Our timetable allows for a mix of adult led teaching and child led learning. Continuous provision is where children access the environment and resources independently. Adults join children in their play and use these opportunities to develop their interests and teach across all areas of the EY curriculum.
In Class 1 we do not set out specific topics for each term as we are led by the children's interests in order to maintain high levels of engagement. However, there are naturally occurring themes which happen due to the time of year which we take advantage of in order to provide relevant learning opportunities.
SPRING TERM
Phonics
Nursery children are working on developing their listening skills and sound discrimination, identifying rhythm and rhyme and hearing and saying the initial sounds in words.
Reception children continue to build their listening and attention skills and are working in phase 3 of the Little Wandle phonics scheme. This term they will be learning the sounds ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, air, er and ear, which will be added to their keyring along with new tricky words. Please ensure these are practised at home. We are also focusing on letter formation and applying the sounds we have learned to write simple words.
Literacy
Children listen to stories every day. Through our bank of core texts as well as many others, we will be focusing on building our vocabulary and developing our sentence structure so that we can sequence and retell stories. Our core fiction texts this term are:
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Enormous Turnip
Shh We have a plan
There's a Bear on my Chaire
Wolf's Magnificent Master Plan
The Story Machine
Suddenly
Superworm
The Go Away Bird
The Dinosaur Department Store
We will also be adding to our bank of poems and rhymes with Jack and Jill, Three Blind Mice, Humpty Dumpty, A Little House, Furry Furry Squirrel, Popcorn, Stepping Stones and A Little Seed. You can download the words via the link.
As children's phonic skills and letter formation develop, they will be applying these in purposeful contexts to write captions, labels and messages.
Maths
Nursery
Early maths skills are acquired through purposeful opportunities in play where we can tailor our teaching to the age and stage of the child. Counting skills and numeral recognition are consolidated through songs and games in adult led activities.
Reception
Children will be focusing on the following concepts:
- Composition of numbers to 5
- Subitising (recognising without counting) small quantities
- Understanding the idea of part and whole and the whole being made of smaller parts
- Developing accuracy of 1:1 correspondence
- Numeral recognition
- Using spatial language to describe different arrangements
- Recognising and explaining when groups have more, fewer or are equal
