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 and Miss Jones currently supports in Preschool in the mornings.

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! 

We will be doing forest school every Wednesday so please come dressed appropriately - waterproofs, wellies and layers during the winter months. 

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 Autumn topic is: What makes me, me?

Within this topic the children will be learning all about themselves and their family. We will talk about similarities and differences between themselves and others as well as looking at photos of themselves as babies. We will discover what their favourite toys are and talk about things that are important to them.

We will be spending lots of time getting to know each other and our Preschool classroom before getting stuck into our first topic of the year.

Our key text is:

• Happy to be me by Emma Dodd

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

• To build relationships with staff and peers in preschool to assist in transitioning from primary caregivers.
• To begin showing an awareness of different emotion vocabulary, i.e. happy and sad
• Is beginning to notice and ask basic questions about differences, such as skin colour, types of hair, gender, special needs, disabilities and religion.

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

• To begin following simple instructions and simple daily routines i.e. nappy time, snack time, lunch time, outside time
• To show some sustained attention and engagement at activities of their own choosing
• To listen to simple picture stories and begin to understand some question i.e. who, what, where
• To demonstrate their use of vocabulary to communicate with their peers and the preschool staff.

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

• To join in moving to music i.e. clapping, stamping, jumping
• To build with different resources
• To throw and catch large balls
• To explore a range of wheels toys i.e. bike and scooters

Our Literacy focus for this term will be...

• To enjoy listening to different sounds through rhymes and stories
• To explore and share a range of different books independently and with adults or peers
• To explore making marks with different media and begin to draw freely with a range of resources 
• To engage in daily phase 1 phonics activities focussing on rhythm, rhyme and instrumental 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 count in everyday contexts and take part in finger rhymes with numbers.
• To begin building with a range of resources, combining objects like stacking blocks and cups and put objects inside others and take them out again
• To begin to compare amounts saying ‘lots’ or ‘more’

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

• To gain an understanding of their new daily routine in school 
• To develop an understanding of themselves and each other 
• To explore what happens to the immediate environment in Autumn
• 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 use photographs to talk about their family and also what they looked like as a baby

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

• To begin exploring music and sound through playing instruments, joining in with songs and rhymes and moving their body to music
• To engage in some real life pretend play, role playing their own personal experiences.
• To access the mark making and creative areas in the classroom
• To use a range of different media when mark making