Themes and Activities
Our plan for the day
Plans for each day take into account children’s interests and individual ‘next steps’ as well as linking into new learnings on seasons, celebrations and the world around us. I work in partnership with parents (and other settings where appropriate), providing them with information on our plans, their child’s ‘next steps’ and asking for feedback on interests, milestones, recent activities at home or in another setting. These all feed into my planning too.
Here are some examples of the topics we cover during the year with example activities that we do:
Winter
We create snowy pictures using cotton wool and chalk to represent snow. In the event of a snowy day we will make snowballs, snowmen and use shovels and spades to move the snow. We will do puzzles, read books and sing nursery rhymes with a Wintery theme.
We celebrate Chinese New Year, learning the traditions through stories and short CBeebies programmes, making Chinese themed crafts too. For Valentine’s Day, we talk about the people we love, and enjoy making/eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.
Spring
We plant sunflower seeds in pots, watering them and monitoring their growth ready to take home. We prepare our vegetable patch and then plant seeds, taking it in turns to water them and remove weeds.
We read books about Spring and work on Spring jigsaws. We learn about Easter, making cards and baskets, acting out pretend Easter egg hunts.
We observe the trees, flowers and creatures when in the garden and out-and-about and then create pictures of them.
In March, we celebrate World Book Day with a week of our favourite books, using story-sack toys to bring them to life.
Creepie Crawlies
We play with toy bugs, using magnifying glasses to see them better, looking them up in books and on information cards. We make bugs out of playdough and create caterpillar and ladybird pictures using glue and coloured card; we use paint to create symmetrical butterflies.
We explore the garden for bugs and identify them using the books and toy bugs we have. One of our favourite stories is the Hungry Caterpillar, we play with caterpillars, pretending they eat toy food, match the food items to numbers.
Summer
As the weather gets warmer, we talk about keeping safe in the sun, wearing suncream and our hats, playing in the shade from the tree. We look at books about holidays, the sea and the Summer.
We create seaside, fish and sun pictures and spend lots of time outdoors, with plenty of sand and water play.
We continue to tend to our vegetable patch, watering when it has been dry then picking and eating the vegetables as they grow.
Number, colour, shape and texture
We create pictures using various mediums to demonstrate colour, shape and texture and go on walks to spot colours, numbers and shapes in the environment. We play games and do puzzles to encourage number, colour and shape name recognition.
These are activities that we do year-round, tailored to existing interests and knowledge.
Autumn
We learn about Autumn, with visits to the ‘Steep Hill’ to collect conkers and to run through the leaves. We talk about the crunchy leaves, prickly conker shell and smooth conkers.
We make Autumn and Harvest pictures and decorate pumpkins at Halloween. We talk about Diwali, making Diya Lamps and rangoli patterns, and learn about Guy Fawkes night and fireworks.
In November, we celebrate World Nursery Rhyme week with themed activities and crafts based on our favourite songs.
Christmas
We create decorations and cards to take home as well as Christmas cookies and mince pies to eat as as a treat. We add decorations to our Christmas trees and decorate the playroom.
We read Christmas books and dance and sing to Christmas music. It is always a favourite to dance with our singing Father Christmas’s too.
