The Best Early Years Resources to help with Seasonal Planning

It can be hard sometimes coming up with fresh, new ideas for your planning board. Using a seasonal planning technique can help with inspiration, but how do you go about implementing it? Here are the best early years resources to help with planning through the seasons.

Polylino is a multilingual digital picture book service, used by nurseries and school settings with children aged 0 -7 years. Many of the books on the Polylino site can be listened to in over 65 different languages.

When thinking about themes and topics, we have you covered. You will find in the Polylino library, a variety of different themes and genres to suit all interests. From books about first experiences, to funny books and bedtime classics, you will find plenty of choices to support your themes within your setting.

A few examples of the different genres include: Traditional Tales, books about Animals and Nature, Friendship and Travel to name a few.

Early years resources to help with seasonal planning.

Why seasonal planning?

Planning a whole term of lessons can seem daunting, as you try to incorporate the early learning goals as well as meeting the needs of individual children within your setting. That is why it can be a good idea to break the year down into seasons and focus on particular changes, points of interest and holidays that fall into that season.

Examples of topics:

Autumn – Changing colours, conker collecting, blackberry picking, baking, harvesting vegetables and fruits, Harvest festival, Halloween, spooky stories, falling leaves, scarecrows, Thanksgiving, Bonfire Night, St Andrews day.

Winter – Cold weather, snow, dark nights, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year.

Spring – New life, life cycles, flowers, Mothers Day, Easter, Lent, egg rolling, Holi, flower parade, cherry blossom.

Summer – Sun safety, starting school, holidays, travel, Fathers Day, swimming, at the beach, ice creams.

You now have a good idea of seasonal planning and what you could be focusing on (just as an example), so what resources are there at your disposal to help implement this planning?

Books.

A great tool to help with your planning is to use books. Literature is at the heart of all our learning and development, and through the art of storytelling, we have been able to educate and entertain children for hundreds of years.

So why stop now?

Now it’s more important than ever to encourage a love of reading from a young age. By using books to help with your planning, you are effortlessly incorporating one of the areas of learning whilst instilling a love for reading with your young learners.

Books follow many different themes and accessing them is easier than ever. By using physical copies which could be bought or donated to your setting and through the use of digital picture book sites such as Polylino.

For your EAL children in your setting, this particular resource is key to inclusivity and developing language. Through sharing stories from different cultures and languages, you can teach the children about different holidays that are celebrated around the world.

Why not base a theme around a favourite character from a book? The Gruffalo for example is a popular choice for this. Go off children’s interests to keep them engaged which in turn will help with carrying out effective observations.

Small World Characters.

Small world play is an effective way to build more familiar words and encourage children to explore the world around them.

There are many different sites from which you can purchase small world characters which represent a range of different cultures and professions. It can be a great way to learn more about children’s interests which will help with your planning board.

These early years resources can be seen as an investment piece: the good quality figures can last for years within a nursery setting.

Let imaginations run wild in your setting, through play and creativity using toys that can be used in open ended activities.

Tuff Trays.

The good old tuff tray isn’t something you are going to regret buying for your setting. The opportunities it provides for play, creativity and learning are endless. The tuff tray can be used both indoors and outside, making it versatile and not something that is going to be packed away for half of the year.

Use your tuff tray in the summer for water and sand play, transforming it in winter into a space to investigate snow and ice. Use it to set up a base for your current theme, perhaps creating a woodland or mystical land for fairies and knights. In the Autumn the tuff tray is a great space to use for conker rolling and examining pumpkins.

Polylino.

As mentioned at the start of the blog post, Polylino is a great early years resource for your seasonal planning. You can access a library of hundreds of picture books and soundtracks, to share with the children in your setting.

Learning through books is a great way for children to understand more of the world around them and this means we want to be inclusive for all children. Using a resource such as Polylino, enables all children to be included and helps make your planning a little less stressful.

By now you should have plenty of ideas to help with your seasonal planning as well as a few ideas on early years resources which are worth investing in. Throughout the year there will be many opportunities for seasonal fun as we continue to learn and celebrate multilingualism and different cultures within our early years settings.