This year you are lucky enough to have two different teachers within your class. Mrs Harbidge will be your teacher Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Mrs Westwell will be your teacher Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. 

You are also lucky enough to have one teaching assistant full time in Pre-school, Miss Davies, Miss Walton who is in Pre-school Monday and Tuesday and Miss Jones who also supports in Pre-school during the afternoon. 

Stretch and grow will take place on a Monday afternoon and a Friday morning. Please send your children in comfy active clothes so that they can join in! 

It is important that your child builds up a love of books and reading for pleasure! 

Reading to your child every night is so important to help to develop their communication and language skills. This is also a precious time for you to share with your child. 

In school, we also share stories daily and base some of our learning around a chosen key text. We focus on orally re-telling the stories, adding actions and making marks to represent the characters and key parts. 

Story bags will be given out to your child when they are a focus child for that week. This includes a book for you to share and enjoy with your child, as well as some other resources. Please look after the resources within the bag and return it on the Monday ready to be sent home with another child. 

Our summer topic is: Look up, look down, what's all around? 

Within this topic the children will be learning all about the world around them. They will be hunting for minibeasts, experimenting with water, planting, exploring the natural world around them using all of their senses. 

Our key text's are:

• Jasper's beanstalk for Summer 1
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar for Summer 2. 

Our Personal, Social and Emotional focus for this term will be...

•  Notice and ask questions about differences, such as skin colour, types of hair, gender, special needs and disabilities, and so on.

• Play with one or more other children, extending and elaborating play ideas.

• Be increasingly independent in meeting their own care needs, e.g. brushing teeth, using the toilet, washing and drying their hands thoroughly.

• Make healthy choices about food, drink, activity and toothbrushing.

Our Communication and Language focus for this term will be...

•  Listen to simple stories and understand what is happening, with the help of the picture.

• Understand simple questions about ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘where’ (but generally not ‘why’)

• Understands simple questions about 'who', 'what' and 'where' (but not always 'why'

• Enjoy listening to longer stories and can remember much of what happens. 

• Understand ‘why’ questions, like: “Why do you think the caterpillar got so fat?”

• Know many rhymes, be able to talk about familiar books, and be able to tell a long story.

• Use longer sentences of four to six words.

Our Physical Development focus for this term will be... 

• Uses large and small motor skills to do things independently, e.g. manages buttons and zips, and pours drinks

• Use large-muscle movements to wave flags and streamers, paint and make marks.

• Use one-handed tools and equipment, for example, making snips in paper with scissors

• Use a comfortable grip with good control when holding pens and pencils

• Be increasingly independent as they get dressed and undressed, for example, putting coats on and doing up zips

Our Literacy focus for this term will be...

•  Enjoy drawing freely. • Add some marks to their drawings, which they give meaning to. For example: “That says mummy.”

• Make marks on their picture to stand for their name.

• Adds some marks to his/her drawings, which he/she gives meaning to, e.g. "That says mummy.

• Makes marks on his/her pictures to stand for his/her name.

• Engage in extended conversations about stories, learning new vocabulary.

• Understand the five key concepts about print: - print has meaning - print can have different purposes - we read English text from left to right and from top to bottom - the names of the different parts of a book - page sequencing 

• Develop their phonological awareness, so that they can: - spot and suggest rhymes - count or clap syllables in a word - recognise words with the same initial sound, such as money and mother

Our Maths focus for this term will be...

•  Compare sizes, weights etc. using gesture and language - ‘bigger/ little/smaller’, ‘high/low’, ‘tall’, ‘heavy’.

• Is able to compare sizes, weights etc. using gesture and language, such as; 'bigger/little/smaller', 'high/low', 'tall', 'heavy'

• Notices patterns and arranges things in patterns.

• Say one number for each item in order: 1,2,3,4,5

• Link numerals and amounts: for example, showing the right number of objects to match the numeral, up to 5.

• Make comparisons between objects relating to size, length, weight and capacity.

• Knows all about and identifies the patterns around them. For example: stripes on clothes, designs on rugs and wallpaper. Use informal language like ‘pointy’, ‘spotty’, ‘blobs’ etc.

Our Understanding the world focus for this term will be...

• Explore natural materials, indoors and outside.

• Notices differences between people.

• Use all their senses in hands-on exploration of natural materials. 

• Explore collections of materials with similar and/or different properties. 

• Talk about what they see, using a wide vocabulary

Our Expressive, Arts and Design focus for this term will be... 

• Express ideas and feelings through making marks, and sometimes give a meaning to the marks they make.

• Uses his/her imagination as he/she considers what he/she can do with different materials.

• Explore different materials freely, to develop their ideas about how to use them and what to make. 

• Develop their own ideas and then decide which materials to use to express them.