Dear Parents and Carers,

We hope you had a lovely week off with the children and they are now all ready for the half term ahead? We can’t believe we are half way through the academic year already time flies when your having fun.

The children will be looking at Traditional Tales this half term, they will include Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Gingerbread Man, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Pigs and Little Red Hen.

We will also continue to look at the topic of People who help us. I am sure the children told you all about the visit from The Fire Brigade last half term, so with this in mind we have arranged visits from Police Officers, Doctors, Nurses, Paramedics and people who help us in and around school. 

Shown below are some ideas for each of the areas of learning within Foundation Stage, these may change as we follow the children’s interests and ideas.

Communication and Language.

The children will use talk for writing skills to retell stories and talk about feelings and their own ideas. We will be looking at how the characters in the different stories feel and how we make others feel. Did the characters do the right things? Did they follow the rule?

Encouraging discussion during circle time and giving the children opportunities to re-enact the stories through role play, dressing up as the characters. Changing the outdoor coffee shop in to the three bears cottage. The children will listen to each other, have opportunities to express themselves and answer ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions.

Personal Social and Emotional Development.

Looking at people who help us in our community, Police officers, Firefighters, Nurses, Doctors and how we can help others. Encourage the children to help each other through their play. During outdoor play the children will take it in turns to be the police officer or firefighter in the role play buildings. Helping their friends. Who helps us in school, what do we use to help us? The children take into account one another’s ideas and feelings, forming positive relationships.

Physical Development.

Our topic this half term is dance and the children will have a weekly PE lesson with Mr Finlay, they will be looking at how they can change their movements in time to the music. How different music can change our mood and how we move safely, changing direction negotiating the space around us. We will be discussing the importance of staying safe and being healthy and the effect exercise has on our bodies.

The children will also have daily access to the outdoor provision, were they will have opportunities to balance, and climb, as well as ride bikes, throw balls and bean bags. They can also have fun in the mud kitchen and water play. Have a look at the pictures on our display in Foundation Stage to see how much fun the children have getting wet and dirty. Please see the attached link to help with ideas for getting the children active outside of school.

https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/Documents/children-under-5-walking.pdf

Literacy.

There will be lots of opportunity for the children to apply skills previously learned independently. Writing their names, captions and sentences. They will be writing for different purposes, lists, letters, instructions etc. They will also continue with their daily phonics and reading individually and in groups. The children will be writing their favourite parts of the traditional tales we read, writing post cards to The Three Bears from Goldilocks, writing a list of ingredients to make The Gingerbread Man and writing about their news.

Maths.

This half term we will be looking at money, time, weight and capacity as well as consolidating on all aspects of Number, counting, number recognition, one more and one less and combining two groups of objects.

Playing games during self-registration and within Foundation Stage as well as Teacher lead input. The children will begin to solve their own problems and use everyday maths, paying for their snack, or weighing out ingredients.

Understanding of the World.

This half term we will begin to look at Spring and how the environment has changed since Autumn, re visiting Botanic Park to look at the trees, flowers and the grass. Can the children tell us about the changes in the environment since our Autumn walk? Why have they changed? We will use ipads, macbooks, smartboards and non - fiction books to find out information.

The children will look at special celebrations: St David’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, Mothering Sunday and Easter. How do different people celebrate?

We will taste different foods, talk about family customs and routines and look at how we have similarities and differences with our peers.

Expressive Arts and Design.

Art will be a focus both indoor and outdoor again this half term. The children will look at the season of Spring, do we use the same colours to paint Spring pictures as we did with Winter.

In Foundation Stage there will be Spring flowers for the children to make observational drawings, using pastel, paint and different materials. We are also looking forward to making Easter baskets and bonnets and Mothers Day cards.

I hope the children are as excited as us to get started this half term,

Kind Regards

The Foundation Stage Team