Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome back! We are excited to announce our new topic will be based around Safari Adventures! The children will be exploring stories such as the Handa’s Surprize, Dear Zoo and Giraffe’s Can’t Dance. This newsletter is a general outline of some of the things your children will be learning about this half term.

Personal, Social and Emotional development

In RE our learning will be based around the Chinese New Year (February 16th). Children will explore different ways of living, including beliefs and festivals. We will link this work to the Early Learning Goal: To know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and families, communities and traditions.

In PSHEthe children will be involved in a circle time session each week. This half term our topic will be based around “Say No to Bullying”. Children will have opportunities to appreciate and celebrate differences, and to understand how it feels, and how important it is to belong to a group. They will begin to learn that bullying can happen when one person is unkind to another, and when someone has more power (for example, if they are bigger, or have a toy that everyone wants, and will think about this in terms of fairness. We will link this work to the Early Learning Goal on Managing Feelings.

Communication, Language and Literacy

At the start of each week we will be reading a story to the children which will be used to base their learning and activities on throughout that week. The theme of our books will be Safari Animals, Zoos and countries abroad.

They will focus on

-Following a story without pictures or props.

-Answering how and why questions about their experiences and in response to stories and events.

-Listening attentively in a range of situations.

-Recognising familiar words, knows that print carries meaning and is read left to right, hears and says the initial sound in words.

All children will now have a daily phonics session. Reception children will continue to learn letters and sounds and begin to sound out simple words and read simple sentences. Nursery children will learn how to be good listeners and to listen to different sounds in the environment and play related games.

We would like to invite all parents into school on a Friday morning between 8.50 and 9.10 to share a book with their child. This is also an opportunity to take a book home to read for the week. Reception children will change their reading books daily and are encouraged to read to a parent/carer 5 times a week. Children will all be given login details for activelearn primary, a computer program that will enable them to enjoy online books at home.

Mathematics

  • The children will continue to take part in a daily focused maths activity. Nursery children will focus on recognising numerals 1-5 then 1-10, counting objects to 10 and beyond, estimating how many objects they can see and check by counting them. Showing an interest in representing numbers, separating a group of three or four objects in different ways, and beginning to recognise the total is the same.
  • Reception children- willbegin counting on and back to find an answer, solve problems including doubling, halving and sharing, measure short periods of time in simple ways, use language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money and order 1-20.

Understanding of the World

  • Our topic of Safari Adventures will involve lots of finding out about similarities and differences between our immediate environment and those in distant places, such as Africa and beyond. Children will be able to talk about features of their own environment and others and will show care and concern for living things and the environment. Children will have opportunities to taste and grow food from different countries and will use ICT to find out about Safari.
  • They will also be using ipads and digital cameras to support their learning. The children will be using various technologies and physical onscreen resources to investigate Safari, wildlife, food and culture in distant countries such as Africa.

Physical development

Every morning the children will take part in ‘busy fingers’ activities, developing their fine motor skills. This will include activities such as threading, snipping and drawing lines and circles.Specific skills:
Reception children– To travel with confidence and skills around, under, over and through balancing equipment.

To form letters correctly.

Nursery children- To copy letters from their name.

All children will be focusing on dance skills this half-term, and will:

– Enjoy joining in with dancing and ring games.

- Begin to move rhythmically and imitate movement in response to music.

As always, children will be encouraged to be more independent in self-care.

Expressive arts and design

Reception and nursery children will be involved in weekly music sessions. Children will create sounds by banging, shaking, tapping or blowing. They will tap out simple repeated rhythms and explore how sounds can be changed.

Our role play area will be set up as a Safari café and look-out. The children will be encouraged to take on different roles when playing in there. We will have lots of painting of safari animals and will make a 3-D safari landscape out of papier-mâché, that the children can then use when playing with their safari animal models.

Once again please don’t hesitate to come and see us if you want to know more, or have any questions to ask us.Many thanks

Naomi Gould, Mary Weston and Sally Chicken