Welcome back, we hope you have had a lovely Easter with the family and hopefully you have shared some family traditions along the way.
Our topic this term is 'Fly to a Faraway Land' During this topic we will be looking at lots of different ways to travel, from the everyday to the magnificent. We will start by looking everyday transport such as cars, bus and planes and then we will take a magical ride through the alternatives, including dragons and broomsticks.
We will be exploring our topic through each of our areas of learning and we will be providing parents with a weekly newsletter on Class Dojo, showing our text of the week (with important vocabulary from the story), rhyme/song of the week, activities we will be doing and key vocabulary. This will give parents/carers the information they need to support their child further at home.
Areas of Learning
Personal, Social and Emotion Development: We will be exploring different emotions, what they look like and how to deal with them. This will include dealing with their own and the emotions of others. We will be welcoming our new children to the setting and helping them to follow our class rules.
Communication and Language: We will be exploring a variety of new words, concentrating on words to help with our imagination and creating stories about where we want to go! We will be talking about different adventures we could go on and how we are going to get there. We will also be practising the skills of listening and responding to others in play and in group conversations.
Physical Development: The first part of this area of learning is gross motor skills, these are all the big movements such as climbing, negotiating space and ball skills. The children will practise most of these movements outside. The second part of this area is fine motor skills. This includes anything from filling and emptying containers to pencil control. We will be using a variety of activities to help increase muscle control in the children's fingers which will lead to better pencil control. You can help with this at home by doing any activity that increases the grip between the thumb and the first two fingers on your child's hand. These activities can include threading, cutting and any form of mark making.
Sports Day: Later in the term we will be having our own sports day with the Reception class, look our for more details!
Maths: During the term we will be taking every opportunity to practise number recognition and one to one counting. This is something you can do all the time at home, in the supermarket or when helping with dinner, i.e. Can you get me two tins of soup? We also need to practise the comparison between numbers, i.e. Practice using the terms more than, fewer than and as many as by asking: Are there more grapes than tomatoes? or are there fewer tomatoes than grapes? We will also be providing opportunities to explore size, weight, capacity and different shapes. We will be practising using comparative language to describe different things such as longer, shorter, longest, shortest.
Literacy: This area involves everything from listening and enjoying stories to recognising letters to writing letters and words. We will have key stories throughout the term that we will be looking, as well as a different rhyme or song each week, such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff and the Little Red Hen. You may find that your child knows the rhyme of the week but please practise with them at home, so they can build up their confidence to share their performance with a variety of people. It is also very important to enjoy stories at home. Children will not only have quality time with their own adults, but increase their vocabulary and ability to create their own stories.
Understanding the World: This area is very knowledge based. We will be learning about history, geography, science and Religious Education. We will be exploring different forms of transport, where we could go and how long it will take to get there. We will also be looking at different places such as the beach, now and in the past. You could talk to your child about when you were last at the beach as a family or how different it looks from when you were a child. Look out for different areas as we go through the term on our weekly newsletter so you can share your own knowledge with your child.
Expressive Arts and Design: This area explores music, songs, role play, construction, anything that involves creativity and imagination. We will be providing the children with lots of different opportunities to use their own ideas to create their own picture, structure or a whole new world. This area covers everything from role play to creating with different media.
Class Dojo: At St Botolphs we use Class Dojo as a positive behaviour system, rewarding children for their amazing work. You will be able to see the points they earn and children will be able to redeem their points for prizes. We will also use Class Dojo to keep parents updated with different events happening at school and any exciting things that are happening in class. Parents can also contact the class teachers directly with any questions they have.
Tapestry: We will still be using Tapestry to show parents/ carers what the children have been doing that week in more detail. Please check this on a regular basis and when your child does wonderful things at home, you can post photographs or short videos on Tapestry for the teachers to see and comment on.
Our core Christian values for the term will be Relationships in the first part of the term and then Reflection in the second half of summer. We will explore these themes in our class worships.
How can you help at home?
Communication and Language- Chat, Play, Learn
Talking and listening are very important parts of early learning and these skills are the key ways that all areas of learning are supported. Chatting about what is happening in everyday activities as well as learning new things while watching a TV programme, reading a story or playing a game all help children learn new vocabulary. Best of all is just taking time to have a conversation about anything at all! Ideas for children:
Share a story and talk about it. What was your favourite bit? Can you guess what might happen at the end? How did the characters feel when something happened? Could you join in with parts of the story? Are there parts where you can use different voices? Try and share your favourite story from when you were a child or even your favourite nursery rhyme.
Create a reading den. Find somewhere cosy, snuggle up and read your favourite book to yourself or a toy friend. Choose a story, comic or an information book. Sometimes even reading a book under the covers with a torch makes things even more special.
Keep an eye out for further hints and tips on class dojo!
There is also an app called 50 things do to before you are 5. It gives ideas of what you can do with your child and it tries to keep things as free as possible. Click the link below to download the app. You can choose which area of the country you are in too so it can be more specific to our own area. Coming soon: Watch Class Dojo for 50 things challenges.
British Weather: Please remember what our British weather is like and it is very unpredictable at anytime of year. Please dress your child accordingly and provide appropriate outdoor clothing for the season, i.e sun cream, sun hat or a rain coat if required. Any pieces of clothing or footwear brought into school will need your child's name on it to avoid any confusion or loss.
Forest Schools: We will be taking part in Forest schools every Monday for the first part of the Summer term. The children will have an opportunity to do some outdoor learning with a twist. I am excited to find out what we are going to be doing after seeing the wonderful things the Reception class did before the holidays.
Your support in sending your child to school regularly and on time is vital so that you child can receive the maximum amount of education they can. To give an example: A child attending nursery for 3 terms would approximately attend nursery for 270 hours. If a child missed only 10 days of nursery within that time, they have missed over 10% of their nursery education.
We are looking forward to another fantastic term with new children and parents. If you have any questions about anything this term, either come in and see us or please use Class Dojo and we will get back to your as soon as we can.
We will be sending some information out about parents meetings, sports day, graduation etc so please keep a close eye on class Dojo.
Mrs Howarth and the Nursery Team