Reception Curriculum Information
Term: Summer 2023
Home Learning on Google Classroom
Both Reception classes have their own Google Classroom page where we will upload Maths and Literacy home learning tasks. These will be posted each Friday and you will have one week to upload the completed work.
EYFS Curriculum
The EYFS curriculum is divided into seven different learning areas.There are three prime areas which are essential to creating a strong foundation for the children's learning. Prime AreasCommunication and LanguagePhysical Development Personal and Social DevelopmentSpecific AreasLiteracy MathematicsUnderstanding the World Expressive Arts and Design. As a Catholic school, we also teach RE.Communication and LanguageThis area involves developing Listening, Attention, Understanding and Speaking skills.We will be placing a big emphasis on using language in the classroom. We will be encouraging the children to develop their speaking skills through a wide range of activities across the curriculum and modelling language and vocabulary as they play. Sharing stories and songs at home will also help them to develop their language skills. As your child plays and you play with them, model the use of language and introduce new words. Our role play areas inside and outside play an important part in developing children's communication and language skills. We will change these areas depending on children's interests and needs. For example having a home corner, café, police station etc.When talking to your child please encourage them to speak in full sentences, rather than giving one or two word answers.Communication Activities: Please click on the link below for suggested activities and games that you can play with your child to develop the important skill of communication.
Physical Development This area involves developing gross and fine motor skills. We have PE on a Thursday, with a specialist PE teacher. Alongside this, we will be developing fine and gross motor skills through a range of activities. Activities such as play dough, using tweezers, hammers etc this will help to develop your child's fine motor skills, which is essential for developing a good writing grip. To help develop children's handwriting we are focusing on developing their core strength. To do this we will be using the play village and outdoor climbing frames to develop the muscles which will help children when writing. We will also continue to practice the correct letter formation.We use our outside area to develop gross motor skills using a wide range of apparatus. We use the climbing equipment, bicycles, hoops, sandpit etc.
Personal and Social and Emotional DevelopmentThis area involves developing Self Regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships.We will focus on developing good relationships with the other children and staff, through various games and whilst facilitating play. We will also be encouraging your child to talk about how they feel and giving them strategies to use to deal with various feelings.
Understanding the World
This area involves learning about Past and Present, People, Culture and Communities and The Natural World. Children will explore the natural world around them, including visits to the Methodist Gardens, building up to visits to Coldfall Woods. Children will be encouraged to talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society. Children will have access to a variety of technology resources such as light boxes, cameras, Ipads/tablets, recordable devices etc which they can use independently to extend their learning. Children will have the opportunity to visit the ICT suite to access a variety of computer programs to extend their learning. We will also be teaching children about E-safety and how to stay safe online. Parents will play a very important part in supporting children with this.Mathematics
This area involves learning about Numbers and Numerical Patterns.
We will focus on numbers to 20 and beyond. Children will be encouraged to build and identify numbers to 20 (and beyond) using a range of resources including: 10 frames, number shapes, towers of cubes etc. The children will investigate spatial awareness. They will be given opportunities to complete jigsaw and shape puzzles. The children will match, rotate and manipulate shapes. They will be provided with opportunities to match arrangements of shapes, prompting them to use positional language to describe where the shapes are in relation to one another. Children will be asked to select shapes to complete picture boards or tangram outlines and will combine shapes and separate them to make new shapes. We will be investigating the concepts of adding more, taking away, doubling amounts, sharing and grouping amounts. We will be learning which numbers are odd and even and explain how we know. The children will have opportunities to engage in extended problem solving and develop their critical thinking skills. We will look at mapping skills, the children will gain an understanding that we can make maps and plans to represent places and use these to see where things are in relation to other things.
Websites with Maths games:
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/early-years/shape-monsters
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/helicopter-rescue
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bn5k6h/numberblocks-series-3-ten-again
LiteracyThis area involves reading and writing (phonics)We use high quality core texts, recommended by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE), to support our learning across all areas of the curriculum. The CLPE text that we will be reading over the next six weeks is:
'Yucky Worms' by Vivian French.
We will use this text to do cross-curricular activities.
'Yucky Worms' is a fiction text with lots of worms facts in it. It allows the children to learn all about Worms.
Whilst reading 'Yucky Worms ' the children will begin to think about what we have learned about birds and growing plants in our last topic, and discuss how this links with worms. They will learn about why worms are helpful to gardeners. The children will go on a worm hunt and create a class wormery.
We will continue to teach the sounds of the letters in the alphabet. This term we continue to learn digraphs - that is two letters that make one sound. For example, ar and ow. We will be focusing on two sounds a week and will send home phonics sheets on Google Classroom for the children to practise reading and writing these letters.
We will constantly recap and apply the sounds to write words and children will now start to write longer sentences.
Children will be encouraged to use their knowledge of the letter sounds to blend and sound out words. For example, they will learn to blend the sounds c-r-ow-n to make the word crown. They will also continue learning to segment words, including longer words that can be broken down into smaller components. For example, they might be asked to write the word sunhat (sun-hat) or chopstick (chop-stick).
Please encourage your child to use the sounds that they know to write simple words and sentences. The expectation at the end of the Reception year is for children to write a short sentence independently. Remind your child to use a capital letter at the start, finger spaces between words and a full stop at the end.
Our aim is to develop a love of reading; we will be sharing lots of stories in class and discussing what has happened in the story in the beginning, middle and end, how the characters are feeling, where the story takes place etc. We are also working on prediction skills based on the front cover, the title and prior knowledge.
Your child will bring reading books for you to share at home twice each week (book changing days are Monday and Thursday). This will consist of one reading scheme book and one library book. In class, your child will read with an adult once a week. It is important that your child has a minimum of ten minutes reading time a day and that they are also hearing adults read to them.
Expressive Arts and DesignThis area involves Creating with Materials, and Being Imaginative and Expressive.Children will have the opportunity to use a range of media both inside and outside to be creative and imaginative. This will be through drawing, painting, junk modelling, using building blocks, tools and role play.We will be responding to music through dance, singing and using various musical instruments.R.E.We follow the 'Come and See' scheme of work to teach teach R.E. Each topic usually lasts for four weeks. We begin each topic by exploring what each topic means to us before moving on to how it relates to religion. During the year we also learn about other faiths. At OLM we focus on Judaism and Islam. This is a brilliant way to teach respect for our community as a whole, regardless of cultures and beliefs.
The topics we will be covering in the Summer term are as follows:
Topic 7: Good News
In this topic the children will be able to talk about how they feel when they have good news to share with others. They will learn about Pentecost and how Christians share the good news about the Holy Spirit.
Topic 8: Friends
The children will talk about what friendship is and how to be a good friend to others. The children will learn about Jesus’ rule for friendship and his words “Love one another.” We will explore how the children can put this into practice in their daily lives.
Islam: Children will learn about special objects in Islam. We will learn about prayer mats and how they are used. Children will see how Muslims use prayer mats in their own faith and then have the opportunity to decorate their own
Topic 9: Our World
The children will talk about their own experiences of the world and what they love about our world. They will understand that people want to take care of the world because God said, “Take care of my world!” They will discuss ways to make this possible.
Throughout the year, OLM focuses on different elements of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Each month we look at a different value and discuss what each one means:
September- We are Called to Live as Family and Community
October- Rights and Responsibilities
November- Promotion of Peace
December- No CST- focus on Advent
January- Solidarity
February- An Option for the Poor and Vulnerable
March- The Dignity of the Human Person
April- No CST- focus on Lent
May- The Dignity and Rights of Workers
June- We are Called to Stewardship
July- Recap
Other information
All uniform, including coats and water bottles need to be clearly named.
Can all parents and carers look at the school uniform list and make sure that your child has the correct items of clothing.
Please note that children should have school shoes and not boots or trainers.
Also, anyone who has long hair, must have it tied up in school. If they do not then we will get a hair band and tie it up for them.
Please encourage your child to dress, undress, feed and use the toilet independently as this will also help them hugely in school.
Tapestry APP
Tapestry is an online learning journal to show your child's learning journey and development in their Reception year. You will be able to access this from home in order to look at photographs, videos and notes following your child's time at school. Please check this regularly.
How to help at home
You can help your child's social and emotional development by:
- Talking with your child and encouraging your child to talk with other children and other adults.
- Encouraging and supporting your child to play cooperatively with other children.
- Regularly discussing with your child feelings and the consequences of different actions.
You can help your child with the early stages of reading, writing and mathematics by:
- Continuing to encourage an enjoyment of books, stories and poems; visiting the local library and sharing stories with your child.
- Continuing to encourage your child to join in with rhymes and songs.
- Practice the letters and sounds learnt in school. You can also help by sounding out a three letter word (segmenting) using the sounds that they have learnt so far and asking your child to put them back together (blending) to make the word.
- Continuing to provide your child with a variety of writing equipment to encourage drawing and writing skills, encouraging your child to give meanings to the marks that they make.
- Play I Spy with your child (good for identifying initial sounds)
- Phonics website for games: https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/
- Watch Alphablocks and discuss the episodes
- Watch Numberblocks and discuss the episodes
