Early Years Foundation Stage
Children develop quickly in the early years and at Little Fingers we do all we can to help children have the best possible start in life. The EYFS Framework supports all professionals working in the EYFS to help your child and was developed with a number of Early Years experts and parents. Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and through creative and critical thinking, which takes place both indoors and outside.
Your child will be learning skills and acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development. The 3 prime areas are:
• Communication and language
• Physical development
• Personal, social and emotional development
These prime areas are those most essential for your child's healthy development and future learning. As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas. These are:
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the world
• Expressive arts and design
At Little Fingers, these 7 areas are used to plan your child's learning and activities. It is designed to be really flexible so that your child's Key Carer and other staff can follow your child's unique needs and interests.
Our Sessions
We organise our sessions so that our children can choose from and work at a range of activities and, in doing so, build up their ability to select and work through a task to its completion. The children are also helped and encouraged to take part in adult-led small and large group activities, which introduce them to new experiences and help them to gain new skills, as well as helping them to learn to work with others. Activities are very wide-ranging - for example singing, dancing games, painting, cooking, visits from animals (e.g. sheep, pigs and owls) and looking after caterpillars as they grow into butterflies.
Outdoor activities contribute to children's health, their physical development and their knowledge of the world around them. The children have the opportunity, and are encouraged, to take part in outdoor child-chosen and adult-led activities, as well as those provided indoors. Outdoor activities include gardening, 'cooking' in our mud kitchen, obstacle courses, forest walks and visits to the village playground.