Early Years Foundation Stage

A warm welcome to all our children and families.

The curriculum we follow is called the Early Years Foundation Stage. This can be read here.

Information for parents and carers

Please read our 'Settling into Lyndhurst' guide to get you started.
You can find information about the EYFS curriculum and provision from birth to 5 at this website http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/
What to expect in the Early Years Foundation Stage: a guide for parents is also helpful if you'd like to know more.
'What to expect, when?' will tell you which learning and development stages the children go through from birth to five. It will also give you ideas and tips for how to help your child with their learning at home and may be particularly useful if your child has younger siblings. Read it here!
Here is a list of free activities that parents and carers can do with their children at home. It can be read here.
Choose your child's next book from this great list of recommended reads: Recommended Books for Reception

Summer 1

This half-term’s topic ‘How do you grow?’ started with a very exciting visit from Reptylers. They brought in amazing animals including lizards, geckos, snakes and even a tarantula; we found out all about their natural habitat and their life cycles. The children were able to get up close and even hold some of them. In the classroom, we have all observed as our caterpillars ate, grew and transformed into butterflies before we released them to enjoy their days in the sunshine. We wrote diaries about our observations of their life cycles and sketched the different stages. Each class also planted sunflowers and learnt about all the things that plants need to grow. We will be sending home the sunflowers with the children for you to plant in bigger pots or your gardens at home. We would love to see photos of them as they continue to grow with you at home. We hope you all have fun with your families over the half-term and look forward to hearing about what you have done when we return for our final half-term together in Reception.

Next half-term our topic will be ‘What can you see at the beach?' We will start our learning by celebrating World Ocean Day, thinking about the importance of the oceans and how we can look after them. Inspired by the book ‘Queen Victoria’s Bathing Machine’ by Gloria Whelan, the children will compare how we enjoy the beach now to how people enjoyed spending time at the beach in the past. We will look at the artwork of Andy Goldsworthy and have fun creating our own transient art inspired by the beach and oceans. We will continue to listen to different music, thinking about how it makes us feel and joining in with singing different songs and rhymes. The children will also explore playing different musical instruments including boxed glockenspiels. In our maths work we will: explore number bonds to 5 and 10; develop our understanding of doubles and odd and even numbers; explore capacity; investigate how shapes can be combined and separated to make new shapes. Our PSED topic this half-term is ‘Changing Me’; we will think about how we can change and things around us can change, exploring how those changes make us feel. We will talk about what we can do and who we can talk to if changes are worrying us. It will also be a time to think about exciting changes that happen and talk about their upcoming move to Year 1. During the half-term there will be a transition morning when the children will spend some time in their new classroom with their teacher and TA for Year 1. In PE we will be developing our teamwork skills as we learn to play different games and get ready for our sports day. The children will use the skills they learnt in Bikeability on our own balance bikes.

As we continue to grow together as a year group, we will make sure we are considering the feelings of others around us as well as our own feelings when making decisions. We will support each other in facing new challenges in our learning, encouraging each other to persevere if we find things tricky.

Each week we send home an email with information about the phonics we have been learning in school. Every other week we will send home a key maths skill that the children are developing with ideas for ways to support your child with their learning at home.

Please note Summer 2 half-term:

PE day TBC

Please send your child into school wearing their PE kit.

Phonics

In phonics, we are following the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics scheme.

You can find some phonic games to play with your children on these websites:

Other helpful websites:

Find some counting games here: www.familylearning.org.uk/counting_games.html

Or here: ictgames.com/counting.htm (look out for the YR games)

Keep an eye out for log in details for Purple Mash and Espresso - they will be stuck into your child's communication book in the next few weeks. These websites are great for home learning and to support your child in Literacy and Maths skills.