Teach Early Years - Issue 14.2

READ ALL ABOUT IT! Ideas for introducing news in the early years… Cover a range of stories Sometimes you can be surprised by which stories inspire children the most! Share child-friendly images This starts conversations and allows children to make their own links to what they can see. Make time to ask questions Ensure details shared are accurate and age-appropriate, with opportunities to discuss what’s happening. Explore topical themes Whether it’s role play, writing for real purposes, or building in the construction area, let children lead. Their ideas are always the best! children to put pencil to paper, mark make, and explain their work. Embedding current affairs exploration encourages young children to talk about how topics make them feel, and therefore supports emotional literacy development. Expressing feelings with peers in a safe space demonstrates a spectrum of responses, showing we each respond differently to news and events, which is something children can learn to respect. Deciphering responses to the news helps children relate feelings to emotional vocabulary, laying foundations to recognise, identify and express feelings. This can help you broaden children’s vocabulary, from simply using “happy” and “sad” to advancing to more complex words, such as “angry”, “confused”, “excited”, “worried”, and “surprised”. This all contributes to exercising empathy. Exploring topical themes both supports each child’s understanding of their own lives and experiences and enhances learning about the lives of others and builds cultural capital. Looking at real depictions of people and groups enables children to observe how their situations can be similar to or different from others’. With real-life context from the news, children can learn about and respect diversity, including families, cultures, and religions. Highlighting variety in this way helps shape children into empathetic, open- minded citizens, embedding positive attributes. Bringing these learning objectives to life through a current affairs lens supports children to learn about the early literacy skills, such as speaking in sentences, actively listening, and taking turns in conversations. Simply allowing children to talk freely about their own lives or thoughts helps conversations flow and feel easier and relevant to them. Some love sharing their knowledge and ideas, while some speak up because they care about a topic. Of course, with exposure to varied news stories and related discussion, children naturally encounter new words, enhancing spoken vocabulary. Hearing new words when learning about a news story provides opportunities to discuss what words mean, and connect them to real-life contexts. After inspiring conversations, children often lead their own play based on the story’s theme, or if they world in real time and keeps their education engaging. Ultimately, for all of us, our key focus rests on helping children understand and discover the world, give purpose to learning and support their development, ready to move through school. And if we can achieve this through fresh, topical focuses, then our children’s progression will be better for it! News can be anything happening in the world now are not quite there yet, adults can set challenges. A story about a space mission could perhaps encourage children to take on the roles of astronauts blasting off into space, or a story about a sportsperson may prompt children to try out the sport for themselves. Adults facilitating this play can model using newly introduced words, deepening children’s understanding and embedding new terms into their everyday vocabulary. UNDERSTANDING & EMPATHY News topics can inspire all areas of your setting. Every early years practitioner loves to see children motivated to mark make and write, and when children are inspired about something that is happening right now, there are chances to write for real purposes. It could be that, upon hearing about someone challenging themselves to visit every country without using a plane, children think about their own adventures and write a list of what to pack for their travels. Or, a news story about a theme park opening might inspire children to draw and label their ideas about what the park should include. Doing so can give meaning to writing practice, supporting KATIE NAUGHTON IS AN EDUCATION CONTENT WRITER FIND OUT MORE Picture News Early Years is a weekly news resource supporting children’s understanding of the world around them. Every pack includes real-life images, open questions, provision area ideas, key vocabulary words, and more. To access a free resource to try with your class, email help@picture-news.co.uk with the exclusive code TEACHEY . Teachearlyyears.com 47