LEARNING THROUGH PLAY The Early Years Foundation Stage Mrs S Dryden – Early Years Teacher March 2016

What is the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)? The Early Years Foundation Stage or EYFS sets standards for the learning, development and care of children from birth until the age of 5. All schools and Ofsted-registered early years providers must follow the EYFS, including childminders, preschools, nurseries and school reception classes.

EYFS Areas of Learning The EYFS is divided into seven areas of learning, the Prime Areas: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Physical Development Communication and Language and the Specific Areas: Literacy Mathematics Understanding the World Expressive Arts and Design

Assessment Children are assessed in the EYFS by skilled practitioners who observe children in their activities. These observations can lead to interactions between adults and children that scaffold, clarify and extend children’s learning. EYFS development is split into months that outline the development stages that children will typically show as they get older.

Month Bandings Birth to 11 Months 8 – 20 Months Months 22 – 36 Months 30 – 50 Months 40 – 60 Months The month bandings overlap because the development statements are not fixed age boundaries but suggest a typical range of development.

A Unique Child The EYFS recognises that every child is a unique child who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured. Children are born ready, able and eager to learn. They actively reach out to interact with other people and the world around them. However, development does not happen automatically; it depends on each unique child having opportunities to interact in positive relationships and enabling environments. Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) 2012

The Prime Areas The prime areas of the EYFS; personal, social and emotional development, physical development and communication and language underpin all learning and development. (Moylett and Stewart, 2012). Without the ability to listen, understand and speak children will struggle to read. Without gross and fine motor skills children will find writing almost impossible. For children to be confident and manage relationships they need to have mastered a range of personal, social and emotional skills.

So how does play support learning and development?

Play is the highest form of research Albert Einstein

Play is the work of the child Maria Montessori

Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn. O. Fred Donaldson

Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play. Plato

Role Play Role play is how children make sense of their world, acting out experiences, ideas or stories. Imagination, which is at the heart of children’s role play, is more important than knowledge according to Einstein: ‘for knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world’. During role play children learn from each other, use their imagination in original, creative ways. They demonstrate initiative, and advanced social skills of planning, co-operation and communication.

Reading for Pleasure When stories are told or read aloud, children learn to listen attentively, anticipate events and respond to what they hear with comments, questions or actions. They ask ‘how’ or ‘why’ in response to stories; providing an opportunity for practitioners to extend learning. Stories allow children to link their own experiences with the text. Stories lead to conversations empowering children to express their own ideas. Repetition of stories, poems, nursery rhymes and songs establishes the basics of language and reinforces language. Children will often repeat familiar phrases or join in with lines of stories. In books children see that writing tells a story, they develop context, sequencing, searching for meaning and begin to associate sounds with words.

Water and Sand Play ‘To have discovered a quarter of the answer to his own question is of more value to the child than to hear the whole answer, half- understood from another.’ Friedrich Frobel Children’s exploration allows them to make sense of the physical world. They see what happens when they put dry sand through a funnel; they discover that they have to pull down on a pulley’s rope to make a bucket go up. Children explore differences between substances. Waves can be created by hitting the side of a pan; some items will sink. Digging tunnels through sand is early engineering.

Construction Construction apparatus such as blocks, K’nex, Duplo, Lego, cardboard bricks and Mobilo give children opportunities to demonstrate perseverance, concentration, planning skills and resilience. They begin to show mathematical concepts such as estimating, counting, space and shape and use mathematical language; more, less, taller, wider. Adults are able to support a child, sharing sustained thinking and recording their learning; that they need two more bricks to finish a model and that makes ten bricks for example or that the bricks have four rectangular faces and 2 square faces.

Characteristics of Effective Learning (CoEL) When children are deeply engaged in play activities, the prime and specific areas of learning and development are fulfilled throughout the setting.

Learning Experiences Each area of learning and development must be implemented through planned purposeful play and through a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activities. There is an ongoing judgement to be made by practitioners about the balance between activities led by children, and activities led or guided by adults. Practitioners must respond to each child’s emerging needs and interests. As children grow older, it is expected that the balance will shift towards more activities led by adults, to help children prepare for Year 1. Early Years Foundation Stage Framework 2014

Different Sounds Shapes

Name Writing Robot Wars!

Enjoying a book Shape Pegs