This Term
Summer 2 - Now and Then
Welcome back to our last half term together in Reception! We are very excited for our last topic, which is ‘Now and Then’. We will be exploring lots of different things from the past, building up our understanding, as well as our vocabulary. We will be borrowing some artefacts from the University of Nottingham, to give the children hands on experiences with items from the past.
The purpose of this unit is to build children’s knowledge about the past (within living memory) and develop their use of past tense language. The topics of homes, toys, school, and transport will help the children learn about the world around them and about change over time. Children will learn about many different modes of transport and the long and short journeys people can make using these. Children will learn how homes, schools, and toys have changed and will think about what life would have been like for their parents and grandparents when they were children. They will also explore how their own lives have changed since they were babies and will become confident to speak accurately in the past tense.
Our big questions that we will be answering over the course of our topic:
1) How have toys changed over time?
2) What was school like for our parents and grandparents?
3) How did our parents and grandparents travel?
How has life changed since our grandparents were children?
As always, we will engage with quality texts and visual material to support our learning around our topic. Here are the stories we will be focusing on this half term.
Story Snuggle Time:
Developing a love of reading at an early age will support your child's listening and attention skills, vocabulary development and understanding of the world around them. Your child will be bringing home a book from our 'library' for you to share together at home. This could include talking about what you can see in the pictures, other books that have similar characters, or what you and your child liked or didn't like about the story. We also hold Stay and Read every Friday from 8:45-9am, please join us for this, if you are able, to share in stories with your child.
Drawing Club:
Drawing Club is a special club that promotes confidence in mark making, imagination and writing skills. We use our focus books (as shown above on the page) to teach elements of writing.
The structure drawing club follows is:
Moment 1: Vocabulary Development
Moment 2: Listening to the story
Moment 3: Modelled drawing
Moment 4: Drawing Club. This aspect may be linked to the main character in the book, the setting or adventure time.
If you would like some more information about drawing club, or would like to see your child's work, just ask a member of staff.
PE:
PE will happen every Thursday. Please come to school wearing your sports leggings or trousers - there is no need for the children to get changed at school. We kindly ask you to support your child with taking off and putting on their socks and shoes. The more they practise this at home, the more independent they will become in PE lessons.
Forest School:
Forest School happens every Monday. The time spent in Forest School helps the children explore our wonderful forest school space, and further develop their outdoor learning skills. Our children learn the importance of looking after our environment, alongside lots of knowledge about the world around them. A reminder to send in a pair of wellies to be kept at school.
Phonics and Reading:
We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds scheme at Victoria Primary School. All children will bring a reading book home with them. This will begin as a wordless book, which is used to encourage language development first, and then move onto books with simple words and phrases in for the children to decode on their own. Please speak to staff if you have any questions or would like any support with phonics.