym
Currently in the early years we are thinking a lot about the 3I’s, Intent, Implementation, and Impact. As we saw the introduction of these three terms in the (2019) Early Years Inspection Framework…
