Language-Rich Environments

 At Blossom years we strive to enhance a child’s language. Communication and language are a big part of a child’s day to day within the nursery setting. Language helps develop a child’s social skills and build relationships with others. It helps them to express themselves, giving them their own voice which makes them unique and able to impart their knowledge to others. We do this by promoting language-rich environments.

A language-rich environment enhances children’s communication and language skills through interactions and being exposed to different forms of language and a variety of other things.

Developing these areas and ensuring that they are a part of our setting is important for a child’s overall development. These skills that are learnt will help them with their future development and will begin to build a foundation to develop in other areas of learning.

A few things we consider when creating these places are.

Language:

Making sure our environment is filled with different sorts of language, including stories, songs and everyday conversations.

Interactions:

Making sure we as practitioners are engaging with children, giving them the opportunity to take part in conversation and understanding how to enhance each child’s communication skills. This will only happen if a child feels confident, so we focus on building bonds with the children to build their confidence. This confidence building starts with our settling in process, which involves collecting information from parents about their child, inviting parent and child into setting for periods of time, short settling sessions and most importantly the keyperson approach.

Opportunities for Play:

Children learn through play, it is their natural way to learn. Our environment offers different opportunities to play in various ways. E.g. role play, construction, malleable, creative arts

Quiet Spaces:

We provide quiet spaces for children, these are important, it gives them the opportunity to think about what they would like to do or say. It also gives them an opportunity to relax and listen.

You can also create these places at home with your children, so in each of their familiar environments they will also have these opportunities.

Encouraging a rich vocabulary:

We look at books and read daily, reading to children and narrating what they are doing even if they cannot talk back to you. By doing these things for children, they can listen to the words and vocabulary and absorb this.

We use open ended questions as they are a strong way to get children thinking about what they have to say. It gives them the opportunity to stop and think.

Here are some examples of open-ended questions:

“What do you think would happen if”?

“How do you feel when”?

 “Can you tell me more about”?

We use lots of repetition when speaking to children, this builds up a sense of familiarity around words which helps children develop confidence when learning new words.

We also ensure that children have enough time to think about their response and process what has been said to them…… did you know you a child can take at least 10 seconds to respond to you ?? It’s a long time if you stop and count to 10 for a response! However, we are mindful that children do need this time, so staff give time for each child to respond.

Enhancing language using external agencies…

To make sure we are doing our very best to promote language we have outside agencies come into the setting to engage the children in a variety of different activities. We have a music sessions once a week where our music teacher will engage the children in song, dance, puppets and games.

We have also have a qualified speech therapist come into the nursery once a month who has been running sessions with staff supporting them to grow their current skills on how to enhance language to a very high standard.

This week the children have been celebrating Easter with an Easter Hat Parade and an Easter Egg Hunt.

The children made their own hats at home and brought them in to share with each other and walk the Easter runway! They worked very hard and made beautiful hats, complete with decorative flowers, eggs, chicks and rabbits.

On Friday the children enjoyed an Easter Egg Hunt! They followed the trail to find individual items before finishing in the house and selecting an egg from the pyramid. Happy Easter everyone!

Reception Ready

At Nightingale we are proud to offer our specially designed programme for school leavers “Reception Ready”. Starting in the September of their final year with us before leaving for school, the children enjoy weekly sessions as part of a small group.  Each session lasts between 10 to 15 minutes, and follows a structured plan in order for them to learn and practice the skills necessary to help the transition to primary school, and the learning activities they will enjoy in Reception.

This includes the expectations of good behaviour such as good sitting, good looking and good listening, and covering all the 7 areas of learning:

• Communication and Language, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Maths, Literacy, Expressive Art and Design, and Understanding the World.

Each play-based session is fun and interactive, and delivered on our stage area where it is easier for the children to focus away from distractions and the rest of the preschool. The children are then given plenty of opportunities to practice these skills throughout the session.

Some examples of our recent sessions include:

The telling of the story of Little Rabbit Foo Foo (By Michael Rosen). 

• The children listened to the familiar story, and were encouraged to join in the refrains, and enjoy and discuss the different pictures.
• This activity encourages their listening and attention skills, as well as their understanding of the story.
• Through conversation and questions, we can help extend their vocabulary, as well as their social skills as they look at the feelings of the characters and how actions can impact others, either positively or negatively, and the importance of being kind.
• This activity also gives us the opportunity to through the pre school rules and the learn what behaviour is expected from them both at pre school and when they start primary school.

Threading number cards.

• During this activity the children practised counting  from 1 to 20, and then down from 20 to 1.
• They looked at recognising the numbers from 1 to 5 and beyond and practicing their fine motor skills to thread the pattern made by each numeral.
• The children were encouraged to listen and follow instructions as well as share resources and take turns, essential skills for us all.
• Again these resources will be left out during the session for the children to practice these skills.

Sound Bingo.

• This activity encouraged turn taking, careful listening and the children’s attention skills as they match different sounds from a CD with the corresponding pictures on their boards.
• The children are able to recognise familiar sounds from their personal experience and can share their knowledge to help their friends.
• They then count the sounds they recognised to check their progress as they complete their boards.
• With the first child to complete their board the winner, children also learn to celebrate their knowledge and gain confidence in their own abilities.

All of the activities offered within Reception Ready are things that children regularly have access to within the setting but we create a more focused space to practice and develop.

Using small group work with the children enables them to focus with adult support on an individual level, helping them progress and be prepared for their transition to reception in Primary school.

https://www.blossomyears.co.uk/bromley/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFvqfwfIBm9/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

We started with threading & weaving and then it was time for the children to lead their own play this morning. Forest School is the perfect place to see the children use their fine & gross motor skills, practice social skills and work together but it’s also really lovely (and meaningful) to be invited into their world & play!

Why is Risky Play good for children?

Risky play is important for children in early years because it allows them to develop crucial life skills like resilience, problem-solving, confidence, and risk assessment by pushing their boundaries, facing challenges, and learning to manage potential dangers within a safe environment, ultimately preparing them to navigate uncertainties in later life; it also supports their physical development by encouraging exploration and testing their limits through activities like climbing, balancing, and jumping.”

https://www.blossomyears.co.uk/chislehurst/

 

We have been developing our old baby room and converting it into a dedicated role playroom. During the creation of this space we have followed the guidelines of the Curiosity Approach accreditation that we are currently undertaking as a setting. The Curiosity Approach promotes a home from home environment where children feel at ease in their surroundings and are free to play, explore and experiment.

The walls have been covered to create a calm and relaxing environment, with limited distractions so the children can focus on their learning and play and not be disturbed by “environmental background noise”

A restful area with a sofa is present to provide a familiar home-like space, children can rest here and take time out from their busy day at nursery supporting their mental health and emotional literacy.

Children can role play in the home corner and develop their Expressive Art and Design ( EAD ) skills in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage ( EYFS ). They enjoy being able to emulate life at home by cooking for their friends, cleaning, caring for the dolls and dressing up. This supports and enables them to continue their growth and development at home with siblings and family as they can join in with the real-life activities that they have practiced and learnt at nursery.

Within the kitchen area children can access a range of utensils and foods to prepare in their play. They can stir, cut, transfer as they “cook” using the microwave and the oven to complete food to share with their peers. Through this engagement they learn about healthy foods and non-healthy foods linking to their Physical Development ( PD ) of movement and health and self-care of themselves through food intake and caring for others, being peers, adults and the dolls.

Learning continues with their Personal, Social, Emotional ( PSED ) growth by playing cooperatively with their peers, keeping play going and exploring ideas together. Choices are made as to how and what they play from the range of resources within the room, there is no right or wrong way to play here.

They can create a narrative for their play at an unrushed pace allowing them time to build bonds with adults and peers, they are supported by adults who role model play, build and guide their imagination.

All of this creates a communication rich space in which to practice, use and learn new words to extend their vocabulary. Whilst listening and turn taking with peers so enabling them to understand and share the intricacies of conversation and communication.

As well as using the space to play, rest and learn children are encouraged and supported by adults to care for their environment by using resources carefully and tidying away items that they have finished playing with. Children will be involved in the further development of this room by creating pictures and self portraits to hang on the walls to create a sense of belonging,

Our aim for this room is to teach and allow children to develop these important life skills at their individual pace in preparation for transitioning to reception class.

Ice play with citrus fruits-  This is a sensory activity that promotes children’s senses, helping the children use their senses to connect with their surroundings by exploring touch and smell.

It also connects with their sense of self, exploring interests and preferences.

Dinosaur small world- This activity is based around the children’s interests. Our aim in this activity is to promote communication and language, imagination, and sense of self.

The children spend more time engaging in things they are interested in. We also added different scenery so the children can engage in their sense of touch.

Construction- The children really enjoy building, and we encourage this by giving them different types of materials to build with, some big and some small, so we can also encourage fine motor and gross motor skills.

Construction is also a great way to promote communication and teamwork.

On the maths table the children are looking at colours with the connecting pegs and people. They can sort the colours and match them to each other, as well as looking at similar colours in the environment or other places they have experienced.

In the small world area we have the wooden blocks with fictional characters! The children are encouraged to use their imaginations to create games and role plays with each other and share their existing knowledge of the stories that the characters originate from.

The children are using their fine motor skills to use the magnetic rods to catch the number ducks. They are practicing their number recognition skills by matching the numbers on the ducks.

The bugs are in the garden today. The children are using the magnify glasses to find the hidden bugs and we  talk about what they eat and all the different bugs you can find around in the outside world.

The children worked together to create this giant dragon using lots of different materials. They then all pretended to be the dragon walking around the room with it.

At St Marys, the children have been having fun taking part in construction play. The children have been able to experiment using their fine motor skills to stack bricks, use tools and push around diggers. Construction play allows children to use their imaginations and express their ideas. They can work in groups to build together, or they can make their own individual project, which conveys their plan and idea. Construction play is endless and is always a favourite within the Preschool!

At Imperial, we are getting into the Christmas spirit and have put up our Christmas tree! We spent the morning listening to jolly songs and decorating our tree. The children took turns hooking the decorations on the tree and had conversations about their own trees at home. The children learnt that not all Christmas trees are green and that some are tall and some are short. We are going to be making some more decorations for our beautiful Christmas tree!