Dear Parents/Carers,
 

We hope that you have enjoyed a restful half term and that your child is ready for more fantastic adventures, as we head into the most magical term of the year.

Our topic for this term will begin by travelling back in time to the land of the dinosaurs. The children were asked about what they would like to learn about next and this was a big hit for lots of our children. We will be looking at different dinosaurs, their features and how we know so much about them today, even though they have not been alive for a long time. As we begin to enter the second half of our term we will begin our learning about Christmas. We will be learning about the Nativity story and how Christmas is an important Christian celebration, as they celebrate the birth of Jesus. We will also be looking at how our families celebrate Christmas and how it is celebrated across the world.

This term we will also be scheduling in plenty of Nativity rehearsals as we get ready to wow you all with our own performance of the Nativity. A letter will be sent out soon to let you know your child’s role and what costume they will need. If you need any help providing a costume then do please let one of our team know and we will do our best to help.

Date for the diary: Our performances will be on Wednesday 11th December, times will be confirmed in the weekly newsletter.
 

If you have any questions (no matter how small you think they are) or concerns then do please let us know. You can ring the school or send in an email anytime and we will get back to you as soon as we can. We will also be on the door at drop off and pick up. This is always a busy time as the children have our sole focus, so we would ask for your patience whilst we ensure they are either safely in school or with their parents/carers.

The Early Years curriculum is split into several key areas. Below we will map out what your child will be learning in each of these during their first term. You can use these to talk to them at home and ask questions about what they have been doing – be prepared for them to answer “What have you done at school today?” with “I can’t remember!” and this is ok. We will be also be aiming to blog at least once per week to also help you know what they have been up to. 

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Personal, Social and Emotional Development (managing self, building relationships and self-regulation)

This term we will continue to reinforce the children’s learning from last term on building relationships with others and following the class rules. In our class sessions, we will also be encouraging children to focus on using their manners with adults and their peers, especially when asking for things. We will also be focusing on our listening, especially when others are talking and finally persevering when things are tough. This is such a fundamental skill to developing a love for learning, to know that even when things are tough we can keep on trying and eventually it will not be so tough.

In our class we will also introduce a ‘Clean Up Crew’ this term. The ‘Clean Up Crew’ will be spotting children who are tidying up after themselves, returning resources to the right area, respecting the classroom resources and helping others with trickier cleaning up tasks.

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Literacy (reading, comprehension and writing)

This term we will be continuing our phonics learning. Each day the children will have a phonics session where they will recap sounds they know and begin to acquire new sounds. The children will also be learning rhymes for how to write each of the sounds they learn. In school we use Read Write Inc as our phonic scheme. There will be a useful parent workshop run later in the term to help you become familiar with this scheme and to help support your child with this part of their learning. We will keep you updated with the date as it is confirmed. 

Sight words will be introduced this term. The aim of these words are that children become familiar with the letters and letter patterns/shapes that they will be able to read these by sight and will not have to sound them out. We will add the focused sight words of the week to the children’s reading records so that you can use these at home as well. 

Each week we will have a book focus linked to the topic. We will be reading this book each day to encourage the children to become familiar with the text, increasing their vocabulary and understanding of the story. We will use this book to ask the children questions about the characters, asking the children to retell parts of the story and we will focus on the vocabulary that they may not know and how the language used in the story can change how we feel. 

Maths (numbers numerical pattern, shape, space and measure)

The children have been Maths Superstars last term and the Maths time is definitely as time that they all enjoy. This term we will be focused on exploring simple patterns, repeating patterns and creating their own patterns. We will also focus on our number work, the children will learn to find, subitise and represent 1, 2, 3, as well as one more and one less. Finally, the children will begin exploring shape with a focus on triangles, circles and positions.

You can continue to support this at home by, for example: counting cars as you drive along, getting different amount so fruit at the shops, sorting out pairs of socks. Try spotting numbers when you are coming to school on car number plates or house numbers. We will also be exploring patterns – number and shape patterns, patterns around us – in school, in the natural world, in the environment, word and letter patterns and sound patterns.

Understanding of the World (past and present, people, culture and communities and the natural world)

This term the children will be exploring the past as we learn about dinosaurs. We will be learning about how the world has changed over time and how we can learn about the past from fossils and other artefacts. As we look at how Christmas is celebrated over the world we will be learning more about different people and cultures. This term sees a lot of different celebrations and festivals including Diwali, Hanukah, Thanks Giving, Remembrance Day, Fireworks Night and Christmas.

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Physical Development (gross and fine motor skills)

Last term the children were asked about what they have enjoyed doing outdoors and what they would like to do this term. The children came up with a great list and we have chosen the following to focus on this term:

• Obstacle Courses

• Stilts

• Target Practice

• Throwing and Catching

• Kicking Footballs

• Jumping and Hopping

• Balancing
   

All of these will definitely help to strengthen those big muscles in their shoulders, arms and legs. For the smaller muscles we will be using our topics of dinosaurs and Christmas to create exciting activities for our handwriting sessions known as Tinkering Time. During this time the children work on developing their fine motor skills in the fingers, hands and wrists.
 

In addition to all that the classroom will provide, the children will have a designated PE session with our sports coach on Fridays. For the first term the sports coach will be introducing the children to PE, taking on a new skills each week.
 

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Expressive Arts and Design (creating with materials and being imaginative and expressive) 

This term will be filled with opportunities for the children to get creative with activities like clay Diwa lamps, dinosaur skeletons and remembrance silhouette art, as well as Christmas cards and crafts. In Ducklings we love to nurture and create individual artists so the children always have the option to create their own artwork in our Creative Zone and this can be anything that they are inspired by.

This term we will also be introducing role play into our home corner with the addition of open ended dressing up clothes like hats, waistcoats, scarves, costume jewellery and bags. These will facilitate and encourage the children to be creative with the roles that they want to create and promote authentic play.

Reading
Please share the books that are sent home with your child because the more they are encouraged to share books the better reader they will become.

• Reading is a necessary, lifelong skill.

• Being read to provides comfort for children, improving their concentration and focus.

• Being read to gives children knowledge to understand and talk about the world around them.

• When children understand what is being read this helps them understand how words, phrases and sentences are put together.

• Using and sharing fiction and non-fiction books, poems, rhymes and songs builds children’s understanding and use of language.

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REMINDERS:

Please make sure that everything your child brings to school is labelled with their name. This can be with a name stamp, sticker or simply written in pen. If something becomes misplaced or lost, if it is named it does have a higher chance of coming back.

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P.E is on a Friday and the children must come into school wearing full PE kit this day.

Please remember to let us know who your child is going home with if there is a change to the normal routine. This can be done at the front door, by email or a phone call to the school office.

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This is a long letter but hopefully it gives you an idea of what we will be doing this term. Our main aim, as well as learning, is to have lots of fun and to make coming to school something the children want to do!

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Thank you for your continued support and you are most welcome to come and ask about anything that we do. We are so excited to continue this year and cannot wait to see where it takes us!

The Ducklings Team