Curriculum Booklet Early Years Foundation Stage Autumn Terms 2014 Oliver s Vegetables Starry Night
Term 1 Oliver s Vegetables Personal, Social and Emotional Development To support our developing self confidence and the ability to manage our feelings, we are going to be talking about and setting out new rules for our classroom. We will also see which of these rules are applicable to the garden, and we will talk about playing safely there. We will each have a role to play in designing and building our new role-play areas within the classroom, and will learn how to make new friends in the process. Communication and Language We will be developing our speaking, listening and understanding skills through games which will include rhyming games and singing songs with a rhythm. We will be naming different vegetables and learning new cooking-related vocabulary. Children will be encouraged to ask verbally for things that they want instead and we will be planning our own learning too. Physical Development Our moving and handling skills will develop through lots of climbing, running and jumping in our outdoor space. We will also develop our fine motor skills with regular pencil practice as well as other activities which will build up strength in our wrists such as scissor work, threading beads and squeezing things. Literacy As our expressive language continues to develop we will give more emphasis to Literacy across the term. Children will learn early reading and writing skills through the Letters and Sounds scheme where they will begin to develop the ability to hear and discriminate between sounds all around them and, when ready, children will move on to learning letter sounds through our taught phonics sessions. Children will develop their understanding of numbers as well as shapes and measurements through lots of hands-on Maths this term. We will be measuring the length and breadth of different vegetables and comparing their weights, as well as learning the words longer than and shorter than as well as other words for comparison. The children will also be counting every day to build up their confidence and stamina. Expressive Arts and Design We will be exploring and using lots of different media and materials as well as developing our imaginations this term. The children will be building a scarecrow to protect our vegetable patch and we will be singing Dingle Dangle Scarecrow and dancing to lots of different music. At Harvest Time we will be making our own vegetables from paper maché and having a go at making mashed potato faces as well using different vegetable sticks. Understanding of the World As we find out about people, communities and the world all around us we will consider where our fruit and vegetables come from to get to our classroom. We will plant a selection of vegetables and try out different recipes too. We will taste many different vegetables, raw and cooked and will also be thinking about our food preferences as well as healthy eating and lifestyle choices.
Term 2 Starry Night Personal, Social and Emotional Development This term we will be thinking about firework safety as well as learning about Autumn and Winter festivals and how different cultures celebrate. We will find out about the festival of Diwali and will start to think about the meaning of the Christian story of Christmas. We will be asking lots of questions about the galaxy and learning about different creation stories from around the world. Communication and Language We will develop our fantastic speaking and listening skills by acting in role as an astronaut and planning what to take on a space mission. The children will develop their awareness of rhythm and rhyme as well as building their confidence to speak in front of a familiar group of people. We will be learning how to use and answer question words such as who, what, when, or where and we will learn to understand what these mean in context. Physical Development We will be learning about how to keep our bodies healthy and how to move them in an open space. We will be dancing with scarves and bells as well as learning how to move high, low, fast or slow like a rocket or even an astronaut on the moon. We will also be working on our pencil grip and fine motor control skills by continuing to build up strength in our hand and wrist muscles. Literacy We will be developing the skill of mark-making as well as blending with our phonics by writing as if we are Buzz Lightyear. We will also be learning new vocabulary related to space and are also going to write our own firework poems and learn about how rhyming can help us with spelling. The children will be finding out all the information they can about space exploration using information books too. This term we will be practising ordering numbers on rocket ships and building very tall towers to count the bricks. We will be making 2D and 3D rocket designs and spotting the shapes we know within them. We will also be learning different words for describing positions such as behind, in front, next to and in between and will be using them to hunt for imaginary aliens in the garden. Expressive Arts and Design The children will be painting their own version of Starry Night and making planets using paper maché. We will be making firework pictures and our own stars using clay and salt dough. We will be learning lots of songs about space travel and acting out the story of The Nativity. The children will also have many opportunities to develop their imaginative vocabulary through daily small-world activities or puppet play. Understanding of the World We will be planning our own trips to the moon and building rockets inspired by pictures of space ships. We will be finding out about the planets and designing our own aliens. We will also be making our own fireworks and finding out about how our planet looks from space. Our ICT skills will be developed through our use of the computer mouse, the Interactive White Board and our programmable toys too.
How you can help at home Squirrel Class (Foundation Stage One) Communication and Language Literacy and Extra Speaking and listening are the most important skills your child will learn. It is important that they know you value what they have to say and receive feedback from you to see if they are saying things properly. Discussing what your child has done at nursery is an invaluable way to show your child that you are interested in what they have to say and that there is a reason for talking and being clear in their speech. Television does not provide this feedback so please take time every day to share a conversation with your child about something which interests them. This is also a good chance to gently correct their speech and to make sure they are beginning to speak clearly. Enjoying a story with your child is another great opportunity to encourage their speaking and listening skills to develop. Talking about the stories they have read will enable you to see if they have really understood the story and it will develop their skills in reading for meaning. Your child may already be aware of the number system. They should be encouraged to count things whenever possible to develop the skill of counting one number per object as this can be tricky early on. It may be helpful to encourage your child to move an object one at a time as they count slowly to ensure they do not miss out numbers or objects as they count. Once they have really mastered counting accurately to 3, you could continue to 5, then 10 and even 20. Please remember to name every item of clothing that your child wears to nursery. Please help them practise putting on their own coat as well as their own hat as they should be able to make an attempt at doing this. In the warmer weather, please ensure your children come to nursery with a named sun hat, and that you have put sun cream on them, as we are not able to do this for them. Badger and Hedgehog Classes (Foundation Stage Two) Communication and Language Literacy and Extra The ability to understand the spoken word is invaluable as it helps children to communicate with their peers and to make sense of the world around them. By this stage children should be becoming aware of the difference between the words he and she and should be able to follow a short series of instructions. To ensure that they are making good progress in this area please make time every day to talk to your child about their day at school. This will give you a chance to show them you are interested in their speaking skills as this gives them more of a reason for talking. You will also be able to help gently correct their speech if they are confusing the order of words they say or if they mispronounce words. Sharing a story with your child is a valuable way to help check their understanding of what they have read. Children will be able to identify the main aspects of the story at this stage of development, but now need to begin to develop the ability to make deductions about elements of the text that are not so obvious. Your child should be quite fluent in counting approximately 10 objects at this stage with numbers in the correct order. Some may need more practice at this, remembering to count one number for every object they see. You can support them in this development by counting as you walk to school. Perhaps you could count the number of steps you have taken between the house and the car, or the number of red cars you see on the way. Please remember to name every item of clothing that your child brings to school as we are not able to return your lost property to you without this. Your child should also be encouraged to entirely dress themselves in the morning, so please allow them the time to practise this. This includes fastening shirt buttons and turning tights the right way round. Please ensure that your child comes to school wearing sun cream and a sun hat if the weather looks to be warm.
Term 1: Oliver s Vegetables Places to visit Websites to explore Materials to bring into school Why not spend some time one weekend doing fruit picking at a local farm with your family? Grays Farm in Wokingham allows pick-your-own opportunities until October every year. You could also have a look at the different types of fruit and vegetables available in your local supermarket- why not try something you have never tried before? If you visit www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies and type vegetables in the search engine you will find lots of different clips to watch about growing your own vegetables and which dishes to make with them. If you have any favourite books about vegetables or healthy eating that you would like to share with the class, please bring them to school. You might even find an unusual looking fruit or vegetable in the supermarket that you would like to show us. Term 2: Starry Night Places to visit Websites to explore Materials to bring into school If you fancy a very special trip out, you could go to the National Space Centre in Leicester. It is a long way to drive, but this website will help you decide if it is worth the trip with young children: www.spacecentre.co.uk Here is the website for London s Greenwich Observatory which gives lots of information about stars and space to explore with an adult. www.rmg.co.uk/royal-observatory Perhaps you have a telescope that you might like to share with us, or some stories about space or astronauts that you would like to bring in. Cursive Numbers In Foundation Stage, we will be learning to write our numbers like this: