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. 

Miss Davies is your full time teaching assistant in Preschool 

We will be doing forest school every Wednesday so please come dressed appropriately - during the winter please make sure your child is wearing warm clothing and comes to preschool with a warm coat and hat.

Stretch and grow will take place after February half term 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 Monday ready to be sent home with another child. 

Our Spring Term topic focusses on Animals and our topic question is Who are the amazing animals in our stories? Within this topic the children will be learning about lots of different animals and linking them to lots of different stories.  We will be exploring farm animals, wild animals, sea creatures, pets and any others that spark the children's interest. We will talk about their names, what sounds they all make, what they look like including colours, patterns and sixes. We will talk about what they all live and which ones are our favourites. In phonics, we will be focussing on environmental and voice sounds linking to our topic by identifying animal sounds and then using our voices to make different animal sounds too.  In Maths continue to work on developing counting vocabulary and using lots of numbers names, supporting the children to use some in sequence i.e. 1,2,3. We will also be looking at patterns in particular animal patterns.

Our key texts are:

• Brown Bear, Brown Bear. What do you see? By Bill Martin.Jr

• Dear zoo by Rod Campbell

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

• To safely explore emotions within his/her normal range through play and stories.

• To begin to talk about and manage his/her emotions

• To demonstrate an understanding of some familiar daily routines

• To continue to develop relationships/friendships with staff and other children.

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

• To maintain focus on an activity of his/her choice for a short period of time.

• To begin to listen and respond to a simple instruction 

• To begin to listen to a simple story of interest, with the help of the pictures

• To understand simple questions about who, what and where most of the times

• To join in with some familiar songs and rhymes

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

• To begin to show an increasing desire to be independent, such as putting on their own coat or taking off/putting on their shoes.

• To begin exploring different materials and tools.

• To  show and interest in kicking and throwing balls.

• To use a range of different resources to build.

Our Literacy focus for this term will be...

• To begin to enjoy listening to different sounds through rhymes and stories

• To begin to show an interest in a range of different books exploring them independently and with adults or peers

• To begin exploring making marks with different media and to draw freely with a range of resources beginning to give meaning to their marks and starting to create a range of different marks. 

• To engage in daily phase 1 phonics activities focussing on voice sounds and environmental sounds.

Our Maths focus for this term will be...

• To begin to show counting like behaviour such as making sounds, pointing or saying some numbers in sequence.

• To begin to notice patterns on animals and use language to describe i.e. stripy, spotty

• To begin to count in everyday contexts and take part in finger rhymes with numbers.

• To begin to compare size using language such as big/bigger, small/smaller.

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

• To recall and talk about significant past events such as trips, celebrations, family outings

• To explore what happens to the immediate environment in Spring

• To share special events and festivals that they celebrate and learn about other festivals 

• To develop new relationships and friendships 

• To get involved in sensory experiences in the classroom 

• To explore the indoor and outdoor environment in the classroom

• To start to join in with the days of the week song, trying to name some.

• To  begin sharing their own experiences of visiting different places, including other countries using photo prompts and adult support.

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

• To Respond to phrases and actions in songs and rhymes.

• To engage in some real life pretend play, role playing their own personal experiences.

• To make different sounds using his/her voice.

• To begin to notice patterns.

• To access the mark making and creative areas in the classroom

• To use a range of different media when mark making

Music Focus: Nursery Rhymes

Art skill - Collaging inspired by artist Richard Long

DT Skill: Cooking - making Easter nests