Nursery South Parade

Now your child is at nursery you might want a few ideas for things to do at home that will help your child learn confidently.

Developing maths and number skills

Counting
Your child may start to recognise numbers at an early age. They will go on to learn how to count, and will use their skills with numbers to solve problems.
To help your child enjoy using numbers, you could:
• help your child count items around the home – tins, toys or pennies in a money box
• sing counting songs and nursery rhymes like ‘ten green bottles’
• point out numbers in everyday life: on the front door, birthday cards, or clocks
• ask your child to fetch a specific number of objects e.g. 2 CDs
• play games like snakes and ladders that involve using a dice

Measuring
Your child naturally learns to use words to compare the things they see, for example, ‘bigger’ or ’smaller’, ‘taller’ or ’shorter’. They then begin to measure length, weight and time.
To help your child start to measure, you could:
• measure their height and keep making marks on a height chart
• compare the size of two objects e.g. their socks and your socks
• fill and empty containers
• weigh ingredients for cooking
• point out on a clock the time they come to school or go to bed

Learning about shapes
Your child starts by discovering that shapes are different. They then learn their names and describe what each shape looks like.
You can help your child recognise shapes by:
• looking at everyday objects at home, in the shops on the street and finding words to describe their shape
• getting them to find everyday objects which are squares, circles or triangles

HELPING YOUR CHILD NOW THEY ARE AT NURSERY

Developing reading and writing skills

Reading together
Reading stories with your child, even if for just 5 minutes a day, will help build important skills, as well as capture your child’s interest in books. From their earliest days babies enjoy listening to stories and looking at books.
To build up an enjoyable reading routine:
• spend 5 or 10 minutes a day reading together, and make it fun by choosing books you both enjoy
• listen to story CDs together
• talk about the pictures and characters in the books and make up your own stories
• join a local library

Learning about letters
Children often learn to read by matching letters with the sounds they remember hearing and sounding the word out. They also learn to recognise words by memory too. To help your child remember their letter sounds, you can try to:
• get your child to spot letters they recognise (like the first letter of their name) in words
• sing nursery rhymes and songs together while pointing to the words in a book
• look at brochures, magazines, newspapers and catalogues together, and point out words, individual letters and pictures
• play ‘I-spy’ to show the sounds and letters different words begin with

Developing mark-making and early writing skills
From a young age children enjoy making marks and doing their own ‘writing’ which they will enjoy ‘reading’ to you. You can also help your child by:
• helping them to make marks on paper with a range of tools such as their fingers, brushes, crayons
• taking part in other activities that enable them to develop their motor (movement) skills, such as rolling dough, cutting paper or threading laces
• helping them ‘write’ labels, birthday cards and invitations

HELPING YOUR CHILD NOW THEY ARE AT NURSERY

Learning with your child
You are your child’s first teacher, and know them better than anyone else. By talking to them, playing with them, and helping them develop skills you can help them learn at school.

Talking and listening to your child
Children develop and learn really quickly in the early years.
Playing games with your child every day and helping them to explore the world we live in gives them the best possible start to their education.

You help your child by giving them opportunities to:
• talk about what things look, sound, smell, taste or feel like
• listen to and join in songs, rhymes, stories, music
• investigate things that open, close, float, sink, twist, turn
• explore objects like large boxes, things that make noises and things that move
• play alone or with others, with help from adults, and in their own way
• talk to other children and adults

Spending quality time together
Turning off the television or computer and spending time with your child gives you lots of chance to learn. Here are a few ideas for activities you could do together:
• pottering around the garden together teaches children about plant life, insects and animals
• simple kitchen tasks, like letting your child spread the jam on sandwiches, can give an early lesson in cooking and improve motor skills
• playing games together teaches fair play, following rules and cooperative behaviour but don’t let them win every time!
• family and holiday photos can give lessons in family history and geography