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Early Years Foundation Stage

Hello and welcome to Reception’s page. We use this area to communicate and celebrate our learning with parents and families!

Our Spring Term Learning

Personal, Social and Emotional Development – Self-Regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships

Our focuses this term:

– Considering others feelings

– Identifying and moderating feelings

– Health and wellbeing

In our key person and circle times we are reflecting on our interactions with each other while playing in the classroom and talking about how we can ensure our interactions are positive. We are also considering our friends feelings and how everyone’s emotions may be different in different situations. We are also talking about strategies that help us regulate our emotions.

As part of Children’s Mental Health Day, we focused on how we all have a voice and how it is important to share our thoughts and feelings.

Our HRSE topics:

Personal Relationships – Children will expand their vocabulary by applying names to different family/friend relationships, consider positive/negative behaviour in relationships and learn to look to Jesus as their role model for a good friend. Children will learn to resolve conflict and the importance of asking for forgiveness: that when we hurt others, we also hurt Jesus – but that Jesus teaches us how to forgive ourselves and others.

Life Online – Freddy Teddy learns to use a new device, serving as an introduction for children to the internet and how we use it. This draws on both positives and negatives of internet use, moving into children learning some basic rules to help them stay safe online.

 

Communication and Language – Listening, Attention and Understanding, and Speaking

Our focuses this term:

– Describing events in their own life with detail

– Answering questions, including ‘why’ questions

– Extending sentences using connectives

This term we are continuing to practice our speaking and listening skills. We are learning how to talk and listen to our peers on the carpet whilst using partner talk.

We are also starting Chatterboxes – This is an opportunity for the children to bring in some special items from home, which they can show to their peers. This will help the children their listening and questioning skills, as they will be given the opportunity to ask their peers questions about items in their box.

 

Physical Development – Gross and Fine Motor Skills

Our focuses this term:

– Combing different movements with ease and fluency

– Developing movement control and grace

In PE we are continuing to develop our fundamental movement skills: hopping, throwing, catching, jumping and running. This half term we enjoying our Gymnastics unit, which is being led by a member of Preston North End. The children are loving the unit!

We are enjoying our morning busy fingers activities focusing on pencil control, making patterns and letter and number formation. In continuous provision children have the opportunity to practise using a range of tools, including scissors for cutting.

Our new outdoor space is being enjoyed by all the children and they are loving creating new games involving throwing, catching and running!

Literacy – Comprehension, Word Reading and Writing

Our focuses this term:

– Learning new vocabulary and using it in daily life

– Asking questions

– Engaging in non-fiction books

– Reading simple phrases and sentences

-Re reading for fluency

– Spell words

– Lowercase and capital letter formation

– Captions and short sentences

-Read letter groups

-Phase 3 phonics

Last half term, the children enjoyed looking at stories from other cultures; Handa’s Surprise, The Ugly Five and Mama Panya’s Pancakes. We explored the different cultures within the stories and thought about how they are different and similar to ours. We explored the books; looking at vocabulary, creating story maps, innovating the stories and exploring the characters emotions.

We are now enjoying our learning of Traditional Tales, with a focus on The Three Little Pigs, The Gingerbread Man, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Little Red Hen and Jack and the Beanstalk. We are enjoying the repetition in the books, the various characters and settings, and retelling with our friends using masks and costumes.

We are continuing through our ELS Phonics scheme, focusing on Phase 3 sounds, blending to read and segmenting to spell. In writing, we are encouraging the children to use their phonics knowledge to segment words and write the sounds to make simple captions and sentences. We are also encouraging the children to form their letters correctly, write on the line, and use finger spaces. We have been talking about capital letter and full stops when writing a sentence.

 

Mathematics – Number and Numerical Patterns

Our focuses this term:

– Introducing zero

-Comparing numbers to 5

– Composition of 4 and 5

-Comparing mass and capacity

– Comparing and composition of 6, 7 and 8

-Comparing numbers to 10

– Bonds to 10

-3D shape

-Pattern

The children are gaining a solid understanding of number through our learning using White Rose Maths. They are showing a good understanding of numbers up to 8 and are practising subitising, comparing, more, less, grouping and combining with these numbers. They are also enjoying comparing lengths, heights, capacity and mass.

The children are enjoying their weekly independent maths challenge and are very proud of themselves when they complete it!

Expressive Art and Design – Creating with Materials and Being Imaginative and Expressive.

– Experimenting with colour – variety of paints, tones, warm/cold colours, mixing.

– Large scale painting

– Artists: Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Picasso

– DT – Making pancakes

– Experimenting with a variety of malleable materials.

– Creating a Boggart using clay outdoors – linked to trolls and giants from Fairy Tale stories

– DT – Making gingerbread people

In Art, the children have been looking at the work of Kandinsky. They have been learning how to mix colours and exploring cold and warm colours. They have created their own Kandinsky inspired piece of artwork, by creating warm and cold tones and painting circles.

We are now focusing on trolls and giants from the Traditional Tales stories and creating their own ‘Boggart’ using clay and natural materials. The children are enjoying adding warts, bristles, bulbous noses and pointy ears to their creations.

We are looking forward to designing and baking our gingerbread people!

Music – Sparkyard

MUSICAL PATTERNS AND PERFORMING

Music is full of patterns! This term begins with activities designed to get children recognizing musical patterns in songs and music. They will add actions to match song lyrics, play listening games to develop recall of sound sequences, and have fun exploring music-and-movement patterns through songs such as The Mouse and the Giant.

The children will develop their recognition of classroom percussion instruments, using them to play simple accompaniments and simple rhythm patterns. They will also begin to explore ways to change sounds and create simple patterns, e.g. playing loudly, quietly, slowly or quickly.

 

Understanding of the World – Past and Present, People, Culture and Communities, and The Natural World

Our focuses this term:

– Winter – Understanding the effect of changing seasons – interacting with natural processes

– Similarities and differences between life in this country and other countries

-Compare and contrast characters from stories, story focus: Dogger

– Easter – celebrating special times in different ways

– Spring

– Looking back – lives from birth to present. Changes to ourselves, interests, our families and the world around us.

– Science experiments

Last half term we explored the season of winter. We enjoyed being outdoors in the ice and snow, and looking for the signs of winter.

As part of our ‘All Around the World’ we looked at different countries from around the world and compared them to ours. We also be learnt about the cultures we have within our own classroom.

Our topic ‘Looking Back’ has focused on the story Dogger and now the children are looking at their own past, their changes over time and their ‘firsts’ as a baby and toddler.

 

Computing

IT – Music Creation

CS – Unplugged – Cooking Barefoot Computing

 

RE

Branch 3: Galilee to Jerusalem

-The wise men visit Jesus

-Jesus welcomes the little children

-Jesus blesses the little children

-Show love to everyone like Jesus

The children have enjoyed learning about how Jesus loves everyone and how we should show love to everyone too. We have been thinking of ways we can help others in our local and global communities, and created a food box to donate to our local food bank.

Branch 4: Desert to garden

– Lent and Holy week

-The Easter story

We are learning about the period of Lent, which will lead us to our Easter topic.

 

Our EYFS Curriculum

Yearly Curriculum Overview 23 24

 

Early Reading

Here are a couple of videos from Oxford Owl that give you advice on how to support your child at home with phonics and reading.

How to say the phonics sounds:

https://youtu.be/UCI2mu7URBc

 

How to blend sounds to read words:

https://youtu.be/vqvqMtSNswo

 

Here is a link to the new Development Matters, which we use to aid our planning and assessment in the EYFS.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/development-matters–2

 

INDUCTION INFORMATION

Here are some useful links to be looking at:-

Getting ready to start school – Lancashire County Council

Hungry Little Minds – Simple fun, activities for kids aged 0 – 5 (campaign.gov.uk)

Words for Life | National Literacy Trust | Words for Life

Activities for babies, toddlers and children – BBC Tiny Happy People

EYFS_Parents_Guide-amended.pdf (foundationyears.org.uk)

 

Story time with Miss Forbes and Mrs Carlton.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1UC6Z27AMjKAoFh92FO6y7v9K1f1TJYAF

 

**These are large files and may take a few minutes to download **