Things to do at home: 5-7 years
Nottinghamshire is a great place to bring up your family, where children can get the best possible start in life.
The information below shows all the services available for parents and carers with children, from five years old to seven years old, to help you get the support you need.
Activities and support for young children
There are lots of different activities you can try with your child, now they are older, with some funded places available. Extra support is also available, for children who need it, some of which requires a referral.
- Little Adventurers Forest School
- Speech and language therapy
- Little Talkers
- Words for Life
- Festival of Science and Curiosity
- Bird Seed Ornaments
- Bug Hotel
- Den Building
- Forest School - Dream Catcher, Pine Cone Spider, Leaf and Bark Rubbings
- Forest School - Mud Dough
- Forest School- Natural Mobile
- Forest School- Natural Paint Brush
- Listening walk
- Nature Crowns or Bracelets Nature Walk Activity
- Nature ice
- Sticky Crowns
- Orange Bird Feeder
- Cone Pine Bird Feeder
- Wand Making
- Outdoor play at the Park
- Butterfly Feeder
- Creating Creatures
- Mud Kitchen
- Outdoor Summer Scavenger Hunt
- Autumn Tree Treasure Hunt
- Fruits and seeds spotter
- Summer Petal Pictures
- Creating a jigsaw
- Make a 3D Butterfly
- Make your own mini-beast
- Make your own Rainbow
- Making Shakers
- Making a scrap book
- Matching up, cutting and sticking
- Playdough
- Rice Crispy Cakes & playing shops
- Box modelling & indoor treasure hunt
- Cardboard Tube Shakers
- Bottle Top Castanets
- Banana Pancakes
- Ice Play
- Bubble Painting
- Marble Heart Card
- Caterpillar potato masher painting
- Hand print a tulip card
- Secret Letter Activity
- Rainbow streamers
- Bubble Recipe
- Ice Laterns - Woodland Trust Nature Detectives
- Christmas Salt Dough
- Low Cost No Cost Christmas Activities
- Plastic Bottle Christmas Tree
- Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer - Sing and Sign
- Stick the Nose on Rudolph
- Cotton wool Snowman and hot choc
- Decorating your Christmas tree and Reindeers footprints
Fun Family Activity Ideas
Find a range of suggested activities by theme you can do as a family in the
Home Learning Resources
We have out together a range of home learning resources in the
Preparing for school
Parents need to complete a school entry health needs assessment on behalf of their child, to identify anyone who needs extra support. This also offers advice on lifestyles, to keep your child healthy.
The primary school starting age is between 4-5. Assuming your child is starting in the September after they turn four, you’ll need to apply by January that year. The dates change slightly each year but the deadline for applications is usually early to mid-January.
Apply for a school place
Communicating with your child
Language for Life provides advice for everyone in Nottinghamshire, to help children learn to talk and communicate.
Find out more about Language for Life
Booktrust Home Time for 6 year olds and over:
Looking for something fun as a family? Enjoy storytime with free online books and videos, play games, win prizes, test your knowledge in our book-themed quizzes, or even learn how to draw some of your favourite characters.
Please note: This site sometimes links to third party sites, including YouTube, so children should not use HomeTime unsupervised.
Visit Home Time for 6 year olds and over
Words for Life by the National Literacy Trust
Provides parents, children and young people with activities and support to improve their language, literacy and communication skills from home. With age suitable activities to encourage chat, play, read, watch, listen, write and make.
Visit Words for Life for 5-8 years
Talking to your child about culture
As your child grows up they may have questions about their own heritage, culture or that of their friends. Family Lives has lots of helpful tips and advice on staying culturally connected.
Small Steps: challenging behaviour in children
Small Steps provides support for families with children who may have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), or behaviour indicative of these conditions
Notts Help Yourself
Notts Help Yourself is a great place to help you find information about a whole range of organisations and services, including:
- activities, groups and events in your local community
- childcare providers
- support for children and young people aged 0 – 25 with a special educational need and / or a disability
- health and social care information and support for adults and children
- workplace health schemes.
Community groups in your area can support your child through play, development and learning. You can take part in local parent and toddler groups, swimming groups, informal parenting groups, and messy play.
Inspire Libraries
Our Inspire libraries offer a range of activities for parents and children, including rhyme times, singing, storytelling, reading challenges, and more. Our libraries also offer a wide range of books to delight, inspire and encourage a love of reading and learning in children.
Activities and events run throughout the year to promote reading, and children of any age are welcome. It’s free to join the library and borrow books.
Inspire libraries: children and families
- Summer Reading Challenge
The Reading Agency produces a summer reading challenge for children aged 4-11 which is run in libraries all over the county. Children read six library books of their choice over the summer holidays, and can collect special stickers and other rewards.
Mental health, domestic abuse, substance misuse, support and advice
Information and advice for parents of all ages from babies to young adults.
If you're worried about your child's behaviour or mental health and not sure what's normal ? Or wondering whether to see your GP? Or you've been referred to specialist services but there is a long wait ..... or perhaps you've been told the problem isn't quite serious enough to be referred. Then this website can provide you with some support, visit the page for parents of primary school children:
www.happymaps.co.uk/primaryschool
Relationships
Disagreements and arguments are a natural part of relationships, for help take a look at: Nottshelpyourself | Relationships Really Matter:
Free online course available:Nottshelpyourself | Relationships Really Matter: 2. Things to Do
People living with domestic abuse
For many women pregnancy is a time of happiness and anticipation, but pregnancy can also be a risk factor for domestic abuse. One in four women experiences domestic abuse or domestic violence at some point in their lives, this may be physical, sexual, emotional or psychological abuse. For more information see: NHS Domestic abuse in pregnancy.
For local nformation across Nottinghamshire see: Domestic abuse and sexual violence support | Nottinghamshire County Council
Home Start
Home-Start is a local community network of trained volunteers and expert support helping families with young children through challenging times.
https://www.home-start.org.uk/contact
Substance misuse
Alcohol and drugs misuse: help and support
Autism East Midlands
AEM offers support and information for families and individuals, play and leisure services, outreach, and training for parents and carers
Children with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)
The Local SEND offer brings together useful information across education, health and social care within one website, for children with special educational needs and disability
- Local SEND offer
- Support for children with SEND in the community
- Schools and families specialist services
TailfeatherTV You tube channel for SEN Early Years Children
It has been co-written and is presented by young adults with learning disabilities especially for babies, toddlers and young children.
TailfeatherTV episodes each have a different theme and are presented in an App-Style format.
Viewers are taken into the 'main screen' to meet 5 lovable characters who represent a different fun area for children to explore:
Dance, Sing, Sign, Learn, and Play....
Co-written and presented by brilliantly talented young adults with learning disabilities including dancer, Andrew Self (The Greatest Dancer 2019, Mencap Boogie-thon 2020, BBC Breakfast 2020, BBC Radio2 Michael Ball Show 2020), TailfeatherTV is UNIQUE and paves the way for inclusion and diversity in broadcasting
The TailfeatherTV team hope to engage, excite and inspire young minds
Click Here for to start watching our episodes