One of the main aspects of your child’s time at nursery will be a focus on their personal, social and emotional development. They will be encouraged to develop positive relationships, to play with a variety of friends and to understand the feelings of others. There will be opportunities to build confidence and self-awareness, and also to manage their feelings and behaviour.

The ‘Communication’ section above outlines some activities to develop speaking and listening skills. In addition to sharing lots of stories, your child will probably be encouraged to handle and look at books independently and to begin to learn about how stories are structured. There will be opportunities for your child to recognise their own name. Your child will be encouraged to draw, paint and make to develop control and hand-eye co-ordination. They may begin to learn to copy the letters in their name.

Communication is a key area of your child’s learning in nursery. They will spend lots of time sharing rhymes, songs, stories and playing games to develop their speaking and listening skills. They will be encouraged to learn to listen carefully, to develop concentration, to respond to questions and instructions, to share ideas and experiences and to take part in conversations.

At nursery, your child will be given many opportunities to explore numbers and shapes in their play. For example, they may be encouraged to count objects they are playing with and to compare two groups of objects. They will probably begin to represent numbers using their fingers, marks on paper or pictures.

Your child will be given lots of opportunities to move in different ways, for example, running, jumping, balancing and playing with balls. Another important aspect of physical development at this stage is learning to hold and use tools, such as scissors, and also to use pencils and pens to draw lines and shapes. Your child will also begin to understand how to look after themselves and be healthy.

Your child will learn about the world around them and they will be encouraged to use simple technology and equipment.

Finally, imagination and creativity are explored and developed in the area of expressive arts. Your child will explore different media and materials and be encouraged to use their imagination in a range of different experiences.

Most of the time your child will be learning all seven areas of learning together, in a fairly jumbled way. So if they spends lots of time in the sand area there’s no need for concern! They may well be covering all kinds of important learning: working with different materials; finding out about shape, quantity and volume; creating imaginative worlds; feeling different textures; and even developing motor skills and strength for writing!