Welcome to Foundation Stage 2!

The team is Mrs Readford, Mr Sharples, Miss Gyte,  Mrs Hussain& Mrs Haq.

Spring 2

It has been such a positive start to the year.

Most children have settled happily into FS2 and are beginning to make friends.

The children have enjoyed their first term and are becoming independent in their learning.

Learning Journey

 In the second half of the Spring term, we are continuing with our global theme Human Rights. We will be asking the question: Where will your next adventure take you? Our key texts for this half term will allow us to explore the theme of Super Heroes and discuss the rights we have. We will revisit identity and diversity as we develop our own sense of adventure through comics, reports and fiction texts. We will explore music and movement, threading and weaving and develop fundamental ball skills such as throwing and catching, rolling a ball, using targets, dribbling with feet, kicking a ball, bouncing and catching a ball in PE.

Maths

We will be starting the term by looking at measures. The children will explore capacity and time while playing games. We are continuing to follow the mastering Number curriculum and will be focusing on activities that draw attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. The children will also begin to understand the word pattern and we will embed this within most of our number names, the children will also be given opportunities to practise counting beyond 20. They will use practical contexts to sort objects according to different criteria. They will be encouraged to notice different attributes in groups of objects – such as colour, size or function – and to describe what they notice. These skills also support problem solving and the development of data analysis. understanding of part–whole relations and allow them to further consider composition (the numbers within numbers). They will then be encouraged to notice when quantities are equal or unequal, and will begin to consider how they can manipulate the number of objects in 2 sets to make them equal.

Books to support Maths at home

Phonics and English

We will continue our Phonics Journey using Little Wandle and will be revisiting Phase 3 sounds. Practicing these phase 2 and 3 sounds at home is important, especially if your child is finding it hard to recognise, remember or form their letters.  The children will continue to increase their bank of tricky words and begin to write using capital letters and full stops to show the beginning and end of their sentences. At this stage, we will be looking for children to leave gaps (finger spaces) between each word so that both they and others can read their writing back easily. We will have words of the day that reflect our learning and increase or vocabulary. We will continue to study how books work, what makes them enjoyable and use drama and discussion to express our opinions and feelings. In our writing we will investigate persuasive texts and how we can use the power of persuasion in our own work. We will explore narrative writing through creating our own comic strips.

Books to support Literacy at home

Other activities in the classroom

Dough Disco - To promote fine motor skills we watch the 'Dough Disco' on Youtube. If you would like to do this at home with your child you will need a small ball of Playdough! 

Draw with Rob – Each week we are taking part in short tutorials to develop our drawing skills. The children have really enjoyed drawing their pictures and applying their fine motor skills to pencils and paper.

Helicopter Stories - Helicopter Stories involves scribing stories from children and supporting them to act out their narratives. While simple, this approach seeks to nurture and enthuse children of all backgrounds and abilities, using the power of story. This approach also enhances speaking and language skills, and an increased eagerness to write.                                           

Show and Tell –Show and Tell is on a Tuesday. Your class teacher will send a little list of when it is your child’s turn. Show and tell sets the stage for children to become comfortable when speaking in public. In addition, show and tell can be a great tool to help English Language Learners, giving them a chance to practice academic vocabulary, pronunciation and other basic skills they need to succeed.

PE

For your information

• PE is on Monday’s (Class 1) and Wednesday’s (Class 2)
• Correct PE uniform must be worn to school that day: plain white top/plain black bottoms

• Please make sure that your child has a water bottle in school.
• Please make sure your child has a coat.
• Please make sure your child attends school as every day counts. 

Home Learning

• Reading 5 times a week and record it in the planner.
• Practise counting forwards and backwards to 20 starting at different numbers.
• Number bonds to 5 and 10
• IXL
• Phonics play online (free resources)
• Spelling Shed/ Spelling Frame
• Purple Mash
• Name writing
• Check dojo for more home learning activities.

Tooth Brushing Club

Every year there are 60,000 school days lost to tooth extractions and poor oral health. Tooth decay affects a staggering 25% of 5 year olds. It remains the leading cause hospitalisation in children aged 5-9.

We are taking part in an NHS funded tooth brushing club.

Every child will be given their own new toothbrush each term, which is stored under controlled conditions All children are supervised while brushing their teeth.

Children need parental permission to join the club. Speak to your child’s teacher for more information.Y

Year group expectations

Spring 1

It has been such a positive start to the year.

Most children have settled happily into FS2 and are beginning to make friends.

The children have enjoyed their first term and are becoming independent in their learning.

Learning Journey

Following on from our ‘How does the world celebrate?’ topic we will be exploring the question ‘Do we all have the same rights?’ alongside the story of ‘Whatever Next’. The children have many exciting opportunities this half term, including cooking! To help your child’s learning you could find out about space and planets in the universe. We will also be exploring polar regions and finding out all about the animals and their special adaptations of some of the animals who live there.

Maths

We are starting our Mastery for Number program. This half term children will use their perceptual subitising skills (seeing the quantity without counting) in increasingly complex arrangements, moving from dots in a line and arrangements of 2, to a focus on standard dice arrangements. A key focus will be on developing skills of visualising; the children will be encouraged to look carefully at arrangements of dots and then to close their eyes and explain what they saw. Using spatial language to describe sub-groups within these arrangements will deepen the children’s understanding of part–whole relations and allow them to further consider composition (the numbers within numbers). They will then be encouraged to notice when quantities are equal or unequal, and will begin to consider how they can manipulate the number of objects in 2 sets to make them equal.

Books to support Maths at home

Phonics and English

We will continue to revisit our Phase 1 oral blending and segmenting. We will be continuing to build on our phonic knowledge to read and write new words using Little Wandle.

Over the half term we will be exploring narrative writing with lots of different stories based on our topic. We will also be using lots of story language, such as ‘Once upon a time..’, ‘A long time ago…’ ‘Right in the middle of the dark, dark night…’ to create our own stories. We will also explore non-chronological reports, create poems and be involved in National Story Telling Week.

Books to support Literacy at home

Special Activity for Spring 1

Concerteenies is delighted to be performing 'Mixed' as part of the 'Musical Stories' project at Phillimore School. This brings 3 professional musicians into school to tell the story with live harp music, songs and actions alongside your children. 

You can find out more here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Rf5zFdV54

On the 19^th of January they will be working with Soundhouse Media to film some of the session and we will include some footage in a promotional film. This will be on Concerteenies public YouTube channel which complies with our safeguarding and child protection policy. This short film will be used to showcase the project to our funders (Arts Council England and the Sheffield Grammar School Exhibition Foundation) as well as gain more funding and develop audiences in the future so we can expand our work. 

We would love to involve your child in this film. We will share the final film with you via school.

https://www.concerteenies.com/ 

Other activities in the classroom

Dough Disco - To promote fine motor skills we watch the 'Dough Disco' on Youtube. If you would like to do this at home with your child you will need a small ball of Playdough!

Squiggle While You Wiggle – Squiggle while you wiggle is an activity to engage children in developing the motions needed to prepare them for writing. They learn to write by doing circles, semi-circles, horizontal lines and the vertical lines they will use to write a letter whilst dancing along to our favourite music. This also helps focus on developing their gross and fine motor skills to imitate lines and circles in order to write each letter of the alphabet.

Helicopter Stories - Helicopter Stories involves scribing stories from children and supporting them to act out their narratives. While simple, this approach seeks to nurture and enthuse children of all backgrounds and abilities, using the power of story. This approach also enhances speaking and language skills, and an increased eagerness to write.                                   

Show and Tell –Show and Tell is on a Tuesday. Your class teacher will send a little list of when it is your child’s turn. Show and tell sets the stage for children to become comfortable when speaking in public. In addition, show and tell can be a great tool to help English Language Learners, giving them a chance to practice academic vocabulary, pronunciation and other basic skills they need to succeed. Show and Tell will start in Week 2.

PE

For your information

• PE is on Monday’s (Class 1) and Wednesday’s (Class 2)
• Correct PE uniform must be worn to school that day: plain white top/plain black bottoms

• Please make sure that your child has a water bottle in school.
• Please make sure your child has a coat.
• Please make sure your child attends school as every day counts. 

Home Learning

• Reading 5 times a week and record it in the planner.
• Practise counting forwards and backwards to 20 starting at different numbers.
• Number bonds to 5 and 10
• IXL
• Phonics play online (free resources)
• Spelling Shed/ Spelling Frame
• Purple Mash
• Name writing
• Check dojo for more home learning activities.

Please speak to Miss Gyte if you need log in details.

Tooth Brushing Club

Every year there are 60,000 school days lost to tooth extractions and poor oral health. Tooth decay affects a staggering 25% of 5 year olds. It remains the leading cause hospitalisation in children aged 5-9.

We are taking part in an NHS funded tooth brushing club.

Every child will be given their own new toothbrush each term, which is stored under controlled conditions All children are supervised while brushing their teeth.

Children need parental permission to join the club. Speak to your child’s teacher for more information.

Year group expectations

Autumn 2

It has been such a positive start to the year.

Most children have settled happily into FS2 and are beginning to make friends. The children have enjoyed their first half term and are becoming independent in their learning.

Learning Journey

Following on from our ‘Who are we?’ topic we will be exploring the question ‘How does the world celebrate?’ alongside the story of ‘The gingerbread man’ and the ‘Christmas Jolly Postman’. The children have many exciting opportunities this half term, including baking!

Maths

In the first half of this term we will be deepening our understanding of numbers to 5. We will learn the composition of numbers to 5 and look at 4 sided shapes. We will also begin to look at time using the book ‘Peace at Last’ by Jill Murphy.

In the second half of the term we will be introducing zero, comparing numbers to 5, comparing mass ad capacity.

Phonics and English

We will continue to revisit our Phase 1 oral blending and segmenting. We will be continuing to build on our phonic knowledge to read and write new words using Little Wandle.

Over the half term we will be exploring narrative writing with lots of different stories based on our topic. We will also be using lots of story language, such as ‘Once upon a time..’, ‘A long time ago…’ ‘Right in the middle of the dark, dark night…’ to create our own stories. We will also explore non-chronological reports, create poems and be involved in Nursery Rhyme Week.

Books to support Literacy at home.

Other activities in the classroom

Dough Disco - To promote fine motor skills we watch the 'Dough Disco' on Youtube. If you would like to do this at home with your child you will need a small ball of Playdough!

Squiggle While You Wiggle – Squiggle while you wiggle is an activity to engage children in developing the motions needed to prepare them for writing. They learn to write by doing circles, semi-circles, horizontal lines and the vertical lines they will use to write a letter whilst dancing along to our favourite music. This also helps focus on developing their gross and fine motor skills to imitate lines and circles in order to write each letter of the alphabet.

Helicopter Stories - Helicopter Stories involves scribing stories from children and supporting them to act out their narratives. While simple, this approach seeks to nurture and enthuse children of all backgrounds and abilities, using the power of story. This approach also enhances speaking and language skills, and an increased eagerness to write.

Show and Tell –Show and Tell is on a Tuesday. Your class teacher will send a little list of when it is your child’s turn. Show and tell sets the stage for children to become comfortable when speaking in public. In addition, show and tell can be a great tool to help English Language Learners, giving them a chance to practice academic vocabulary, pronunciation and other basic skills they need to succeed. Show and Tell will start in Week 2.

PE

For your information

• PE is on Monday’s (Class 1) and Wednesday’s (Class 2)
• Correct PE uniform must be worn to school that day: plain white top/plain black bottoms

• Please make sure that your child has a water bottle in school.
• Please make sure your child has a coat.
• Please make sure your child attends school as every day counts.     

Home Learning

• Reading 5 times a week and record it in the planner.
• Practise counting forwards and backwards to 20 starting at different numbers.
• Number bonds to 5 and 10
• IXL
• Phonics play online (free resources)
• Spelling Shed/ Spelling Frame
• Purple Mash
• Name writing
• Check dojo for more home learning activities.

Please speak to Miss Gyte if you need log in details.

Please speak to Miss Gyte if you have any questions.

Tooth Brushing Club

Every year there are 60,000 school days lost to tooth extractions and poor oral health. Tooth decay affects a staggering 25% of 5 year olds. It remains the leading cause hospitalisation in children aged 5-9.

We are taking part in an NHS funded tooth brushing club.

Every child will be given their own new toothbrush each term, which is stored under controlled conditions All children are supervised while brushing their teeth.

Children need parental permission to join the club. Speak to your child’s teacher for more information.

Year group expectations

I promise to always try my best

I promise to always have kind hands and feet

I promise to listen

I promise to share

I promise to say please, thank you and sorry when I need to

Autumn 1

Learning Journey

Our learning journey this half term will be to look at who we are, who we want to be and our heritage. During our topic, we will be discussing the question ‘Who are we?’ Through this question we will be developing many of the children’s personal social skills, including building confidence when talking in groups, talking to friends about own wants and needs and developing the children’s vocabulary to talk about their own homes and communities, likes and dislikes. We will also be exploring seasons and are starting with autumn and Harvest.

Maths

In maths, we will be matching and sorting objects and numbers and comparing amounts, sizes, mass, capacity and patterns. We will also begin looking at representing and understanding numbers up to 10. We will be focusing on circles, triangles, and positional language too.

Phonics and English

We will be using the Little Wandle scheme and be revisiting our Phase 1 oral blending and segmenting of the letters and sounds scheme. These skills are the foundation for all future reading and writing. 

Over this half term, both you and your children will be learning a lot of new skills and vocabulary through reading and through imaginative play. We will encourage children to act out their story ideas and together we will begin to write our own class stories using all of their wonderful imaginative language.

We will also be looking at books that are written by Julia Donaldson and will study vocabulary, rhyming words, characters as well as enjoy the story lines.

PE

PE is on Monday’s (Class 1) and Wednesday’s (Class 2). Correct PE uniform must be worn to school that day: plain white top/plain black bottoms. No jewellery allowed.

Home Learning

• Reading 5 times a week and record it in the planner.
• Practise counting forwards and backwards to 20 starting at different numbers.
• Number bonds to 5 and 10
• Phonics play online (free resources)
• Spelling Shed/ Spelling Frame
• Purple Mash
• Name writing
• Literacy Planet
• Check dojo for more home learning activities.

Log in details will be sent in Week 3.

Please speak to Miss Gyte if you have any questions.

Year group expectations

I promise to always try my best

I promise to always have kind hands and feet

I promise to listen

I promise to share

I promise to say please, thank you and sorry when I need to