Autumn 1 – Marvellous Me

In the first half term our topic is ‘Marvellous Me’. This gives the children an opportunity to find out about their new friends, talk about their families and talk about themselves. They discuss what makes them unique, what they can do, things they like and they are encouraged to make choices and express a preference.

Within the curriculum areas of Literacy and Communication and Language, the children will learn to take turns speaking and listening, listen carefully to instructions, follow class rules and routines, and identify and name adults and other children in their class. They will talk about family members and home life. They will also learn to hold a pencil correctly and begin to write their own name.

During this half term we will launch our ELS programme, which will commence once all of the children are settled in. The children will begin to read a phonically decodable reading book developing their early reading skills, as well as having access to an online weekly home reading book.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development is an important curriculum area during this half term. The children will gain confidence and form positive relationships. They will learn to develop respect for themselves and others and be encouraged to manage their feelings and behaviour. Additionally, the children will be encouraged to look after their possessions and manage their own personal hygiene.

Early Reading and Writing Skills

• Recognise own name
• Recall some letter sounds
• Copy some letters of their name
• Draw freely
• Begin to write own name and copy some simple words and captions
• Begin to hold a pencil using the correct tripod grip
• Show an interest in stories and can answer simple questions about a story.

Mathematic Skills
– explore and compare size, mass and capacity and use a range of mathematical vocabulary – continue an ABAB pattern –subitise up to 5 – recite number names in order 1 – 10- represent 1, 2 and 3 in different ways –  compare 1, 2 & 3 – understand the composition of 1, 2 & 3 – develop 1 to 1 correspondence – recognise and name 2d shapes

 

Autumn 2 – Seasons and Celebrations

During the second half of the first term, our topic is ‘Seasons and Celebrations’. During this half term the children will have the opportunity to take part in a range of practical activities linked to different celebrations. The children will experience cooking and tasting their own mini pizzas. The children will be required use their senses while food tasting and making their own sound shaker firework. They will also develop their communication and language skills sharing the celebrations that they hold with their families.

We will learn how different festivals are celebrated, why they are special and the seasons of the year when they take place. In addition, we will look at the seasons, discuss what we see and the changes that take place in the natural world throughout the four seasons. The children will develop an awareness of different cultures and additionally, within Personal, Social and Emotional Development they will acquire an understanding of diversity.

Literacy and Communication and Language play an important part in our curriculum during this half term. We will continue with our ELS programme learning a new letter sound each day. The children will learn to recognise and name letter sounds, form letters correctly and blend sounds together. They will continue to read phonically decodable reading books to develop their early reading skills. Children will choose a library book each week to share with someone at home.

Early Reading and Writing Skills

• Write own name independently
• Form some letters correctly and can say their letter sound
• Begin to identify sounds in words
• Explore independent writing
• Recall and talk about experiences
• Begin to talk about the characters in stories.

Mathematic Skills
– recite number names in order 1 – 10  – recognise and represent numbers to 5 – understand the composition of 5 – subitise up to 5 objects –  investigate shapes with 4 sides – match sets of objects to corresponding numerals – find 1 more and 1 less than numbers up to 5 – discuss and recognise key times in the day and learn associated vocabulary.

Spring 1 – Books and Beyond

Our topic during the first half of the Spring Term is ‘Books and Beyond’. This topic gives the children the opportunity through stories such as Emma Jane’s aeroplane to learn about and compare different localities. The children will compare and talk about similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries. Within the curriculum area of Expressive Arts and Design, the children will create characters from their favourite stories and talk about the processes, media and materials involved in making them.

The children will also experience cooking activities and discuss ingredients, dental health and food choices.

Literacy and Communication and Language will continue to play an important part of our curriculum during this half term. We will continue to follow the ELS phonics programme, learning a new letter sound each day. The children will continue to recognise and name letter sounds and learn some digraphs.

They will continue to form letters correctly and blend sounds together to write words and simple sentences.

Early Reading and Writing Skills

• Write an increasing range of simple words e.g it, is
• Form an increasing number of letters correctly and say their letter sounds with confidence
• Identify sounds in words
• Continue to explore independent writing
• Say and write some digraphs, eg: ai, ee, oo
• Begin to write simple sentences.
• Continue to learn some HRS (harder to read and spell) words.

Mathematic Skills
continue to recite number names in order  – compare numbers up to 5 – continue to learn the composition of numbers to 5 – compare mass and capacity using appropriate mathematical language – combine two groups to find the total –  recognise and represent numbers 6, 7 & 8 –  understand and make pairs – compare and order objects according to their length and height – talk about days of the week in relation to time.

Spring 2 – As We Grow

Our topic during this half term is ‘As We Grow’ and through this topic the children will find out about the characteristics of living things.

They will also learn what living things need to live and grow. By discussing and exploring the change in animals and humans, from birth to adulthood, the children will discover things that they can do now, that they couldn’t do when they were babies. Additionally, they will develop an understanding of a healthy lifestyle and an awareness of the importance of physical exercise.

The children will develop an Understanding of the World by exploring other life forms, such as birds. They will look at habitats and design, make and evaluate a bird feeder. They will also learn about life cycles, by finding out about the growth and change of butterflies and frogs.

Within Expressive Arts and Design, the children will focus on observational art by admiring and representing the work of famous artists as a stimulus. They will recreate Vincent Van Gogh’s “Almond Blossom.”

The children will continue to develop their phonics skills by blending sounds to make words and using simple words to make sentences. The children will develop an understanding of story structure through shared and guided reading.

Early Reading and Writing Skills

• Write an increasing range of simple words, e.g : it, is, can, see, a
• Form an increasing number of letters correctly and say their letter sounds with confidence
• Blend sounds together to read and write simple words
• Continue to explore independent writing
• Use digraphs within their reading and writing, eg: ai, oa, ie, ee, oo
• Continue to gain confidence writing simple sentences.

Mathematic Skills
continue to recite number names in order  – recognise, write and count 9 & 10 – compare numbers to 10 – learn the composition of 9 and 10 – continue to practise number bonds to 10 –  identify and name 3D shapes – learn about spatial awareness – identify patterns in numbers and number problems.

Summer 1 – Terrific Traditional Tales

During the first half of the final term our topic is ‘Traditional Tales’.  This enables the children to learn about story structure and descriptive writing. The children will listen and respond to a range of traditional stories and learn to sequence events.

Opportunities will be taken to develop an awareness of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour through the morals of the stories within Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

Within Understanding the World, the children will use a range of construction equipment to build structures, such as bridges and furniture. Additionally, they will design, make and evaluate sock puppets based on a favourite character from a story. They will make and decorate gingerbread men and observe changes that occur during cooking.

The children will explore different ways of travelling, through Physical Development, and develop hand-eye co-ordination by using bats, balls, hoops and other small apparatus. The children will be encouraged to use descriptive language when retelling stories and match letters and sounds when writing their own stories.

The children will continue to access online home reading books as well as reading daily in class as part of their ELS programme.

Early Reading and Writing Skills

• Write an increasing range of simple words including HRS words, eg: it, is, can, see, a, the, are, they, like
• Form letters correctly and say their letter sounds with confidence
• Blend sounds together to read and write sentences
• Sound out and write multi-syllable words
• Use digraphs and some trigraphs within their reading and writing, eg: oa, ear, igh,
• Write in a range of contexts
• Read with increasing fluency and answer a question about what they have read.

 

Mathematic Skills
 recite number names in order – recognise and name numbers beyond 10 – show numbers beyond 10 in different representations –  build numbers beyond 10 – count patterns beyond 10 – match, rotate and manipulate – develop an understanding of addition through worded problems  using first, then and now  – develop mathematical understanding through traditional tales – take away objects to find the remainder – show addition and subtraction stories through number sentences.

Summer 2 – Sunny at the Seaside

Our final topic is ‘Sunny at the Seaside’. This gives the children an opportunity to find out about an environment that is different to the one where they live. There will be a focus on the past and present looking at how the seaside has changed. This includes looking at modes of transport used when people go on holiday and how this has changed over time.  The children will use construction kits to make cars, boats, aeroplanes and trains and will experiment with assembling and joining, using glue as a fastener.

Within Personal, Social and Emotional Development, the children will consider their personal safety in and around school and at home, and relate this to outside activities during the holiday period. They will also develop an awareness of safety near water.

Literacy and Communication and Language continue to play an important part of our curriculum; the children will develop an awareness of fiction and non-fiction books, using non-fiction books to explore the seaside in the past and the seaside now. They will develop topic related vocabulary.

The children will continue to have access to their online decodable reading book.  As well as this, they will develop confidence performing a range of songs and rhymes and will demonstrate this through a Year Group Assembly.

Through Physical Development, the children will develop spatial awareness, gross motor control and co-ordination in preparation for Sports Day. The children will be expected to demonstrate developing independence and prepare for transition to Year One.

Early Reading and Writing Skills

• Blend sounds together to read and write sentences
• Sound out and write multi-syllable words
• Position and space letters accurately, and uses finger spaces and full stops within their writing
• Read what they have written, identify and correct errors
• Read simple sentences with fluency and expression and answer questions about what they have read

Mathematic Skills
– recite number names in order – explore doubling – continue to write numbers to 10 and beyond –  explore sharing and grouping objects fairly – learn about odd and even numbers and relate it to sharing – solve worded problems demonstrating a deeper understanding of number.