EYFS
Welcome to the EYFS Class Page
The Reception Unit has two classes, Oak and Elm,
with the children accessing learning across the whole unit.
This page will provide information on this terms topic,
links to websites, useful resources and important information and dates.
Oak Class Elm Class
Mrs Johnson and Mrs Smith Miss Mathieson
Mrs Patel SSA Support
Miss Mazhar SSA Support
Miss Asad SSA Support
Our topic for Spring 1 is;
'Are all bears the same?'
This half term we will be focusing a lot of our learning around our new class story, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen. Children will explore different types of bears and where they live. We will also have lots of fun exploring and talking about the different scenes from the story- mud, grass, river, forest, snowstorm etc. We will be reading a range of other stories about bears, such as 'Goldilocks and the three bears.' We are also focusing a lot this half term on our personal care and hygiene. Children will discuss how we care and look after our teeth, how we keep ourselves healthy, and how we need to keep washing our hands.
We will continue to explore seasonal change and look out for signs as winter approaches through our Understanding of the World learning. Children will continue to explore everyday through outdoor play and provision, but also through weekly Forest School sessions on Thursdays.
This half term we will continue teaching our sounds through the scheme 'Read, Write, Inc.' The children will continue embedding their set 1 sounds and special friends and reading words with those sounds in. Children should be confident with all of their set 1 and special friends by now.
Children will learn a new sound every day, so it is very important children are in school every day and on time! Children will bring phonic work home every weekend to practise their sounds and they will also have reading books with their sounds to practise in. Children should be able to blend CVC words by Christmas-so please keep practising daily!
Following our White Rose maths programme, we will continue to look at numbers 1-5 and master composition of these numbers. Children will then move on to numbers 4 and 5. Children will then look at one more and one less than a number from 1-5. We will also be exploring different shapes and their properties-mainly squares, triangles, circles and rectangles.
Our RE topic for this half term will be 'Stories that Jesus hear.' We will explore some of the stories that Jesus listened to as he was growing up, including 'Daniel and the Lions den,' 'Noah's Ark,' 'Jonah and the blue whale,' and others.
Through our Art and Design exploration, we will be exploring different textures-such as fluffy, hard, soft etc. We will create clay bears, and use different materials to collage, paint, draw and colour bears.
Throughout our day we will have play at the centre of all we do, both indoors and outdoors. Please send your child to school with a coat and warm clothing as it is now very cold weather! Thank you!
Outdoor Play!
It is essential that young children get frequent and regular opportunities to explore and learn in the outdoor environment. At St Stephen's, children have opportunities throughout the day to explore and learn outdoors. During Continuous provision, the doors are open to the outside area all day so children can freely flow from indoors and outdoors as they choose.
Outdoor play is a vital part of children education and is a statutory requirement in the EYFS. Benefits include improved fine and gross motor skills, developed problem solving skills, improved creativity, boosts confidence and social and communication skills!
We will continue this half term to enjoy Forest school and the outdoors. We will hopefully be able to spend more time in the mud kitchen and completing our mile a day too!
There are lots of things parents can do at home to promote outdoor play and learning such as going to your local park, going on a nature walk around the local area, build a den outside, play with water outdoors and plant vegetables and flowers to name a few! The national Trust Website list 50 things to do outdoors before 11 years old, this offers a range of ideas and suggestions on how to get outdoors more and many ideas can be done from outside your home.
Link to the National Trust website
Uniform:
Please ensure that the uniform policy is followed at all times. Please make sure that no boots are worn especially during the winter months and that the children are wearing sensible black school shoes. Please also ensure that earrings are plain gold studs.
Home Reading!
While at school, we will send home a home reader with your child for you to help with their reading, it is very important and a vital part of your child's education to practise reading at home. This will help to improve your child's identification of their sounds, blending and segmenting words and improve their fluency of reading.
Please read every day with your child, share stories too from home and from libraries. Our library day will be Wednesdays-so please ensure your child always has their reading book with them.
Should you need any help at all please do not hesitate in speaking to a member of staff who will be more than happy to help.
PE
This half term we will have PE every Monday afternoon. Please ensure PE kits are in school and clearly named. Children should have a white t-shirt, black or red shorts or joggers and black pumps.
EYFS Curriculum Map 2023-2024
For further information and support to help your child pronounce their phonetic letter sounds please visit the below website:
Home learning fun!
Please use the websites below for some home learning fun. Encourage your child to continue to read, write and count as they enjoy their weekend adventures.