We can't believe we are already in the summer term of Year R. The children have had a brilliant year so far and we have so many exciting things planned for the rest of this year. Below is some information about what the children will be learning this term. 

Communication and Language

We will continue to be learning to use the new vocabulary we have learnt throughout our day and continue to practise articulating our ideas into well-formed sentences. When we listen to our stories, we will practise retelling the story as well as answering and asking questions. We will look at non-fiction books and share our new vocabulary and knowledge. We will also start to describe events in detail. 

PSED

Now we have had a lot of practise developing our social skills with all the new friends we have made across the year group, we can also moderate our own feelings socially and emotionally. When we have a problem in our friendship group we are now more confident to resolve the problems ourselves fairly. Sometimes when we choose to do something and it is tricky it can be frustrating so we will practise showing resilience and perseverance in the face of challenge.

Physical Development

This term our PE lesson will be outdoors. For the first half term our PE every Friday will be multi-skills activities. We will be learning good balancing skills and showing control over objects. After half term we will be doing athletics, learning lots of techniques to help us on Sports Day and practising different events. 

We continue to do Fidgety Fingers every day to help improve our fine motor skills.

Lunch time breaks are on the big playground, so there is plenty of space for us to run around, practise moving around people and trying different games with our friends. 

We continue to have access to a variety of equipment in our Reception outdoor area to help strengthen our muscles and improve our spatial awareness, including: wheeled vehicles and giant construction.

Reading  

The children will continue to have the opportunity to change their reading books on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Our library slot continues to be on a Friday.

Phonics

Our phonics this term will begin with recapping those digraphs and trigraphs from phase 3, and then we will move onto phase 4 where we will learn blends. There are lots of things you can do to support the learning of phonics at home. For more information regarding phonics, take a look on our phonics page.

Writing   

As we are beginning to write more in our play, we will also have opportunities to write for different purposes. We will practise writing sentences using the phonics that we have learnt making sure we can include capital letters, full stops and finger spaces. We will do lots of different activities to help us get ready for writing in Year 1. 

Maths

In maths we will be continuing to ensure the children leave Year R with a deep understanding of numbers to 10, counting accurately but also understanding the composition and size of each number, developing an automatic knowledge of many of their number bonds and beginning to look at doubling. We will also be investigating mass and capacity with lots of practical activities including measurement and will continue our work on recognising and describing 2D and 3D shapes.

Online you can also find many ICT games and apps that provide brilliant opportunities for children to practise their maths in a fun and engaging way. Alongside this, singing number songs which are readily available on the BBC nursery rhymes website. Any opportunity for counting practically at home or when you are out and about is highly beneficial as well as spotting numbers in the environment for example on street signs or door numbers.

Within your children’s play give them opportunities to share things out, have different sizes of objects to order, shapes to recognise and practical activities with water and weighing, for example, when baking. Children can read numbers for the ingredients, counting spoonful's into a bowl or timing the baking of cakes.

Understanding the World

This half term the children will be learning all about the changes that happen in spring and early summer. As part of this topic, the children will be going on a school trip to Finkley Down Farm. We will celebrate different occasions and comment on images of familiar situations in the past. As we learn more from stories we will compare and contrast characters that we know, including figures from the past. We will look at places that are special to members of our community and recognise that people have different beliefs and celebrate special times in different ways. 

RE

This half term we are learning about Jesus as a Story Teller and what we can learn from stories. Next half term the children will be learning about When Jesus goes to Heaven and thinking about moving on. 

Expressive Arts and Design

This term the children will continue to build on previous learning, thinking about planning what they want to make, the resources they will need and how to create it. We are also looking forward to using our new woodwork bench that Mr Carr has made us, learning how to use the tools correctly and safely, creating objects for a purpose. 

Guides to using the Tapestry app and website can be downloaded from the links.