Dear Parents/Carers
A warm welcome back to you all after the Christmas holidays. We hope you have enjoyed quality time with your families and are all refreshed and well. Hopefully your children have had time to relax and re-energise ready for the exciting and busy term ahead. We have lots of exciting challenges and fun learning planned for them.
During this term in the learning areas (both indoor and outside), we will begin by focussing on the themes of toys, buildings, materials, recycling, Polar regions, night and day, Space, dinosaurs, monsters, Winter, Spring and Easter The children’s own experiences and interests will then feed into new themes for the learning areas.
We will continue to develop our ‘Happy Minds’ through learning about our brains and how we can look after our minds to be our very best. They will meet the ‘Happy Minds’ team through songs, rhymes, role play and puppets, developing new vocabulary and knowledge to support their learning. They will focus on two topic areas ‘Appreciate and Relate’ and be able to recognise appreciation, gratitude and friendships in real life situations.
During the Autumn Term, a number of children enjoyed choosing their special book to keep after completing their ‘100 Reads’ challenge. We will be starting the reading challenge again this half term and encouraging children to read at least twice a day. Don’t forget to write comments in the reading planners!
In Mathematics, children will learn through stories and rhymes as well as role play and ‘real life’ problem solving activities to develop number and numerical patterns. During this term they will focus on developing mastery of numbers through various representations, comparison and composition of numbers. They will ‘grow’ numbers 6,7 and 8, ‘build’ numbers 9 and 10, and explore numbers to 20 and beyond, compare 3D shapes and explore measures through length, height and time activities. The children will be making links with the world around them all the time. Independence and skills will be developed through children selecting appropriate ‘hands on’ resources, drawings, pictures, writing to record and through photographs.
In Communication, Language and Literacy we will continue to develop our reading skills daily. This will be through learning our phonics, building up fluency when reading aloud and developing deeper comprehension skills. There will be opportunities in school to read individually, with a partner and in small groups. Children will be listening to different texts through our daily class stories, poems and non-fiction books we share which also link to other areas of the EYFS curriculum. Speaking and listening skills will be developed through interactions with adults and peers through role play, discovery boxes, new vocabulary and group question times. Reading will be developed through daily phonics activities following the progression in ‘EYFS Phonics Shed’, learning phonemes, graphemes, common and tricky words and spellings. Writing and gross and fine motor skills will be developed through our ‘Drawing Club’ and modelled examples of writing. This will be through using a range of tools and mark making equipment both in the indoor and outdoor learning environments.
We will continue to develop Understanding the world activities through a range of learning areas indoor and outside.
In Forest School we will be focussing on Winter to Spring to form a key part of learning about the natural world around us through the different seasons. Vocabulary development will extend their knowledge and understanding as well as engaging with visitors in school. Children will continue to explore and investigate our new learning areas, using their own senses in various ways, observing, identifying, describing, naming and comparing different objects. They will learn about staying safe when using computers and iPads. Activities in RE will include experiences and learning about ‘What is special about our world?’ and ‘Which people are special and why?’ to develop understanding of people, cultures and communities. Children will be able to reflect through sharing feelings, emotions, stories, gifts, food and role play activities.
Through Expressive Arts and Design they will continue to develop their own art ideas, through drawing, printing, painting, collage, sculpting and transient art – using various materials, colour, line, pattern, texture, shape, form and space. These will relate to topics including Winter and Spring as well as their own interests. Through music, they will be focussing on developing skills through themes including ‘Bird spotting’ ‘Shake my sillies out’, ‘Up and down’ and ‘ Five fine bumble bees’, as well as learning Winter, Spring and Easter themed songs. They will be using voices expressively and creatively singing songs, chants and rhymes and will listen to a range of music to develop their concentration and understanding. They will explore different music through the PE curriculum when dancing.
Through PE and EYFS ‘Physical development’, children will continue to practise and develop fine motor skills using various mark making equipment and tools and in ‘Drawing Club’. Gross motor skills are developed during PE sessions and during activities in the outdoor areas and at Forest School where we will investigate the environment around us. We will explore multi skills, building up stamina running, jumping, throwing, catching and team work. Through gymnastics, we will master different movement patterns and develop balance, agility and coordination and in dance, we will perform different movement patterns and sequences.
Reminders
- Book bags come in to school and go home every day.
- Water bottles come in to school and go home every day.
- PE is on a Friday (wear outdoor PE kits)
- Please provide a pair of shorts in your child’s book bag to change into for indoor PE activities during this term.
- Forest School is on a Tuesday and will start on the 28th January for EYFS and Year 1 children. Come to school wearing Forest School clothes and trainers to suit the weather. Bring wellie boots in a separate bag to change into. (When Forest School is not on, we will be exploring the outdoor area in the school grounds so the same clothing applies).
We are really looking forward to learning new things together this term and creating new learning areas!
Mrs Hainsworth, Mrs Jackson and Mrs Guyll