EYFS
One Week in...all the children are settling in beautifully. There are still a few tears but honestly, it's more for your benefit and usually stops before the children even get their coats off! If you are worried or unsure about anything, please come and speak to one of us before or after school.
Thank you for helping us with the morning routine and arriving promptly at the end of the day I think it has helped to ease the congestion and makes it a bit less chaotic for the children.
Just a few reminders: please label all clothes (including coats and shoes) and make sure your children recognise them. We try to encourage independence at school. You can really help us at home by encouraging children to put their own clothes on, fasten their coats and shoes and carry their own things into school. It really does help us during transition times - practising with one child at home is much easier than us trying to teach 20 of them at hometime!
Please send spare clothes for toilet accidents and remind your children to tell a teacher if they have had an accident or need some help. We try to keep an eye on everybody and give lots of reminders but we can't help if we don't know or see that it's needed.
We update our class page regularly so please keep checking back to receive any information and see what we have been up to!
Mrs Forrest
Welcome to a new school year in the Foundation Stage!
The Foundation Stage Team would like to say A HUGE thankyou to the parents and children for all of the gifts, cards and kind words that were shared with us at the end of last term. xxx
We had a fabulous time when we went to see "The Tiger Who Came To Tea" at Lincoln theatre. The children were so well behaved and we loved the tiger ears that Mrs Reeson found for us!
We had lots of fun during our "water play" days. It was lovely for the children enjoy the super weather and have fun with their friends!
We all had a great time on sports day! The children tried their best and were great sports.
Finally, our tadpoles have changed! We currently have 2 froglets and 2 tiny frogs. We will be sending them to their new home very soon but are loving watching them in the meantime.
The warmer weather is finally here! Please make sure your children have a named sun hat and water bottles in school everyday (Water only please, we don't allow juice or flavoured water) and we will be reminding them to drink regularly.
Children can bring sun-cream in their book bag. They will need to apply it themselves though, (we will help if necessary) so the all day sun-cream that can be applied before school is preferable.
In the morning, we made some pirate jewellery. Then, we found a message in a bottle! It was a treasure map from Pirate Pete. We followed the map and found the treasure - it was our snack! So we sat outside and enjoyed a mid-morning picnic.
The First two week's of the new term have flown by! We have been learning all about boats and having lots of pirate fun!
How is it the last term already?!
Term 6 is upon us. This term we will be learning all about the seaside. Our topic will include some of the children’s favourites such as pirates, fossils and dinosaurs. We will also be learning all about boats, what we can see at the seaside. How to find places on a map or a globe, how to draw treasure maps and what an island is.
We always use high quality texts to support our topic work. This term, some of the stories we are using include ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’, ‘We’re Sailing to Galapagos’ and ‘Mr Gumpy’s Outing’. They are great for learning and also inspire some super writing.
We are hoping for some lovely weather and lots of outdoor play so please remember to bring hats and water bottles every day. Applying an all-day sun cream in the morning is the best way to protect your children but you are welcome to send a bottle with them in their book bag. We don’t apply it but will help children to do it themselves.
We will be holding transition session later this term. We have seen fantastic progress from all our children and they are all ready for the next year group so this should be a really positive experience for them all. If you have questions about transition, or anything else for that matter, please speak to a member of the team at the start of the day.
Kind Regards, The Foundation Stage Team
Mrs Forrest
Mrs Murten
Mis Brason
We try really hard to make our topics inspiring for the children; having caterpillars and tadpoles in the classroom is a fantastic hands-on experience and allows children to recall facts that they have learnt. Our tadpoles are taking a while to change but our butterflies all emerged from their cocoons last week and after observing them in their net for a couple of days, we were able to release them into the garden on a lovely sunny day. Everybody got the opportunity to hold one - what a super experience!
We are really enjoying our animal topic. We have designed and made 3D animals using tubes - they turned out fantastically! We have made animal masks, bought toys in the "Zoo shop", washed the muddy animals and enjoyed small world animal play inside and outside.
Whenever the sun shines, we make the most of being outside. Over the last few weeks, the children have enjoyed outdoor small world, water play, construction and role play. Toasting pretend marshmallows on our "camp fire" was a definite highlight!
Our Nursery children have several number time sessions each week. In them we might read a story, sing some number rhymes, do some counting or sorting, look at a "maths talk" picture or explore shape and measure. This week they were looking at different shapes and how they might fit together. All of our activities are explorative; it's the best way for our youngest children to learn and it promotes lots of lovely mathematical vocabulary.
We have made it to term 5 – Summer is in sight!
This term we are hoping that the weather is kind and we can spend lots of time playing and exploring outside. Please remember that playing can be a messy business and whilst we try to avoid any unnecessary mess, clothes, socks and shoes may get dirty or scuffed. Please do not send your children in clothing that you are precious about.
Our topic this term is “Animal Kingdoms” We will be exploring pets, farm animals and wild animals and how we take care of them. We will look at different types of animal habitats and how the animals have adapted to live there.
As we near the Summer, we will be looking at our end of year expectations and hoping to see lots more independence and children taking on challenges with increasing maturity. Please help them by encouraging them to try new things, be more independent and “have a go!”
If you notice them meeting any particular milestones at home, we would love to hear about it. Pop a post-it note in their book bag or speak to one of us on the gate and we can include it in their learning journeys.
The Foundation Stage Team
The Foundation Stage Team would like to thank all of those parents who had such positive things to say to the OFSTED inspectors at the end of last term; It is really lovely to feel supported by our families. We hope those of you who came, enjoyed the Easter church service and that you all had a fabulous Easter holiday!
Scissors! Being able to use scissors carefully and safely is a really important skill. We start in the FSU by having scissors freely available for all types of activities. We allow children to explore by snipping away at different materials and different textures. We teach the correct way to hold scissors and how to move the paper when cutting out shapes. If you haven't got any children's scissors at home it's worth getting some and letting your child practise their skills.
Thank you for your donations to Comic Relief this year. The children enjoyed wearing their red clothes to school and we even found some old red noses to use for water fun!
For World Book Day this year, we invited a real-life author into our school! Bethany Walker read our class one of her picture books and told us all about why she wrote books and how she worked with her illustrator. It was really interesting. We don't need a special day to celebrate books in the FSU though, we read stories everyday; on our own, with friends or with a grown up and there always books new books to explore and books that support our learning in all areas of the curriculum.
Last week we were so lucky to have had a visiting planetarium. We went into the inflatable dome, which was extremely dark! and watched a short film about travelling through space and another one about the Earth when dinosaurs were around. The films were projected across the whole of the domed ceiling and, as you can see by our faces, it was super exciting!
We have enjoyed the start of our "Growing" topic. We have made caterpillar prints, chopped vegetables and made daffodils out of play dough! We have done lots of other fun stuff but sometimes we just don't have the chance to take a photograph!
Dear Parents,
Welcome back to term 4
Our topic this term is called “Come Outside” We hope to be spotting some signs of spring and learning all about new life and how things grow. We will be naming animals and their young and observing life cycles of butterflies, plants, frogs and hens.
Easter is a lovely time in school; we will be looking at why Christians celebrate Easter and will have an Easter service in the Church.
We will spend as much time outside as we can so please continue to dress your child appropriately.
FS2 Children should all be practicing their reading books regularly – little and often is the key! If you would like to do any extra work at home we recommend looking for words in the environment such as shop signs or packaging, writing little sentences, shopping lists or labels. Playing number games is great for maths practice as is any type of counting. We also encourage questioning such as “how many do we need?” “how many more?” “How many is that altogether?”
If you need any help or ideas please feel free to speak to one of the team before or after school.
Just a reminder that once the first bell has been rung at 8.47 and your child is in the line, you are welcome to leave. When the second bell rings at 8.50, we will take the children into the Foundation Stage Unit. If you arrive late you will need to go to the main entrance and register at the office.
Thank you,
The Foundation Stage Team:
Mrs Forrest (Class Teacher)
Mrs Murten
Miss Brason
Remember, today (Friday 9th) is the last day of term. We will be on the half term break for a week. Please let us know if your child does anything at home which will help us to assess their progress, especially if it is something that surprises you, something they have never done before or evidence of the new things they are learning at school.
Please also remember to keep reading over the holiday, it is so easy for children to slip behind if they aren't practising regularly.
See you in a week's time!
The Foundation Stage Team
We love it when it snows. We wrapped up warm and went outside where we had SNOW MUCH FUN!!
Our last week of this topic was spent making houses for the 3 Little Pigs and building bridges for The 3 Billy Goats Gruff!
FS2 parents, please, please keep practising your child's reading books with them. You don't need to read all the books every time but daily practise really is the best way to improve confidence and fluency. A few pages each day is better than slogging through every book at the end of a busy week.
Thank you.
There has been some fantastic building going on this week; we have followed the example of the 3 Little Pigs and made houses out of all sorts of things! outdoor challenges are great for developing big ideas, using our gross motor skills and developing team work.
We are really enjoying our traditional tales topic. So far, we have made porridge, drawn a story map, built castles and made fairy wands, baked gingerbread and designed bridges. By immersing ourselves in activities and play, we use lots of storytelling language and this enables us to write labels for our buildings, speech bubbles for our characters and have the ideas and confidence to use mark making in all of our play.
It has been great fun playing with the ice this week! Cold weather is not a barrier in the FSU!
All FS2 children are learning to read and write words through our RWI (Read write inc) phonics scheme. We currently have a subscription that allows parents to access interactive teaching videos so I thought it would be really useful to share them with you. They are great for you to see how we teach as they mimic the lessons we do in class and it will be super for the children to use them to do some extra practise at home.
Please feel free to access the ones you find most suitable for your child and of course, ask any of the team if you have any questions. I will try to post new videos weekly so do keep checking this web page.
Welcome to The Spring Term 2024!
This half term our topic is “Traditional Tales". We will be exploring traditional tales and fairy stories, thinking about the settings and characters in them and having a go at telling them ourselves. We will be doing lots of exciting play-based learning such as making porridge, baking gingerbread men, creating fairy wishes and potions, building fairytale castles and making bridges for the 3 Billy Goats to cross over. Keep an eye on our class page for photographs.
FS2 children are all writing independently and we would love it if you could encourage them at home. Small pieces of independent writing are much more valuable than longer pieces where an adult has had to help. You could try writing labels for things, shopping lists, greeting cards or write a sentence from a book or nursery rhyme. At school we ask children to just 'have a go' at spelling words they don't know; they can use their phonics knowledge from RWI, it doesn't matter if words aren't spelt exactly right, as long as they can tell you what it says. We do try to insist on correct letter formation and finger spaces at all time though.
Nursery children and FS2 children continue to do Read Write Inc, daily. Nursery children are listening to stories, singing nursery rhymes, learning about the RWI characters and playing words games. FS2 children are learning new 'special friends' sounds (ee, ay, ow etc.) through reading and writing activities. We work slowly through each book ensuring all children have a thorough understanding of the sounds and words we are teaching that week and that they can write them as well as read them. Please make sure you practise their RWI and class reading book at least 3 times each week and sign their reading record accordingly. All FS2 children need a school book bag to keep school books safe and in good condition.
Wednesday afternoon is our PE session. In line with the rest of the school, we ask that you send your child to school in their PE kits. (Joggers and school jumpers/hoodies can be worn) However, as self-care is an important part of the EYFS curriculum we do encourage children to be independent so please allow your child to dress themselves as much as possible including putting on their own coat and having a go at the zips and buttons! Children also need to be able to take off and put on their own shoes. If this is something they struggle with, please practise at home.
Please only bring essential items into school. Children need a school book-bag, their own ready filled water bottle and a lunch bag/box if they are having packed lunch. Again, please make sure they are all named. You can put spare clothes in their book bag if you are worried about toilet accidents.
If you have any concerns or would like to talk the Foundation Stage Staff, please feel free to come and speak to us at the end of the day.
Thank you,
The Foundation Stage Team:
Mrs Forrest (Class Teacher)
Mrs Murten
Miss Brason
Christmas was great fun in the FSU. We learnt about the Nativity story, Advent and the history of the Christingle. We went to the pantomime and enjoyed a visit from a theatre company. The FS2 children were fabulous in their Nativity performance. We all dressed up for Christmas Dinner and enjoyed games and dancing at our class party. The term ended with a beautiful Christingle service in Church. We hope you were able to join us for some of our Christmas festivities and the FSU team wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We had a beatboxing lesson last week. After a demonstration, we were shown how to make different sounds with our voices and put them together to make music. It was lots of fun!
Brrr! What a cold few days we have had. We still like to be outside though so please make sure your child has a warm coat that they can put on by themselves and please practise fastening it so they can be independent when choosing to play outside..
Miss Brason found a hedgehog in our FSU garden last week. He was clearly lost as it's definitely not a nice quiet place to hibernate! After everyone had the chance for a peek at his little face, we relocated him to somewhere more suitable.
We have been learning about different types of transport this week. The children have had great fun building boats, trains and monster trucks outside! It is great for their physical development but also encourages team work, cooperation and some wonderful vocabulary. Inside we made a town for our cars to travel around. The children labelled the buildings and even made a fruit box car wash! Remember to ask your children what they have been learning about - they might surprise you with just how much they know and remember.
Covering different events is a really important part of our curriculum. For young children, it allows them opportunities to learn about how other people celebrate, to talk about their own experiences, make sense of things that are happening now and reflect on events in the past. In the last 2 weeks, we have explored Bonfire night, Remembrance day, Diwali and Children in Need. Activities linked to these events give the children an opportunity to practise new vocabulary and recall what they have been learning about.
Welcome to term 2!
Week ending 20th October. Thank goodness we had a few nice days at the start of this week before the horrendous rain spoilt our play! The children loved being outside and we could see lots of great learning going on..
Week ending 13th October: Lots of mark-making has been happening this week. Mark-making can be pictures, scribbles, shapes or writing. We encourage all children to see themselves and writers; to assign meaning to the marks they make, and mark-making is the beginning of this process. As children learn to write new sounds, they are encouraged to use them and some FS2 children can now choose the correct initial sound for what they want to write about. It's super to see how quickly they progress!
During Black History Week, The FSU children have been exploring what makes each of us unique. We have made faces with play dough and loose parts, drawn self portraits, read books that celebrate diversity and talked about what we are good at and what we enjoy.
We are so lucky to have some great dressing-up clothes in the FSU - role play helps us to use new vocabulary, play collaboratively and make sense of the things we have been learning about. The children have been talking about their homes and families this week. We enjoyed making houses using all types of media.
This week we have been learning about the adults who work in our school, and people who help us in the community. The children have also enjoyed learning about parts of their body.
What a super first two weeks we have had! Keep checking in on our class page. We put any notices here as well as information about what we have been doing.
Welcome letter from the Foundation Stage Team. September 2023
Mr Forrest bought his Pizza oven in and we all got to try Pizza and make our own! What a fantastic end to a super Year! Have a fabulous Summer everybody.
Sports Day was a great success. We were great sports in the FSU - we smiled if we won and we smiled if we lost!
We didn't let the rain spoil our day at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. The FSU children were brilliantly behaved and we had a fabulous time!
