Hi OP 😊
Essentially yes. We have several different areas in our classroom (we are an EYFS unit so have more than one class in there). Inside we have: roleplay, small world, construction, tactile/ funky fingers, reading area, maths area, writing area, discovery area and creative area.
Outside we have: sand, water, mud kitchen, forest den and nature area, games and maths area, giant construction, climbing and outdoor mark making. We also have roleplay elements outside as we have builders tools and clothes, buggies, babies and a little house and cars and bikes with a petrol pump.
These areas all link to at least one ELG but often link to many more. The beauty of the EYFS is that a lot of things can be done holistically.
We aim to give our children different experiences inside and outside as some activities are naturally suited to one environment more than the other due to space and the nature of resources eg: we don’t tend to have paper outside as it gets wet or blows away and let’s be honest, it rains a lot in the UK! We use chalk and chalkboards as that is fine in the rain and wind. Honestly my pet hate is the soggy clipboard outside but I know many people would probably disagree and would continue to have paper outside. We have found more uptake in writing outside personally as the children aren’t getting frustrated by the resources letting them down! It also feels a bit different to what they get inside (paper, pens, whiteboards etc).
Sometimes our children are allowed to freely access things in each area and other times we plan something specific eg: writing letters and cards at Christmas in the writing area or leaving things to measure and weigh in the maths area that follow on from an activity we did during a whole class session. We aim for a blend of child initiated and adult led learning, as some children would play with cars all day if you let them and need to be introduced to other experiences by an adult.
I’ve not looked at twinkl planning, although I do like their resources. We have an indoor and an outdoor plan that we do every week. We have a word document with a box for each area of the classroom or outdoor area (the ones I mentioned earlier) and then we usually include three statements from the EYFS development matters so that any staff that are in that area know which statements and which age band we are aiming for (obviously a child playing in that area might hit more than just those three statements or might hit two and then some different ones that we didn’t include on the planning but it’s a general aim). We then write down any of the enhancement activities that are to go in that area eg: farm in small world area as lots of children have visited the farm during half term and have wanted to share their experiences, Goldilocks roleplay area as that is our topic book etc. We often specify which day of the week we want the enhancement and if we want an adult to stay in that area. It might be we want an adult there for a couple of days and then we will see if the children replicate that independently. It might be that we put an activity out for general use on a Tuesday after an adult input on Monday etc. It might be that we don’t want an adult involved in the play but we want an adult to discreetly observe what they do independently. Obviously sometimes something else happens and we go completely off the planning but that’s teaching!
Good luck OP I’m sure you will be great in September.