Welcome back!

I hope you have all had a wonderful Easter break and the Easter Bunny visited each and everyone of you! 

This half term our theme is... 

'Dinosaurs'

This will be one of the children's favourite topics. We look at a variety of dinosaurs and how they are similar and how they differ from each other, vegetarian and meat-eaters. The children will build up a good knowledge about dinosaurs and their place in history.

We will continue to access all areas of the indoor and outdoor environment to enhance our understanding of the world we live in, further developing our understanding of numbers, letters, fine and gross motor skills and our personal creativity and imagination.

Ms. Frankland

We will have Dance on Tuesdays and PE on Fridays. Please ensure your child has a full PE kit in school for their lesson.

Homework will continue to be accessed via DOJO. I ask that your child completes their homework weekly and that you upload photos or videos of this, so that we can assess it.

Read Write Inc

Our daily Phonics lessons develop our reading and writing skills. We will learn all letter sounds and begin to learn how to correctly form letters.

Fred the Frog will help us with our segmenting and blending through 'Fred Talk' and the many exciting games he likes to play.

Please complete the weekly videos of letter sound practice and formation with your child. Their progress will improve the more we do this.

We will be using the Power Maths scheme to further develop your child's math skills in both number work and shape, space and measure, this will be done within the learning environment or as guided activities.

This half term we are extending our understanding of counting on and counting back. We will also increase our knowledge of numbers 0-20 whilst continuing to look at number patterns. This is fun for the children as they can use each other and many resources around our learning environment.

We will be using mathematical vocabulary such as: More or Fewer, Odd and Even, Subtract, Take-Away, Minus and Equals, Counting on and forward and backward. We count from 0 - 20 (and occasionally back from 10 - 0).

Communication and Language is a Prime area of learning in the Early Years. Giving the children the skills to communicate enables them to become unique individuals who feel valued and listened to. Not all children have the ability to communicate through speech, Makaton  supports communication through signing and vocabulary at the same time.

Giving the children the opportunity to learn this fantastic skill extends both their learning and their communication abilities.

Each week their will be a new sign put on Tapestry, 'Makaton sign of the week'. There will be the picture /Logo of the sign and a video showing how to perform it. Please use this sign at home also to embed its use within the school setting.

We will continue the Talk for Writing program with the text,

'The Little Green Dinosaur'

We will memorise the story, attach actions to it, create a story map and then use innovation to make independent changes to the original text. This will allow the children to take ownership of what they have written.

Talk for Writing, developed by Pie Corbett, supported by Julia Strong and the Talk for Writing team, is powerful because it is based on the principles of how people learn. The movement from imitation to innovation to independent application can be adapted to suit the needs of learners of any stage.