*If you are starting school in September, please watch this video clip to meet your teachers!*

Curriculum overview

Welcome back everyone! We hope you had a lovely half term break and are ready for the last half term of Reception.

RE

Our Religious Education topics this half term are Friends, Neighbours and Our World. Children will understand that Jesus had good friends. They will learn about what Jesus tells us about friendship and will learn how to make good friends.  Children will learn that God gave us this wonderful world and we will discuss what we love and wonder about our world. We will also celebrate the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul on 29th June.

English

This half term in English, we will be doing shared reading and activities around our big books, which are: To Town, Grandpa, Grandpa, I want my Mum, Shark in the Park and The Wicked Pirates.

We will read our big book every day, and will focus on the tricky sight words in the text, as well as strategies we can use to decipher unknown words. The reading strategies we have been focusing on are: looking at the pictures to give us clues, using our phonics to sound out words eg r-ai-n, looking for smaller words within longer words eg falling and breaking down longer words into smaller chunks eg fun-fair for funfair. We also have been working on learning more sight words that we recognise instantly when reading and have discussed how we do not sound these out. We encourage children to use a combination of these reading strategies, as this balance facilitates them to read more complex text as well as improving their fluency. We will also be reading lots of information books and stories about transport and vehicles.

We will continue doing guided and individual reading sessions twice a week. In guided sessions are group reading sessions, where reading strategies modelled to the children, and individual sessions are an opportunity for children to independently apply the reading skills we teach them in guided sessions. We are also emphasising the importance of reading for meaning with the children, and we are working on developing our comprehension skills. Please continue to support your child at home by reading with them daily, and helping them to learn their tricky words on their bookmark.

We are in Phase 4 in our phonics. Phase 4 does not introduce any new sounds, but reviews all the sounds we have learnt so far, in the form of more complex words. We will have fun Phase 4 activities every day.  We will continue to practise our Phase 2 and 3 sounds, and segmenting and blending our words to help us with our reading and writing. Please encourage and support your child to use their phonics when reading and writing at home, in order to consolidate what they have learnt at school.

The children have lots of opportunities to write and draw. We encourage children to form their letters correctly when writing. Please continue to support children in forming their letters correctly at home, according to the school’s handwriting policy.  We are working on the correct use of punctuation including capital letters, full stops and finger spaces, and are focusing on applying our phonics and knowledge of tricky words to help us when writing. We are also working on using adjectives and more complex punctuation eg question marks, exclamation marks and eclipses, to make our writing more interesting with those who are ready.

Communication and Language

All the children will be encouraged to share their thoughts and ideas with their classmates. Children will be supported to speak in full sentences in class and use as much interesting vocabulary as possible. When talking to your child at home, please encourage them to speak in full sentences, rather than giving one or two word answers.

We will continue to place a big emphasis on the development of language within our classroom, by providing children with a wide range of activities across the curriculum and modelling language and vocabulary as they play. We will also continue to support the children to develop their speech and language skills through the use of songs and stories.

Mathematics

Every day we have problem solving, reasoning and numeracy activities.  We will continue our work on counting, reading and writing numbers to 20 and beyond. This includes counting backwards from 20! We are also learning to count in 2s, 5s and 10s. We are exploring mathematical vocabulary such as more and less, so children will be confident in identifying 1 more/less than a given number. This half term we will be exploring practical activities linked to money, basic time (using o’clock), comparing weight, capacity and length. We will also be learning how to double and half quantities, as well as basic sharing.

We will continue to add and take away using different mathematical methods and apparatus, including cubes, objects, Numicon and number lines. Children will be encouraged to record their answer and explain their working out.

Please take any opportunity to reinforce number recognition, counting, addition and subtraction at home. Activities such as sharing out fruit, playing board games like snakes and ladders and halving vegetables whilst cooking dinner, are all activities that incorporate maths in practical ways.

Understanding of the World

Our topic for this half term is Vehicles and Transport. We will be learning about different types of vehicles and will talk about their parts. We will talk about the journeys we have made and the transport we have used. We will look at vehicles used by people who help us, such as ambulances, fire engines, air ambulance helicopters, and police cars and will learn about what these vehicles do. We will look at old and new modes of transport and will talk about how they are different. We will talk about magical or unusual ways of travelling, such as hot-air balloons or magic carpets and will imagine and act out what it would be like to travel like this.

We will also continue to grow our vegetables that we planted before half term and will look forward to harvesting them.

The children will use ICT to support their literacy and numeracy skills as well as creative work. Children will continue to learn using websites such as BusyThings, Topmarks, Phonicsplay and CBeebies. This half term we will focus on word processing and will write our names using the keyboard. We will also be using Easi- speak microphones to record voices. Don’t forget that children can access Busy Things at home, to support their learning in all areas of the curriculum.

Expressive Arts and Design

This half term we will do lots of creative work around vehicles and transport. We will draw and paint our favourite vehicles, and will use junk materials to make models of cars, boats, aeroplanes and much more!

We will continue to provide the children with a range of creative tools and materials to use in their artwork, such as paints, chalk, crayons, collage materials and pastels. We will also continue to enjoy messy play with playdough and shaving foam.

Children will be encouraged to think imaginatively and to develop their narratives when role playing in the home corner and small world table. We will promote the use of expression and gesture when storytelling and will encourage children to extend their storytelling skills through the use of drama.

Children have the opportunity to construct with a variety of construction toys, such as Mobilo, K’nex and Popoids etc. Children will be encouraged to think carefully about how they can improve their models and add increasing detail to them. They will be encouraged to label their models and write about them.

We have music lessons with Mrs Hoskins once a week. In addition to this, we explore a range of music genres in class, in order for children to build up a repertoire of songs. We encourage the children to dance expressively to music, and pupils have the opportunity to play percussion instruments.

Physical Development

We will continue to support the children in developing their gross motor skills and core strength through the use of our climbing frame, bicycles, PE apparatus and equipment. Children will further develop their fine motor skills through tactile activities with shaving foam and playdough, as well as through tasks involving threading and using tweezers.

The children will be given lots of opportunities to write and draw with a variety of writing tools and materials. This half term, we will be focusing on correct letter formation and pencil grip when writing. If you would like to help your child with letter formation at home, please refer to the pre-school booklet you were given or look in your child’s reading diary for the letter formation rhymes we use.

Personal, Social and Emotional

As we are in the last half term of Reception, we will start to talk about transitioning in to Year One, as we approach the summer holidays. We will talk about new beginnings, new settings and meeting new people. We will discuss how we feel when starting something new and will talk about the importance of supporting our friends when they are feeling anxious. We will encourage the children to talk openly about their feelings and will give them strategies on how to deal with different emotions.

Other Information

Don’t forget to continue using the supplementary resources on our Google Classroom to consolidate and extend school work.

We will continue to use the online learning journal Tapestry to record your child’s learning journey and development in Reception. Remember that you access this from home at any time to look at photographs, videos and notes following your child’s time at school.

Please ensure that all uniform is clearly labelled with your child’s name. Children have constant access to their water bottle throughout the school day, so it is important to wash and refill your child’s bottle every day.

If you have any questions or queries, please feel free talk to us after school or arrange an appointment at your convenience.