We have had another wonderful half-term together. The children are really enjoying learning and retelling stories, being totally immersed in the tales. As we move into spring, we are looking forward to seeing the changes in the season and growing lots of plants.  The children are looking forward to the new role play opportunities as this is their favourite area of learning.

The children have made great progress in their reading, writing and maths. We appreciate all of your support from home and it really supports the children in their development

Communication and Language 

With each area of learning, the children are constantly being introduced to new vocabulary related to maths, role play or our topics. We keep these word banks on display to refer to and we add them to our ‘wow words wall’.

This half-term, our role play area will be a shoe shop. We would welcome any offerings of shoes or boots of any style or size to encourage as much discussion as possible. This will link to our story ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’

With our non-fiction topic of transport, the children will be introduced to lots of new vocabulary. In our outdoor garage, the children will ask questions to find out the problem with the vehicle and to then discuss how they will solve the problem.

Vocabulary: damaged, repair, broken, mend, fix, sell, buy, cost, cheap, expensive, delicate, strong, wide, long, short, measure, helicopter, tram, pedestrian, passenger, vehicle.  

Literacy

In our Read Write Inc phonics sessions, we have now covered all of the set 1 and 2 sounds. We will continue to revise these. Homework will continue to reflect the learning in class. In this half-term, the children will be focusing on reading and writing simple sentences using the sounds they know. These will be encouraged through their play, for example to write lists of transport types, repair notes in the garage. The children will make a transport book with information about different modes of transport.

The children are doing brilliantly with their handwriting which they do every morning when they first come in to class. We will start to look at the formation of capital letters.

With our focus book: ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’ the children will retell the story through talk for writing. They will be able to play the roles of the different characters from the story. The book focus is on being persuasive. So in the shoe shop, children will try to add describing words such as beautiful, embroidered, special to sell the shoes. In the same way, with their writing, they will be looking at words to add description.

Vocabulary: capital letter, adjective, description, sentence, digraph, trigraph, persuade.

Physical Development

Our focus for PE this half-term is multi-skills. This will involve a range of skills to support the children when they come onto other sports. We will practise throwing and catching bean bags and balls independently and with a partner.  They will be using a target to throw and aim. Using bats and balls or hockey sticks, the children will learn to move a ball around the space and to shoot or to hit the ball with the bat, building up hand eye coordination and accuracy.  In each session, we will look at being healthy and how exercising makes us feel and strengthens our muscles. We will improve our running and moving in different ways such as jumping skipping and hoping in our warm-up sessions.

Vocabulary: pace, spin, target, aim, obstacle, turn, rotate, jump, move, direction, travel, strength, muscles, veins, blood, heart, exercise, healthy, unhealthy.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

In our previous sessions, the children really enjoyed the story of The Colour Monster. His colour changed depending on his feelings. The children have really found this helped them to describe their feelings. They will often say at playtime that they are feeling; yellow’ for happy or ‘green’ for calm when it is story time.

In our circle times, this half-term we will be looking at ‘Special Relationships’. This will include: my family, special people, sharing, I am unique’, my interests and similarities and differences.  

We will continue with our peer massage sessions as a way of children developing ways to self-regulate and calm themselves as well as showing respect and care to their friends.

Vocabulary: relationships, unique, family, aunt, uncle, cousins, grandparents, step mum, stepdad, emotions, feelings, coping, describe, happy, excited, nervous, anxious, angry, calm, scared, loved. 

Mathematics

The children have learnt so much already this year.  They are able to count and recognise numbers to 8.  They have measured weight, capacity and length so far. It is important that we keep encouraging the children to use the correct vocabulary instead of big and small, to use long, short, wide, narrow, full, empty as this is something that they need to keep practising.

Every day, straight after lunch we have our maths time.  The children enjoy working with a partner to count and show the matching number or to add totals on the dice.

This half-term, we are building 9 and 10. There will be lots of counting and matching, looking at different ways to make 9 and 10. Outside, the children can throw at a target to match the amounts to the numbered pots. With the dice, they can add the amounts and collect the corresponding number of objects. We will play lots of maths bingo together. With a ten frame, the children will be able to quickly find ways to make 10 and to recognising which number is missing.

Vocabulary: total, altogether, most, least, bond, number, shape, subitise, compare, different, same, more, less, pair, amount, yesterday, tomorrow, before, after, next, soon, long, short, tall.

Understanding the World

In our water area, the children will be exploring floating and sinking. They will be make boats to test out on the water. Lots of children already enjoy using the ramps to see how fast the cars can go. With a focus on pushes and pulls, they will investigate how they can make vehicles go further, faster, slower using different ramps and materials. Also, they can use the large trikes to experiment with pushing each other and pulling, then linking to previous learning in maths about heavy and light.

Linking to past and present, we will look at old and new types of transport and how they have changed with technology.

We will look at the countries of the United Kingdom. By reading books and watching videos, we will find out about other countries around the world and how they are similar or different to the UK.

Vocabulary: push, pull, force, friction, material, ramp, fast, slow, heavy, light, float, sink, absorb, country, map, United Kingdom, climate, temperature, North Pole, South Pole, globe, Equator.

Expressive Arts and Design

By the end of this half-term, the children will have created their own 3D sculpture.  Over the weeks, they will practice first with play dough. They will learn a range of techniques and use a variety of tools. They will then design an animal. With clay, they will make the animal sculpture, add to it then finally paint their work. This will be in our focused art lessons.

At other times, the children will have access to junk-modelling and large construction outside to create a range of different types of transport. Boats for the water area and cars or lorries to test out the ramps.

We love to sing in Reception and we will learn lots of new songs related to transport. Such as down at the station, the wheels on the bus.  We will then adapt these to match different vehicles such as the wheels on the truck. 

Vocabulary: mould, attach, join, link, blend, add, bend, paint, collage, transient, stick.

We need your help!

For our topic, please save and bring in any small boxes, bottle tops or kitchen roll tubes for our junk modelling area.

USEFUL WEBSITES

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/topics/zf44jxs/videos/1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/Early-Years.html

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm

http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/