Books by Dr Alistair Bryce-Clegg

The 50 Fantastic Ideas series is packed full of fun, original, skills-based activities for Early Years practitioners to use with children aged 0-5. Each activity features step-by-step guidance, a list of resources, and a detailed explanation of the skills children will learn. Creative, simple, and highly effective, this series is a must-have for every Early Years setting.Important dates and occasions are often marked with a variety of celebrations and festivals. These occasions are also important markers for children in the passing of time and repeated experience. In Early Years education the best time to talk about a celebration or festival is often after it has occurred rather than before it happens.This is because many young children don't have a strong memory or understanding of something that occurred a year ago. So the closer they are to the experience, the richer their learning can be.In this colourful new book by Alistair Bryce-Clegg there are activities that cover:ChristmasDiwaliEasterHanukkahChinese New YearHalloweenBonfire NightEach activity encourages the children to learn about a particular celebration or festival and also to acquire new skills or techniques. Each of these skills and techniques can be taught on their own, or linked to other activity ideas that you (or the children) might have. The list of celebrations and festivals that are covered is by no means exhaustive, but the activities are flexible enough to allow practitioners to keep their core content and apply a different theme.They are limited only by your imagination.!

This book builds upon Alistair Bryce-Clegg's previous title Continuous Provision in the Early Years. Continuous Provision: The Skills is designed to show practitioners what effective continuous provision should look like and how practitioners can link their provision directly to assessment. It has an emphasis on skill-based learning. Alistair Bryce-Clegg shows the difference between 'pure skills', skills related to specific areas of continuous provision like sand, water and role play, and 'facilitative skills' that children can experience throughout a setting, in many different areas and activities. This book looks at all areas of continuous provision with a view to helping practitioners to identify, assess and teach different 'pure' and 'facilitative' skills.The other essential element for really good continuous provision is a measure of open-ended experience, to allow children to use their own creativity and curiosity to interpret and use what they see around them. This book provides plenty of suggestions to make activities interesting and engaging for children, to encourage them to challenge themselves and learn new skills.

The 50 Fantastic Things series is a no nonsense, ideas bank ...no frills, just 50 examples of great ideas already in practice! Ideal for the busy practitioner they offer a 'dip in' approach to accessing ideas that they may not have thought of. Simple inspiring ideas is just what they need to reignite their enthusiasm.

The 50 Fantastic Things series is a no nonsense, ideas bank ...no frills, just 50 examples of great ideas already in practice! Ideal for the busy practitioner they offer a 'dip in' approach to accessing ideas that they may not have thought of. Simple inspiring ideas is just what they need to reignite their enthusiasm.

From bestselling author Alistair Bryce-Clegg comes a book that shows adults working with children the huge impact that quality talk experiences can have on children's lifelong attainment.Young children are fascinated by the world around them. They have high levels of natural curiosity and a compelling desire to explore and experience EVERYTHING! As children develop the skills of language and communication it is talk that helps children to make sense of those experiences by asking questions and talking about their thoughts. Talk not only plays a pivotal role in helping children to understand the world around them, it also enables them to learn how to make sense of the role that they play within in it. After all, talk is just the thoughts that you have in your head coming out of your mouth. If you haven't got many thoughts in your head then you won't have much to talk about. Alternatively, if you don't have very much experience of language and talk, you will not be able to express your thoughts. Our role as practitioners is to create a wealth of learning opportunities and experiences that will fill children's heads with thoughts and questions and then support them in acquiring the language to be able to communicate those thoughts to make sense of their world and be understood.

Is it time we stopped seeing boys as losers, with later development and a consequent certainty of failing in the current curriculum? This book will explore what boys are good at, and how we can help them to become more resilient and successful at school and in their future lives.

The author, Alistair Bryce-Clegg is known for his original and creative ideas and witty and accessible writing style, and this book does not disappoint! It is filled with brilliant ideas and practical approaches to use as an early years practitioner, including advice for planning sessions, setting up an engaging environment matched to children''s interests and how to encourage and develop outdoor learning. There is also a big focus on child-led learning and help on creating the best environment for all young learners.This book is a must for all early years practitioners and early years school teachers eager to ensure their practice is the best it can be for all of the children in their care.

This lively book will guide you in planning, stimulating and organising role play inside and out. Part 1 discussed why role play is important. Part 2 presents activities suitable for a range of role play situations. There are ideas for materials, equipment and locations, including advice on making the most of limited resources.

Based on the fundamental truth that, you can have the best provision and the best resources in the world but if you have not got the engagement of the children that you are working with then the potential for high level learning is minimum to none.

The 50 Fantastic Ideas series is packed full of fun, original, skills-based activities for Early Years practitioners to use with children aged 0-5. Each activity features step-by-step guidance, a list of resources, and a detailed explanation of the skills children will learn. Creative, simple, and highly effective, this series is a must-have for every Early Years setting.Children are naturally drawn to making marks. Long before they pick up a pencil or a paintbrush, they will experiment with making marks using hands, fingers, feet etc. as well as various found objects that they come across in day-to-day life. For children to become really confident and secure mark makers we need to provide them with lots of different opportunities with a variety of exciting mark making resources in many different contexts. Alistair Bryce-Clegg has collected together a whole host of ideas for different mark making utensils, as well as exploring numerous substances and surfaces that children can make marks on. Some of the ideas will support children to create their own 'masterpieces' while others will encourage them to make marks with other children in a group. As with all Alistair's ideas, 'engaging children' comes top of his list as when children are engaged they make the biggest steps forward on the road to writing and have the most fun!

_______________ The 50 Fantastic Ideas series is packed full of fun, original, skills-based activities for Early Years practitioners to use with children aged 0-5. Each activity features step-by-step guidance, a list of resources, and a detailed explanation of the skills children will learn. Creative, simple, and highly effective, this series is a must-have for every Early Years setting.Outdoors is a great space to enhance and extend children's learning. There are lots of children who have a natural affinity with the outdoors and use it as their preferred learning space. As adults supporting children's learning, it is important to support the investigation of their outdoor environment, but also that learning is taken into those spaces and delivered to children in the most engaging way that it can be. What you can (almost) always guarantee is children's enthusiasm to take their learning outdoors, what you can't always guarantee is the weather!In 50 Fantastic Ideas for Outdoor All Year Round Alistair has created 50 ideas that will get children and practitioners outside and learning come rain, snow, wind or sunshine! All of the activities have got their own central skill that can then be adapted to fit the interests of the children or each setting's own particular outdoor environment.So, whether your setting's outdoor space is a back garden, a small yard or large playground there will be activities that can be used and that will inspire young learners.