EYFS at Woodland Grange

• We encourage children to be curious and imaginative. 
• We teach them to ask and answer questions — find things out & explain to others. 
• We want our children to be aware of the world around them.
• We encourage them to be independent.

General Information:

Reading at home:

Please could we remind all families just how important practising phonetic sounds and reading, at home, is. Those children that read and share books at home regularly are progressing so well. They are super confident and are beginning to segment and blend independently. We all understand how busy life can get, but 5 minutes daily will make a huge difference. Thank you so much to those that read regularly and write in the purple reading record. If you would like any support or suggestions regarding reading and/or phonics at home, then please let us know. 

Forest School and outdoor learning is a big feature at our school. This helps the children develop their physical skills and core strength, which are vital for everyday life at school and beyond. It also provides many open-ended learning opportunities, which in turn creates team work, problem-solving and allows the imagination to flourish.

It will soon be Shooting Stars' turn for Forest School (Mrs Johnson's class). 

Dinner - Here are the menus for autumn 2024 - Woodland Grange Primary School - School Dinners (woodlandwideweb.org.uk)

Week beginning : 18/11/2024

This week's learning:

Focus text: Stanley's Stick - by John Hegley

 

 

Some of the things the children can look forward to seeing in the classroom this week:

Construction area - wooden blocks for creative constructions. 

Finger Gym - to build up the children's muscle strength and memory and develop their dexterity and fine motor skills. The classroom has a finger gym - the activities in this area will change regularly and include activities to help build children's motor skills and confidence - all of which should help the kids to improve pencil grip and handwriting. This week children will be using their fine motor-skills to place beads onto boards and create autumnal scenes. 

Role-play area - School in a school - we have noticed that lots of children are enjoying 'playing schools' - role-playing as teachers and pupils. This week, the role-play area is a mini-school. 

Writing area - Stick creations - Can you design a stick animal and use your amazing phonics skills to label your creation? 

Creative area - Painting with nature brushes - we have amazing brushes made from sticks, leaves, feathers and more. 

Reading area - familiar stories, sharing and retelling stories. The children are really enjoying sharing and exploring a range of different texts. 

Maths area - Ordering sticks by length - can you use rulers and tape measures to help you? 

Sand - children to use sticks to practise their letter formation in the sand. 

Tough spot - lets go fishing - the tuff spot is now a beautiful pond where the children can fish for phonics fish and practise their recognition and sounding out of the sounds we have been learning in our phonics sessions. 

Our carpet sessions will include English sessions, maths sessions and Phonics sessions.

Phonics sessions will be daily (please see below for more details). 

Phonics

Our Rocket Phonics phonic sessions continue to happen once a day, 5 times a week. 

We focussed on the sounds h and b, last week. This week we will be learning the sounds f, ff (digraph) and l. Why not practise these initial sounds at home with your children? 

Maths

Composition of number is a key area of mathematics, and children need considerable and varied practice over time, based on meaningful experiences, to build their understanding of this concept.

This week, the children will begin to explore composition by focusing on the preliminary skills: the concept of ‘wholes’ and ‘parts’. By investigating their own bodies and familiar toys they will begin to understand that whole things are often made up of smaller parts and that a whole is, therefore, bigger than its parts.

Other areas of the curriculum....

Music - Lots of singing - we will be learning and rehearsing our Christmas nativity songs - exciting times! It has started well. 

RE - We have had some lovely discussion about the different religions of the world and this will continue. It is so nice when children share their own experiences with their class. 

PSED - We will continue to think about our feelings and emotions. Some children have shown real maturity in how and what they discuss in some of our circle time sessions. Also, the children have a check-in where they can choose to put their picture on the emotion that best fits what they are feeling at that time. 

PE - The children will do a PE lesson on a Friday afternoon. 

Do not worry about PE kits (yet) - we will communicate this with you when needed (very soon). For now, the children will be barefoot and in their uniforms (indoors). 

Please make sure that all jewellery is removed, including religious bracelets. Could we please ask that all earrings are removed for our Friday lessons? This is really important for safety. Thank you to the vast majority of parents/carers that continue to do this. 

We are focussing on fundamental movements this half-term as the theme continues to be - 'An Introduction to PE'.

 

Please see the family area of the Get Set 4 PE website. We use this scheme at school, so why not see what they suggest for some fun activities at home - Get Set 4 PE - Resource Bank (getset4education.co.uk)