Maulden Lower School - EYFS Learning Zone

Children LOVE routine. In the Early Years we follow a routine everyday.

First we talk about the date and report on the weather. Next we learn our letter sounds and do reading and writing activities. After that we practise our numbers and do number and shape activities. We also explore measuring length, weight and capacity.
We LOVE being active and if you go on YouTube we enjoy The Learning Station active songs. After our busy morning we eat a healthy lunch and we go outside and run around. When we come in from lunch we practise MINDFULness. We lie down and listen to relaxing music and we focus on our breathing, taking big slow breaths in and out. This helps our little minds to feel calm and peaceful everyday.
In the afternoon we find out about the World and we enjoy exploring and being creative. We LOVE to talk about what we are doing and we LOVE to share all the things we have found out and all the creations we have made with a grown up.
At the end of the day we feel happy and tired and enjoy listening to a story.

READING

Practise sounding out letters and blending them together to read the words
Practise reading real words and alien words
Practise reading tricky words (high frequency words) and remember you need to sight read these words and not sound them out
Read with your parents/carers, sisters or brothers and ask them to ask you lots of lovely questions about what is happening in the story
Visit www.oxfordowl.co.uk for more stories to read
Talk about the story . . . Where does the story take place? Who is in the story? What are they doing? What do they look like? How do they feel? What is going to happen next? What did you like about the story? What didn't you like about the story? How did the story make you feel? Can you think of another story that is similar?
Ask your parents/carers, brothers or sisters to read to you

SPEAKING & LISTENING

Explore your senses and talk about what you can hear, see, feel, touch and taste
Choose an object in your house or from the garden. Describe it to your parent/carer, brother or sister and see if they can guess what it is
Use your marvellous imagination to make up a story and act it out with your family
Pretend you are a book or television character . . . can your family guess who you are?
Ask an adult to tell you a story and afterwards you can retell it back to them
Talk to a friend or family on the telephone. Talk to them about what you have been doing and ask them

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Use your fine motor skills to build a Lego model, pick up grains of rice using tweezers, fix fiddly things and squash and stretch homemade playdough
Go outside in the garden and jump about, run around, throw and catch a ball, skip, play football, do star jumps
Eat healthy meals and drink lots of water
Try something new to eat
Practise using a knife and fork
Get dressed and undressed by yourself
If you can write sentences try and sit your letters on the line. Remember the ascenders go above and the descenders go below the line

EXPRESSIVE ART & DESIGN

Use recycled boxes & cartons to make a junk model creation
Design and make a rocket to take you to the moon
Draw or paint a picture
Sing a song and play the drums (using pots and pans and wooden spoons from the kitchen cupboard!)
Make up a dance and perform it to your parents/carers
Make up a story and act it out

PERSONAL SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

WRITING

Practise forming the letters of the alphabet
Practise writing your first name. Once you can write your first name then practise writing your middle name (if you have one) and then your surname
Sound out and spell simple words e.g. cat, dog, man, red, big . . . when these words become easy for you then . . .
Sound out and spell words e.g. frog, stop, help, thin, shop, flop . . . when these words become easy for you then . . .
Write simple sentences e.g. I can run and jump. I like to go to the park. The dog is on the box.
Remember! When you are writing a sentence you need a capital letter at the beginning; spaces between the words; a full stop at the end and read it out loud to someone to check it makes sense.
When you can do all of these things have a go at writing a short story with a beginning, middle and an end. Just like at school when we wrote our own Funny Bones stories.

MATHEMATICS

Practice writing numbers 0-5 . . . once you can write them practice writing 6-10 and then 11-20 and beyond
Write numerals on pieces of paper. Count out objects from your home or garden and match them to the correct number
Remember to check your counting and count carefully
Add 2 groups of objects. How many have you got altogether? Write a number sentence to show this
Take objects away from a larger group. How many have you got left?
Share objects between you and your family. Has everyone got the same number of objects? Who has more? Who has less? Who has the same?
Draw your own 5 frame or 10 frame and fill them with different numbers of objects
Go on a shape hunt in your house and garden and look for 2D shapes
Make a cake with your parent/carer and weigh out all the ingredients. Eat and enjoy!
Fill up different containers in the house with water. Which one holds the most water? Which one holds the least? Which one is full? Empty? Half full?

UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD

Explore in the garden . . . look under stones, around bushes, behind pots . . . What minibeasts can you find? What do they look like? How many legs have they got? What colour are they?
Find out about Easter. Why do we celebrate it? Why do some people give each other chocolate eggs?
Find out about the planets, space and stars
Take a rocket to the moon . . . what would you pack in your suitcase?

WEBSITES