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22.4.10
Welcome back! We hope you all enjoyed the Easter break and didn’t eat too many Easter eggs!
We thought it might be a good idea to share some of the activities from last half term when our topic was all about people who help us. We took lots of photographs and many of them are in the children’s learning journeys if you get chance to come in and have a look.
We celebrated World Book day by dressing up as different book characters. Everyone made a super effort and it was difficult to choose winners for our competition but we eventually chose the Cat in the Hat and Aliens love Underpants!
We set up an opticians in our role play area and the children have really enjoyed playing there. We had our eyes tested and tried on the groovy glasses!
We had a visit to the Fire station and some lucky children had the chance to sit in the fire engine and try out the hoses before the fire fighters were called to a real emergency! It was all very exciting and we were very impressed by how quickly the fire fighters got everything packed up and were off!
Our visit inspired some brilliant work back at school. The children painted wonderful pictures, made amazing models and put out lots of fires in our playground!
We have had a very busy start to the new term and the children have been very enthusiastic about our new topic about animals.
We have been reading “We’re going on a bear hunt” and the children have loved acting out the story dressing up as the bear!
We are going to be showing our wonderful work in assembly on the 27th April and FS parents are invited to come along and be impressed!
The children have made wonderful pictures of different animals and have used clay to make super models.
Luckily since we have been back we have had some lovely sunny weather and the children have been making the most of it in our fantastic outdoor area. The sand pit has been opened up again and is proving as popular as ever!
We hope you have enjoyed this snap shot of life in the FSU!
9th March 2010
Welcome back after the half term break.
We thoroughly enjoyed our food topic.
We have tasted lots of different food – some we have enjoyed more than others! We hope you enjoy looking at some of our photos from last half term!
In our Indian restaurant we tried bhajis, samosas, naan bread and poppadoms with different dips!
We read the story about Oliver’s Fruit salad and then had go at making our own and of course eating it!
Mrs Saville came into the unit and the children helped her to make delicious pancakes. Some lucky children managed to toss the pancakes AND get them back in the pan! We all enjoyed eating them with a variety of different toppings.
We celebrated Chinese New Year by making lanterns, dragons and practising Chinese writing. We even had noodles for snack but the children had to use chopsticks to eat them! It was great fun!
We have many budding actors in the unit. The children loved the story “Handa’s Surprise” and they used the props to act out the story.
We had a visit from Stan the Magic Lollipop Man and he talked about how to keep safe on the roads. The children joined in enthusiastically and answered his questions very knowledgably.
We have now started our new topic “Help!” The children are very busy in our role play optician’s. We are planning visits and visitors during this half term to watch this space for updates!
29th January 2010
At last this term has started properly!! Welcome back. Let’s hope that there is no more disruption because of snow. I think even the children have had enough now!!
We have been working on our new topic “Yummy or yucky” We have been enjoying the story Handa’s Surprise and the children have used masks and fruit to act out the story. They have remembered the story very well make sure the animals take the fruit in the right order. We are hoping to be able to taste all the different fruits before we finish this topic.
Our role play area has changed again and is now an Indian restaurant. The children have made chapattis, naan bread, samosas and bhajis out of salt dough and next week we are hoping to cook our own and try them.
The photographs from the Christmas party and the production of Happy Birthday Jesus are now in the Learning journeys so make sure you arrive early enough to have a look when you bring your child to school in the morning.
Mr Corbridge has had his thinking cap on over the Christmas holidays and come up with some new ideas for our outside area. If you know of any “secret millionaires” living in Mytholmroyd please let us know!
We now have two mums helping in the unit on a regular basis. Our helpers read stories, play games and help the children to keep to the routines. We are very grateful for the time they give and if you would like to join the ranks please speak to a member of staff.
10.11.09
Welcome back after the half term break! Following on from our Diwali celebrations we are continuing the celebration theme this half term.
We will be looking at birthdays, weddings, new babies, Bonfire Night, Hanukkah and of course Christmas!
We have had several birthdays to celebrate already and the children enjoy coming out to the front of the class and telling everyone about their special day. We sing our own birthday song and then have treats for snack.
The children were all very excited about bonfire night. On the 5th we had a visit from the fire service giving advice about staying safe with bonfires and fireworks. Charlie got an extra surprise as we went into the hall. He hadn’t realised it would be his daddy giving the talk!
We used paint and lots of glitter to make our own Bonfire Night pictures and they look fantastic on our wall.
Our role play area is set up as a baby clinic and the children have been enjoying dressing up as doctors and nurses to make sure the babies are well.
Christmas is not too far away and the script for our play has arrived and we have already started to learn the songs. The children have picked up the tune for the first song very quickly so hopefully by 11th December we will be word perfect!
Mr Corbridge is still working hard to make our outdoor space even better! He has finished closing in part of the upper area and now we can use this space without getting wet! It looks great and we are very grateful to him for giving up his time.
We have had our first Open week of the year. We did not have many visitors but if you would like to come and look round the unit or the school please speak to any member of the staff to arrange a time.
Updated 9th October 2009
The children are all settling in well. The full-time nursery children have had their first full week and have coped brilliantly with everything including going into the hall for dinner. The school dinners have gone down a treat! If you would like your child to have school dinners they cost £1.70 a day. You can choose to have dinners all or part of the week, just send the money, in an envelope with your child’s name and which days a dinner is required, on Monday morning. The menus (which are on a three week cycle) are on display on the board outside the hall.
The reception children have had their first experience of the ICT suite. Mrs Saville took them in last week and they had a super morning. Mrs Saville was very impressed with how the children followed the instructions and played sensibly and co-operatively on the computers. A site you might like to visit at home is www.poissonrouge.com The children visited the Toy Box page practising their mouse control.
We held a reading meeting in the unit on Wednesday. Following from the feedback we received about the meeting we thought it would be useful to post a brief outline of the meeting on this site. We hope you find it informative.
Click on the link to see the details.
The children have painted some wonderful self-portraits as part of our topic “All about Me!” and the walls of the unit are covered with these wonderful pictures.
As part of their letters and sounds work the reception children will be bringing home their sound books this week. Please take a few minutes to look through them and play some games with your child if they are keen. A little often (no more than 10 minutes) is better than trying to do too much all at once. Thanks for your support in this!
The next date for your diary is the Harvest celebration in church on Friday 8th October. The children have been practising their song and to link with this and as part of the Autumn term activities they have created some superb scarecrows for our walls!
Autumn term 2009-
Welcome to the new school year!
The reception children are already settling into the routines of the unit and will be joined over the next couple of weeks by the new nursery children. We are sure that they will do their best to help them settle in and show them
what to do!
This half term our topic is called “All about me!” We will be looking at how we stay safe and healthy and talking about our families and friends. Initially we are going to concentrate on the settling into school process as the children learn the new routines and rules.
We have arranged a meeting for Foundation Stage parents to give a little information about how reading is taught in the unit and how you can help and support the process at home. It will be held on Wednesday 23rd September at
6.30 in the Foundation Unit.
Reception children will need PE kit as the children will get changed for their PE sessions twice a week. PE kit consists of blue shorts and white t-shirt. As with everything please don’t forget to name them!
We are continuing with our “snack tin” and welcome weekly donations of 50p (full-time) and 25p (part-time). This money goes towards birthday cakes, extra snack treats and baking activities and we also use this money to pay for “Bun days”
Remember if you have any questions or concerns please speak to a member of the FS team and we will do our best to help!
Curriculum
Long Term Planning Foundation Stage Cycle A
Themes for medium term planning
Autumn 1 |
Autumn 2 |
Spring 1 |
Spring 2 |
Summer 1 |
Summer 2 |
Investigations: Settling into new environment both indoor and outdoor
|
Festivals: Bonfire Night, Divali, Christmas Eid (direction taken from children’s interest and timing of festivals) |
Food and Keeping Healthy: Favourite foods Role-play restaurant Handa’s Surprise & other story books
|
People Who Help Us: Police, fire, health, parents, teachers, lollipop people; Road safety Stranger danger Caring for each other at school |
Animals Naming, environments, sounds, stories, visits, sorting – domestic/ wild etc |
Materials textures, investigating different materials in the environment recycling magnets, making instruments |