EYFS Activities: An A to Z of enhancements – C is for celebration

Enhancements can be added to continuous provision to encourage children to deepen their understanding of new or familiar celebrations. When children act out aspects of these celebrations, it can create opportunities for collaborative play as well as communication and language development as they learn new vocabulary and discuss the celebrations together.

Learning about celebrations from different countries and cultures can also enable children to begin to understand our culturally diverse world, while also making links to their own experiences.

MORE THAN A CAKE

Observations of the children in our role-play area showed that they enjoyed singing ‘Happy Birthday’ and pretending that they had a birthday cake. Some birthday-themed enhancements were added, and we moved a longer table in to create a birthday party feel. The enhancements included a cake tin with playdough, candles, party plates, hats, badges, wrapping paper and invitations. The children also created their own decorations.

This enhancement provided so many opportunities for learning and skill development, including lots of physical development and writing. Children talked about their own experiences of celebrating birthdays at home, which has links to the area of Understanding the World.

Plenty of examples of communication and teamwork were evident in the children’s play. Some enjoyed writing invitations, adding meaning to their marks – ‘this says you can come to my party!’. Others shared out the playdough cake-making to ensure everyone at the table had some, also counting how many pieces they needed and how many candles should be added. Some children used the wrapping paper to wrap toys and give them to the person who was pretending it was their birthday, which they took turns to be using the hat and badge.

This enhancement lasted a week and we found that even when the specific birthday items were taken away, the children used the items and loose parts in the environment to act out birthdays; for example, some children used wooden discs and small sticks to create birthday cakes and shared them out with their friends.

A CARNIVAL OF COLOUR

When learning about the celebration of Chinese New Year together, we were lucky enough to have Mrs Wang, a teaching assistant in the school, come into nursery to talk to the children about her experiences of celebrating Chinese New Year when she grew up in China, and what she does now to celebrate with her family. She showed the children some authentic Chinese outfits that used to belong to her children, some decorations, and a dragon that the children took turns to dance with after watching a clip of a dragon dance.

Later the children discovered that the beautiful objects that Mrs Wang had shown them had been added to the home corner. ‘The Chinese New Year decorations look like Christmas,’ one child commented, making links to their own experience of celebrating. The children made comments that demonstrated they had remembered some facts about Chinese New Year, such as ‘My top is red. That means good luck.’ They remembered another aspect that Mrs Wang talked about, which was cleaning the house before the new year, and they got the toy vacuum and mop out. In response to their interest in this we added dusters, cloths, sponges and the dustpan and brush, and the children were engaged in working together to clean their house.

Last spring the children learnt about the Hindu celebration of Holi and watched a video clip of people taking part in the ‘carnival of colour’. We went for a walk around our school grounds and woods and talked about all the beautiful colours we can see in our natural world. Outside in the creative area, the children discovered the enhancement of bowls of colourful powder.

We displayed photos of their carnival of colour in the classroom, which is something we often do to get the most out of the children’s recollection of their experiences and learning. This prompts discussions with each other as they notice themselves in the large photos, and they can also point them out to parents during share sessions.

Amy Jackson is EYFS specialist leader of education and teacher at Ormiston Herman Academy, Gorleston