Grown-ups is not just for parents but also for people who teach or care for children who are 6 and under, or for those who care for children with physical disabilities or special educational needs.
All our programmes and fun activities are matched up to learning areas, similar to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas. Our fun activity or programme filter pages mean you should be able to drill through the large amount of our content on CBeebies and find some suggestions that should be more suitable for the lessons or day you are planning.
There are many ways you may choose to use our site to support your day or to pass to your children's parents and carers - we'd love you to drop us a line to tell us how you've been using it. We hope to eventually make a 'top tips' video with some teachers showing us their ideas. Please email your teaching suggestions to: cbeebies@bbc.co.uk
Caroline, a Reception teacher, said "The children in my class are real CBeebies fans and there are plenty of ways I can tap into what the Grown-ups website offers to help support the children's learning and most importantly, make it fun!
There are great activities across all the areas of learning, such as links with phonics on the Alphablocks programme, where children can hear the sounds and help form them into words. There are also useful links to other BBC sites such as Numbertime and Words and Pictures to help reinforce concepts taught in class.
It is also really helpful to be able to point parents and carers in the right direction when explaining to them how they can help support their child's learning at home. The Grown-ups site has plenty of clear, practical advice and fun activities that they can easily access and covers a wide range of topics and issues that are relevant to young children."
CBeebies has worked with early years educational specialists and psychologists to find which of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) learning areas are supported by programmes and fun activities on CBeebies. We have created 7 learning areas that broadly match the 2012 changes in the EYFS. On our Grown-ups site you will see one or more of these areas against every programme or fun activity.
Our learning areas
Communication is all about: listening; speaking; describing; using pictures and words. This describes the many different ways that a child interacts with other people – for example, by looking, pointing, smiling and talking. It is also about having fun with pictures and words. It includes how babies and children pay attention to other people and listen to them, as well as how they understand and use language themselves.
Maths is all about: looking at patterns, colours, numbers, shapes, as well as solving problems and understanding measurements. This area looks at more than adding-up and taking-away. It also looks at the way children learn to do the things they want to do - particularly where the answer is not obvious. This involves thinking through possibilities. Children become aware of similarities and differences between things very early and this is a basis for understanding numbers and what they mean, later on.
Being creative is all about: having fun when you are drawing, making, sticking, colouring-in and using their imagination. This is not so much about art, music and dance, but about children doing new things that they invent for themselves. It's a part of children's development that's really helped by play.
Finding out is all about: a child’s knowledge and understanding of the world around them. It can include: exploring, investigating, designing, making, computers and ICT, noticing the living world around them, noticing cultures and beliefs, and events that happen to them. Children start learning, right from the moment of birth, if not sooner. It may not be that obvious at first, but babies accumulate knowledge at an astonishing rate - even if they're taking longer to do this than other children. Understanding what and why things are happening comes a bit later. This understanding is greatly helped by lots of talk about the world and events.
Physical development is all about: movement, awareness of their body, gaining a sense of space, understanding health, using a range of equipment – such as sports equipments. This area of learning looks on how children develop their ability to move their bodies, hands, feet and fingers then use their senses and movement to explore the world. You may hear people talk about fine motor skills or gross motor skills. These motor skills are simply actions that involve a person using their muscles – fine skills are small precise movements and gross skills are larger movements. Like any other skill, babies and children need to practice movements to get them right.
Feeling good is all about: a child creating a positive image of themselves and the people around them. It can include a child’s: attitude, emotional well-being, self-confidence, self-esteem, behaviour, self-control, and respect for others around them.
Reading and writing is about: how children begin to learn to read and write. It includes young children making marks, enjoying books, rhymes, songs and stories, linking sounds and letters, handwriting and reading. As we all know, the more children are shown their role-models reading and writing, (such as Dad enjoying a good book, or reading their bedtime story) the more they will join in and give it a try.
