Come on MN - Help me please. What were your children's favourite school topics in Nursery and Reception?

[Littlefish]

I've just started a new job and have been asked to completely re-vamp the planning for a nursery school and the Reception class of a Primary School. I want to start with some really exciting topics for each half term which will excite and enthuse the children and teachers.

Whick topics really caught your children's imagination and which ones bored them witless?

Which obviously not Whick

People who help us - is the one that instantly springs to mind as very popular.

They also did Stories and The Seaside in reception.

Yes DS is very excited at the mo as the lollipop lady came into school to talk to them !

I can remember DS2 doing the baby thing and taking photos and baby clothes in.

They also did a topic on toys, comparing old ones (sent in by parents and grandparents) with modern ones.

Can't remember anything else and neither can he. "I was in orange group with Andy and Naomi" was all he came up with

I'm very impressed Janh! Ds2 is only in yr2 and the only thing I could remember without checking the file was "People who help us"

Well it was finding baby things and photos, and toys, that made it stick with me (I sent in my huge walkie-talkie doll Angela and my bald baby doll Beryl )

Traditional Stories.

dd loved it.
they did a different fairy story each week.

Thanks for all these ideas there's some great ones there, thank you. The other ones I thought of were...

Where I live (local environment, transport, houses etc.)
Busy people (a bit like "people who help us", but you can include people from lots of other walks of life too)
On the farm (Animals, crops, buildings, workers, seasons etc)
Water (to include the seaside)
Healthy Living (food, exercise, drugs, teeth lots of cooking etc)

Love the idea about change sobernow - there's loads of history and science in it.

Any other ideas anyone?

Nursery - loved a favourite stories theme, also doing 'colours' at the moment - including making food that colour - green salad, purple jam on toast , ladybird cake... lots of pictures. Did primary colours first and now colour mixing.

Reception - DS loved the toys theme, old and new, favourite toys, designing toys etc.

Talking as an Early Years teacher (is that ok?), the topics that I've had most positive feedback from are.....

Nursery - Stories From Around The World - different country each week, one story as stimulus, then lots of cooking, dressing up, art work, activities based on each story
and
People Who Help Us - they loved visiting the fire station and playing with the hoses, policewoman coming to talk about road safety, vet's roleplay, GP coming in with full kit etc etc

Reception - Long ago and Far Away - basically 4 weeks on dinosaurs (finding out about different types, finding out about archealogists, going on pretend digs, making pretend fossils/bones/skeletons etc etc) then 4 weeks on space...(finding out about the first moon landing, space rocket role play area, planets, lots of space alien stories)... ..It was an 8 week half-term! HTH

Thanks everyone - it's a great help! Gladbag - I was thinking about traditional stories, but I like the idea of stories from around the world even more. It is quite a multi-cultural area so there will be lots of cultures to draw from.

My dd is in Reception

She enjoyed our planet {life cycles}
She also enjoyed the one about family cant remember the topic name.
She wasnt particularly impressed with the story unit.

DD's recent student teacher did some French with them -she absolutely loved it!
She also loved the topic "Ourselves" which covered bodies, teeth, the senses, healthy eating etc

My daughter enjoyed participating in the making of a film of 'The Enormous Turnip' (or whatever that book is called), with children acting out various parts (old man, old woman, chicken, cows etc).

In DS1's fab nursery school they did a pirate topic - pretty obvious I know but the children really got into it - arts and crafts, stories, songs etc. As a finale they all had to come to school dressed as pirates, it was lovely.
DD has done food as a topic in FS2 this term, where food comes from, trying different foods, making cakes in school.
DS1 has done summer holidays, comparisons with his and his grandparents'. He's in yr 2 actually, but I think that kind of thing works for any age at some level.
Also famous people from the area - we have Florence Nightingale which is great, acting out how hospitals were in the 1850s and so on.
Also DS1 did the Great Fire of London last year, had a drama workshop which was great and there's lots of scope in that for stories, pictures etc.
Janh lol at yr ds!

Oooh Clary - I love the idea of a pirate topic - could be part of a unit on Water, or book charcters.

Funnily enough jennifersofia, we're doing the Great Big Enormous Turnip next week! It really lends itself to drama and song (and we're making vegetable soup.) I can't wait

Not a whole topic as such but DS2 thoroughly enjoyed it when they "grew" butterflies. They got a kit from somewhere which you hatched into caterpillars and then looked after them through the cocoon stage until they hatched into butterflies in a bignet enclosure. Then they set them free in the playground.

dd2 (nursery, 3) really enjoyed doing The Body (they went to a shoe shop and had their feet measured)

dd1 (year 1, 6 but mixed in with reception) is doing Bones and the Body and LOVING IT. When she was in reception she really enjoyed Change (night and day, olden days and modern times)

In reception my dd loved doing about dinosaurs and in Year 1 she absolutely loved what she called "olden times" they borrowed old toys from a local museum and went to an "Ole Worlde"house which had things like a mangle, aga, etc the funny thing was she thought that the people actually lived like that and was really upset when I mentioned that they all went home at the end of the day. I had to leave her thinking that they did infact live like that in that house she was so upset

Enid and Soupdragon, if I did "Change", I could include the butterfly thing in it too. I really like that idea - ice/water old/new, life cycles, melting chocolate, making toast, babies/children/adults etc.

Mandymoomoo - it's amazing what children believe. I once joked with my class that I lived in the art cupboard and had my own bed in there. They were absolutely convinced!

Great ideas everyone - thanks

yes I believe when dd1 'grew' butterflies it was part of the Change project

anything that involves building models, they're having healthy lifestyles this week so I think that means lots of talk about food (always fun)