For the Autumn Term 1, our topic is ‘All About Me’ and our big question is ‘What is a Community’? Our key texts are:
- Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
- The Large Family stories
- This is How we Do It - Matt Lamothe
- Ordinary Mary's Positively Extraordinary Day - Emily Pearson
- Hey Wall: A story of Art and Community Susan Verde
For the Autumn Term 2, our topic is ‘Woodland Explorers’ and our big question is ‘What’s in the Woods’? Our key texts are:
Fairy tales – Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
- The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child
- Percy the Park Keeper stories
For Autumn 1 & 2 we are focusing on:
Prime Areas
· Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED): Get to know our friends and teachers. Discuss the schools ‘Ready, Respectful, Safe’ rules and behavioural expectations in our setting. Become increasingly able to independently manage daily routines.
· Physical Development (PD): Develop our gross motor skills by balancing and moving in different ways. Develop our fine motor skills by using a variety of one-handed tools and equipment. Learning to hold our pencil correctly and form recognisable letters.
· Communication and Language (CL): Listen to lots of songs and stories with increasing attention and join in with group storytelling and singing. Show an understanding of and respond to simple instructions. Use talk to imagine and recreate roles and experiences. Use new vocabulary in different contexts.
Specific Areas
· Literacy (L): Play phonics games and develop an awareness of sounds in words. Repeat words and phrases from familiar stories. Add some marks to their drawings which they give meaning to. Form letters correctly in our name. Begin to write a simple caption.
· Mathematics (M): Take part in finger rhymes with numbers. Count in everyday contexts touching or pointing for each number. Compare sizes and weights. Explore
patterns and repeating patterns. Recite numbers past 5. Link the numeral with its number value. Understand position through words.
· Understanding the World (UW): Talk about ourselves, families, and communities in our ‘Amazing Me’ topic. Name our body parts and where they are. Think scientifically about our senses and how we use them. Learn about Autumn and seasonal changes in our ‘Woodland Explorers’ topic. Learn about special festivals (e.g., Harvest Festival, Bonfire Night). Talk about seasonal changes focusing on the weather. Learn about special celebrations (e.g., Diwali). Talk about the Christmas story and perform a nativity.
· Expressive Arts and Design (EAD): Use our imaginations, and different media and materials to engage in craft activities. Learn familiar songs and nursery rhymes. Explore and use a range of artistic effects to express themselves with a focus on colour mixing. Create a self portrait. Use natural materials to make a sculpture. Explore a range of instruments and response to a piece of music. To learn songs and share these in our Nativity performance.
PE
The children will continue to participate in a PE session each week. Our PE day is a Thursday. Children can wear their PE kit to school on this day.
We take part in lots of other outdoor activities every day (weather permitting), please send your child in with an appropriate coat and footwear. You can also send wellies in to school as we love splashing in muddy puddles!
Religious Education
All year groups study a range of religious beliefs in a knowledge capacity. In terms 1 and 2, we will explore different religious celebrations and the Christmas story.
Reading
Read to your child as much as possible and ask them questions about the pictures, story, setting and characters. Books with repetition and rhyme are good for encouraging children to join in. Children can take home books weekly to share with parents (book bag needed). We will also send home weekly RWInc activities to practise the sounds we have learnt with Elly and Fred!