Home Learning

Following on from Elizabeth’s post about the wonderful EYFS….

Lets do this together!

As Early Years Professionals it is highly recognised that our parents/carers are the main educators with our children.

One of the main reasons we find that our parents/carers bring their child into day care is indeed for the teaching and school readiness side… helping them make new friends and how to behave and share with others.

So what can we do to bring the skills of knowledgeable practitioners and the experience of our families together for the very best for our children?

Lets talk about home learning and how we approach this here at KATC…

First of all…don’t think home work!

Think fun times and memory building with a touch of learning too!

There is nothing more rewarding for us as practitioners to share with families what their child has been up to throughout the day, from making tea in the home corner to building a magic wand (abracadabra!) to bouncing off crates outside!

We hear so many comments of “wow he doesn’t do that for me!, ” you guys are super nanny” and “you know she says you are her best friend”.

Truth be told, we train hard and enjoy spending our time building our future builders, vets, ballet dancers and obviously Spider-Man but the most rewarding aspect?

This is when our families come in and tell us, “that song you sing, that’s all I have heard, can you write it down for me too?”.

This is why each week we will tell you in detail some of the exciting skills we have been learning and ask for you to practise too, whether this be using our weekend sheet to put your Tesco shopping list on during healthy food week or some new words to use at home, or sending us a photograph of your walk to feed the ducks during our animal theme.

What we find is our families do not always recognise the crucial learning that takes place, so many people say “we have had a quiet weekend, we have only been to grandmas, read a story and done the food shop!”, however (practitioner hat going on…) be proud and understand that the usual visit to grandmas is building your child’s sense of belonging in a family, their favourite story helps them recognise that after The Hungry Caterpillar its time for sleep and the normal weekly food shop is a wonderful way of introducing numbers, colours and size.

Our themes are a base of knowledge to learn new things as well as practise what we already know- at the start of each theme, we prepare a home learning sheet which will tell you all about what is happening and some of the skills we will teaching, feel free to use these at home, ask how we do things and even why we are doing it- ask away and if it is something that interests you as a parent/carer come in and join the fun or suggest an activity. In each room you will find a parent/carer voice board, feel free to add to it something you would like us to do or indeed something your child has been doing at home, your key person will then add this to their weekly planning sheet.

I do hope you find this useful and accept the recognition parents/carers deserve!

So lets work together to strengthen our children’s learning and build a brighter future!

So together, Lets ENJOY teaching our children, BELIEVE in each other and help them ACHIEVE their dreams.

See you all soon!