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:

Reading at home:

Please could we remind all families just 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. Thank you so much to those that read regularly and write in the purple reading record. If you would like any support or suggestions regarding reading and/or phonics at home, then please let us know. 

Keep an eye out - after the Christmas break we will be introducing a very exciting new way of recording and monitoring your child's reading. The Foundation Team are really excited by this, and we can't wait to tell you more about it...soon. 

Week beginning : 13/1/2025

This week's learning:

Focus text: Simon Sock (week 2)

 

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

The construction area - poly-drons and magnetic pieces. 

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 will be using their fine motor-skills to construct various patterns with coloured lolly sticks. 

Role-play area - A home from home - the children can enjoy role-play fun in a mock house complete with a kitchen, ironing board and washing machine. It looks like it's chore time again.  

Writing area - Picture Prompts - Can you tell us what you can see on the front cover of the book?

Creative area - Super fun sock puppets - can you use your imagination to create your own sock puppets? 

Reading area - familiar stories, sharing and retelling stories. The children are really enjoying sharing and exploring a range of different texts. It is a pleasure to see such joy from reading!

Maths area - 2D shape focus - can you use the shapes to create your own patterns on the socks?

Water - Can you find the padlocks and then find the correct keys to open the padlock? This will help develop the children's resilience. 

Tough spot - A small world - explore emotions and well-being in our small-world area this week. Children can use DUPLO to create their own village. 

Our carpet sessions will include English sessions, maths sessions and phonics sessions. We will be focussing on the below: 

Phonics

Our Rocket Phonics phonic sessions continue to happen once a day, 5 times a week (4 this week, as the children are not in on Monday). 

This week our focus is on w and x. Why not practise these initial sounds at home with your children? 

Maths

This week, the children will consolidate their understanding of the composition of 5. Composing and decomposing numbers involves the children investigating part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 5 can be made of 3 and 2. The children will deepen their understanding of a ‘whole’ being made up of smaller parts through practical experience, in this case children moving frogs from a log to a pool in a nursery rhyme. They will begin to recognise that numbers can be made by combining parts in different ways, and will be encouraged to make links by considering similarities and differences in the ways of making 5. A key focus will be partitioning 5 (splitting it into parts) and considering the missing parts; the children will be encouraged to visualise numbers within 5 and to work out how many are hidden when they know the whole number in a set.

Other areas of the curriculum....

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

RE - We have had some lovely discussions about the different religions of the world and this will continue. It is so nice when children share their own experiences with their class. 

PSED - We will continue to think about our feelings and emotions. Some children have shown real maturity in how and what they discuss in some of our circle time sessions. Also, the children have a check-in where they can choose to put their picture on the emotion that best fits what they are feeling at that time - these can of course be moved whenever they feel the need.

PE - 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. 

We are focussing on fundamental movements this half-term. The theme is Big Moves - Mr Dandolo will share lots more about this soon - keep an eye out! 

 

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.uk)