Question
Q – “Do your settings do themes/topics each month in your medium term planning? What sort of topics do you do.”
Answers –
A – “Would say always base your topics around the children’s interests or potential interests for example seasons and festivals. Offer an opportunity for parents to have an input as children may display strong interests at home or may have been somewhere to start an interest.”
A – “I usually pick a book a try and include in some of the areas, last one we had for harvest etc was handas surprise so i included wild animals in the small world including a interactive display then fruit an baskets in the home corner then made puzzles and games to tie in with it, then when done pack it all together so it’s there for next time.”
A – “Don’t really do topics/themes as planning is completed weekly based on individuals interests and development. Although we do recognise festivals and special occasions, they are still planned for based on evaluations and observations from previous weeks.”
A – “We have done, the children really like the gruffalo story so we made a group wall display, role play, cooking etc. Have also done the rainbow fish too.”
A – “We. Do organic play so the children decide what we do…. But we have a topic of the month throughout the nursery which the manager decides”
A – “We do topics two weekly, currently on ‘all about me’ recently done transport, safety week, my five sense,”
A – “We use child led learning so everything depends on what the children want to learn”
A – “this year we have chosen a book a month. Allowing us to concentrate on a particular story to focus on and use for activities while allowing us the freedom to add in other next steps and activities as well. We have used the book to decorate our quiet area and role play area to allow the children to act out the book and read it quietly. It has also given parents the opportunity to read the book to the children at home and talk about what they have done.”
A – “We teach in Gaelic and have found our 1-3s learn so much from using a book as a center focus. The book is used daily (we’ve used We’re going on a bear hunt, the three little pigs and some other Gaelic books). It’s great for introducing them to the language and they retain and understand the new language they’ve learned so much better. We’ve also found that it’s easier to extend into other areas and activities and the children lead a lot of the planning even though they’re all so young!!”