Reception & Year 1 - Curriculum News
Summer 2010 Topic – Our Wonderful Garden
The curriculum for the Foundation Phase and Year One is topic based, this term being Our Wonderful Garden. As you are probably already aware we are very fortunate at St. Brides to have fantastic school grounds and gardens, so this term we will be spending a lot of our time exploring and developing these further during our learning. This term your children will participate in a variety of learning styles that will include outdoor learning and learning through play; this will be in compliance with both National Curriculum and Outcomes for 3 to 7-year-olds in Wales in the Foundation Phase.
Personal & Social development, Well being and Cultural Diversity – The children will discover how to look after the school grounds and become aware that we need to care for them and also the world that we live in. Our role play areas will also be a focus for social skill development and the children will be playing together interactively through a range of activities.
Our Role play areas this term will consist of a Garden Centre, a shop, the home and as the children have enjoyed using the theatre so much we have decided to keep this and turn it into the set of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. The children will develop their ability to share with their peers further, take turns and they will also develop their friendships whilst working in their learning environment.
We have finally got hold of the incubator that we wanted last term and it is currently in the year 2 class, busy hatching 3 eggs, once this is done we will be having the incubator in our classroom and enjoying this amazing experience ourselves. We would love to keep the chicks that we hatch in the school grounds as school pets and are currently looking into the possibility of doing so.
Religious Education
Your children will be discovering the world of Christianity through daily worship and through play based activities within their setting.
This term Reception are going to be exploring the topic of ‘Caring’. The children will become aware of the importance of caring for objects and animals which they love, the school grounds, plant life and our world. In addition to this we will use the ‘Teddy Horsley’ books to focus on important issues that will arise in a child’s life.
In Year One our theme will be ‘Jesus through the eyes of a child’ and ‘Special Stories’.
Language, Literacy, and Communication skills – One of our main emphases will be to continue with the learning and reinforcing of letters and phonemes through sound/spelling pattern of the week and other practical activities. During these sessions your children will be encouraged to take care with their presentation and handwriting (letter formation). The children will be continuing to learn high frequency words each week and developing a love of mark making and writing for different purposes. The children will continue to take part in group guided reading activities using the schools scheme ‘All Aboard’. As your child’s’ reading skills develop we will be looking to enhance their quality of reading using a wider range of genres. This term we will have a strong focus on non-fictional texts as well as creative writing. We will be encouraging the children to develop their creative story writing and having a go at writing words on their own spelling them phonetically. Year one will be encouraged to read through their own work and will be making steps towards adding full stops and capital letters if they are ready to do so.
The children are invited to use the writing table in our class through free choice and directed activities, this will have a range of resources and mark making tools on it so the children can experiment and develop their writing skills. Each week your children will focus on a topic based story and participate in Literacy activities based on this text. We will be encouraging your children to speak in front of an audience on a regular basis through topical activities and they will be invited to take part in ‘Show and Tell’ on a half termly basis. This will take place on the last Friday of every half term. Your children’s artefact for ‘Show and Tell’ should be carefully chosen to reflect your children’s interests or our topic.
Mathematical Development – Our main emphasis this term will be recognising and formulating numbers to 100 depending on your children’s stage of development. The children will be counting forwards and backwards, ordering and sequencing numbers and exploring simple addition and subtraction. They will explore money and be using it as part of their role play activities, making price labels and price lists for our shop and garden centre and solving real life problems within this situation. The children will be sorting and comparing objects of different sizes, shapes both 2D and 3D and colour. They will be making patterns and repeating them and learning the time. Through topical activities your children will also be learning about ordinal numbers, time and positional language. Year one will also be looking at block graphs.
Welsh Language Development –.
The children will be learning about the Culture of Wales and its language. They will be using incidental Welsh daily such as numbers, colours, rhymes, songs and greetings and also learning a variety of vocabulary topic related including, the colour, the weather and learning how to ask for things in welsh.
The children will be learning how to ask a variety of questions in Welsh and how to respond appropriately and will be encouraged to use Welsh constantly during their play.
Knowledge and Understanding of the World – Your children will be continuing to learn about our locality, exploring the school grounds and local village. They will also be taking a trip to Bryngarw Park to explore the gardens there. They will be planting seeds and nurturing them, learning about what they need to grow and become strong plants.
Each day the children will discuss the day, date, month and season and will explore the weather and its changes.
In science we will develop an understanding that plants are alive & follow a life cycle. The children will recognise & name plant parts. We will perform an investigation to discover what seeds need to germinate. The variety of plants in the locality will be studied & different seeds will be investigated.
Your children will be taking part in our schools scheme ICT Alive regularly and have access to the classroom computers, digital cameras, digital microscopes and interactive whiteboard every day.
Physical Development – Our physical education sessions this term will take place as follows;
Reception- Monday and Thursday
Year One- Wednesday and Friday.
Please ensure your children have the school uniform P.E. kit for these days (this can be kept in school if required). The children will be taking part in dance this half term. They will also be involved in Adventurous play activities in our outside classroom as well as participating in games lessons, developing hand eye co-ordination using small equipment and gross motor skills. Your children will take part in athletic type activities during the second half term, improving on their throwing and running skills in readiness for sports day. Other physical development activities will be developed through topical play both indoors and out, threading, riding bikes, building models and dens and construction such as Lego etc.
Creative Development – This term we will be singing and performing (using actions) a range of songs, dances and rhymes linked to our topics and Welsh culture. The children will explore a variety of medium in art, paper mache, paint, pastels, charcoal, collage and printing. This term we will be discovering Monet and the Welsh artist Anne Jones who both have studied ponds, Monet in Water colour and Ann Jones in print. The children will be exploring their work and attempting their own work in the style of these artists as well as making comparisons between them. Our trip to Bryngarw will allow us to use similar scenery as a stimulus to paint. We will be taking water colours with us and we will be painting in the great outdoors! The children will continue to develop their designing, planning and evaluating skills during design technology work. Every day the children will have the opportunity to take part in a creative activity, whether it is drawing, painting, making, colouring or singing. The children will explore a variety of tuned and un-tuned Fairtrade instruments in group activities.
If you have any queries or concerns or ideas that will enhance our curriculum; please do not hesitate to contact us. We also welcome specialist visitors into class so let us know if you have a special talent that would benefit the children in this topic.
We look forward to the new and exciting term ahead and providing your children with an enriching and fun curriculum.
Best Wishes
Mrs C. Jones & Mrs J. Saal
Ways to help your child:
Please ensure your children have school P.E. kit in on the relevant days.
Please return homework folders every MONDAY, these will be returned every TUESDAY.
Encourage your children to reinforce phoneme of the week at home by using a range of games such as eye spy, collecting objects that begin with the letter and bringing them to school (on Monday if applicable) and completing their homework and reading books etc.
Please ensure your children have appropriate weather proof clothing which is clearly marked with their names as they will be engaging in the outdoors every day. Also on hot days please ensure your child has sun screen applied before school and their own cream in school with a letter of consent for the teachers to reapply if necessary.
Please ensure all of your children’s uniform is clearly marked with their names. We lose jumpers and cardigans on a daily basis and it is much easier to find their homes if they are clearly marked.
Please ensure your children have a healthy snack for morning play time and also a drink. As we are a healthy school, we do not allow chocolate, crisps or biscuits in school. Drink bottles and snack boxes should be clearly labelled. Please remember also that as we have a child in school with a nut allergy and so strictly no nut products are to be brought into school.
Please check your children have their red bag with them every day and check its contents on a daily basis for correspondence from school.
Children under 5 will be provided with milk every day and will only be offered water as an alternative if requested by yourselves; so if your children do not like milk please inform us as soon as possible.
If your children are away from school at any time, please inform the school as soon as possible and also provide a letter stating the reason. If we do not receive a letter we will have to mark your children with an unauthorised absence. Holidays within term time are unauthorised absences and a holiday request form should be completed prior to the children’s absence. These can be obtained from Mrs Money’s Office.
To enhance your children’s learning at home please visit our website to keep your self updated and your children to access our ‘Kidzone’.