Understanding of the World

EYFS statement for History

In the Early Years Foundation Stage children begin to learn that as they grow up they are increasingly able to do more things for themselves independently. This emerging knowledge and understanding can be used to explore crucial early historical skills. Foundation Stage history is part of the national curriculum’s learning objectives for developing children's understanding of the world, so they will learn through experiences that introduce the concept of time and change.

Many children within the EYFS will have younger and/or older siblings who they will see being involved in activities at a different level. This can be used to extend the children’s learning and understanding of themselves and the world around them. By the time children are in Reception, they will be increasingly aware of the changes in routines during different times of the day and seasons of the year. These changes in times have an impact on what activities they can do (sleep, eat, play, home, holidays etc) as well as what they wear and what they celebrate.

The children within EYFS will explore patterns and routines and will be given opportunities to take part in events to celebrate time, like anniversaries. The children will be encouraged to record their findings by drawing or writing.

Reception

Library trip (looking at how some buildings look older than others)

The children enjoyed the trip to the library.

“The bus bit was going on the minibus and singing songs.”

“I saw my house.”

“I saw the park.”

“The library is near my house.”

Discussion of events that occur regularly, for example seasonal patterns, daily routines and celebrations e.g. Bonfire Night, Diwali, Remembrance Day, Christmas, International Talk like a Pirate Day .

Bonfire Night

“I went to the park to see them with my mum and dad. They were colourful.“ Sophia

“Fireworks are dangerous. They can burn you.” Zhi Hang

Christmas Celebrations

Penelope enjoyed helping decorate our reception class Christmas tree. She chose the decorations that she liked. “My favourite decoration on my tree is the silver rose. I helped my mummy with our tree. We listened to Jingle Bells” she said.

Remembrance Day

We were asked to make a poppy to remember the soldiers who died at war as part of our Remembrance Day work. All the poppies were stuck together to create a tribute to those who died. We remembered how brave the soldiers were.

“My grandad is in heaven. He died in the war.” Thomas

International Talk like a Pirate Day

This light-hearted holiday started 20 years ago in the USA. It’s now held worldwide and even Barack Obama has tweeted about it! I know what you’re thinking; why would sensible people around the world want to talk like sea dogs? It could be that they were rule-breaking rebels (like us) or we get excited by the idea of finding buried treasure (like Mrs O’Neill).

What did we do?
We grabbed ourselves an eye patch, bandana, baggy shirt and a little toy parrot. Mrs O’Neill said we could use awful grammar and use our pirate accent. We also had a pirate-themed birthday party as we have enjoyed reading the book, Captain Beastlies Pirate Party, we walked the plank and used our homemade treasure maps to find gold.

Construction (looking at how some buildings look older than others and recreating them)

“Big Ben is a clock.” This morning, while we were watching Newsround we saw an image of Big Ben and discussed it. Christina used the construction equipment to build it.

Developing a sense of change over time and to differentiate between past and present by looking at photographs of their life eg photos of families and baptism.

We have been looking at how much we have changed and grown since we started in Reception. looked at how tall we are now, how our hair has grown, how our hands and feet are bigger and how good we are at our work now compared to how we were in September. represented these changes in drawings of ourselves and compared these drawings to the drawings we completed in September. added our drawings to our ‘We are Reception’ display.

“This is like when I was a baby. My mummy showed me a picture of when this happened to me.” Rosie

Use language relating to time in conversations, for example, ‘yesterday', ‘old', ‘past', ‘now' and ‘then'.

Zhi Hang used the Duplo to make an aeroplane. “These are the wings that make the plane fly and this is the seat and this is me sitting in the seat. I went to the airport to go to China and then I went to Chinatown and had food. I used a big spoon to eat”. When I asked him if he went on holiday or to visit family, he said “I can’t remember. It was a long time ago”.

Talking about past and present events in their own lives and in those of other members of the family or friends

Rocky was sat next to me whilst I was looking on the iPad. He saw small pictures of flags. “Which is the flag for China? I am Chinese and been to there on a plane”. I suggested that we look on the internet together and he typed in the word China and we found it. “It’s all red with yellow stars. I like it” he said.

EYFS statement for Geography

Geography helps children to make sense of their world. Very young children are naturally curious, and they love to actively explore the world around them, noticing all kinds of detail. That’s why they need to develop geographical vocabulary like the names of places, people and things, and the words needed to describe and locate them.

It helps to think of children as little geographers – they each have their own world of private geographies - the places they name for themselves with meanings that only they understand: the dens where they hide out with their friends, special meeting places in the school playground. Whether they’re playing in the classroom, or splashing through a muddy puddle on the way to school, children are intrepid explorers making new (to them) discoveries about the world every single day.

It’s not just home territory and their local area that interests children: they are fascinated by the wider world and collect all sorts of ideas about places near and far through things like stories, news, holidays, television and the Internet. Some of their ideas might be quite accurate and some less so – and talking to children about what they’ve seen and heard, and how true it is, is really valuable. We encourage them to think up good questions too – geography is all about enquiry.

Most people associate geography with maps and globes, and even very young children of three and four enjoy drawing pretend maps, or using simple maps. This is the start of them developing spatial awareness, and is a skill they’ll hone throughout their lives.

Let’s find out about Chinese New Year

Sophia was very excited to tell us that she had being using her iPad at home and she had learnt some interesting facts. She told us that cows have three stomachs, an octopus has three hearts and that monkeys have no stomachs and gorillas beat their chests for attention. The children were amazed with Sophia’s interesting facts that they wanted to find out their own.

As it is Chinese New Year, we decided as a class that we would find out some interesting facts about pigs and how people celebrate Chinese New Year.

With it also being Online Safety Week, we discussed the importance of keeping safe when using different technologies. Talking to the children about online safety is essential because many of them will be using a wide range of technologies in their home environments, even before they start school. Technology is becoming an integral part of children’s lives; it entertains them, engages them and motivates them.

Chinese New Year

This week we celebrated Chinese New Year. To help us learn about this special occasion, we watched some videos of children explaining all about the celebration and how they prepare for it. We looked at some artefacts from the Chinese culture and we also had a special Chinese dinner.  It was delicious.  This year it is the year of the pig. We enjoyed making pigs masks using different shapes for the pigs face.

The part of the celebrations we liked the most was the lion dance. To learn more about this, we had to listen very carefully to the music in the background. We guessed correctly about hearing drums and said that they were very loud! Some of us also heard some bells. We had a lion puppet that we used to dance around and we all took turns using the instruments to make the music for the dance.

People Who Help US

As part of our People Who Help Us topic, we have looked at doctors and nurses this week. To help us learn more about this, we have watched videos and used some medical equipment to act out being a doctor. These included a stethoscope, thermometer, bandages and an otoscope. These important pieces of equipment were used in class to check if everyone was feeling well including our class baby, Lottie.  

Aspirations Week

This week, we had the opportunity to dress as someone we would like to be when we are older. We was all dressed up as various professionals. These included a doctor, a policeman, a dancer, a fireman and an astronaut.

In Nursery, we were lucky enough to be able to explore lots of different role play equipment to act out the different jobs/roles we could have when we are older. We really enjoyed the hairdressing equipment and created some fabulous hairstyles. Working together as a team really does make the job easier especially when you have tricky customers.