Seedlings and Saplings

Summer Term

We hope you are all keeping well and enjoying carrying out some of our suggested activities with the children at home. We have attached below some suggested activities for summer term. Thank you to all of you who have sent photographs in of activities the children have been doing at home. It has been lovely to see and we have enjoyed responding. Just a reminder of the email - earlyyearsteam@ccmat.co.uk 

We want to reassure all parents that the most important thing right now is that parents support their children's social and emotional development.  It is a strange time for your children and not seeing family members and friends at school can be unsettling for them. Your children will continue to thrive outside of school if you can continue to make them feel safe and secure, you can reassure them that soon they will go back to school.  Share your strength, kindness and calm but most of all share fun and laughter!!

School Closure- Ideas and activities to do at home.

Hello Seedlings and Saplings, we hope you keep safe and happy while school is closed, please see below some fun things for you to do at home with your parents or carers help and support.

Keep Fit activities can be found on YouTube for example 5 Minute Move with Joe Wicks the Body Coach. You can also join Joe each morning at 9am for PE.

Search for Spread the Happiness TV Channel on YouTube to join Shonette live every day 9.30am for dough disco and 1pm for a story based challenge.

Search for Jack Hartmann kids Music channel on YouTube for fun counting songs including- Count to 100 everyday and subitize rocks.

See 50 fantastic ideas to try at home on the abcdoes.com website.

Saplings children have access to active learn Bug Club.

Our school code is rhxx and your username and password can be found in your reading records.

Parents and Carers please see below documents for how you can continue to support your child at home with both phonics and maths.

You will find activities to try, along with lots of fun, useful web links.

Finally we have been sending updates, ideas for activities and our weekly mystery reader to you via our Target Tracker which is sent directly to your email. Please let us know if you have any problem accessing this. 

You can email us on earlyyearsteam@ccmat.co.uk.

Take care, we miss you and hope to see you again soon.

Miss Bell, Mrs Jackson, Mrs Shivnan-Taylor, Mrs Mackay, Mrs Severs and Mrs Liotti.

We hope you are enjoying having a go at some of the suggested Home Learning activities.

If you are working online, don’t forget to be safe and savvy! 

Never give personal information to anyone! Think about the safety of what you are sharing or posting if you are online or on your phone.

Do not share your school log-ins or change your log-in details. We won’t ask you to do that.

Make sure you are accessing online material that is relevant for your age and tell an adult at home if you come across something that is not suitable for you, or if someone is trying to contact/talk to you that is not someone you know.

You can contact your teacher through Seesaw if you feel vulnerable or worried, or contact Childline 0800 1111.

Useful reminders about Online Safety are at Thinkuknow.co.uk

As a school we follow the Power of Reading literacy scheme of work. Power of Reading have put together some ideas for how parents and carers can continue to support their children's language and comprehension skills while at home. 

Each set of notes contains five simple activities designed to develop children’s comprehension skills and strategies and develop their imagination and creativity for writing, linked to the EYFS Statutory Framework.

Most activities are reading, talk and play based and need little more than familiar household objects, and sometimes a pencil and paper to complete. Other drawing materials such as coloured pencils or crayons would be useful, but are not essential. 

Children don’t have to have a copy of the book at home to do the activities, as extracts are provided, please see attachments below. We hope you enjoy these activities. 

• Explore it: Reading of text and/or illustrations and questions to develop children's awareness of language and vocabulary, including how this can be used for effect.
• Illustrate it: Drawing tasks to develop children's visualisation skills - a key aspect of comprehension.
• Talk about it: Questions or talking points to support children's understanding of key parts of the text, encouraging them to refer back to the text to support their ideas.
• Imagine it: Talking points and questions that encourage deeper responses to texts, thinking beyond the text and linking to real life knowledge and understanding.
• Create it: A range of different ideas for writing in response to a text, developing children's imagination and creative ideas.

Summer Term 

Important Dates

Phonics/Early Reading

Nursery- Nursery will be working on various aspects of phase 1 including, 'rhythm and rhyme', musical instruments, environmental sounds. Mrs Geelan, our music specialist, will be supporting us with these aspects on Monday mornings.

Reception- This half term Reception class will be working on phase three of the Letters and Sounds programme and consolidating this work by drawing on elements of phase four of the Letters and Sounds programme. 

Guided Reading for Reception takes place weekly and the children bring home a new reading book each Monday.

Nursery and Reception are read to daily and we ensure we read a range of texts including rhyme books, poetry, non-fiction, fiction and non-worded picture books. 

The children have access to an attractive reading area which contains a range of texts, comics, soft toys to read to, story puppets and rhyme spoons.

Thank you to all our parents who have been 'Mystery Readers'. The children love you coming in to read and are always excited to find out who it will be. If you would like to be a mystery reader this half term let us know which day would be most convenient for you. Mystery reading slots take place at 3.10pm.

Writing

Nursery- This term Nursery will continue to work on writing their names using correct letter formation and mark making in a variety of ways including paint, in sand, using pencils, felt tips and crayons. We will continue dough disco to strengthen our hand and finger muscles. 

Reception- This term Reception will be learning lots of new digraphs (two letters that make one sound i.e 'sh' and trigraphs i.e 'igh') we will also be working on caption writing, recipes and ingredients, story mapping and short sentences.

Home Reading Books

Nursery- Will continue to bring home a rhyme card each Friday. Please ensure the card and home reading record book are in your child's bag on Fridays ready to change.

Reception- Are allocated one book for their reading bag and one E-book on Phonics Book each week. Please make a comment in their reading record book to let us know if they enjoyed the book; what discussions you had together about the story/information; what other reading has been taking place at home.

Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions about phonics and reading. 

Maths

This half term the Reception children will focus on counting and recognition; adding and subtracting; time and 3D shapes.

Number

Children find one more or one less from a group of up to five objects, then ten objects. Using quantities and objects, Children add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer.

Space, Shape and Measure

Children order and sequences familiar events and measure short periods of time in simple ways. Children explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them.

This half term the Nursery children will focus on:

Number

Matching numeral and quantity; comparing groups of objects; solving simple number problems; being introduced to a 10 frame to solve number problems

Space, Shape and Measure

similarities of shapes in the environment; constructing with shapes and making arrangements

PE

All the children have daily access to our outdoor learning environment and a range of physical and sporting activities including balance and two wheel bikes, climbing, balls, netball hoop and running space. In addition we have PE with our sports on Thursdays. This half term coach James is teaching team games.

RE

We are using 'Chatter Boxes' to teach . Our themes this term are- 'Stories Jesus Heard', Stories Jesus Told', Easter'. The children are learning our daily prayers and we have a weekly assembly led by Mrs Howard.