Leicestershire Libraries have launched their Summer Reading Challenge for 2024. This year is all about getting CREATIVE. Music, junk-modelling, photography, dancing, story-writing...the possibilities are endless. The Challenge is for children aged 4-12 (although there is a mini Under-4s Challenge too!). Join the Marvellous Makers in Leicestershire Libraries from 6 July to 7 September.

• Go to your library this summer to sign up and get your Marvellous Makers collector’s foldout poster!
• Read books and collect stickers and other rewards for your reading (watch out for the smelly stickers!)
• In Leicestershire Libraries, we encourage children to read 6 books and visit their local library 3 times. At the end, you will receive a certificate with your name on and a medal. Remember, you can read ANYTHING.
• Reading together counts too. It could be a chapter book, picture book, comic, graphic novel, fact book, eBook or audiobook.

There are events on at local libraries throughout the summer too.

For more information click here.

 

Welcome to the Foundation Stage

Creating a positive start to your child's journey at school is crucial. At Woodland Grange we want our children to be active, independent learners from their very first day with us.

• We encourage them 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.

Forest School and outdoor learning is a big feature at our school. This helps the children develop their physical skills and core strength, which is 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. 

Our PE day is on a Friday- Please remember to send your child into school wearing their PE kit.

Please ensure that children have their waterproofs and wellies in school all year round, as well as a set of spare clothes.

Here is the menu for 2023/24. As a school we are option 1 & 3, please click here for the menu.

Dates for the Dairy:

Sports Day - 24th June (PM) Please ensure children come into school in their correct PE kit, Tshirts should reflect their house team.

Week Beginning 24th June 2024

Focus Text : Aaaarrgghh Spider! - Lydia Monks (continued)

Phonics

This week we will be covering the sounds 'a' (like acorn) and 'e_e'  (split digraph) and the common exception words 'were & when'. 

Maths

The Mastering Number Programme has provided lots of opportunities for the children to develop a deep understanding of numbers to 10. Starting with subitising, the children have built on their skills of recognising small quantities to 5 and moved on to seeing the ‘numbers within’ numbers. For example, the children have had extensive and varied opportunities to explore the numbers within 3. They have used their fingers, counters and other objects and representations, and they have found that inside 3 there is a 2 and a 1, so 3 is composed of 2 and 1. This practical understanding of the composition of 3 will eventually enable automatic recall of the number bond ‘2 and 1 is 3’. Through practical exploration, collaborative discussion and problem solving, this process has been repeated for all of the numbers within 10.

Alongside an exploration of the composition of numbers, the children have also compared quantities in various different contexts, and they have begun to develop an understanding of the magnitude of numbers to 10. They have played different games to support a growing understanding of the relationships between numbers, recognising quantities that are fewer than, more than or equal to other numbers within 10. Counting to 10 has been a valuable activity in recognising where numbers sit in relation to each other, and building staircase patterns has enabled the children to begin to formulate generalisations about ‘1 more than/1 less than’ relationships.

This week’s activities will allow staff to check the children’s understanding of number and will provide opportunities for further experiences. You should use your professional judgement to determine whether the children can demonstrate these key skills:

• comparing by looking, then by matching 1-to-1
• comparing groups of objects that are different sizes/colours/attributes, using the language of comparison
• showing (through practical activities) an understanding that numbers can be split into smaller parts
• showing (through practical activities) how to recombine parts to make a whole amount
• showing that some numbers to 10 can be split into 2 equal parts
• knowing that 5 is a key anchor in our number system, from which other numbers may be derived
• beginning to generalise about ‘1 more than/1 less than’ within 10
• developing a sense of magnitude, e.g. knowing that 8 is a lot more than 2, but 4 is only a little bit more than 2.

 

In the classroom you will see...

The children will be creating their own minibeasts out of natural resources such as leaves and twigs, they will be using their joining skills to make their own minibeast pictures. The children will be writing their own speech bubbles from the characters in the story to help them to begin to retell the story. The children will continue to work on their fine motor skills by taking part in some threading activities. The small world area will have a range of sensory resources for children to explore and think about where insects like to live. In the maths area thee children will be thinking about more and less and will be working on recalling the amount which is one more or one fewer then a given number.

 

Other areas of the curriculum....

RE - We will be discussing the similarities and differences between the Bible and Quran 

Music - We will be continuing the unit of Pitch - the children will be performing their pieces they have worked on using some musical instruments. 

Shape, Space and Measure- We will continue to name and describe 3D shapes

Topic - We will looking at different minibeast habitats and what make them good homes for the creatures to live in.

PSED - We will continue to think about and discuss the transition to year 1.

PE - Our unit focus is Fundamental games.

 

 

Week Beginning 17th June 2024

Focus Text : Aaaarrgghh Spider! - Lydia Monks

Phonics

This week we will be covering the sounds 'ay' and 'a_e'  (split digraph) and the common exception words 'come, do, so'. 

Maths

This week’s focus is on assessing and deepening the children’s developing automaticity with some number facts. Throughout the Mastering Number Programme, the children have been focusing on number relationships and on the composition of number in a variety of contexts. They have had repeated practice of exploring the ‘numbers within’ the numbers to 10. This week’s activities will help you to check the children’s understanding of all of this, and will provide further opportunities to develop their familiarity with these number relationships. We will be using our professional judgement to determine whether the children can demonstrate the key skill below:

• knowing that whole amounts can be split into parts
• knowing that parts can be combined to make whole amounts, and that the whole is larger than each of its parts
• knowing the ‘numbers within’ 3 (i.e. that 3 is composed of 2 and 1)
• knowing the different ‘numbers within’ 4 and 5, and naming the parts that make the whole number (e.g. that 5 is composed of 4 and 1, and 3 and 2)
• when shown a quantity to 5, saying how many are subsequently hidden under a cloth or bowl
• knowing the different ‘numbers within’ 10, and naming the parts that make the whole number, e.g. that 10 is composed of 5 and 5, or 6 and 4
• knowing doubles facts up to ‘5 and 5 make 10’.

 

In the classroom you will see...

The children will be creating their own 'Top Trump' cards about minibeasts to share and play with their friends. This will provide them with a great purpose for writing and encourage them to create their own cards while exploring facts about minibeasts. On the creative table, the children will be using a number of different skills to make their own spiders out of egg cartons. They will need to cut, glue, paint and feed through items to make the legs and understand the different processes they need to complete in order to make their own spider. The children will be exploring minibeasts in the soil and using scoops and magnifying glasses to make observations and record them. The children will be exploring ten frames and numicon in the maths area to support their automatic number recall skills. 

 

Other areas of the curriculum....

RE - We will be discussing the similarities and differences between the Bible and Quran 

Music - We will be continuing the unit of Pitch - the children will be performing their pieces they have worked on using some musical instruments. 

Shape, Space and Measure- We will continue to name and describe 3D shapes

Topic - We will be reflecting on our year in foundation stage and sharing our favourite memories throughout the year. We will be looking and past and present and thinking about what has changed about the children and their progress throughout the year.

PSED - We will continue to think about and discuss the transition to year 1.

PE - We will be practising team sports as we continue to prepare for sports day.

 

Week Beginning 10th June 2024

Focus Text : The Very Hungry Caterpillar (continued)

Phonics

This week we will be covering the sounds 'wh' and 'ph' and the common exception words 'some, one, said'.  We will continue to carry out our phonics assessments to track how secure the children are with the sounds below to support us with our end-of year teacher judgements. 

 

Maths

This week’s focus is on assessing and deepening the children’s understanding of mathematical relationships within numbers to 10. The activities included will help you to check their comprehension and will provide opportunities for further experience with being mathematically observant, recognising relationships and seeing mathematical structure. You should use your professional judgement to determine whether the children can demonstrate these key skills:

• assembling a whole object from different parts
• making a whole number from 2 parts
• splitting some numbers into 2 groups that each have an equal amount
• recognising that 2 equal groups can make a double, e.g. double 3 is 6 altogether
• understanding that double patterns are even; they have ‘flat tops’ because they are made of 2 equal groups
• understanding that odd numbers cannot be split into 2 equal groups; they’re not doubles, they have an ‘odd block’/’odd one out’

 

In the classroom you will see...

The children have enjoyed our new topic- Minibeasts. We will continue to explore a range of different types of minibeasts inside and out.  We will be observing the growth of the caterpillars as we continue to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly.  The children will be writing their own 'who am I' cards to think of some clues and see if their friends can guess what minibeast they have described. We will be creating our own life cycle pictures using different shaped pasta in the creative area. Our role-play area will continue to be a garden centre. The children will be making flowers for the garden centre and buying and selling these. There will also be the addition of a minibeast cafe for some interesting snacks and drinks! 

 

Other areas of the curriculum....

RE - We will be thinking about Eid

Music - We will be continuing the unit of Pitch

Shape, Space and Measure- We will be looking at naming and describing 3D shapes

Topic - Describing the characteristics of minibeasts

PSED - We will continue to think about and discuss the transition to year 1 as we write some questions to send to the year 1 teachers.

PE - We will be practising team sports as we begin to prepare for sports day.

Week Beginning 3rd June 2024

Focus Text : The Very Hungry Caterpillar 

Phonics

This week we will be continuing our consolidation work in phonics to enable the children to recap the sounds they have learnt so far this term and support them to apply these to their reading and writing more confidently. We will also continue to consolidate the common exception words covered so far too.  This week and next, we will be carrying out our phonics assessments to track how secure the children are  with the sounds below to support us with our end of year teacher judgements. 

Maths

This week’s focus is on assessing and deepening the children’s understanding of how to compare quantities. The activities included will help to check their comprehension and will provide opportunities for further comparison experiences. As we are fast approaching the end of the year, we will be continuing to use our professional judgement to determine whether the children can demonstrate these key skills:

• comparing groups of the same object with a big difference in number, and then a small difference
• comparing by looking, then by matching 1-to-1
• understanding when groups have an equal amount
• comparing groups of objects that are of different sizes, colours or attributes
• beginning to generalise about ‘1 more/1 less’ within 10
• developing a sense of magnitude, e.g. knowing that 8 is a lot more than 2, but that 4 is only a little bit more than 2.

This week’s activities are designed to allow ALL the children to practise these key skills and to deepen their sense of number.

When comparing quantities,  the children are focused on the numerosity of the group (how many there are) and that they are not distracted by the size or spatial arrangement of the objects. Language is also an important consideration. We model and encourage the use of ‘fewer’ when talking about countable things (e.g. I have fewer cubes than you) and ‘less than’ when talking about a number’s position in the counting sequence (e.g. 4 is less than 6 on our number track).

 

In the classroom you will see...

We will be beginning our new topic- Minibeasts. We will be exploring a range of different types of minibeasts inside and out.  As our focus text is The very Hungry Caterpillar, we will be having some tiny guests being delivered to us! We will be observing the life cycle of a butterfly, the eggs will be arriving the first week back and we will observe these as they go through the transformation process to become a beautiful butterfly.  The children will be writing their life cycle of a butterly in the writing area, they will also be sequencing days and labelling the different foods within the text. In the maths area, the children will be using fruit counters to continue and generate their own patterns. We will be challenging them by seeing if they are able to continue patterns in different directions.  In the creative area we will be getting a head start of creating some Fathers Day cards, but we wont give too much away about this! The children will be making some hungry caterpillar necklaces using coloured pasta and paper, this will help to support their fine motor skills as they carefully thread the shapes onto string. Our role-play area will be transformed into a garden centre. The children will be making flowers for the garden centre and buying and selling these. 

 

Other areas of the curriculum....

RE - We will be looking at the Bible and some stories within it.

Music - We will be continuing the unit of Pitch

Shape, Space and Measure- We will be looking at naming and describing 3D shapes

Topic - Life cycle of a butterfly

PSED - We will continue to think about and discuss the transition to year 1 as we write some questions to send to the year 1 teachers.

PE - We will be practising team sports as we begin to prepare for sports day.

 

Week Beginning 20th May 2024

Focus Text :The Rainbow Fish (continued) 

Phonics

This week we will be having a consolidation week in phonics to enable the children to recap the sounds they have learnt so far this term and support them to apply these to their reading and writing more confidently. We will also continue to consolidate the common exception words covered so far too. 

Maths

This week’s focus is on assessing and deepening the children’s understanding of our counting system. The activities included will help us to check their comprehension, and will provide opportunities for further counting experiences. Now we are fast approaching the end of the year, we will be using our professional judgement to determine whether the children can demonstrate these key skills:

• tagging each object in a group of up to 10 objects (1-to-1 correspondence)
• knowing number names to 10 and their order (stable order principle)
• knowing that the last number counted gives the total in the set (cardinal principle)
• counting up to 10 things that can't be seen or tagged, such as jumps, hops, sounds, etc. (abstraction principle)
• understanding that the quantity remains the same when (up to 10) objects are counted in a different order (order irrelevance principle)
• developing strategies to keep track of what has and has not been counted (e.g. rearranging objects into a line, moving objects as they’re counted)
• recognising the pattern of the counting system, when beginning to count beyond 20.

Counting beyond 20 is an important focus this week. Unlike other languages (e.g. Welsh, Mandarin), English ‘teen’ number names do not follow a logical pattern; we say ‘eleven, twelve, thirteen’ instead of ‘ten-one, ten-two, ten-three’.

It is only when we count beyond 20 that the pattern of our number system begins to become clear. For the children to develop familiarity with the structure and pattern of this system, we need to give them experiences of counting to these larger numbers. The children do not need to remember the names of every ‘tens’ number (thirty, forty, fifty, etc.) but, when prompted, they should be able to rejoin the count because they have understood the pattern of the ‘ones’.

This week’s activities are designed to allow ALL of the children to practise these key skills and to deepen their sense of number.

 

In the classroom you will see...

We will be continuing our text this week, The Rainbow Fish. Now the children have a deeper understanding of our focus text, they will be having a go at writing captions to match the sequence of the story and make their own Rainbow fish books. The children will continue to develop their fine motor skills by using pipettes to squeeze liquid into a range of different containers. The small world area contains blue rice, sea creatures, characters from the text and a range of different sized containers and scoops for children to explore and retell the story. We will continue to explore a range of time adverbials by using sequencing cards for children to determine what comes first, then and next in an event. In the creative area, the children will be using the work of the Artist Paul Klee to inspire them to make their own work of art using chalks. 

Our role-play area will continue to be hairdressers and the beauty salon has been a hit. Children will be taking on different roles, booking appointments and role-playing between hairdressers/ customers in our Woodland Grange hairdressers.  Our recent café has sparked lots of discussions with children visiting local coffee shops with their families, so this week we have transformed it into one of the children's favourites, Jennos!  In this café, children will be designing their own drinks, ordering by size, exploring capacity by making their own drinks, as well as a range of other skills to support their imaginative play. 

 

Other areas of the curriculum....

RE - We will continue to explore one of our focus texts from our 'Everyone's Welcome' unit, The Blue Chameleon. This text looks at making new friends. The children will be completing a range of activities to support this unit throughout the week. 

Music - We will be continuing the unit of Pitch

Topic - Paul Klee- Children will be exploring the work of the artist Paul Klee, learning all about him and his work and having a go at using his pieces to inspire them to make their own. 

PSED - We will continue to think about and discuss the transition to year 1.

PE - To follow instructions and move safely when playing tagging games. In this unit, children will practise and further develop their fundamental movement skills through a range of different themes. Children will learn and develop these skills by playing a variety of games. They will also learn how to work as a team, take turns, keep the score, play against an opponent and play by the rules.