YR Octopus & Starfish

CLASS TEACHERS:

Teaching Assistants:

Starfish: Mrs M. Black / Octopus: Miss K. Pullin

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Our Curriculum

Our learning journey in EYFS is a blend of year group and whole school projects based on enquiry questions. Below is a short description of each project accompanied by the project planners, which details the key texts, vocabulary, subject coverage and expected outcomes.

Autumn Term

AUTUMN 1 – What makes me a me?

We get to know about ourselves, each other, our school environment and our wider school community. In addition, we enjoy exploring the season of autumn and harvest. We will look at and discuss signs of autumn in our environment.

Autumn 2 – How have toys changed?

In this project we explore our own toys and those of our parents and grandparents and also think about toys children had during World War 2, which links to our whole school WW2 topic. The project centres around first hand experiences including a visit from Horsham Museum.

Why do Christians perform Nativity plays?

We learn about Christmas in a variety of ways using our enquiry question as a starting point. We explore the story of Christmas culminating in our Nativity Play performance and produce our own Christmas books.

Spring Term

Spring 1 – How do we face a challenge?

The whole school begins the Spring Term with a Space project.

Spring 2 – What is a story character?

Spring 3 – Why so christians put a cross in an Easter garden?

For the final three weeks the whole school learn about a different aspect of Easter.

Summer Term

During the Summer Term, the theme for the whole school is ‘Look Around.’ Learning across the whole school is led by Geography.

Where do I live?

Our Timetable

Reading

Reading is an integral part of daily literacy sessions. Children regularly read with an adult in group guided reading sessions and sometimes on a one-to-one basis. Each child will bring home a book to share which supports much of this work in class. The children’s books will be changed weekly. Children are assessed regularly to see which band they are in and this is recorded in their reading record.

Please try to set aside a few minutes each day to share your child’s reading book and complete the record book on a regular basis. This enables them to move up our ’Reading rocket’ in the classroom.

Phonics

We use ‘Read Write Inc’ to teach phonics across the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage 1. Initially we learn the sounds and how to blend and segment words. Guided reading will form part of our phonic sessions and we will follow the Read Write Inc books for this. Individual reading will still follow the banded books in the classroom

Writing

Mark making activities are constantly available for children to access in the free flow provision, both inside and outside. Weekly writing usually centres around a good quality text and is supported by the class teacher. Tricky words and letter formation  are taught weekly. Handwriting is taught in letter groups and begins in the Spring term.

Maths

As a school we follow the Maths Mastery approach and produce our planning and resources using White Rose Education and NCETM (National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics). We also use the CBeebies ‘Numberblocks’ as part of our lessons and many of these episodes are available on BBC iPlayer. To support your child’s maths learning at home, ideas and activities will be suggested on the weekly Seesaw bulletins or set as homework.

Show and Tell

Although we do not have a dedicated ‘show and tell’ session on a weekly basis, there will be a variety of opportunities throughout the year for the children to share special items or experiences with the rest of the class.

Morning Routine

At the beginning of the day, the children chose from a selection of activities called ‘Funky Fingers’, selected to develop their fine motor control ready for writing. These are carried out in in their own classroom. At 9 o’clock we will shake a tambourine as a signal for the children to stand still while we call the register. For your children’s security, the school gates will be locked at 8.55 a.m. Parents still in the classroom after this time will need to leave via the main entrance.

Homework 

As well as daily reading, we send home the sounds and numbers we have worked on during the week. Please remember to check Book bags regularly and work on these with your children. In the week before Autumn half term, we post home learning on Seesaw and ask you to go on an Autumn walk together! After half term, as well as the weekly phonics and Numicon practice, there will be a word wallet to help learn tricky words and an additional task which will be sent out weekly via Seesaw and in a homework book. This will usually alternate between maths and literacy.

YR Correspondence