Our Project for the Autumn term is “People who Help Us”!
This term we’ll be exploring with our children all the many different people who can help us in our lives.
This is a wide-ranging topic with plenty of opportunity to make connections between people and places. It includes every aspect of the local community, from teachers to lollipop ladies and from shopkeepers to fire fighters.
It’s extremely easy to cover many areas of the Early Years foundation stage with this topic, and there is a vast array of resources, books and songs that we can incorporate.
Knowledge and understanding of the world….
The types of activities that help our children to gain a better understanding of the world about them are:
- Watching the rubbish being collected
- Recycling things within the nursery
- Small world play with emergency vehicles – this leads very nicely on from our travel project last term when our children enjoyed exploring all the different types of vehicles that they can use for travelling
- Doctor’s, dentist’s and nurse’s kits encourage imaginative play and help children to feel more familiar with medical procedures that they may experience
- Being helpful and kind to friends and family – our nursery Kindness Catcher is a great way to encourage this
- Giving directions games
- Non-fiction books
- Uniforms to dress up in
- Making a family tree
Physical Development….
- Large boxes are great for using as emergency vehicles
- Delivering post in large wheeled toys
- Lifting large objects eg. sack of parcels/bag of newspapers/crate of milk cartons
- Lollipop lady follow my leader
- Fine motor control with buttons and zips on dressing up clothes
- Climbing ladders on climbing frames (like fire fighters)
- Large wheeled vehicles outside as emergency vehicles
Personal, Social and Emotional Development….
- Role play areas – doctor’s/dentist’s/opticians/vets/post office etc.
- Visits from people who help us, eg. librarian, lollipop lady, paramedic
- Small world play
- Circle times are great for discussions about the people our children have come across who’ve helped them
- Making badges to wear for being helpful – asking our children to pick who wears them
- Talking about who helps us everyday
- Talking about friendship
Communication, language and literacy….
- Making a book about people who help us/about friendship
- Mobile phone and walkie-talkie play
- Letter writing/post office play
- Learning our own address
- Librarian visit and story telling
- Books, rhymes and songs – there are many familiar songs and stories from children’s fiction that can be incorporated into this topic eg Postman Pat, Fireman Sam, Miss Polly Had a Dolly
Creative Development….
- Acting out caring scenarios, eg. with baby dolls
- Finger printing like the police
- Baking for a baker’s shop
- Play dough
- Large block play vehicles
- Making thank you gifts or cards for people who help us
We have already started to talk about this exciting project with our children to get them thinking about the areas they would particularly like to cover and producing displays to put up in the nursery.
If any of our parents who fulfil helpful roles would be willing to visit the nursery, this really helps to bring this topic to life for our children and you would be very warmly welcomed. Please speak to a teacher if this is something you’d like to do.
We’re really looking forward to our project this term and feel sure that our children will love to explore not only the people who can help us, but also how we can help each other!
