Supporting Your Child’s Learning
There are various websites to help you to support and encourage your child’s learning at home, here are a few which may be of use…
Supporting Home Learning
Evidence suggests that parental involvement in early learning has a greater impact on our children’s well-being and achievement than any other factor. The staff at South Moreton Pre-School is more than happy to provide parents and carers with support and literature regarding any aspect of their child’s development. The children need a variety of positive learning experiences provided in a secure and loving environment if they are to achieve their full potential later on in life.
At South Moreton Pre-School we:
• Provide information and resources to parents to develop home learning;
• Communicate daily with parents/carers;
• Share our books and resources, offering a lending library that provides educational materials;
• Provide newsletters, prospectus and fliers that can be translated into other languages where appropriate;
• Have face-to-face meetings with individual parents;
• Offer home visits;
• Seek parent representatives on our management committee;
• Offer activities for both parents and stress that ‘parent’ definitely means fathers, carers, and grandparents as well as mothers;
• Use the skills of parents within pre-school in ways that meets the children’s needs;
• Offer all parents/carers a welcome induction pack;
• Provide and run parent workshops;
• Communicate with parents about the service we provide and the activities we plan for children – to share ideas between home and setting;
• Encourage parents to comment and express their views;
• Work together as equal partners;
• Ensure parents have an influence on all decisions and are part of the decision making process;
• Provide information to parents in innovative ways and engage with parents via social media;
• Encourage parents to be active in their children’s learning;
• Provide activities that are proven to engage parents actively in pre-school life;
• Maintain a shared vision, with pre-school strategies that embed a parent-friendly culture;
• Offer ideas for home learning activities;
• Give feedback to support home learning;
• Offer one-to-one communication to discuss any area of learning and/or development
Home Learning Strategies
Your key person will continue to support you as required, providing further information and ideas regarding home learning strategies throughout your time at South Moreton Pre-School.
Ideas To Use
Try using some of these simple ideas with your child. The important thing to remember is that there is no right or wrong way to do things – instead you want to encourage your child to find things which interest them, try out their ideas, and enjoy the satisfaction of doing things for themselves.
- Put together a small collection of interesting things to explore. You could include a bunch of keys, a padlock, several brushes of different shapes and sizes, a shiny bowl, a piece of fabric, an old mobile phone. Watch to see what your child does with them and all the surprising things they find to do with them.
- With your child, make up a collection of natural things – leaves, twigs, shells, pebbles and/or sand – to use for making patterns, building things with, and making houses and homes for toy animals, people and dinosaurs.
- Try creating a construction set using things like plastic bottles, short lengths of plastic pipe, pieces of wood, bark, short sticks, pieces of fabric, and cardboard. Building with this set will be an exciting challenge with lots of problems to solve and challenges to overcome.
- Out of doors is a great place to explore and build up physical skills such as jumping and climbing. Help your child to try things out, take on challenges, practice skills and enjoy the satisfaction of achieving what they set out to do.
Fun And Educational Ways To Keep Your Little One Entertained
It can be a challenge to keep children entertained. Here are some fun and interesting ways to keep them busy and, of course, happy!
- Reading – reading with your child is an excellent way to pass the time. Not only does it do a wonderful job of keeping them entertained with all kinds of stories and adventures, but it also stimulates their minds and helps to develop literary skills before school has even begun
- Indoor Camping – Grab the tents and sleeping bags and turn your living room into the great outdoors. Setting up your indoor camp will help to inspire adventure in your children and can be a great opportunity to teach life skills such as tying knots
- Collages – grab those old magazines and recycle them into something amazing! Help to fuel your child’s creativity by allowing them to stick and cut their favourite images onto a cool collage
- Photo Shoot – Grab your phone or digital camera and record some great memories. Encourage them to dress up as different characters and take pictures that you can then help them to arrange into a storyboard, fuelling their imagination and giving them a head start on creating stories and tell tales, whilst also having some fun pictures to share with Gran and Grandad.
- Painting – a classic for young children – finger paints! Set up a small, easily cleanable workstation and let their imaginations run wild painting whatever they like. Then, allow them to explain what they’ve created developing their language skills and boosting self-confidence by showing off their art!
- Bowling – a simple, fun and cost effective game with the potential for the entire family to join in! Grab some empty plastic bottles and set them up as pins before taking a soft ball and bowling your little ones over with a good time! This can develop your child’s interest in sport, which in turn will encourage them to stay fit and healthy.
- Build A Fort – another budget-friendly method of keeping your child entertained. Grab some empty cardboard boxes, pillows and blankets and help them to build a fort. They can even brush up on their planning and design skills by sketching it out first. Once this fort is completed you can engage in other activities inside it such as the aforementioned reading!
- Board Games – Grab the snakes and ladders and enjoy a lively game. Board games will help develop your child’s lateral thinking skills as well as helping to develop their numeracy and literary skills.
- Homemade Instruments – some of your household staple items can be very musical in the right hands. Grab an empty cereal box, some cardboard tubes and some rubber bands to create a guitar! Or fill an empty container with dried pasta to create a homemade maraca. Homemade instruments can keep your child entertained for hours whilst simultaneously developing a healthy interest in music from a young age. Then why not host a miniature concert? An indoor performance is a great way to improve your child’s confidence
- Baking – with your supervision, your child can have a great time baking! Help them make treats they’ll love and keep them busy whilst showing them the benefits of hard work when they get to chow down on whatever you’ve baked! Baking is also a great way to teach them about what actually goes into their food and is also a novel way of introducing them to numbers and units of measurement.
We recommend the following websites with regard to supporting home learning and ideas:
Parents | early years alliance (eyalliance.org.uk)
Fifty things to do before you’re five (oxfordshire.gov.uk)
Hungry Little Minds – Simple fun, activities for kids aged 0 – 5 (campaign.gov.uk)
National Literacy Trust | UK Literacy Charity
Oxford Owl for Home: help your child learn at home – Oxford Owl
Supporting Preschool at Home (rainydaymum.co.uk)
Building Literacy Every Day (getreadytoread.org)
Early Math Matters: A Guide for Parents of Preschoolers (getreadytoread.org)
Cbeebies: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/cbeebies
Mumsnet: https://www.mumsnet.com
Parent guide to the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage): Updated guidance to support the EYFS – Foundation Years