Mrs Maxey - Foundation | Archbishop Cranmer CE Primary School

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Mrs Maxey - Foundation

SpringTerm - Dinosaurs (Foundation Stage)

Happy New Year !

Welcome back to this new exciting Spring term in Foundation. We hope that you all had an enjoyable Christmas break with your family and friends. By now we are so delighted with the way the children have embraced the new routines of school life and have begun to make super progress in all areas of their learning. We appreciate that school is still a new concept to some and that sometimes children may need resettling after a break at home. Please be assured that we are on hand to coax your child back into school, so that they are ready to learn and to be happy during the time that they spend with us during their school day. This term our theme is about prehistoric Dinosaurs. We hope to make this a fun and exciting topic, with many opportunities to learn, make and do around this theme. We even have a visiting speaker booked, who will share with us all her expertise in a pop up paleontologist museum in our local village hall.

This term we shall be spending a large amount of time encouraging the children to become more fluent in their recall of high frequency words. We intend for them to be able to spell independently the phase 2, phase 3 words from Letters and Sounds. During their phonics sessions we will be giving them lots of opportunities to practice this skill. In addition we would like them to be able to foster a love of reading books, and to regularly read their school reading books at home to a parent for at least 5 to 10 minutes a day. We closely monitor their reading in school, through guided reading and where possible hearing children read individually. We appreciate it when you fill in your child's reading diary, as it helps us to monitor that every child is receiving a good weekly dose of reading and to plug any gaps where needed. Thanks for your support with this. In our phonics and writing lessons we will be working on their correct letter formation of all the alphabet and we have lots of home learning sheets to support this, if you feel your child needs extra help with this aspect of their Foundation learning, please ask a member of staff.

In our weekly Numeracy lessons we will be continuing our work on Number of the week, looking at the teen numbers, from 11 to 20. We will be encouraging correct numeral orientation and have lots of homework sheets to help with this, if you feel your child needs extra practice, please ask. We shall also be steering the children towards writing simple mathematical sums, becoming more familiar with + - and = signs and the concepts of addition and subtraction. Along with counting song, counting amounts accurately and learning simple chants to count in 2s, 5s and 10s.

Our theme for this term is Dinosaurs. The children will be given the chance to learn the names of all the different types of dinosaurs, learn about how fossils form, make pretend coprolite (pretend dinosaur poo ), freeze dinosaur eggs, make their own dinosaur and many more fun activities. They will be given lots of wonderful opportunities to explore and learn in a play based environment. The role play area has been turned into a paleontologist museum, complete with its own lab coats and archaeologist equipment. The children can continue to foster and nurture their relationships in the role play area, as they explore what life was like in prehistoric times. Please see the Spring termly news letter and Medium Term topic web for more information on their learning for this term.

Please can you remember to label everything that your child brings to school !

PE days are on Wednesday afternoons. We would also appreciate it if you can provide your child with a named pair of wellington boots in a carrier bag, which they can leave on their pegs. This will enable us to provide opportunities to take their learning outside, which research shows helps to nurture their young minds and promote imagination.

Reading with and to your child is probably the single most important thing you can do to ensure that they develop early reading skills - it should be fun and rewarding for both of you. Please ensure that your child changes their reading book regularly and that you find books to read to them too.

WOW moment slips are in your child's Reading Record (please ask for more when you need them), and are an important way for you to share their progress with the team. WOWs also offer an opportunity to stand up in front of the class and talk confidently about their achievements. Show and Tell items provide a similar opportunity and will always be shared at some point during the week. In Foundation Stage, children's oral skills are seen as vital precursors to reading and writing and these moments of celebration are a fantastic way of developing them.

School uniform, in fact all clothing, including shoes, needs to be named to help with children's independence and the team's sanity!

Don't forget that Friday afternoons are for book changing, but feel free to stay and browse through your child's work tray, chat to the teaching team or look at our displays.

If you want to know what learning looks like in Foundation Stage browse through the photos below, check us out on Twitter or just come in and see what we do, everyone is welcome whether you might have an odd afternoon to spare or can offer us regular help with hearing children read.