EYFS at Woodland Grange

• We encourage children to be curious and imaginative. 
• We teach them to ask and answer questions — find things out and explain to others. 
• We want our children to be aware of the world around them.
• We encourage them to be independent.

General Information:

We hope that you have a great Bank Holiday weekend and enjoy the weather. Thank you to all the families that share things with us on Tapestry. 

LEGO Discover - 

The sessions will continue to take place on a Thursday morning and will run for the next 3 weeks. So the sessions fit perfectly into this half-term. 

Reading at home:

Please could we remind all families how important practising phonetic sounds and reading, at home, is. Those children that read and share books at home regularly are progressing so well. They are super confident and are beginning to segment and blend independently.

We all understand how busy life can get, but 5 minutes daily will make a huge difference. If you would like any support or suggestions regarding reading and/or phonics at home, then please let us know. 

Week beginning : 5/5/25

This week's learning:

Focus text: The Singing Mermaid (Julia Donaldson) - week 2 

Tempted by the promise of fame and fortune, the Singing Mermaid joins a circus. The crowds love her, but the poor mermaid is kept in a tank by the wicked circus owner Sam Sly, and she soon longs to return to the freedom of her ocean home.

The Singing Mermaid is a delightful tale from the well-known picture book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, creators of What the Ladybird Heard. With brilliant rhyming verse, bright and distinctive illustrations this story is loved by children and parents alike. We look forward to sharing this book with you all. 

Some of the things the children can look forward to seeing in the classroom this week:

The construction area - it is Meccano time. What creations can you make? Have fun and use your imagination and building skills. 

Finger Gym - to build up the children's muscle strength and memory and develop their dexterity and fine motor skills. The classroom has a finger gym - the activities in this area will change regularly and include activities to help build children's motor skills and confidence - all of which should help the kids to improve pencil grip and handwriting. This week, children can use their fine motor skills to create stunning seaweed and reefs; using tweezers and cool stones to help bring their ideas to life. 

Role-play area - Fish and Chips anyone? Children loved the role-play area last week, so we will continue this theme for one more week. Time for them to play and get lost in a world of imagination. 

Reading area - familiar stories, sharing and retelling stories. The children really enjoy sharing and exploring a range of different texts. It is a pleasure to see such joy from reading! The children's phonics skills are improving, and it is amazing to see their confidence develop and observe them sharing books in our reading area. 

Maths area - can you match the shapes and use the paintbrushes to draw the shapes in the sand? Use your mathematical language and discuss the shapes and their features and similarities and differences. 

Malleable - Play-dough - can you create some stunning mermaid tails with purple, sparkly play-dough and gems? 

Tough spot - Pirate-themed fun. Lose yourself in a world of pirates, ships, sea and sand. 

Our carpet sessions will include English sessions (Talk through stories), maths sessions and phonics sessions. This week, we will be focussing on the below: 

Phonics

Our Rocket Phonics phonic sessions continue to happen once a day, 5 times a week. This week we will be focussing on the digraphs ur and ow. We will also revise and continue to learn Common Exception Words (tricky words). Why not practise these initial sounds at home with your children? 

Maths

This week, activities will provide experiences that help children to develop an understanding of the magnitude of numbers. Previously, the children have reasoned about the size of numbers through comparing sets of objects and identifying which set has more or fewer. This week, they will focus on ordinality: considering where numbers to 10 are in relation to each other. Through practical activities and games, the children will reason about numbers and think carefully about which is more or less. They will use linear number tracks to play games that encourage them to compare numbers that are far apart, near and next to each other. (For example, 10 is a lot more than 2 but 5 is only 1 more than 4.)

Other areas of the curriculum....

Music - we will be enjoying some fun and familiar songs together.  

Topic and RE lessons will also continue once a week. 

PE - as always, the children will do a PE lesson on a Friday afternoon. 

Please make sure that all jewellery is removed, including religious bracelets. Could we please ask that all earrings are removed for our Friday lessons? This is really important for safety. Thank you to the vast majority of parents/carers that continue to do this. 

This week, we will be beginning our new Get Set 4 PE unit - 'Dance - Unit 1' 

Please see the Knowledge Organiser below:

Thank you to all the families that have been continuing to practise their Big Moves - we are very proud of you. The children often share what they have been up to and it is lovely to hear. 

Keep it up by visiting the website below and clicking on 'Big Moves parent videos' and using the password: 

LSLSSPBM

Big Moves – Learning South Leicestershire School Sports Partnership

Remember that the House list has been shared on Tapestry and your children should now come to school, on a Friday, in their PE kits. 

Please see the family area of the Get Set 4 PE website. We use this scheme at school, so why not see what they suggest for some fun activities at home - Get Set 4 PE - Resource Bank (getset4education.co.u