Nursery Curriculum Overview – Summer Term 2015 

Dear Parents,

Welcome to another term in our brand new Nursery and welcome to our third term in school. Where has the time gone?  A special super big welcome if you are just starting Nursery. It is an exciting time for you and your child. We hope to make the transition from home to school easy, fun and trouble free. We still will be developing your child’s personal and social skills and teaching them how to take turns and care for others. We have outlined what the Nursery children will be learning through this term. Please read and keep this information for future reference.

 Literacy

Children will develop their understanding of literacy as a means to communicate through words that are spoken and also written. They will learn the importance of saying words clearly and correctly to clearly convey what they mean and extend their vocabulary through stories and language at work and play. They will be given opportunities to develop confidence when speaking to small groups, individuals and the whole class. They will also be encouraged to listen to other people and respect their opinions and points of view.

We will have lots of activities to encourage fine motor skills – finger control. We will use many resources to develop this- dough, gloop, sand, puzzles, pegs, threading, block play etc. We also undertake dough disco in school to develop these skills.

We will be developing their cutting and colouring skills, please encourage your child to do this at home.

We will be using the stories ‘Rainbow Fish’, ‘Sharing a shell’ and ‘The singing Mermaid to enhance our learning. We will also read many more stories including some traditional tales

The children will be continuing to learn and recognise their names and try to write them.

For boys and girls who are going to Reception in September we will start introducing some letter sounds from our phonic scheme Read Write inc.. We will be starting with the first five sounds m, a, s, d, t. Try to help your child at home if they are starting their letter sounds, the rhymes for the sounds will also appear on the website.

Numeracy

We are still using the Little Big Maths Scheme in Nursery. The scheme will see us being a part of a lively maths number introduction that will help us in our recall of key number facts. This term we will be working on our counting skills, number recognition, and number formation, (the number rhymes are on our web page if you want to do share them with your child at home). We will be counting to 10 and beyond. We will also be learning to recognise 2D shapes, sort, order and match objects. We will measure and learn about volume using water and sand. Learn about floating and sinking and make a graph of our favourite flavour of ice cream.

‘Sand between my toes’         

Our Foundation Phase context for learning (topic) for this term is ‘Sand between my toes’. This context covers a wide range of areas of learning and will be very interesting and enjoyable for the children.

In the Foundation Phase we love a hands on learning approach as children learn more effectively from seeing and doing and getting their hands dirty.

We will be learning all about going to the beach what we wear in the summer and all about keeping safe in the sun. We will hopefully go on a summer walk and have a Teddy bears picnic. We are planning to have a school trip this term, we will let you know where and when as soon as it is fully organised.

We will develop our skills of turn taking, how to be kind to others, knowing our class rules and seeing how special we all are.

General news

As part of the Foundation Phase curriculum children will now have the option of using the outdoor area as part of their learning. To ensure that children can use this area effectively we require each child to bring a pair of wellies to keep in school so that children can have the benefit of using the outdoors to enhance their learning no matter what the weather. We will develop your child’s gross and fine motor skills through lots of fun activities, and hopefully have a super sports day later on in the term.

Fruit snack is available on a daily basis; there will be a charge of £1 per week. Please could you send this on Monday in an envelope with your child’s name on it( if you would prefer to pay for the term then please speak to Mrs Penfold-Smith and this can be arranged)

Your child can have free milk every day in school. We also brush our teeth every day; your child will have their own brush with a special picture on it.

In Nursery we have a class Mascot called Bobby Bear. Each week a child is selected to bring Bobby Bear home for the weekend. It is asked that you keep a record and maybe a few photos of what your child has done with Bobby Bear over the weekend and return the book to school on Wednesday.

Please make sure your child wears a sun hat on those lovely sunny days and sun cream if it is needed.

Uniform is optional but all our boys and girls who wear it look very smart and tend to feel a part of Millbank.  Please ensure that your child’s name is on all pieces of clothing, this makes it so much easier to locate and return to the correct owner.

Physical Education

We will be starting PE session in our brand new hall this term for our existing Nursery children, music, dance and basic movement lessons, no PE kit is needed but your child will be expected to be able to take off and put on their own socks and shoes. So please continue to help your child become as independent as possible, putting on their own coats, shoes etc. please can we have shoes with no laces so your child can put them on themselves.

Welsh

Your child will be hearing welsh spoken within Nursery and will be encouraged to repeat and learn some simple words and phrases in welsh. We will be learning our colours, days of the week, and items of clothing. A Helpwr Heddiw will be chosen each day to help in the classroom and help others to speak welsh.

We have our special welsh speaking puppets Fflic and Fflac to help us too.

Finally

Positive praise is of paramount importance so during the day pupils will be given stickers as a ‘Well Done’.  They will also have a super star each; they will try to get 5 stars, when complete they receive a prize and a certificate.

We have a fantastic website; please take a look at all the fun and exciting activities we undertake in Nursery. This is updated on a weekly basis so there is always something new to see.

It will also tell you of any upcoming dates or activities you can do at home with your child.

Please talk to your child about their school day and any work you can do at home to support the work we are doing in school can only help your child to develop further.

Please do not hesitate to come in and see us if you have any worries, big or small, we have an open door policy. Our paramount objective is to ensure your child feels happy and safe in school. Popping in after school will give the teacher more time to help you with any problems or questions you have.

Thank you for your continued support.

Yours Sincerely

Mrs Penfold-Smith, Mrs Allan. Mrs Garcier

This term our theme is:

‘Sand Between my toes’

Summer term 2015

LLC

Develop listening skills, listening to the teacher and others

Communicating – verbally and non verbally

Mark making in lots of different media inside and outdoors.

Read Write Inc – introduction to first set of letters – m a s d t i p

Write for a purpose (role play areas).

Name recognition, use of name cards, tracing, copying, magnetic letters, name hunt

Listen to a variety of stories about winter, spring, growth and change. (fact & fiction).

Stories- Sharing a shell, The singing Mermaid  Rainbow Fish, Handa’s Surprise

Seaside  poems

Teddy Bears picnis. Beach trip

Summer walk – signs of summer

Game – What's in my bucket, describing objects. Role play – seaside theme

MD

Develop an interest in number.

Recognise numbers 0-10 through songs, rhymes, games, puzzles, naturally in their play.

Count, read, order and write numbers.

Develop their mental calculation strategies. Experiment with numbers.

2D &3D shapes.

Positional language (board games, soft play, outdoors).

Sorting – shapes, colours, fish etc

Understand & use money in role play.

Graph – favourite ice cream flavour

Capacity using water and sand.

Weight – heavy and light.

Little Big Maths

Outdoor investigations

Patterns – repeating. Problem solving.

One more and one less.

PSWBCD

Settling into a new school.

New intake to settle into school. Make new friends.

Nursery rules, behavioural expectations. How we treat and respect our environment

Kind, sharing and taking turns through activities and games

Rainbow fish- use stories to show how we are all different and all special. Friendship.

Have an understanding of their own welsh identity and where we live.

What makes you upset? How we deal with this.

Circle time activities

Left alone, like Rainbow Fish. Reflection time

Think about what makes you happy.

Good to be green – establish fully and utalise

Taking care on the beach- sun safety, getting lost. Looking after the beach environment

Healthy eating

RE

Importance of festivals & special times :. Friends – why they are so special? Jesus and his special friends- stories. Happy times. Assemblies.

LSB – RE lessons planned for PPA

WLD

Welsh questions and phrases e.g Bore da, Prynhawn da, Sut wyt ti heddiw? Ga I …?

Colours Pa liw? Games/outdoor activities

Sawl un? How many, number reinforcement

Clothes-Ar y Ffordd, beach summer clothes

Helpwr heddiw- daily basis

Incidental language used daily

Ffic a Fflac CD and books

CD

Make and design a pair of flip flops

Design and make sandwiches

Sort and make a shell out of clay

Create a large Rainbow fish, friendship chain

How sea creatures move – dance and make own music

Seaside songs- by the seaside, a sailor went to sea she sells sea shells

Dance to underwater music CD

Create an ice cream shop, make items

PD

Explore & investigate in and outdoor environment. Awareness ofsafety. Use a wide range of stimuli & resources. Various tools, equipment & apparatus. Planned PE –hall time sessions. Fine motor skills.

KUW

Myself- body parts, name and label, new intake

Difference in themselves, eye, hair colour

Absence of light – shadows.drawing around

 Seasons – Spring to Summer. Nature walks.

 Investigate materials. Floating and sinking

Observational science table – beach objects

Using our senses, sun safety

Make sandwiches/ fruit kebabs

Reminders

Please can you bring in a pair of wellies for your child to leave in school

 as we like to play in the rain and splash in puddles. 

If you would like your child to have a fruit snack, please pay fruit money of £1 per week on a Monday, in an envelope with your childs name on.

We are learning these number rhymes.

1 - start at the top and down we run 1 1 1.

2 - around and back on the railroad track 2 2 2.

3 - around the tree around the tree 3 3 3.

4 - down and over and down some more 4 4 4.

5 - down and around then a flag on high 5 5 5.

Gardening Activities

As part of our activities this term we are planting in our nursery garden and learning about plants, how they grow and how to care for them. We would very much appreciate any seeds, bulbs, plants pots, and gardening tools that you are able to donate. Thank you for your continued support.

THANK YOU

We would like to thank everyone who has sent in wonderful gardening tools, pots, seeds, bulbs and plants for our nursery garden area. The children are having lots of fun planting and taking care of the garden.

Halt Term Homework

Please do the homework that has been given for this half term.

letter sounds and cutting activity

m  a  s  d  t         

Pre nursery parents

Please remember parents evenings for our newest members of the class.

Letters will be sent out for all those involved.