The meaning of 'home' incorporates both the functional - bricks and mortar - and the emotional, provided by family members. There can be great diversity in children's experience of both elements, and as practitioners we need to be mindful of this when planning the topic.
As the Curriculum guidance for the foundation stage reminds us, to plan well we need to 'find out about the child's ethnic, faith, and cultural heritage and home experiences, so that familiar experiences and interests can be used as starting points for learning and teaching' (page 12).
Consider, then, the variety of buildings we may live in: a high-rise flat, a detached, semi-detached or terraced house, a tenement block, maisonette, bungalow, caravan, shop, hostel... Indeed, very few of us probably live ina house that looks like the traditional picture of a house with four windows and a front door, and we need to remember this when presenting children with images of home.
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