WChurchill Posted July 17, 2008 Posted July 17, 2008 Hi. New to Reception in September on a jobshare and wondered if anyone has any advice for me!! Do you know any games we could play or simple activities as we settle the children in? Thanks in advance.
Guest Posted July 17, 2008 Posted July 17, 2008 Hello and welcome as I haven't caught up with you before. We do loads of circle games - rolling ball to each other as each child says their name, bringing in a favourite toy and inviting children to talk a little about it and themselves (even the less confident are keen to bring the toy and listen rather than speaking out.) Also do loads of singing and circle dancing games eg - there was a princess long ago, the big ship sails, here we go looby loo etc Many of the songs are active - 5 little elephants balancing etc - all aimed at getting children involved and building confidence within the group. Hope this helps
WChurchill Posted July 17, 2008 Author Posted July 17, 2008 Cheers pickle. Thats great and gives me something to focus on. Hello and welcome as I haven't caught up with you before. We do loads of circle games - rolling ball to each other as each child says their name, bringing in a favourite toy and inviting children to talk a little about it and themselves (even the less confident are keen to bring the toy and listen rather than speaking out.) Also do loads of singing and circle dancing games eg - there was a princess long ago, the big ship sails, here we go looby loo etc Many of the songs are active - 5 little elephants balancing etc - all aimed at getting children involved and building confidence within the group. Hope this helps
Guest Posted July 18, 2008 Posted July 18, 2008 Just wanted to say welcome, and some advice for the first few weeks - have fun getting to know your children, they will probably lead the way for you.
Guest Posted July 20, 2008 Posted July 20, 2008 Hi All, This is my 1st time using this forum. I am a student teacher specialising in Early years, I have just completed a 5 week reception placement which was fantastic. My uni want me to write an essay explaining how I could link the topic of 'ourselves' to the areas of development: MD CLL and KUW. Any ideas and suggestions very welcome, the only topics I covered whilst in early years were summer and teaditional stories! Am I correct in assuming the ourselves topic would be best early into the academic year?? Thanks Samantha
denisse Posted July 20, 2008 Posted July 20, 2008 Welcome to the forum Samantha. I am in a pre-school and although we are moving away from topics we do use elements of "All About Me" in the first term as it aids the settling in. For example, we ask the children to bring in photo's of their family members and make little photo albumns encouraging the children to talk about their family members. These albumns stay in the setting until they leave and can be used at any time but particularly if a child has a bit of a wobbly period. It encourages PSE, CLL and CD. You could do a height chart (MD or PSRN in Sept) asking who is the tallest, shortest etc, we do this and take photos of each other being measured(KUW - ICT) and then stick them against their height providing a visual prompt for the children to talk about the different children(CLL). Hope this helps.
Guest Posted July 20, 2008 Posted July 20, 2008 A nice song I use goes Hello, hello who are you? Tell us your name Please please do ( child says name) Hello ................ how are you? We're very pleased to meet you how do you do ( I shake hands with the child.) I have no idea where it came from originally, but someone may know and we can acknowledge this then
Susan Posted July 20, 2008 Posted July 20, 2008 Hi Samantha and welcome. As you suggest I like to focus on oursleves or "All about Me" when the children first join school but it is not impossible to do aspects of this at any time and when I have thought about this later, the children have been more involved as they are more comfortable and secure within the class group. It is also fits as part of NC so its a topic thats often covered in year 1. Good luck with your essay.
Guest Posted July 20, 2008 Posted July 20, 2008 Another nice settling in activity is for children have own name cut into letters to stick and glue in the correct order, using name cards to support them. They can decorate these in any way they wish. it can make a nice quick display.
Guest Posted July 20, 2008 Posted July 20, 2008 We are nursery and we did "me boxes" each child was given a shoe box to decorate as they wanted and then take home and fill with things about them to share back at nursery. worked really well and a good way of including parents too, the children loved doing the boxes.
Guest Posted July 20, 2008 Posted July 20, 2008 Thank you everyone for such prompt reponses and making me feel more at ease with my essay! I'm sure as I enter my second year I will be on here again seeking advice, I have worked in KS1 & 2 and found FS to be so different in terms of planning and teaching was getting worried about how creative I am as generally I have a low confidence on this area, but you have been great so thanks again!!
Guest budgie1 Posted July 21, 2008 Posted July 21, 2008 During the first week in Reception, we do a "treasure hunt" The children have to find various things shown on their card eg pencils, scissors, puizzles, cars, sand toy etc. This helps them to know where everything is kept so that they can access resourses themselves( and tidy away!) The children love it!
Guest Posted July 21, 2008 Posted July 21, 2008 We are nursery and we did "me boxes" each child was given a shoe box to decorate as they wanted and then take home and fill with things about them to share back at nursery. worked really well and a good way of including parents too, the children loved doing the boxes. We also did boxes. we called them friendship boxes and built a wall of friends as the children brought their boxes in. A couple of tips - ask parents to use the child size shoes boxes, the first time we did it we ended up with some huge boxes that took up loads of room and were very hard to store. Make sure parents tape a list of what is inside the box to the inside of the lid bit, it really helps when several children share their boxes and tip everything out. It also helps explain some of the reasoning behind some of the things the child has chosen to put in the box! This was probably one of the best things we ever did, the children in our Nursery were still getting their boxes out and talking about them right up to the end of the year.
WChurchill Posted July 21, 2008 Author Posted July 21, 2008 We also did boxes. we called them friendship boxes and built a wall of friends as the children brought their boxes in. A couple of tips - ask parents to use the child size shoes boxes, the first time we did it we ended up with some huge boxes that took up loads of room and were very hard to store. Make sure parents tape a list of what is inside the box to the inside of the lid bit, it really helps when several children share their boxes and tip everything out. It also helps explain some of the reasoning behind some of the things the child has chosen to put in the box! This was probably one of the best things we ever did, the children in our Nursery were still getting their boxes out and talking about them right up to the end of the year. Fabulous ideas, will try them. Much appreciated.
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