OCTOBER

Theme: Autumn, Nature, Colour, Halloween

WEEKLY FOCUS

Leaf Hunt

Baby: Explore real leaves, twigs, and bark through sensory play. Use leaves for printing, sticking and mark-making. 

Toddlers: Fill baskets with crunchy leaves, conkers and twigs to feel and scrunch.

Preschool: Go on a leaf hunt, sort by colour and make leaf rubbings.

Harvest Kitchen

Baby: Explore seasonal fruits and vegetables through touching, smelling, tasting (where appropriate), sorting, printing, and pretend cooking.

Toddlers: Squash, sniff and taste safe fruit and veg.

Preschool: Make a fruit salad with an adult and talk about how each fruit tastes.

Colour Splash

Baby: Explore red, yellow, orange and brown through leaves, paint, colour matching and autumn sensory trays. 

Toddlers: Splash red, yellow and orange paint and match coloured pegs.

Preschool: Mix colours to make brown and name what we have made.

Pumpkin Patch

Baby: Explore pumpkins, seeds, gentle dress-up, Halloween colours and simple songs through calm, age-appropriate sensory and pretend play.

Toddlers: Scoop pumpkin pulp with hands and spoons.

Preschool: Count and sort seeds, decorate a pumpkin and enjoy gentle Halloween dress-up.

SPECIAL DAY

National Nursery Practitioner Day (Oct 17)

SPECIAL DAY

National Apple Day (Oct 21)

SPECIAL DAY

Halloween (Oct 31)

Communication & Language

Baby: Develops vocabulary through autumn stories, songs and conversations about leaves, trees, colours, fruits and vegetables.

Learns words for autumn, colours, fruit and veg. Preschoolers describe what they see, feel and taste.

Enjoy songs and rhymes (All Leaves Are Falling Down, Dingle Dangle Scarecrow), tuning in and paying attention. Try new things.

Autumn book by Ailie Busby.

Use a wider range of vocabulary: pumpkin, leaves, leaf, colourful leaves, leaves falling down, tree, hedgerow, squirrel, hibernating...

Songs: Five little pumpkins, Incy Wincy Spider, Rainbow colours song.

Personal, Social & Emotional Development

Baby: Builds curiosity and confidence through shared exploration of autumn and nature.

Builds confidence by trying new things together and learns to take turns.

Shakes hands and crawls through the tunnel.

Feelings: happy, sad, scary.

Selects and uses activities and resources, with help when needed.

Physical Development

Baby: Develops hand control through sensory exploration and mark-making and gross motor skills through outdoor play.

Strengthens fingers by scooping and painting; runs, jumps and kicks leaves outdoors.

Enjoys moving when outdoors and inside. 

Uses large-muscle movements to wave flags and streamers, paint and make marks.

Literacy

Listens to autumn stories and rhymes and adds marks to leaf and pumpkin pictures.

Counts or claps syllables in a word.

Stories: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Healthy Mind, The Colour Poem.

Mathematics

Sorts leaves and fruit by colour, shape, and size, counts seeds, and compares big and small.

Compares quantities using language: 'more than', 'fewer than'.

Understanding the World

Uses all the senses to explore natural things and spots how the seasons change.

Uses all their senses in hands-on exploration of natural materials.

Expressive Arts & Design

Mixes and prints autumn colours, sings autumn songs and enjoys pretend play.

Explores colour and colour-mixing