Foundation Stage

We hope you have all had a restful and enjoyable half term. Our topic this half term is ‘People Who Help Us’ and our focus is exactly that. We will be focusing on the local community and the different people who work in it. During this half term, each week will focus on a different profession.

•  Week 1: My Family: After speaking about our homes during our ‘Marvellous Me’ topic, we will start to think about how our families help us at home. We will share who we live with at home and think about the things they do to help us. We will also link this to bonfire night and firework safety as we learn about how to stay safe with our families during this time. On our first day back, we will also be learning about Diwali. 
•  Week 2: At School and Preschool: This week, we will be looking at the different people who help during our school day and also at the people who helped us before we started school.
•  Week 3: The Community: We will be thinking about our local community (including the library, the Vineyard shops and the vets) and we will talk about their role within the community. At the end of the week, we will put pictures of the places we have spoken about on a map of the local community. We will even get the opportunity to go on a trip to the library via the Vineyard shops!
•  Week 4: Firefighters: This week, we will be learning all about firefighters and how they help us. We will also be learning about fire safety. We will also meet a firefighter who will talk to us about how firefighters help us and show us some of the equipment and clothing they need. 
•  Week 5: Health Care Workers: We will be learning all about people who work in health care this week, thinking about all that they do to help us. We will also be learning about the importance of keeping healthy. During this week, we will be having different health care workers come in to visit us and share what they do to help people.
•  Week 6: Police Officers: In this week, we will be finding out about what police officers do, as well as thinking about our investigative and problem solving skills. On Monday of this week, we will be having a police officer come to visit us to tell us about what he does.
•  Week 7: Christmas: This week, we will be thinking about what happens as we get ready for Christmas and how different families celebrate Christmas. We will be doing lots of Christmassy activities such as writing Christmas lists and making Christmas cards.

This will be yet another very busy half term. Not only will we be covering many aspects of learning but we will also be preparing for Christmas. We thank you all for your own going support.

Literacy Focus:

This half term, our focus is getting your child to write graphemes they know within their writing. This can be initial sounds progressing to simple words. We will be continue to learn graphemes and phonemes through Little Wandle and we will be focusing on blending CVC words.

Mathematics Focus:

This half term, we will start by comparing and subitising within 4. We will also look at 1:1  correspondence when counting up to 5 and learn that the last number we say when counting is how many we have altogether. Then, we will look at matching equal groups and knowing when they are not equal. Next, we will be looking at the composition by understand that parts make a whole. We will then investigate the composition of 3, 4 and 5. In the final week, we will continue with counting and we will explore verbal counting to larger numbers.

A few reminders:

• Ensure all school clothes and PE clothes are clearly labelled.
• Bring your child’s water bottle and book bag to school everyday.
• Now that the weather is cooler, please ensure your child has a coat everyday as well as a hat, gloves and scarf if appropriate.
• Pre-order school dinners for the half term.

• Practise saying the sounds you can hear in words and blending sounds together when talking.
• Recognise letters and numbers in your environment.
• Count anything and everything (eg. steps, jumps, objects).
• Talk about the school day (use Tapestry to support this).
• Recognise people who help you in your community as you are out and about.