Early Years Foundation Stage 

(EYFS)

Welcome to Ash Tree Class!

 The class teacher is Miss Crane

with Mrs Looker and Mr Bush supporting the children. 

Welcome to Fir Tree Class!

The class teacher is Miss Mitchell 

with Miss Allen supporting the children.

Mrs Casey will teach Cookery.

Autumn 2024

We wish you all a very warm welcome to the school - and to Ash and Fir Tree Classes. We have been enjoying getting to know the children, who are settling with growing confidence, into their new learning environment. We have a fun and busy half term ahead of us and we will send out an update each term. We are looking forward to all the exciting activities and adventures in store!

Our topic this half term is Our world is a rainbow. In EYFS, we have termly over-arching themes and follow the children’s interests to develop weekly focuses within these.

Reading and Phonics

·   We follow the Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) phonics programme. This is a Systematic Synthetic Phonics Programme which is designed to teach children how to read through the act of decoding and blending. It comprises of daily phonics lessons to teach children the link between the sounds of our language (phonemes) and the written representation of these sounds (graphemes), or the spellings of the sounds contained within the English language.

Writing

·      We will listen to a variety of fun and stimulating stories, take part in role- play and enjoy practical experiences to stimulate our creative ideas.

·         We will be learning to form our letters and concentrate on holding our pencils correctly. 

·         We will practise writing our names.

·         We will write letters in a variety of mediums e.g. sand, chalk and water.

Maths

·         We will count, subitise, match, sort and compare amounts.

·         We will explore patterns and measuring.

·         We will represent, compare and explore composition of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and beyond

·         We will be exploring 2D and 3D shapes

General Information

P.E 

• Monday/Tuesdays (outdoor) 
• Wednesdays (indoor)

Reminders

Reminders:

·         Please label clearly all P.E kits, uniform, shoes, coats, bags etc.

·         Please encourage your child to be independent in dressing themselves, so that changing for P.E is easier for them.

·         Children cannot do P.E. with earrings in, so please remove them on P.E. days – Local Authority policies do not allow us to remove children’s earrings.

·         Please ensure that your child brings in a bottle of water each day, not juice.

·         The school supplies a piece of fruit every day, but please feel free to provide a piece of fruit in a separate named container (not a lunchbox) for your child, if you wish. This will be eaten at morning break. Please ensure any snack or packed lunch is also nut-free, and grapes are cut in two lengthways. Please bear in mind we are a nut free school and have children in EYFS with severe nut allergies.

Support at home

Fine motor activities:

Fine motor activities are really important to strengthen a child’s fine motor skills which are vital for strong pencil grip and control.

• Manipulate play doh

• Use of scissors and tweezers

• Building using small/large bricks

• Threading/ Weaving activities

• Practice using a knife and fork

Reading activities:

Daily reading is an important part of the children’s home learning; however, this does not have to mean sitting with your child whilst they read to you.  You could:

·         Play Eye Spy

·         Play ‘spot the word/letter’ in a favourite book or a newspaper

·         Use letter cards (or written on pieces of paper) to play snap, or pairs

·         Make up interesting stories with each other

·         Write a shopping list

·         Create silly sentences

·         Snuggle up to enjoy a good bedtime story together

Maths activities:

You can play simple maths games with your child to practise key skills e.g.

·         Counting stairs as you climb them, fruit or physical activities

·         Weighing and comparing weights whilst cooking

·         Spotting shapes and numbers in the environment

·         Playing bingo

·         Playing snap/ card games

Please encourage your child to form letters and numbers correctly by showing them the correct way to form them if they form them incorrectly.

With thanks,

Miss Crane and Miss Mitchell

For further information about our curriculum – please see the long term plan below