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Hi

We are a pre-school.We dont plan anything for the first week we just offer lots of the usual we find children are so glad to be back and paint and dig and play with playdo again and the new littlies are settling in.The second week we tend to do something like nursery rhymes which is familiar to all the children and then in theory we will have enough through obs to carry on.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi

I am an NQT and have my first Reception Class in September. I have often been advised that you shouldn't plan for the first couple of weeks, but just coming out of ITT, the idea of not planning makes me very nervous!

 

I too would love some advice as to what is expected within the first two weeks (at least). I was thinking of incorporating some circle time (to get to know eachother) some music sessions, and obviously some CIP whereby I can make some assessments. It all seems very daunting! If anyone has any name games to offer also I would appreciate it!

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Hi Crackers and welcome to the forum :o

 

Lola we start on a Thursday so I am not planning anything for those two days and will use them to inform the next weeks planning (interests etc) First full week we will begin phonics and numeracy and develop other areas from observing the children. We plan for two days initially and sometimes plan retrospectively.

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Hi Crackers and welcome

 

You will find it easier if you have some structure to your day and an idea of what you want to achieve but dont overplan your self or the children. Go with the flow, establish your rules and routines and allow the children to get used to you and each other. Have a circle time and story time with rhymes etc. Observe the children and make your initial assessments by encouraging them to work with you.

 

Good luck and have fun.

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I would agree with advice you've been given about not 'planning' for first few weeks - but its how you interpret 'not planning'.

 

I always encourage our team to plan to teach the rules and routines rather than launching straight in with focus activities. So for example rather than planning a maths activity just plan to be in the maths area teaching children how to access and use the resources. This is then a great opportunity for making baseline observations.

 

The SEAL topic 'new beginnings' has some great guidance for planning those first few weeks.

 

In my planning I will ensure all the children have been introduced to each area of the room and shown how to access and use resources there. we will introduce the structure of the session such as group times but keep the activities short & simple.

 

We use nursery rhymes / traditional tales as a first topic simply to give theme to group times and will then develop topic planning from observations of the children's interests.

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Hi!

 

As others have said, we don't plan as such for the first couple of weeks. However, we use the topic of 'Mr Men and Little Miss' to set up activities in each area for the children to do, so that we can then write post-it note assessments on. E.g. Fine motor area - cutting out Mr Tickle (assess scissor skills), Maths Area - sorting pictures of Mr men, by colour, are they wearing hats etc, that sort of thing.

Through the activities we also encourage the routines of the day and rules for the classroom. We still do our whole class input for Big Book time and Numeracy, but again use this for assessments - can they listen? follow story? recognise numbers etc, but for a much shorter period of time.

 

Hope thats of some use to you.

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Yes you need a skeleton plan as it is suprising how quicky new children do everything and flit around exploring, and I aways found the day quite long at the start, so had plenty up my sleeve to keep them interested and busy. Lots of stories, games, songs and rhymes. I set routines and made sure that they all had something to take home in the first day or two, including story books of their own choice for parents to read with them.

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