Nursery and Reception - Seedlings and Saplings

A very warm welcome to our Early Years Foundation Stage Unit

Seedlings and Saplings

A very warm welcome to our page. We hope all the children had a well deserved rest during half-term and are ready for all the exciting learning that will be happening this half term. As always this will be a very busy time and there is much to look forward to. We are particularly excited about the arrival of spring and, hopefully, better and warmer weather. The children have been really enjoying welcoming our mystery readers. Please let us know if you would like to take part in this, as we still have some spaces available for Nursery and Reception for the remainder of Spring Term. Thank you for your involvement and enthusiasm, it means such a lot to the children.

The Reception children will continue to bring home a reading book every Friday. Books must be returned every Friday so that we can allocate another book. Nursery will bring home a rhyme bag each week. Once again, please return each week so that another rhyme can be allocated.

This half term, as well as planning for the children's interests, we will be exploring the theme of 'Minibeasts'.

Dates for your diary

Thursday 2nd March- World Book Day

Friday 17th March- Red Nose Day

Monday 20th March- Parents Evening

Wednesday 22nd March- Parents Evening

Wednesday 29th March- Trip to Blackpool Zoo

Friday 31st March- Term ends

Thank you
The Early Years Team

Arrival and collection points for Seedlings will be the main entrance to the unit located opposite the main school reception.
Saplings will arrive at the main entrance and be collected at the classroom door leading onto the main playground.

For arrival and finish times, please see our The School Day page.
For Transition and Early Years policies please see our Policies page.
For useful links to educational resources, including videos, activities and ideas to try at home, please go to our Home Learning page.

Nursery and Reception Curriculum

Our themes for the this half term (Spring Term 1) Cold Places

We follow the Revised Foundation Stage Curriculum 2021 which is currently split into 7 areas:

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts and Design

Phonics

Seedlings - In the Seedlings we will be following Phase 1, Experiencing Phonics. The children will take part in daily activities taken from the seven strands which are:

Environmental Sounds
Instrumental Sounds
Percussion
Rhythm and Rhyme
Alliteration
Voice Sounds
Oral Blending and Segmenting

Saplings - In the Saplings we are learing about letters names and moving into phase 3 of our phonics scheme where the children will learn many more digraphs and trigraphs. A parents meeting to explain teaching of early reading and writing and the teaching of phonics was held in October. If you need more information on supporting your child, or were unable to attend the meeting, please speak to Miss Bell or Mrs Jackson.

Mathematics

Seedlings - Number - Gaining confidence in numbers to 5; including experimenting with own symbols and marks. Space, Shape and Measure- 2D shapes and positional langauge.
Saplings - The number focus this half term is subitising within 5 (perceptually and conceptually); exploring the composition of numbers to 5, including one more and contiune to develop counting skills beyond 10. The space, shape and measure focus this half term is looking at shapes within shapes, measurements and exploring money.

RE

This half term our themes for RE will be 'Stories Jeasus Heard' and ' Stories Jeasus Told'

PSED

This half term our theme in Personal, Social and Emotional Development is 'My Body, My Feelings and Keeping Safe'

PE

EdStart will be continuing to working with our children each Thursday morning. Sapling children will require a PE kit to change into. Seedlings do not need a PE kit but are able to come to school in their trainers on Thursdays.