As special events like Father's Day come around each year, many settings will use the opportunity to promote crafts, stories and teaching around the special day. This makes sense of course, particularly in terms of the 'understanding the world' specific area of the EYFS. Settings will also be familiar with making sure all children feel included in celebrations like this, particularly in recognising that not all families look the same, with different people making up different families. Using special family days to promote diversity and explore our similarities and differences is a great way to work with this. In this post we'll be sharing our favourite ways to explore family dynamics with young children.

Small world play and role play

A simple family themed tuff spot is a brilliant way to explore the way each family looks, recognising the different roles different members play. Children might like to explore how fathers or father figures take care of them, if they have them, as well as imagining their own household and exploring how this varies from child to child. We have a lovely range of small world figures to help with this. The more neutral multicultural peg families provide a blank canvas for children to explore with, representing varied skin tones without facial features. If you're looking for more ready-created figures, our wooden real-life families provide wooden backed photo images, while our diversity families pack offers ready to go play.

Children will almost always naturally explore family dynamics when offered a well planned 'home corner' role play to engage with. This requires little input from you - though perhaps adding special ornaments, photographs or features children in your cohort are familiar with may help them act out their own family set-ups with their peers. Providing images of what different families might look like may also help children consider that different family set-ups exist other than their own, such as split households, joint households, opposite and single sex families, blended and adoptive families, and extended families living together.

Inclusive storytelling

As any EYFS practitioner will tell you, storytelling is one of the best ways to explore new worlds and learn about the lives of others. It's important to share books about fathers on father's day, but why not explore the make up of other families, too? The Book Trust have a lovely selection of recommended books about fathers with varying family dynamics covered. Another lovely article on The Book Trust shares a selection of picture books which explore the diversity of family life.

Real life family photos

Another great way to explore the diversity of family life and celebrate father figures is by asking your cohort to bring in their own photos of their families. These might work well for a circle time session in small groups or whole class. Children may like to share with their peers a little about their family, talking in a small group, pairs, or even in front of the class. You could share these on a display, too, or as we said above, in your role play area, to explore how all families look different!

Family visits

Finally, an activity you might consider is inviting family members into your setting or class to learn about what their family dynamic is. You might have a specific 'father's and father figures tea party' where your children bring in their families for a social session, or you might have family members come to be part of circle time. A grandfather, for example, might come to visit the class and talk about his childhood and his father, an uncle or father might visit, or a single parent family may like to visit and discuss what their dynamic feels like, if they feel comfortable doing so. Naturally these ideas will work for some cohorts and not others - so always follow your intuition on what will work with yours.

Enjoy!

We hope these ideas offer a little inspiration in celebrating Father's Day while remaining as inclusive as possible to all children. We would love to see what you get up to, so make sure to tag us at @cosydirect on social media.