Nursery Curriculum NewsletterAutumn 2024
Joy Excellence Service
"Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them."
Psalm 126:5-6
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Our themes for the Autumn term are Creation & Covenant (Autumn 1) and Prophecy & Promise (Autumn 2). The children will learn, in Creation & Covenant, that God made our beautiful world and everything in it. They will be able to explain that God made me and I am part of a family. They will understand that we should look after ourselves and each other, and that God made our world, so we should look after God’s world. They will learn that we are all invited to be part of God’s family. In Prophecy & Promise, the children will hear The story of the Annunciation. They will learn about the Christmas story, including The Nativity, the shepherds visiting the manger and the tradition of the crib.
RSHE
In RSHE, our aim is to nurture spiritual growth, personal development and social responsibility through discussions and exploration through a Catholic lens. 'Handmade With Love'. The children will listen to the story of the Creation and explore it more thoroughly through different activities such as role play, Godly play, art and singing. The objective is for the children to know that we are all created individually by God and that we are all God's children. They should know that we are all unique and special and for this we can give thanks to God.
COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE
The children will be developing their communication and language through daily story times, songs and rhyme sessions. This term, we will share Autumn rhymes and ‘All about Me’ poems. There will be a strong emphasis on speaking and listening. The children will have plenty of opportunity to talk about stories and rhymes, but also to discuss familiar experiences. They will be able to talk about their learning with the adults in the classroom, as well as to the whole class. There will be lots of opportunities to present their ideas and express their thinking. We are supporting the children to work in ‘Talk Partners’ on the carpet so they can discuss their ideas and answers with a partner before sharing with the whole class. This helps the children to develop listening skills and their confidence in speaking.
PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
This term, as the children learn new routines, they will be also be learning lots of new rules and increasingly, learn how to follow them. Alongside this, they will become more independent by organising their belongings in the morning, managing personal hygiene and familiarising themselves with the new routines. The children will be learning to share, take turns and build constructive and respectful relationships and friendships. They will be independently choosing what to play, as well as who they would like to interact and play with. Whilst navigating these challenges, the children will be encouraged to talk about their feelings and express themselves in ways that are appropriate and consider the perspectives of others. Using our focus texts, there will be continual discussion about emotions and expressions of feelings.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
This term the children will further develop the skills that they need to manage the school day successfully. These include: lining up and queueing, mealtimes and personal hygiene. There will be focus on listening and following instructions, as well as turn taking and sharing. They will refine the fundamental movement skills they have already acquired such as rolling, crawling, walking, jumping, running, skipping, hopping and climbing. We are fortunate enough to have a range of climbing equipment with which, with supervision, the children will be able to develop some of these skills, particularly balancing, jumping and landing. The children will have continuous access to a range of fine and gross motor activities, through the continuous provision provided both inside the classroom and in the outside area.
LITERACY
In the first half term, our focus texts include “l Love Me”, “All Are Welcome”, “l am (almost) always kind” and “Chicken Licken”. After half term, our focus texts will be “Pumpkin Soup”, “After the Storm,” and “Hansel & Gretel”. The children will have lots of opportunities to talk about the stories and explain what is happening in the pictures. They will start to make simple inferences to answer yes or no questions about characters' emotions in a familiar book read to them. The skill of sequencing and retelling familiar stories will be developed through talking, actions, role play, using puppets and creating art work. The children will be asked 'who', 'what', 'where' and 'when' questions about these texts and be given the chance to respond, both as a class and in smaller groups. They will be encouraged to make marks, ranging from lines and circles to drawing letter shapes to express their own ideas and stories with a variety of writing tools.
PHONICS
This term, we will be embarking on the next step of our phonic journey. The children will follow a carefully sequenced program of learning designed by the “Little Wandle Letters and Sounds” scheme. This will equip the children with the necessary skills needed to recognise letters (graphemes) and relate them to their sounds (phonemes). The children will practise segmenting and blending these letters to read and spell simple words phonetically. We will also be teaching them to recognise and recall the first set of “tricky words”. Initially, each child will be able to take home a wordless book from our Big Cat reading scheme to share with you at home. The children will also be able to borrow a book from our library, to foster a love and enthusiasm for reading and books. As the children progress through our phonic programme, they will begin to take home books containing words that they can read independently using their phonic knowledge.
MATHEMATICS
This year, the children will be encouraged to quantify sets of objects by subitising, rather than counting. When subitising, children can say how many there are in a small group of objects by ‘just seeing’ and knowing straightaway without needing to count. They will learn to count to cardinality whereby the last number in the count tells us ‘how many’ things there are altogether. The children will explore how numbers can be composed of 1s and, from this, begin to investigate the composition of numbers. Composing and de- composing numbers involves children investigating part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2. The children will learn from practical experience that a ‘whole’ is made up of smaller parts and is, therefore, bigger than its parts. They will further practise their 1:1 correspondence skill, by counting numbers at the same time as moving or tagging objects. They will also be deepening their understanding of 5.
UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD
Using our focus texts “I Love Me” and “All are welcome here”, we will be exploring the theme of ‘family’. The children will talk about members of their immediate family and their relationship to them. There will be lots of discussion and opportunity to describe the features of their family and their sense of belonging. We will be thinking about how it feels to belong to a special group, such as the school, church or other community. We will be learning the story “Chicken Licken” as we approach Harvest, so the children will learn about the workings of a farm, food that is grown and how it’s harvested, as well as how we give thanks to God for the food that we have. The children will learn all about the changes we see in nature during Autumn time, as we read “Pumpkin Soup” and “After the Storm”.
EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND DESIGN
This term, the children will be learning about Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Jean Arp. These artists are famous for their abstract sculpture. This genre of art will provide the children with the freedom to explore the sensory experience of creating sculptures, as well as the way they can communicate their ideas and creativity through malleable materials. During music lessons this term, the children will be listening to various genres of music and be encouraged to form opinions about what they have heard and express their thoughts. Using familiar songs and rhymes, the children will be learning about finding the pulse, matching the pitch and following the melody. There will also be a chance to get up and move to the music, following simple repetitive moves as they learn the songs and perform them.
P.E.
PE lessons this term will help the children to develop their spatial awareness. They will have the opportunity to develop their gross motor skills, by completing a range of multi-skills activities. These will include throwing and catching beanbags and small balls. They will be encouraged to run, hop, skip and jump in response to a signal. The children will begin to develop the concept of team-play by engaging in a variety of games, such as 'Ultimate Tag'. The children will develop their listening skills, following instructions given by an adult. They will be given the opportunity to reinforce a range of vocabulary linked to speed and direction, as well as subject specific terminology.
