Tag: Reggio Emilia

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Early Years Education Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Hadley Wood Nursery Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning Reggio Emilia

Supporting your child’s learning at home: Ideas for developing early science skills

Young children begin to develop a sense of curiosity and start asking questions about the world around them at an early age. In fact, infants and toddlers are naturally curious and are constantly exploring their environment through their senses. As children grow and develop, they become more and more curious about the world around them and will often ask questions about how things work or why things happen. The first steps in scientific enquiry can be taken by fostering this natural curiosity and “systematic” investigation, that is, repeated and consistent exploration of a child’s environment.

There are many ways you can support and encourage your child’s journey in exploration. In general, it is important to provide your child with age-appropriate materials and activities, answer their questions no matter how basic or strange they may seem at first, and encourage them to make observations and ask more questions.

Open-ended resources are essential for nurturing children’s pre-science skills.
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Early Years Education

Project-based learning in early years education: why is it so important?

Project-based learning is an educational approach in which children learn by actively engaging in hands-on projects. Children work on a project over an extended period of time, typically several days or weeks. The goal of the project is for children to learn new concepts and skills by applying them to the project, rather than simply learning about them through adult-led teaching sessions. Exploring the environment and encouraging investigation of their surroundings is a core element of the approach.

This past Autumn Term, we have been exploring themes of Light and Shadows in all aspects of learning. For instance, using shadow puppetry we brought stories to life as a group. The project was led by the children, their ideas, creations, and explanations of what they were doing were captured and used in a communal exhibition.

Storytelling using shadow puppetry, which was put together as a group project by the children (Autumn Term, 2022)
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Cockfosters Nursery Early Years Education Early Years Foundation Stage Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Hadley Wood Nursery High Scope early years approach Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning Research on Early Years Development

Colour & Light: The Lightbox Project

During the previous term, we noticed that our children were showing a strong interest in light and shadows, as well as colours and space. As usual, we followed the children’s interests and ideas, and we decided to have a whole half term dedicated to the theme “Colour and Light”.

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Our blended-learning approach for early years education

We were so happy to return to our home as a nursery school last Monday, 1st of June. During the weeks of lockdown due to Covid-19 we found many innovative ways of staying connected with our children and their families, and continuing their learning journeys remotely. Unfortunately it has not been possible for all of our children to come back to the classroom in our Hadley Wood site in this half-term. We saw this as a challenge to overcome, so we have opted for a “blended learning” model, which allows us to expand on and complement our nursery-based offering with a remote learning curriculum.

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Cockfosters Nursery Early Years Education Early Years Foundation Stage Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Forest Schools Hadley Wood Nursery Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning

Remote early learning during lockdown: a child-centred approach

At the core of our mission is empowering children to become confident learners. But how can this happen during a widespread lockdown, like the one we have been experiencing due to the Covid-19 pandemic? As a team of outstanding early years educationalists, we quickly recognised that we had our work cut out for us and that it would not – could not – be “business as usual”. And although the way we deliver our educational approach to our families and children had to change, we still had to focus on the continuity of our children’s learning experiences. This is how we did this, and why.

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