Clicker and Early Years - term by term
Table of contents
Recently, I met with the headteacher of a school that is using Clicker really well, and their next goal is to implement Clicker within their Early Years classrooms. This led to a great conversation about how you might use Clicker at different points in the year. As we know, children make huge progress throughout their time in EYFS!
Prior to working at Crick, I taught across EYFS and Year 1 for ten years, so I’m always thinking of different ways to utilise Clicker with younger learners. Every child and every setting is different, and there are so many different ways you might use Clicker throughout the year, but I’ve collated a few examples of ways Clicker might be helpful term by term in an EYFS classroom.
Autumn term
Settling in
Starting school can be daunting for lots of children, and EYFS staff are masters at easing that transition. There are so many new routines, rules, expectations, and names for children to learn when they start school, so how can Clicker support this transition?
In the School category on LearningGrids, there is a bank of great resources you can use to support children across the autumn term. These work perfectly on your interactive whiteboard if you want to share them as part of a whole-class activity. Alternatively, you can access them on individual devices if you’re supporting smaller groups or specific children.
You can use a Clicker Board to reinforce your classroom expectations, plan out your day, or encourage self-registration.
Reinforcement is key in the early days of starting school, so you can easily save or print your resources to revisit across the week.
I also recommend visiting the Feelings & Actions category. This is helpful at any point in the school year, but especially during the first term!
Use the writing grids to help children express their emotions and prompt discussion around their feelings. All these resources are speech-supported, so children can listen to any vocabulary read aloud.
One of my favourite things about Clicker’s ready-made resources is that there are also linked Clicker Books and Talk Sets, making it easy to plan a series of activities and support children in lots of different ways!
Phonics
Phonics resources are helpful at every stage of a child’s EYFS journey, and there are lots of amazing ways to use Clicker to support children with their phonics skills. These resources can be introduced in the autumn term, helping children to grow in confidence and independence when accessing them throughout the year.
The ready-made phonics resources are also grouped into cumulative letter groups, so the activities grow with your pupils as they develop their phonics skills
In the autumn term, children can explore from SATPIN and beyond using decodable books, Talk Sets, and simple writing activities.
From experience, I know that you’ll probably have many phonics activities you cycle between, websites you favour and schemes that you follow, but it’s always handy to have another great resource to throw into the mix!
These resources are perfect for consolidating new skills, rehearsing letter sounds and practising blending and segmenting skills.
Top tip: I’ve hosted a webinar on Clicker and phonics if you’re interested in finding out more!
Sentence structure
In any EYFS classroom, you’ll have a huge range of abilities and confidence when it comes to writing. For pupils who are ready, you can use a Sentence Set to support with modelling sentence construction. These simple writing grids enable children to build a sentence word by word. They are great for modelling writing left-to-right directionality, discussing finger spaces, and prompting children to use a full stop.
Children simply need to click words to add them to the Document and finish their sentence using the punctuation offered in the grid. When you add a full stop in Clicker, your sentence is automatically read back to you. This reinforces the value of adding a full stop, and children quickly learn that if they haven’t heard their sentence read back to them, they’re missing the punctuation!
This speech feedback is also an accessible way for children to check if their sentence makes sense. My teaching experience is all with younger children, so I know it can be difficult for children to read their own work back for lots of different reasons; Clicker’s speech feedback is a great way to give children some independence over proofreading their work.
Of course, not all children will be ready for this style of activity. So, I love the idea of doing this as a whole class with a resource displayed on your interactive whiteboard. This allows you to do some modelling first, perhaps deliberately making a mistake in your sentence, and encouraging children to be the teacher and correct the mistake.
You could also print, cut and laminate these resources for a practical sentence construction activity where children can physically move the words around.
Resource recommendations
Alongside transition activities and phonics resources, I really believe that many of Clicker’s resources add value to your classroom from day one. Clicker Books and Talk Sets are simple for children to use and work across a whole range of subjects and topics.
Some areas I recommend checking out on LearningGrids in the autumn term are:
- Collections - In this section, you’ll find resources for lots of the celebrations you’re likely to be exploring and setting up continuous provision for. For example, Halloween, Bonfire Night and Christmas.
- Nursery Rhymes & Songs - We have lots of brilliant resources linked to nursery rhymes. These are perfect for carpet times, early phonics skills, and intervention groups.
Spring term
By spring, many pupils will have found their feet in the classroom and be growing in confidence. You’ll be planning lots of meaningful opportunities for children to write and be working on encouraging their independence.
The phonics resources and Sentence Sets I mentioned previously are still applicable in the spring term. However, you may be looking at introducing some different elements of Clicker or writing for different purposes.
Create your own books
One of my favourite ways to evidence children’s learning is by creating your own Clicker Books. This allows staff or children to create their own speech-supported books using audio notes, text, images and even video.
Your more confident writers can use the keyboard to get their ideas down. Learners who prefer dictation can use the Voice Note tool to record themselves talking through their ideas. This would work really well for exploring a topic you’re covering in class, retelling a story, or anything else children want to evidence!
You can add pictures and videos in the moment using the webcam on your device, providing an instant stimulus for writing. In my experience, children are much more enthusiastic when writing about real-life experiences and things they’re interested in.
This is a really flexible activity, so you could have some children retelling a story in their book and others talking about their trip to the park at the weekend or describing how they created a model in the construction area.
Connect Sets
For those children who have become confident with using Sentence Sets, why not introduce a Connect Set! This is still a scaffolded writing frame, but it includes more words and phrases to choose from.
Connect Sets function similarly to Sentence Sets, but children have more autonomy over the ultimate outcome of their sentence. This is a great way to encourage children to think carefully over their vocabulary choices, whilst still paying attention to the structure of their sentence and adding in that full stop at the end.
You can add picture support to our resources too, further increasing children’s independence and increasing their understanding of new vocabulary.
Resource recommendations
Matching Sets would be my go-to activity throughout the year in Early Years. They really lend themselves to working on an interactive whiteboard, and children can access them independently within continuous provision.
Some LearningGrids resources I would use in the spring term include:
- Traditional Stories - These are a staple in an Early Years classroom! There are some brilliant resources to support children with reading, writing, and speaking and listening.
- Maths - I am always recommending the maths resources from LearningGrids. There are so many great activities for a range of different maths topics. I particularly like the shapes resources!
- Decodable stories - These Clicker Books are perfect for encouraging independent reading within the classroom.
Summer term
Before you know it, the summer term rolls around and you’re marvelling at the progress children have made across the year! You’ll be giving your pupils that final push with getting ready for Year 1, as well as fitting in all the fun activities that the summer term brings.
Top tip: we have a great blog post on supporting the transition from Reception to Year 1 with Clicker!
Preparing for year 1
In the summer term, I would still be using all the resources I mentioned previously. That’s one of the amazing things about Clicker: it’s perfect for supporting adaptive teaching and ensuring each child has a resource with the appropriate level of scaffolding.
Word Banks are a great way to support your more independent learners with spelling and vocabulary choices. They are an on-screen, speech-supported version of the vocabulary mats I know you’ll probably have printed around your classroom. They’re perfect for children who are confident with writing sentences independently but need encouragement to use more adventurous vocabulary.
You can also add picture support to Word Banks and print them out if you want to include physical copies to support writing in different areas of your classroom.
There are also some lovely resources to encourage children to think about their year in Reception and what they want to achieve in their new class.
This Looking Back, Looking Ahead Clicker Board would prompt some thoughtful discussion with your pupils. It would work nicely on your interactive whiteboard as part of a whole-class session or circle time. Children could fill it in independently, or you could print it and encourage children to write or draw their memories in.
Finally, I’m sure many of you will be off on a school trip in the summer term. The Outings section in LearningGrids is full of activities to support pupils with writing a recount of a trip!
You could also create your own Talk Set for children who will feel more confident verbally recounting their adventure.
Resource recommendations
- Summer - This collection of resources has some summer-specific activities that are fantastic for consolidating a whole range of skills.
- Clicker Friends and Planet Wobble - These Clicker Books are another brilliant reading option. They are similar to reading scheme books you’ll be using in school.
- About Me - There are some lovely activities to support children with writing about themselves, great for introducing themselves to their new teacher.
Summary
This was just a few ways you can use Clicker at different points of the school year. There are so many other resources and activities you could use. I also appreciate that every child and classroom is different, so any of these resources may be useful at different points of the year, depending on the children you’re supporting.
My number one top tip for anyone using Clicker is to spend some time looking through LearningGrids and utilise the ready-made resources. This will allow you to get a feel for the resources on offer and how you might use them throughout the year. Once you’re confident with the ready-made resources, you can use our tutorials to learn how to create your own!
I have written lots of other EYFS and Clicker-specific blog posts, check them out below:
